Category: Foreign News

By Wang Cong

Despite seemingly contradictory priorities, China will continue to pursue a prudent monetary policy that ensures sufficient liquidity to support economic growth and prevent financial risks as well as keep the renminbi’s exchange rate at a reasonable equilibrium, Chinese officials said on Sunday, March 10.

At a wide-ranging press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing two sessions in Beijing, top officials from the People’s Bank of China (PBC) stressed that China will stick to a timetable for further opening up its financial sector and reduce interference from rising trade tensions.

“We don’t mention ‘neutral’ this time, which is more concise, but the fact is the meaning of our prudent monetary policy has not changed,” said PBC Governor Yi Gang when asked whether the absence of the word “neutral” from this year’s monetary policy statement meant more monetary easing.

Policy unchanged

In this year’s Government Work Report, Premier Li Keqiang said that “prudent monetary policy will be eased or tightened to the right degree.”

That sparked speculation that facing downward pressure, China might resort to monetary easing that would raise corporate leverage, which, officials say, had been contained through efforts to stave off financial risks.

“To keep a balance between fending off risks and supporting economic growth will be the most important and challenging job for the central bank this year,” Sun Lijian, a professor of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times on March 10.

“The central bank can’t open the floodgates of money supply, which will prop up asset prices, while also ensuring sufficient liquidity to support the real economy,” he said.

To maintain sufficient liquidity, while avoiding a money supply deluge, growth in total social financing and the broad money supply, or M2, will be kept at a similar pace as nominal GDP growth, according to Yi.

Dong Dengxin, director of the finance and securities institute at Wuhan University of Science and Technology, said M2 growth of about 8 percent for 2019, slightly lower than the 8.1 percent of 2018, “should be reasonable,” while noting that PBC might use “other flexible instruments to control liquidity as needed.”

Yi suggested further cuts to the reserve requirement ratio (RRR), the amount of cash banks is required to keep as reserves, is possible, saying that there was still room for RRR cuts, though smaller than in previous years.

China has cut RRR five times since 2018 to about 12 percent, which is about the same level as the limit in the US and Europe, Yi noted.

Keep opening

Despite challenges at home and rising trade tensions abroad, China will stick to a timetable for further opening its financial sector to foreign investors, the PBC chief said, noting that many areas, including credit rating and bank card clearance, have already been opened to foreign companies.

“We believe opening the Chinese financial market is beneficial to China and to the world, so we will resolutely push forward [opening measures] in accordance with the timetable,” Yi said when asked whether a trade war with the US would affect China’s financial opening.

“We should rationally view trade tensions externally,” he said. “The timetable for financial opening is set based on the needs of China’s reform and opening-up, so there is relatively less interference for us.”

Dong of Wuhan University of Science and Technology noted that China would likely focus “the breadth and depth” of its financial opening by increasing foreign participation in areas such as stocks and bonds.

“We have opened a lot of the area but the scale of foreign capital is still relatively small,” Dong said.

China should open the financial sector at its own pace and not be affected by foreign pressure, Dong said.

Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of the PBC, noted at the same press briefing on March 10 that foreign capital only makes up 2.7 percent of investment in stocks and 2.3 in bonds.

“While our stock market and bond market are very attractive to foreign capital, we are still at an early stage of opening and the level of openness is still not high,” Pan said.

PBC chief Yi said March 10 that the two sides have reached consensuses on “key issues” regarding foreign exchange rates and talked about respecting each other’s autonomy in setting monetary policy and honoring the commitment made at the G20 such as avoiding a currency devaluation competition.

“I want to stress that we will never use the foreign exchange rate for competitive purposes or use the foreign exchange rate to increase China’s exports or use it as a tool in trade tensions,” Yi said.

Source: Global Times/People’s Daily

A Buddha statue in the Yungang Grottoes (Photo/People’s daily online)

Source: People’s Daily Online

Administrators of the Yungang Grottoes, located 16 kilometers west of Datong, north China’s Shanxi Province, recently launched a global competition to design a new official logo, according to the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute, Chinanews.com reported on March 12.
With more than 51,000 Buddhist statues of various sizes in 45 existing grottoes, the Yungang Grottoes is one of China’s largest grotto groups. It was included into the World Cultural Heritage list by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2001.

“In order to better carry forward the culture and art in Yungang Grottoes, and to further raise the area’s profile and influence, the tourism management committee of Yungang Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes Research Institute decided to ask the global community for official logo ideas for the Yungang Grottoes,” read the announcement.
“Talented designers and people with creativity, copywriting experience, and graphic design experience are all welcome to take part in the contest,” it continued.

The competition requires that the logo should convey the distinctive features of the Yungang Grottoes creatively. The winning design will be used for a variety of occasions in a number of locations.
The worldwide contest will start on March 15 and end on Dec. 31, according to the announcement, noting that the competition will consist of three phases: the preliminary screening, selection, and final evaluation.

Ten pieces will be selected for the final evaluation, from which one will become the new logo, while the other nine will be recognized as outstanding works.
The first prize winner will also receive a monetary reward of 10,000 yuan (about $1,489.27) and a certificate of achievement, and the creators of the remaining nine outstanding works will each receive 2,000 yuan and a certificate of achievement.

By Yang Xun from People’s Daily

The official operation of China’s 55km-long Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) in 2018 attracted worldwide attention, marking a major success of China’s infrastructure construction, and introducing “Chinese standards” to the world.

The HZMB, adopting Chinese standards in multiple fields, has set an example for high-quality infrastructure construction, said Su Quanke, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on the sidelines of the two sessions, China’s top legislative and political advisory bodies.

Su, also the chief engineer of the HZMB Authority, introduced that 61 volumes of technical standards have been established during the construction of the mega-bridge to ensure world-class quality. “These standard volumes, if piled up, are as high as over one meter,” the chief engineer said.

A major achievement in the construction of the bridge is that China has exported many of its technologies and standards, Su said.For example, the constructor of an 18-km immersed tunnel connecting Denmark with Germany under the Fehmarn Belt has visited China four or five times for technical exchanges.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Authority of the US that built the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the 1970s also expressed their intention to visit China as it is planning to build a new bridge beside the existing one, saying that their construction technologies are outdated in today’s world.

Constructors of cross-sea steel bridges from Germany, Serbia and Norway have signed contracts with Chinese enterprises, hoping the latter to offer Chinese technologies and materials produced on the same production line of the HZMB, Su said. The production line has already started manufacturing for foreign constructors a couple of years ago, and the orders are still coming in till today.

What made Su proud is that he was contacted by the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, and the latter expressed its hope to promote Chinese standards internationally.Su said that more bridges would be built in accordance with Chinese standards around the world in the future.

The aeriel photo taken on July 11, 2018 shows a bird view of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. (Photo by Liang Xu from Xinhua News Agency)

Source: People’s Daily

China is exploring the establishment of overseas assistance centers for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection, in a bid to ensure that its IP can be effectively protected abroad, head of the State Intellectual Property Office Shen Changyu said on March 12.

Shen introduced a package of measures the office will take to enhance IPR protection during a passage interview after the third plenary meeting of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC).
The authorities will map out a scheme of building an IPR protection system and work on an overall mechanism to achieve strict, widespread, fast and equal IPR protection, Shen said.

Great efforts will be made to improve the quality and efficiency of IPR review so as to strengthen protection from the very beginning, Shen noted.
Last year, China shortened the trademark review period to six months, and this year the time will be further reduced to five months.
Meanwhile, the review period for high-value patents will be further cut by 15 percent based on the 10 percent reduction achieved last year, he noted.
The country will improve laws and regulations to strengthen IPR protection, Shen continued.

The State Intellectual Property Office will actively cooperate with the NPC in revising the Patent Law and establish a punishment system for infringement, substantially raising the cost of infringement, he noted.
According to the latest draft amendment to the Patent Law, patent holders could be compensated with fines up to five times the calculated damage in willful infringement cases. It is a severe punishment even in the world.

Meanwhile, China has also started a new round of preparation for the revision of the Trademark Law, Shen added.
The country will further innovate working mechanisms and models, with the aid of the Internet, Shen disclosed. By implementing the “Internet plus IPR,” the protection can be tightened through source tracing, online identification and real-time monitoring.

More IPR protection centers will be built, Shen noted, so as to form a coordinated and integrated mechanism of efficient IPR authorization, verification and protection services, providing the public with more convenient and efficient, and less costly channels to safeguard rights.

By Li Weihong and Yang Xun from People’s Daily

China’s newly-drafted foreign investment law will lay a solid legal foundation for China to provide a better business environment for foreign investment, and to move towards a new pattern of all-round opening up, a Chinese expert said in an interview with People’s Daily.

The law, which is undergoing review by national legislators at the ongoing session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), is expected to be put up for a vote on March 15. The NPC Constitution and Law Committee held a plenary session on March 11 to review the collected suggestions on the draft from the deputies.

If adopted, the new law will replace three existing statutes on Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, non-equity joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises to serve as China’s basic law on foreign investment.

Giving a priority to protect and promote foreign investment, the draft upgrades all of China’s reforming measures over foreign investment since 2013, especially those related to the system of national treatment plus a negative list, to law provisions, said Kong Qingjiang, a drafter of the new law.

The new law can also offer legal guarantee for the outcomes from a new round of reforms and opening-up, added Kong, a law professor from China University of Political Science and Law.

As a fundamental law on investment and foreign capital, the new draft has included the content on how to protect, promote and manage foreign investment, the professor pointed out.

By putting absorbing and protection of investment on its top agenda, the law meets the requirements in transforming government’s role, and deepening reforms that delegate power, improve regulation, and upgrade services, he said, adding that it is helpful in creating a favorable business environment.

The draft also prioritizes the rights of investors, but shrinks that of governmental departments. The 22th, 23th and 24th articles of the draft stipulate that administrative organs and their staff are not allowed to force the investors to transfer their technologies with administrative means.

Governmental departments at various levels are asked to formulate guidelines and regulations on foreign investment based on law provisions and rules, and prohibited to damage the legitimate rights and interests, or add obligations of foreign investors without providing legal credentials.

They are also banned to set preconditions of market entry and exit, or interfere in the legal business operation of the investors without backup of laws and administrative rules.

All of these requirements for governmental departments stand for China’s efforts in rule of law, Kong pointed out.

Source: People’s Daily Online

Poverty alleviation was a highlight of the development of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region with GDP growth by 9.1 percent in 2018.
Statistics indicated that a total of 181,000 people and 25 impoverished counties in the region were lifted out of poverty over the past year.
Tsering Tsoten is a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress from a village in Biru county, Nagqu city of northern Tibet. The village, located at an altitude of 4,300 meters, suffers from harsh natural conditions.

Now, the village is connected to hardened roads, stable electricity, and clean water supply. In 2018, the per capita income of farmers and herdersin the village reached 13,300 yuan ( $1,981), marking complete elimination of poverty.

In 2018, over 200 major growers and poultry farmers, 80 agricultural enterprises, as well as 1,000 skilled people from inland regions came to Tibet Autonomous Region and offered technical assistance for 3,000 local farmers under the encouragement of Tibet government. In addition, a group of people who have grown rich were also invited to share their experiences.
This year, Tibet Autonomous Region is planning to increase farmers’ income by 13 percent.

Farmers wash radishes at a planting base in Penshung township, Shigatse city, Aug. 8, 2018. Thanks to an aiding fund from Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province that established an agricultural cooperative, villagers of the town finally got rid of poverty and became better-off. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency)

By Huan Xiang from People’s Daily

Thanks to China’s efforts in poverty alleviation, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan province is gradually shaking off poverty and embracing a brighter future.

Ge Fu’neng, deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) well elaborated on the improved livelihood of the people there by sharing a photo and the story behind it at a panel discussion of Sichuan province.
In the photo, residents of Huodeng village, Le’an Township, Butuo county of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture are counting money they have earned by planting herbal medicines.

“I was born in an impoverished village of Daliang Mountain, and I know deeply the hardships my fellow villagers are going through,” Ge said.
Thanks to the herbal medicine industry, Butuo county has lifted 1,216 impoverished households out of poverty, increasing the annual income of the villagers to over 8,000 yuan ($1,192) from hundreds of yuan, he introduced.
Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is one of the 14 contiguous poverty-stricken areas of China, and also one of the major areas for the country to carry out poverty eradication campaigns.

The poverty-stricken region, as well as the 5.3 million people from all ethnic groups living there, are always a concern for Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
He visited Liangshan before the Spring Festival in 2018 to inspect poverty alleviation work, and specifically mentioned two families from Sanhe village, Zhaojue county of Liangshan in his 2019 New Year speech.

The eyes of a deputy named Xu Ping brimmed with tears as Ge unfolded the story. Xu is a college graduate who survived the devastating earthquake in Sichuan. It was the government’s favorable policies that enabled the post-95 girl to go to college.
Education is able to stop the intergenerational cycle of poverty, and it has played a vital role in Liangshan’s poverty elimination work.

The local government opened a kindergarten for each village, helping pre-school children learn mandarin to guarantee free communication. To date, the enrolment rates of primary and secondary schools in 11 impoverished counties of Liangshan have respectively reached 99.6 percent and 97 percent.
Over the past three years, the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee made special policies to help Liangshan, investing over 20 billion yuan of fiscal revenue in poverty alleviation, and sending 11 work teams and over 5,700 cadres to the region.
The current incidence of poverty of Liangshan stands at 7.1 percent, down 12.7 percentage points from 19.8 percent in 2014, according to Suga Erbu, NPC deputy and governor of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

In the next two years, the prefecture would lift 317,000 people, 618 villages, and 11 counties out of poverty, Suga added.
“All impoverished counties and people will be lifted out of poverty by 2020,” said Lin Shucheng, vice chairman of Sichuan Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Party chief of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.
It is introduced that the local government has rolled out multiple measures to support poverty alleviation, such as the incentive to encourage export of labor services, making sure that no one is left behind in poverty reduction.

By Du Yifei from People’s Daily

A 5G hospital will soon be built in south China’s Guangdong Province, according to a cooperation document signed by Chinese tech firm Huawei, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital and GuangdongMobile on Mar. 9.
The three will establish a smart medical service system under the Internet Plus framework compatible with the next generation of communication technology.
The project will commence this year, said the cooperation document.
The 5G network, the latest generation of information and communication technology, features high speed, low delay and large capacity. It is expected to be applied in more scenarios of medical services, create better technical management, and bring more innovation.
According to the agreement,the three parties willestablish an expert team on remote medical imaging solution, telemedicine, digital medical services and big data, to provide quality services for patients with more convenience and higher efficiency via 5G network.
A Huawei employee told People’s Daily that with the integration of 5G, big data, and artificial intelligence, doctors would be able to check high-definition medical images of the patients under the 5G network before the patients go to hospitals. It enables the doctors to map out optimal treatment solutions in advance.
At present, China is seeing continuous progress of the 5G application in the medical sector. Medical institutions and enterprises in Hubei, Beijing, Sichuan, Zhejiang and many other regions have already started relevant researches and practices.
For instance, on Feb. 21 this year, China Telecom Wuhan Branch and Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University incentral China’s HubeiProvince signed a strategic agreement, planning to build China’s first 5G intelligent medical demonstration project.
In addition, Sichuan Province also carried out the first pilot telemedicine program under 5G networks in southwest China.
Besides, the West China Hospital of Sichuan University, as a pilot hospital of 5G applications, completed a demonstration of remote ultrasonic diagnosis under the 5G network, according to Li Weimin, president of the hospital.
Not long ago, the first-ever 5G-assisted remote surgical operation in the world was successfully performed in southeast China’s Fujian province.
The hepatic lobule of an experimental animal was removed by a robotic arm manipulated by Liu Rong, director of the No.2 surgical department of liver and gallbladder of Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital 50 kilometers away. The operation, performed on real-time signal transmission under the 5G network, marked the official entry of surgery into the 5G era.
5G technology will be widely applied for clinical use in the near future, said Liu Jingfeng, head of Mengchao Hepatobiliary Hospital of Fujian Medical University.
The technology would also make remote ward round and remote B-scan ultrasonography possible, bringing more high-quality medical resources to remote areas, he added.
By that time, patients will be able to receive diagnosis from provincial- and state-level experts, and even internationally renowned experts without traveling far.

By Zhao Bing, Li Maoying and Wang Hailin from People’s Daily

China has made remarkable achievements in its poverty alleviation. However, Luo Aying, a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), is aiming farther and making efforts to advance rural revitalization.
At present, Luo is attending the ongoing second session of the 13th NPC in Beijing.
She carries a notebook wherever she goes. “I wrote the wishes of my fellow villagers in the first half of my notebook and what I learnt from the meetings in the second half,” she told People’s Daily, adding that she would bring the good news to his fellow villagers after going back home.
Luo and her fellow villagers are from the ethnic minority group Jino. They live in the forest-blanketed mountains in Jinghong, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan province.
Thanks to the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Jino people, most of who lived in primitive mountain tribes entered socialist society.
It has been 40 years since the Jino people were officially acknowledged in 1979 as the 56th independent ethnic group of China. The past 40 years, according to Luo, witnessed the hard work and joint efforts of the Jino people.
As the only NPC deputy from Jino ethnic minority group, Luo said she carries heavy responsibilities.
Luo, who is the secretary of the Party committee of Luote village, Jino ethnic township, knows everything about the history, population, cultural customs and industries of the village. She often visits the impoverished households in her village with her colleagues to help them get rid of poverty.
By attracting investment and new projects, as well as the poverty alleviation plans tailored for the impoverished households, the livelihood of the people in Luote village has been gradually improved in recent years.
“Now every village has hardened roads, which has made it more convenient for vendors to come to buy our teas,” Luo said, adding that many households have bought motorcycles, and even cars. Smart phones are also very common there, she told People’s Daily.
Though the village is prospering day by day, Luo can still feel the responsibilities she carries. She said she must make the young labor force stay and achieve better development of the village.
Therefore, she raised a proposal at the NPC session this year to increase income of rural doctors and grass-root cadres, hoping to guarantee the sustained development of the rural areas.
“After overcoming poverty, we must advance rural vitalization,” she said, adding that they will always follow the steps of the Party, and roll up their sleeves to build a better future.

Source: People’s Daily

China has made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation, lifting over 80 million people out of poverty in just 6 years. It is getting closer and closer to its target of poverty eradication in 2020.
Rural deputies to the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) shared their stories of poverty alleviation, unfolding the “secrets” to the country’s progress in poverty reduction.
Story 1: E-commerce assists village to drive up sales of yellow peaches
E-commerce is never an easy business in rural areas, as farmers lack experiences, techniques and marketing skills. It’s hard for them to attract consumers atthe online market of fierce competition.
However, the yellow peaches produced in Guangming village,Oujiangtownship,Guidong county of Hunan Province have made considerable profits through online channels.
According to GuoXiaoqin, a deputy from the village, the annual net income of dozens of households in the village has been lifted to 20,000 to 30,000 yuan after they joined a peach cooperative established by the village.
Under the guidance of local government, Guangming village was joined by two major e-commerce enterprises of Guidong county, who were soliciting business outside of the region and collecting peaches from the villagers. Such mode helped the villagers locate market and promote sales.
In addition, the village also established a service station to deliver information to the market, and the yellow peaches produced by the village were incorporated into the national sales network of featured agricultural products, which further expanded the distribution channel for the villagers.
Guo believes that by rolling out more policies to attract young talents back to the countryside and optimizing the rural logistics pattern, the agricultural industry will embrace further development under the assistance of e-commerce.

Story 2: Mountainous village benefits from agri-tourism
NPC deputy Chen Chunfang is the Party chief of Chegutuo village, Nanying township, Lingshou county of HebeiProvince. The village, located in remote mountainous areas of the Taihang Mountain, suffered poor economy due to inadequate transportation and barren land.
Fortunately, after Chen and his fellow villagers started building roads and conducting agritourism in 2011, the village finally eradicated poverty three years later.
Thanks to the strategy of coordinated development for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebeiregion, HebeiProvince is seeing more opportunities in rural development.
With improved transportation facilities, people in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region can travel to the countryside more freely. Now, tourism is bringing huge benefits to Chegutuo village, and the per capita annual income of the villagers has hit 7,000 yuan at the end of last year.
In December 2018, the Taihang Mountain expressway opened to traffic, and it’s only half-an-hour drive from Chegutuo village to the nearest tollgate of the expressway.
Chegutuo, together with other four neighboring villages, invested a total of 2.15 billion yuan to build an eco-tourism resort, bearing a hope for common prosperity.

Story 3: Industry turns farmers into skilled workers
A clothing factory in Dongxing village, Liangzhongqiao township, Changtu county, Liaoning Province has created over 100 jobs for local and neighboring villagers. The factory was built at the end of last year, a long-conceived plan of Wu Yanliang, Party chief of Dongxing village, and a deputy to the 13th NPC.
The factory has bright workshops, professional production lines, scientific management and transparent dispatching system. It now manufactures garments for multiple renowned clothing brands.
The village invited experts to train the villagers, and everyone, even the physically disabled, is able to find a suitable job at the factory including tailor, machinery maintenance and logistics.
“From farmers to skilled workers, the industry-led poverty alleviation has not only transformed the identity of the villagers, but also their spirits,” Wu said.