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China calls
for macro economic stability
BEIJING—China said Thursday its macro-economic policies will be
continued, aiming to maintain the fast, stable growth for more efficient
economic expansion in the new year, with more efforts to help the rural
people.
The Chinese leadership put forward the major tasks for the economic work
next year at a key three-day meeting. President Hu Jintao and Premier
Wen Jiabao made important speeches on the country’s development at the
closed-door meeting.
Fast growth is imperative for increasing national strength and
effectively relieving contradictions in economic and social development,
said a statement issued at the meeting.
It said the key lies in increasing domestic demand, sticking to prudent
fiscal and monetary policies and continuing to tighten and ameliorate
macro-regulation, largely referring to the government efforts to rein in
excessive investment in such overheated sectors as steel, cement and
aluminum, and most recently, copper.
“New socialist countryside” was highlighted at the meeting as anew
concept and “common action” of the whole Party and nation. The statement
said it features growing production, better livelihood, cultural
development, clean villages and democratic management of village
affairs.
It said measures should be boosted to raise the farmers’ income, calling
for speeding up the construction of roads and telecom facilities among
other infrastructure, and increasing investment in rural education,
culture and public health. The development of eastern, central and
western areas should be more balanced. Another emphasis of economic work
is placed on sharpening the competitive edge of domestic enterprises.
The statement said it is urgent to accelerate industrial restructuring
by using advanced technology to upgrade traditional industries and
eliminate out-of-date productive forces. Efforts will be intensified to
save resources and protect the environment, while deepening the reform
and opening wider to the outside world for win-win results between China
and other countries. Priority will be given to resolve the practical
problems concerning the fundamental interests of the general public in
the process of building a harmonious society in China, said the
statement:
Agencies add: China’s fledgling automotive industry harbors enormous
potential but may not mount a full-fledged, export-oriented challenge to
automotive giants from Japan, the United States and Western Europe for
at least another decade, a study said. “There is a lot of uncertainty in
the Chinese market,” said Bruce Bezlowski, a University of Michigan
researcher and one of the principal authors of the report. “At the same
time, there’s a real sense of euphoria and excitement when you talk to
people about what the future will bring.” The study found that only
about three percent of China’s automotive output is export oriented.
China’s production capacity is expected to grow rapidly and could
surpass Germany as soon as 2008 but it won’t catch Japan’s 10 million
units of productive capacity until some time in the next decade. The
study was conducted by the University of Michigan’s Office for the Study
of Automotive Transportation and the IBM Institute for Business Value.
It was based on in-depth interviews with 20 managers and researchers
embedded in the Chinese auto industry. China, the study said, has huge
growth potential for auto sales as well. Just 24 of every 1,000 people
own a car, compared to 120 globally and 750 in the United States. The
report predicted China’s auto market could be larger than the US market
by 2015. Around five million vehicles were sold in China last year,
compared to 17 million in the United States.
“Most of the interviewees expect it will take two decades for Chinese
manufacturers and suppliers to close the product and process gaps with
the world class counterparts,” the study said. Bezlowski said the
Chinese auto industry is still grappling with some basic questions about
how to sell and service vehicles. Consequently, sales of new vehicles in
China are expected to grow steadily but not exponentially, he said.
Other hurdles include adapting to the demands of a market economy and
the increasing cost of petroleum. Parking also is a major issue in big
cities such as Shanghai where most of the spaces are on the street,
which only adds to congestion.
(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)
China steps up AIDS battle
BEIJING—China must keep its number of HIV-infected people under 1.5
million in the next five years or risk social instability and a possible
economic downturn, the country’s top health official said.
AIDS prevention and control are key to China’s “economic development,
social stability and prosperity,” Health Minister Gao Qiang said at a
news conference ahead of World AIDS Day on Thursday. “A good job in AIDS
prevention and treatment is a must for the government at all levels.”
The government has earmarked $100 million for AIDS prevention and
treatment this year ¡ª eight times more than in 2002 ¡ª with the money
to be used for treatment, education and testing, Gao said.
“The Chinese government can effectively control the momentum of the
spread of AIDS in the country,” he said. “We need to increase funding,
enhance surveillance, increase the spread of information and education
on the disease.”
China says it has 840,000 people infected with HIV and 80,000 with
full-blown AIDS. But the United Nations’ AIDS agency says that the true
figure is likely higher, and that up to 10 million could be infected by
2010 without more aggressive prevention.
Gao said HIV transmission through shared intravenous drug needles and
unprotected sex has “risen rapidly in recent years.” He did not give
more details.
However, the incidence of infection by blood transfusion has fallen
sharply due to repeated campaigns since the 1990s, Gao said.
HIV gained an early foothold in China, largely due to unsanitary blood
plasma-buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals.
AIDS activists have criticized China’s government for being slow to
admit the extent of the disease there.
Earlier this year, the government opted to promote anti-HIV strategies
that the government had previously considered taboo, such as free
condoms and needle exchanges.
Another new program, set to be launched Thursday to mark World AIDS Day,
targets China’s growing population of migrant workers. Most of the tens
of millions who have left the countryside to seek work in cities have no
regular access to health care.
In recent years, Beijing has become increasingly open about AIDS and has
offered free testing and counseling, as well as free treatment for the
poor.
(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)
Toxins make second
China city cut water
YILAN (China)—Another town on a poisoned Chinese river shut down its
water system here the other day after Communist Party members went
door-to-door giving out bottled water in an effort to show that China’s
leaders can protect the public from the latest environmental disaster.
Running water to about 26,000 people in Dalianhe, on the outskirts of
Yilan, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, stopped at 6 p.m. as a
slick of toxic benzene on the Songhua River approached, said an employee
who answered the phone at the county government offices. “It will last
three days,” said the employee, who would give only his surname, Gu. The
government said Yilan itself should not be affected because the city of
about 110,000 people gets its water from wells instead of the river. The
benzene arrived a day after Harbin, a major industrial center upstream,
declared its water safe to drink after the system supplying 3.8 million
people was shut down for five days. In Yilan, television broadcast hours
of reports Wednesday on the water shutdown, including a government
statement warning the public not to use river water.
News reports showed police and party members in red armbands going
door-to-door in freezing weather, handing out leaflets and giving cases
of drinking water to the elderly and poor. An elderly man lying in bed
shook hands with a police commander. “I really thank the government,”
another man, identified as Zhou Changgui, was shown saying. State-owned
Dongfeng coal mine run by a branch of the Heilongjiang Longmei Mining
(Group) Co. Ltd., a conglomerate of four major coal firms in
northeastern Heilongjiang province, was hit by a blast late on Sunday.
The coal mine operator and the party chief of the Dongfeng coal mine
were removed from posts and detained by police for investigation, the
Beijing News said. The general manager of Longmei Group’s Qitaihe branch
was also dismissed, Xinhua News Agency said. The death toll includes 162
miners underground and two women who had been working in a generator
room at ground level. Seven others were still missing. Xinhua said there
were 242 miners underground rather than the previously reported figure
of 221. “Due to the very disorderly management of the Dongfeng coal
mine, the actual number of miners underground is very different from
that reported,” the Beijing News quoted a coal mine safety supervision
spokesman as saying. The disaster was a setback for President Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen Jiabao’s campaign to clean up the world’s biggest and
deadliest mining industry, which killed some 6,000 miners last year and
at least 2,700 in the first half of this year.
China opposes foreign intervention in HK
affairs
From Max Lee
Beijing—China opposes any foreign intervention in Hong Kong affairs,
which are China’s internal affairs, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
said on Thursday.
“The Hong Kong affairs are China’s domestic affairs, and the Chinese
side opposes any foreign intervention,” spokesman Qin Gang said when
asked to comment on the meeting between US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Martin Lee, a lawmaker from Hong Kong’s Legislative
Council. Rice and Lee met on Tuesday in Washington. A US State
Department spokesman said after the meeting that the United States
supports Hong Kong’s democracy and universal suffrage.
Qin said China has always attached great importance to and actively
supported the progressive development of Hong Kong’s political system
based on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Basic Law
and the real situation in Hong Kong. The spokesman expressed the belief
that as long as all Hong Kong people can take Hong Kong’s long-term
stability and prosperity into consideration and adopt a rational
attitude to seek consensus, Hong Kong’s political system would develop
in a steady, sound and orderly way, and favorable conditions would be
created for finally achieving the goal outlined in the HKSAR Basic Law —
the general election of the HKSAR Chief Executive and all members of the
HKSAR Legislative Council.
“The Hong Kong affairs are China’s domestic affairs, and the Chinese
side opposes any foreign intervention,” spokesman Qin Gang said when
asked to comment on the meeting between US Secretary of State
Condoleezza
Rice and Martin Lee, a lawmaker from Hong Kong’s Legislative Council.
Rice and Lee met on Tuesday in Washington. A US State Department
spokesman said after the meeting that the United States supports Hong
Kong’s democracy and universal suffrage.
Qin said China has always attached great importance to and actively
supported the progressive development of Hong Kong’s political system
based on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Basic Law
and the real situation in Hong Kong.
Nokia expands production in China
HELSINKI—Top mobile phone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE) will expand its handset
production in China to boost capacity and flexibility to meet
fast-growing worldwide demand, particularly from Asia, it said on
Thursday.
The Finnish company said it would nearly double the floor space at its
factory in Dongguan, with production from the expansion to begin in the
third quarter of next year. The plant currently employs 1,100 people,
and Nokia would hire another 800 staff as the expansion moves into full
swing, Nokia spokeswoman Eija-Riitta Huovinen said.
She said the company would invest about $14 million in the expansion,
but declined to give details of the capacity of the plant. “It’s quite
significant, because space-wise it will almost double the area,” she
added. Nokia is the market leader in China, the world’s biggest mobile
market, and employs nearly 6,000 people there. China has about 380
million subscribers currently and about 100 million handsets are sold
there each year.
Nokia expects China to add another 250 million subscribers by 2010, but
it faces fierce competition from U.S.-based Motorola and local
rivals.—Agencies
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