STOCKHOLM, APRIL 29(Green Post)–China launches yuan-denominated gold benchmark on Tuesday in Shanghai as it seeks to secure more sway in the pricing of the precious metal.
The Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price (code: SHAU), is the quote for trading of 1kg, 99.99 percent purity bullion, denominated in the Chinese yuan and derived from multiple rounds of trading.
The benchmark was set at 257.97 yuan per gram on Tuesday, the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) said in a statement.
The benchmark also lays the foundation for shifting bullion trading in Shanghai from mostly spot to derivatives to increase the appeal of yuan-denominated bullion trading as financial instruments for both domestic and global investors.
SGE Chairman Jiao Jinpu said the launch of the benchmark offers the opportunity to develop bullion trading in China’s financial markets and encourage more participation by global investors.
Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd. and ANZ Bank (China) Ltd. are among 12 fixing members for the benchmark trading. The other ten members are domestic banks.
The trading margin is set at 6 percent and transaction fees are exempted until June 30 this year. Enditem
Category Archives: Business
business news from China, Sweden and the world.
Swedish Spring Budget: Building a society – responsibility, security and development
By Xuefei Chen Axelsson
STOCKHOLM, April 28, (Greenpost)–Swedish Government has presented its proposed direction for economic policy ahead of the Budget Bill for 2017.
The Government’s priorities – jobs, schools and climate action – remain firm. In addition, proposals are presented to increase funding in the budget for 2016 to address the refugee situation. The Spring Fiscal Policy Bill and the proposals in the spring amending budget are based on an agreement between the government parties and the Left Party.
“In the spring budget, the Government continues to address the refugee situation and sets out the future direction – building our society takes precedence over new tax cuts. With the Swedish model as a foundation and modernisation as a tool, we will respond to the challenges our country is facing. Unemployment must be fought, pupils’ learning outcomes strengthened and climate emissions reduced,” says Minister for Finance Magdalena Andersson.
Strong Swedish economy
The prospects for the Swedish economy are good. The growth rate in 2015 was just over 4 per cent, which is well above the average rate of growth for Sweden in the last twenty years. The growth rate was also higher than for many other countries, including the US and Germany. Unemployment fell significantly in 2015 and is now at around 7 per cent. This is the lowest level of unemployment for seven years. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment also decreased significantly in 2015.
The Government has adjusted fiscal policy along more responsible lines, and the deficit has fallen sharply since the Government took office. The large number of people seeking asylum in Sweden in 2015 and the important investments being made to enable new Swedes to establish themselves in society and the labour market involve temporary costs. Towards the end of the forecast period, public finances will be in balance and show a surplus.
However, the economic forecast is uncertain and there is a substantial risk of a weaker outlook.
Government priorities ahead of the autumn budget
“The challenges that Sweden is facing make the Government’s ongoing efforts to build a cohesive society even more important,” says Ms Andersson.
Reducing unemployment
The Government’s objective that Sweden will have the lowest unemployment rate in the EU by 2020 remains firmly in place. Investments in job creation will be made under the Government’s jobs agenda. These include skills, education and matching initiatives, investments for the future including in housing and infrastructure, and an active business policy for more and growing companies. Welfare investments are also an important part of employment policy.
Providing equitable knowledge-based education and time for each pupil
Central to building our society is an equitable school system that gives every child the opportunity to develop. The main focus is on boosting learning outcomes through early intervention, enhancing the attractiveness of the teaching profession and improving equity in education.
Tightening up climate policy
Sweden aspires to be one of the world’s first fossil-free welfare nations. Climate change is the Government’s top environmental priority. To lead global development, Sweden is taking further steps to tighten up its national climate policy and reducing emissions.
Strengthening welfare and increasing equity
The Government’s objective is that everyone will benefit from Sweden’s growth and prosperity. The Government prioritises building a society in which welfare is strengthened and opportunities are made to employ more people in welfare services.
Increasing equality between women and men
The Government will continue its efforts to ensure gender mainstreaming in all areas of policy-making and is also implementing special initiatives.
Initiatives in the budget for 2016
The current situation has given rise to needs in a number of areas that will be addressed this year. The Swedish Migration Agency will receive a significant increase in appropriations to manage the large number of asylum seekers.
As more people seek asylum, more asylum cases end in rejection. Return activities will be improved.
To facilitate introduction, funds will be allocated for language initiatives and skills assessment for asylum seekers, and skills validation of new arrivals. A new fast track for newly arrived entrepreneurs will be introduced.
The Swedish Police will receive increased resources, community police will be strengthened and efforts to combat hate crimes will be prioritised. Anti-terrorism efforts will be enhanced, including through increased resources to the Swedish Security Service. In addition, resources to the Swedish Migration Agency will be reinforced to increase security at asylum centres.
Preventive action to protect our open society against violent extremism and racism will be strengthened.
新闻分析：冰岛总理为何辞职？
北欧绿色邮报网评论员陈雪霏
冰岛总理古恩劳松4月5日被迫辞职。因为他夫人在巴拿马拥有壳牌海上石油的股份。那么，这与他有什么关系呢？原来，他在冰岛2008年金融危机之前就拥有壳牌分公司Wintris. 该公司购买了冰岛银行的股份。
冰岛银行在金融危机过程中坏账太多，导致政府垮台，总理被告到法庭，很多议会官员事后被证明都牵涉到金融危机之中。冰岛危机的根本原因就是人为制造了泡沫，导致银行破产，政府崩溃，因为政府挽救不了银行，银行资产比整个国家拥有的资产还多几倍。因此，银行出问题，没人能救。结果是冰岛政府垮台，欠国外客户的钱要经过45年以后还清就行。从国际货币基金组织借了大笔贷款，也从周边国家借了大笔的款。
从此，冰岛国家和人民都过上了勒紧裤腰带的日子。实行外汇管制，保持金融稳定成为重中之重。
本来，冰岛总理在2013年当选总理后，应该坦白交代，或者完全离职，卖掉。但是，他没有这么做，而是把股份转让给了妻子。如果冰岛没有发生过那么严重的危机，或许人们也不会那么无情。但是，冰岛危机给人们带来的伤痛很深，他们不能容忍自己的总理有这样的利益冲突。
他妻子拥有石油公司账户，说明她成了冰岛银行的债权人。而这正是冰岛人不希望看到的。也是冰岛政府想要打击的对象。如果政府不打，就是违规。因此，总理不得不辞职。
由此也可以看出，冰岛人还是不能容忍腐败，吃一欠，长一志。人们的眼里不能再揉沙子。
Meg Rosoff wins 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
By Xuefei Chen Axelsson
STOCKHOLM, April. 6(Greenpost)–Author Meg Rosoff has won 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
Rosoff was born in in Boston, United States in 1956. She has lived and worked in London for many years. The jury’s citation reads:
Meg Rosoff’s young adult novels speak to the emotions as well as the intellect. In sparkling prose, she writes about the search for meaning and identity in a peculiar and bizarre world. Her brave and humorous stories are one-of-a-kind. She leaves no reader unmoved.
Meg Rosoff made her authorial debut in 2004 with the dystopian YA novel How I Live now, which became an immediate success. Since then she has written six more YA novels, several picture books, and a novel for adults. Her collected body of work is richly varied and profoundly affecting for readers of all ages.
Rosoff writes about young people in the borderlands between childhood and adult life who face difficult trials in their quests to find themselves. At times they are pushed to the brink of the unbearable and beyond. Her protagonists battle questions of identity and sexuality and are thrown involuntarily into chaotic situations. Like Astrid Lindgren, Rosoff empathizes completely with young people and is utterly loyal to them. The adult world, when it appears, remains on the periphery. She uses concrete, vibrant language, whether she is describing a landscape, a piece of clothing, or the groceries in the pantry. She infuses darkness with humor to produce stylistic masterpieces.
In What I was (2007), questions of body, identity, and gender, the confusions of falling in love, and the desire and sexuality of the young all come to a head as the narrator sets out to find himself and choose a path different from the one laid out for him by the adult world.
At times, as in Just in Case (2006), reality and fantasy almost merge, so that we are hard-pressed to say what is ”really” happening. In There is no Dog (2011), things get truly crazy when a hormonal teen is given the job of the great Creator.
Meg Rosoff is the recipient of numerous prizes, including Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, Carnegie Medal and Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages and she became Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2014.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award will be presented in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall on May 30, 2016.
Interview: Chinese efforts to enhance nuclear security contribute to common good: IAEA official
by Lyndal Rowlands
UNITED NATIONS, March 29 (Greenpost) — China is contributing to the common good through its efforts to improve nuclear security both at home and abroad, a senior official from the International Association for Atomic Energy (IAEA) has said.
China has taken effective steps to ensure the security of nuclear materials, including those at nuclear power plants and medical research centers, and to protect people and environment from being harmed by nuclear materials, Khammar Mrabit, director of the IAEA’s Nuclear Security Office, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
The interview was conducted ahead of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit, which is scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., from Thursday to Friday. Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the meeting.
Nuclear security refers to ensuring that peaceful uses of nuclear materials and technology are not diverted into the wrong hands, Mrabit said.
“Nuclear security is a common good. It’s good for everybody whether you have a nuclear power program or you don’t,” said Mrabit. “You have to protect your people and the environment from malicious acts and anything that would harm the public society and the environment.”
He said countries such as China that own nuclear power programs should bear special responsibilities on nuclear security, while calling on all countries to use radioactive sources at a minimum level, even for medical purposes.
“(Ensuring the) security of such materials and facilities is the responsibility of China because this is the responsibility of each country when you have such materials and such facilities,” he said. “That nuclear power program, those installations, have to be protected from falling, of course, into the wrong hands, meaning criminals and terrorists.”
In this regard, Mrabit said that China is a very important partner of the IAEA and enjoys sound cooperation with the international nuclear watchdog.
He described China’s recently completed Nuclear Security Center of Excellence as “a big achievement.”
“(The center) would not only improve nuclear security but would sustain nuclear security infrastructure in China and certainly would contribute… to improving nuclear security in the region,” he said.
The center, which is the largest in the Asia-Pacific region, opened in Beijing, the Chinese capital, on March 18, with the aim to boost nuclear security cooperation in the region and the world.
The IAEA supports its member states, including China, to reach nuclear security standards, in some cases providing support as requested, and in other cases providing more hands-on assistance.
For example, China has requested that the IAEA visit China to conduct a peer-review of its national nuclear program and facilities, the official said, adding that the IAEA can provide a higher-level of support to other countries in need.
“There are countries where we need more assistance, where we have what we call integrated logistical support plans, where we identify all that is needed to help them improve their nuclear security infrastructure,” Mrabit said. But he did not disclose the names of these countries.
Mrabit, a national from Morocco, has a PhD in nuclear physics and has been working for the IAEA since 1986.
The IAEA is the world’s center for cooperation in the nuclear field and a part of the United Nations family. It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, and currently has 168 member states. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
Feature: Chinese dance drama to boost Belt and Road Initiative in ASEAN
KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 (Xinhua) — A dance drama featuring Chinese father and son who set sails on the ancient Maritime Silk Road centuries ago debuted in Southeast Asia on Tuesday with the expectations to boost the Belt and Road Initiative in the region.
Thousands of audience watched the dance drama “Dream of the Maritime Silk Road” at a performance hall in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, the first leg of the tour in members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Singapore and Indonesia.
The drama, through distinctively Chinese classical dance, tells a story in Quanzhou port, China’s southeastern Fujian province 800 years ago. The captain of a commercial fleet sets sail on the Maritime Silk Road under the invitation of a Persian prince but was killed in storm when trying to protect his crew, leaving behind his wife and a son in cradle. His son followed his step to become a sailor too after he grew up.
The two-hour drama highlights a prosperous Quanzhou port and friendship forged among people along the Maritime Silk Road when they seek common prosperity and happiness, with cultural elements from China and other Maritime Silk Road countries.
The drama was performed around the globe including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Chen Qiuping, head of Department of Culture of Fujian province, said the drama was well received by the Malaysian audience.
“The performance is indeed enlightening,” said Bong Hon Liong, president of Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce. “It reminded us of the importance of openness and the friendship among people along the Maritime Silk Road.”
Xia Menglong, a university student who is on an exchange program in Malaysia, said he was surprised to find many Chinese traditions were well preserved and observed in Malaysia.
Huang Huikang, Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, expected the show to boost cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Meanwhile, officials believed such event would help promote the Belt and Road Initiative, namely the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Southeast Asia.
The initiative, proposed by China in 2013, is aimed at reviving the ancient trade routes that span Asia, Africa and Europe.
Chen said the performance in Malaysia was of significance as it was an important country along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. He hoped the tour could help boost cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Enditem
China Focus: Inland city helming Yangtze shipping growth
YIBIN, Sichuan, March 30 (Greenpost) — A ship loaded with three tanks weighing about 60 tonnes each is nearing Shanghai during a pioneering two-week journey starting from southwest China’s Yibin City along the Yangtze River.
Such a shipment from China’s inland along the mighty Yangtze would have been impossible just a few years ago when only small docks for barges, ferries and fishing boats dotted Yibin’s banks.
Yibin, an industrial city known for coal mining and liquors, used to rely on trucks and trains to transport goods, even though it is where two upper tributaries meet to form the main section of the Yangtze.
Local authorities began developing a major port in Yibin in 2010, amid broader work by China to turn the Yangtze into a “golden waterway” with an enhanced role as the cargo artery between the wealthy coast and the vast under-developed inland. Central and local governments see increasing trade as the key to strengthening economies away from the coast.
On March 25, the Communist Party of China Central Committee passed a guideline on developing the Yangtze River Economic Belt, stressing that the program must be driven by market principles and have green credentials.
Yibin was years ahead of the curve. Its port with five docks is designed to handle half a million containers and 2.24 million tonnes of cargo every year. Ships of up to 3,000 tonnes can set sail even in the dry season.
Transporting giant goods like the tanks by land is extremely difficult, as they would overload lorries or trains and have to be dismantled to pass through tunnels or bridges. The costs tend to be very high, explained Yuan Daiqian, general manager of Jiangyuan Chemical Engineering Machinery, which manufactured the tanks for a fertilizer plant being built by Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi in Turkmenistan.
Thanks to the Yibin Port and new shipping routes, “we can do business that was not possible before,” Yuan said. His company has manufactured 71 pieces of large equipment for Mitsubishi’s project, including the tanks.
They will head for Turkmenistan from Shanghai, where the Yangtze empties into the sea. Shanghai International Port Group and the government of Yibin co-funded the construction of Yibin Port.
Yibin’s shipping industry has grown rapidly as investment has flowed to infrastructure along the Yangtze River.
The volume of goods passing through Yibin harbor has been growing at an average 130 percent a year since the port became operational in 2010. It handled 200,000 containers in 2015 and 66,000 in the first quarter of 2016.
China’s development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has accelerated since a plan approved by the government in September 2014.
There is certainly a lot riding on it. The belt includes nine provinces and two municipalities. It spans 2.05 million square km and accounts for more than 40 percent of China’s population and economic aggregate.
Yibin, a city of about five million people, is nudging into the global market through better connection with big cities along the river.
It has launched shipping routes to Japan and the Republic of Korea via central China’s Wuhan and east China’s Nanjing and Shanghai. It is also planning four routes to Southeast Asia.
As a result, Yibin’s foreign trade reached 890 million U.S. dollars and 950 million U.S. dollars in 2014 and 2015, growing at 9.1 percent and 7 percent year on year, at a time when China’s overall foreign trade has stalled.
To help e-commerce, Yibin is also building a bonded warehouse where imported goods can be stored without paying duty. With a storage area of 53,000 square meters, the warehouse is due to open before the end of June.
“The golden waterway has boosted Yibin’s shipping cooperation with cities along the Yangtze, opening up markets for local companies and improving their competitiveness by saving transport costs,” said Liu Zhengyu, board chairman of Yibin Port.
“When e-commerce gets going, this industrial city will become a major trading center in southwest China,” Liu said. Enditem
Source Xinhua
Moody’s China outlook downgrade misses big picture: MOF
BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) — Credit rating agency Moody’s decision to downgrade the outlook for China’s sovereign bonds misses the bigger picture and has little impact on financial markets, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Wednesday.
Moody’s changed China’s credit rating outlook to negative from stable earlier this month, citing a weakening of fiscal metrics, a continuing fall in foreign exchange reserves and uncertainty over capability to implement economic reforms.
Rating firms should learn more about China’s economic and financial conditions to avoid information asymmetry, according to a statement released by MOF.
Domestic stock and bond markets, and the onshore and offshore yuan foreign exchange rate remained stable despite the downgrade, reflecting investors’ confidence and upbeat expectations of the Chinese economy, the statement said.
Meanwhile, balancing economic growth, structural reform and market stability is not a contradictory task — as claimed in Moody’s report — but a complementary process, MOF said.
Steady economic growth is the basis, pushing structural reform is the means to the end, and a stable financial market is a precondition to secure the sound development of the whole process, MOF pointed out.
Local government debt level and corporate leverage ratio are both below the international warning line and the government is taking active measures such as debt-for-equity swap to help ease debt pressure, the statement added. Enditem
China rolls out new policies to encourage innovation
BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) — China’s State Council on Wednesday announced a string of new policies to encourage innovation as the country seeks to foster new engines for growth.
China will set up three new “national innovation demonstration zones” in the provinces of Henan, Shandong and Liaoning, bringing the number of such areas to 14, according to a statement issued after a State Council meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.
The zones, including Beijing’s Zhongguancun, known as “China’s Silicon Valley,” and Shanghai’s Zhangjiang high tech zone, have been created to pilot new ideas and development models for use nationwide.
Expansion of the program is aimed at fostering trailblazers for China’s economic restructuring and transformation, according to the statement.
The State Council will test innovative reforms in China’s financial hub of Shanghai over three years, including exploring new financial service models and simplifying foreign investment rules.
Government intervention will be further reduced to create an amicable environment for business start-ups and innovation, the State Council pledged.
To boost employment and sustain growth, the Chinese government has stressed the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in its 13th five-year plan. A wide range of measures has been unveiled, including financial support, facility construction and administrative assistance, for start-ups.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the council also decided to foster city clusters centered around Chengdu and Chongqing to stimulate economic potential in western regions. Enditem
Chinese vice premier presents proposal to deepen China-Israel innovation cooperation
JERUSALEM, March 30 (Xinhua) — Visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong has presented a four-point proposal to deepen and broaden cooperation between China and Israel on innovation in various fields.
Liu made the proposal while addressing the second meeting of the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation in Jerusalem Tuesday. The meeting was co-chaired by Liu and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In her speech, Liu said that initial achievements have been made in bilateral pragmatic cooperation in such areas as science and technology, education, culture and health,since the joint committee successfully held its first meeting in January last year in Beijing.
China has made innovation-driven development as a national strategy and such a perception is shared by Israel, which is known for innovation, Liu said, adding that the two countries have great potential in deepening innovation cooperation.
China and Israel should further strengthen the joint committee’s role in planning holistically and coordinating and constantly expand the scope of bilateral innovation cooperation, she pointed out.
The Chinese vice premier, who arrived in Israel Monday evening for a two-day visit, suggested that the two countries increase the complementarity of their innovation strategies and facilitate the incorporation of Israel’s experience as a “startup nation” and its technologies into China’s strategy of pursuing innovation-based growth.
Liu said that China will step up the protection of intellectual property rights, encourage local governments and enterprises to strengthen exchanges with their Israeli counterparts and establish a more fair, regulated and predictable environment for development.
Other proposals offered by Liu included setting up more industrial innovation parks in China in cooperation with the Israeli side, learning from each other’s useful experience, and intensifying joint efforts in research and development.
On the same occasion, the two sides signed 13 cooperation agreements in the presence of Vice Premier Liu and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Among them was an agreement which allows both sides to issue 10-year multiple-entry visas to each other’s applicants, making China the first country to have such an arrangement with Israel.
In another major step to boost bilateral economic ties, the two sides agreed Tuesday to officially start talks on a free trade agreement, when Liu and Netanyahu met earlier Tuesday. Enditem
China Focus: China makes gains, faces hurdles in extending financial services
BOAO, Hainan, March 24 (Xinhua) — By removing systematic blocks and adopting new technology, China will be able to expand access to financial services to all people, according to experts at the Boao Forum conference.
Recent changes by China’s rural and private financial institutions will help relieve obstacles to inclusive finance, which have held back the nation’s anti-poverty efforts, according to experts at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia, held in China’s island province of Hainan.
INCLUSIVE FINANCE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
With a bad loan rate of 88.3 percent, Hainan Rural Credit Union, a rural credit cooperative in Hainan, was on the verge of collapse in 2007. Over the past nine years, the cooperative has focused on rural microcredit, lending a total of 23 billion yuan (about 3.5 billion U.S. dollars) to Hainan’s 600,000 rural households. The non-performing loan rate has dropped to less than 2 percent.
Thanks to financial education and agricultural training provided to borrowers, Wu Weixiong, board chairman of Hainan Rural Credit Union, isn’t worried about the 23 billion yuan in loans his cooperative has made to the island’s rural population.
“Our staff are experts in both finance and agriculture, which enables them to help farmers acquire necessary knowledge and techniques to make a living and pay back the loan,” he told attendees at the “Inclusive Finance” Boao sub-forum.
Private financial institutions are also making financial services much more accessible to people who are underserved by traditional banks. Ant Financial, a financial arm established last June by the E-commerce giant Alibaba, has lent a total of 45 billion yuan to farmers, online merchants, restaurant owners and mom-and-pop stores, extending loans to 800,000 borrowers who have trouble accessing financial services.
Despite the efforts, a large proportion of the population still lacks access to financing, according to the experts.
NOT ALL HAVE ACCESS
“The core of the problem is that inclusive financing is badly needed by rural people,” said Dong Wenbiao, board chairman of China Minsheng Investment Corp. Ltd., the nation’s largest private equity firm.
The nation still has 55.75 million impoverished people in rural areas, official statistics showed.
Dong blamed “serious systematic deficiency” for the problem, saying that China’s existing financial establishments, including the banking and insurance systems, don’t support expanding access to finance. Large banks are inclined to lend to big companies with lower risk.
The lack of an individual credit system, high operational costs and risks, and the absence of an information-sharing mechanism have all worsened the situation, according to Li Yang, vice director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Inclusive finance will play a key role in China’s goal of building a “well-off society” by 2020. The nation’s financial industry should make itself available to all people, said Wu Xiaoling, vice chairwoman of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People’s Congress and former vice governor of the central bank.
More than 50 countries have set formal targets and goals for inclusive finance in recent years, indicating growing global recognition that access to financial services plays a critical role in reducing extreme poverty, boosting shared prosperity, and supporting sustainable development.
SYSTEMATIC REFORMS
To clear hurdles, the State Council in January released the 2016-2020 Plan on the Development of Inclusive Finance, China’s first national strategic plan on financial inclusion. It targeted building inclusive financial service and security systems that provide reasonably-priced, convenient and secure services to small companies, farmers, low-income urban households, the poor, the disabled and the elderly. It vowed to boost inclusive finance’s development to a level comparable to the global average by 2020.
The government also reiterated in a report in March the development of inclusive finance to increase services for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses as well as for rural areas.
“To tackle the issue, systematic reforms are required,” said Dong, suggesting that farmers should be endowed with land rights that can be viewed as assets when obtaining loans.
Ellen Richey, vice chairwoman of Risk and Public Policy at Visa Inc., said that China already has an advantage in fostering inclusive finance, as 79 percent of its residents have financial accounts, much higher than most countries. But account holders generally only use them for basic banking services or use them infrequently.
“The challenge to inclusive finance in China is not necessarily to get someone an account, but to give them an efficient way to use it,” she said, adding that electronic payment and mobile phones will enable China to bypass expensive investment in infrastructure, such as terminals and telecommunications.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley called on lenders to form trust relationships based on human potential, rather than just looking at assets. Shipley said that micro-finance requires collaboration between multiple players, including governments, financial institutions and NGOs. Enditem
Commentary: Lancang-Mekong cooperation offers new opportunities
BEIJING, March 23 (Xinhua) — The first leaders’ meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism (LMC) in Sanya, China, is expected to provide political guidance and a roadmap for subregional cooperation between China and the five Southeast Asian nations of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The LMC mechanism was initiated in 2014 in accordance with the strong will of the six countries along the river for development and prosperity.
The LMC is a self-initiative of the six countries and is tailored to their specific needs.
Compared with other cooperation mechanisms, the LMC is more practical, more effective and more in line with people’s aspirations.
With the step-by-step implementation of the LMC mechanism, one-day rail travel along the Lancang-Mekong region will become reality as lines of the Pan-Asia Railway network are under construction.
The mechanism will not only facilitate the movement of people and goods between those countries, but also speed up the region’s development as a whole.
Since the LMC mechanism was proposed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in November 2014, three meetings of senior officials, three meetings of the working teams, as well as a foreign ministers’ meeting have been held to launch the dialogue and cooperation. Agreement has been reached on 78 early-harvest projects covering water resource management, poverty alleviation, public health, infrastructure, personnel exchanges, science and technology.
The LMC mechanism has three pillars — political and security issues, economic affairs and sustainable development, and social affairs and people-to-people exchanges.
With consensus and strong will of the six countries, the LMC mechanism is showing tremendous potential.
Apart from the six countries, the LMC mechanism is also conducive to the strengthening of cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and lend a helping hand to the regional bloc’s integration.
“The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism comes as a natural result of our existing cooperation, and will take full advantage of our geographic proximity, traditional friendship and complementary economies,” Li told the Sanya meeting on Wednesday.
Li said China firmly supports ASEAN’s integration and the LMC will supplement China-ASEAN relations. Enditem
Spotlight: China’s economic transition set to boost Asian integration despite slower trade growth
BOAO, March 22 (Xinhua) — Regional economic integration in Asia is expected to deepen further as China moves up the international value chain despite weakening trade growth, experts who follow China’s ongoing economic transition said on Tuesday.
“China’s growing importance in the value chain will inevitably influence its economic and trade structures with these major economies (in Asia),” said Chen Lan, director of Deloitte Research at Deloitte China, in a report for the ongoing Boao Foroum for Asia in Hainan, China.
The report said that China’s future industrial upgrade through innovation will enhance its position in the global value chain as rising production costs and labor costs in the country may weaken its position as the “world’s factory.”
“Despite slowed economic growth during the 13th Five-Year Plan, China still remains one of the most important global consumer markets,” Chen wrote.
China is now in the middle of a painstaking transition from growth driven by investment and exports to growth led by consumption and the services sector. The official economic forecast for this year is between 6.5 percent and 7 percent, much slower than the wildly high growth rates of over 10 percent per annum a few years ago. Last year the economy grew by 6.9 percent.
China aims to double its per capita gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020 compared to 2010, a target that will catapult the world’ s most populous country to the status of a relatively well-off society.
Speaking at a press conference in Boao on Tuesday, Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank, said that he expects China’ s economic growth to average around 6.5 percent over the next five years. Coupled with the expected appreciation of the yuan, this would mean China’ s per capita GDP is likely to cross the mark of 12,000 U.S. dollars at around 2020.
Lin said the Chinese economy remains vigorous as China targets more sustainable and inclusive growth. According to a new index unveiled by his team to measure the inclusive structural transformation of different economies, China has a score that is among the highest worldwide. The index is based on the New Structural Economics advocated by Lin, who believes that structural changes are the foundation of sustained and inclusive growth along the path to development.
Experts at the forum highlighted the slowdown in world trade growth as a challenge for Asia. A report commissioned for the forum by a team led by Lin Guijun, a scholar from China’s University of International Business and Economics, said that growth in Asia’s merchandise trade has slowed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis since 2008 as world trade growth also slowed. Ditto for global GDP growth, a situation that has not been seen in decades, though trade growth in Asia remains far more robust than that of the rest of the world.
China is now the world’s leading trader and occupies a key position in the international value chain as a manufacturing hub. It is a top trading partner for major economies including Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has inked free trade agreements with the latter two.
Lin Guijun said that Asian economies have now placed more importance on the region’ s services as global services grow quickly and investment flows increase.
More than 80 percent of the service-related free trade agreements signed by Asian countries focus on internal liberalizations, he said.
China has promised to further open up its economy while pursuing more sustainable and inclusive growth. It is relying on the services sector to get the medium-high growth it needs to achieve the important milestones in its economic development by 2020.
Chen said economic integration in Asia is set to deepen further as China keeps steadfast to the principle of opening-up, with initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative helping to open up China’s hinterlands through trade links covering land and sea.
This will help drive infrastructure demand from ASEAN members and in turn boost their economic development. While there are risks to the economy like the spreading of financial market volatilities, China’ s promotion in the global value chain has provided new growth opportunities for industries in regional countries like Indonesia, especially in the textile industry.
Chen said the degree of economic integration among China, Japan, South Korea and members of ASEAN has increased since China’ s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, with stronger correlation unfolding between industries, within industries, and between manufacturing and delivery.
She also said mutual investment between China and ASEAN is now growing fast and so too is the demand for yuan clearing. Chinese banks like the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have established clearing banks in countries in the region. Enditem
Interview: Russian Far East official expects more Chinese investment
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, March 23 (Xinhua) — The Primorsky region in the Russian Far East will see more Chinese investment, said Vladimir Miklushevsky, the region’s governor.
More than half of the foreign trade turnover of Primorsky is connected with Northeast China, Miklushevsky told Xinhua.
“We are now working with 200 Chinese companies investing in agriculture, manufacturing as well as trade. And we’re very excited to increase this investment flow.”
He noted that projects in the priority areas of farm products, logistics, industrial and food production have already started in the region.
The governor said investors can enjoy a number of tax benefits in those sectors and in the meantime, foreign investment will bring benefits to local residents.
Miklushevsky also said cultural, scientific and educational ties is the basis for economic trade relations between the two nations.
Despite global financial woes and Russia’s economic difficulties, new opportunities are emerging for the region’s ties with China, he said.
“A huge influx of Chinese tourists visited Primorsky. In 2015, the number of Chinese tourists doubled compared with the previous years, and our tourist income increased 30 percent,” said Miklushevsky.
The governor said authorities are preparing for this year’s East Russia Economic Forum scheduled for Sept. 6-7.
“The first forum had a great success, and the Chinese delegation was the largest and the most active one. They showed great interest toward Russia,” he added. Enditem
Spotlight: Belt-Road Initiative aligns Chinese dream with global aspiration for development
BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) — Running a fruit import and export company for 15 years, Egyptian businessman Ali Maggard has recently turned his eye to China as a new source for commerce, as the world’s second largest economy is taking an increasingly large share of the global trade.
Previously, the fruit dealer would give his priority to European countries such as Greece and Italy.
The businessman told Xinhua that he felt very happy to see relations between China and his country to be further enhanced, because it means “more preferential terms for our industry on customs clearance and import and export duties among others.”
Maggard’s company is among many in the Arab world and other parts of the globe to explore business opportunities in China under the Belt and Road Initiative that contains the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposed back in 2013.
The Belt and Road Initiative is “a string of keys” that can be used by various countries for development, offering win-win solutions for bilateral cooperation, said Wu Bingbing, director of Department of Arabic Language and Culture of Peking University.
Statistics released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce showed Chinese enterprises directly invested a total of 14.82 billion U.S. dollars into 49 countries within the cooperation framework of the Belt and Road Initiative last year, rising by 18.2 percent compared with the previous year.
Against the backdrop of the currently sluggish global economy with a slow recovery, the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt has gained wide popularity among countries along the trade route, especially in Central Asia.
One particular project is the Horgos-East Gate Special Economic Zone in Kazakhstan, which has become a symbol of the lineup of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Kazakhstan’s “Bright Path” economic plan.
Despite the Central Asian country’s temporarily shrinking imports and exports due to falling oil prices and currency devaluation, trade volume of the special economic zone surged by nine times in the first half of 2015, compared with the same period of the previous year. Also, the volume of China’s container freight transferred in Kazakhstan has nearly doubled, thanks to the operation of the special economic zone.
So far, Horgos has also become an essential transit point that connects China and Europe through the Eurasia International Railway.
The Belt and Road Initiative is also reshaping the geographic and economic development of both China and Europe by incorporating a wide range of development schemes of the European countries, for example, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s investment plan that would allocate at least 315 billion euros (about 359 billion U.S. dollars) of additional investments in strategic projects at the European Union level.
“Your dream is our dream,” said former Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
Both being ancient oceanic civilizations, China and Greece have set the year of 2015 as the “China-Greece Maritime Cooperation Year” during a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Samaras in July 2014.
The visiting Chinese president said China would like to further enhance its comprehensive strategic partnership with Greece and make the country “an important bridgehead and transit point” for China-Europe cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative.
One typical project under the initiative was construction of Greece’s biggest sea port of Piraeus, the tender of which was won by China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) in January this year.
Trapped in the longstanding debt crisis of the country, the Piraeus port had fallen into a mess with ships and containers piling up. COSCO won a container operation project for Piraeus port in 2008 to manage Pier II and Pier III of Piraeus Container Terminal for 35 years. In 2015, the port’s capacity rose to 3 million containers, a dramatic increase from 685,000 in 2010.
The Chinese enterprise has also created over 1,000 jobs for local people over the last two years. Among the incessant strikes around the country, workers at the port have never held a strike.
In five years of operation, COSCO aims to make the Piraeus port the south gate of the China-Europe land-sea express to speed up transportation between China and Europe.
From the economic perspective, the Belt and Road Initiative has been a large-scale “economic and geographic revolution,” while from the perspective of international relations, the initiative has set off “a new cooperation mode featuring mutual benefits and win-win results,” according to Hu Angang, director of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University.
The comments were echoed by Russian businessman Alexander Losev.
In an article published by local newspaper Russia Herald on Jan. 19, Losev wrote that the Belt and Road Initiative showed China’s reflection on global governance.
Yet the construction of the Belt and Road is absolutely not China’s solo, touted by some, but a chorus that involves as many as countries along the trade routes.
China has actually been trying to search for a way out of the current downturn of the global economy with the Belt and Road Initiative, said Yang Guang, head of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“The initiative would help promote regional economic integration and inter-connectivity by lifting barriers to trade and investment as well as facilitating the flow of capital and human resources, which will inject impetus into global economic development,” he said. Enditem