World Bank President Sees China Spurring Global Recovery.

"China's stellar growth could help pull the world out of its current economic slump, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Monday, while hailing the yuan's progress toward becoming a global reserve currency. With Chinese growth in the first quarter of 2009 exceeding most expectations, Zoellick said China could act as a catalyst for a global economic resurgence...." [Dow Jones/Factiva]

AFP adds that "... 'Any forecast in this environment is hazardous, but I think China is likely to surprise on the upside,' the former US trade envoy said....'By and large (China's growth) has not only been a stabilizing force, but a force that will pull the system (out of the downturn).' China's meteoric rise as a global economic player has boosted world trade in manufactured goods and provided western companies with an enormous new market for their products and services...." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Reuters adds that "...when asked in a question-and-answer session whether China might decrease its purchases of US treasuries, Zoellick warned against any abrupt, unilateral moves that could worsen an already fragile global financial situation. 'Over time, I think I could see China moving further in diversification of its reserves, but one has to recall that China has been very sensitive about maintaining its exchange rate versus the dollar and you can't do that unless you're buying dollars, and if you're buying dollars you're going to be holding dollar securities,' Zoellick said at [the International Economic Forum of the Americas] in Montreal...." [Reuters/Factiva]

EU: China Summit Needs Rights Focus

May 19, 2009

(New York) - As the European Union (EU) and China prepare for their semi-annual summit in Prague on May 20, Human Rights Watch called on European leaders to press China to respect its international human rights obligations.

The summit, the first since Beijing abruptly called off the planned December 2008 gathering in France as part of an offensive to dissuade European leaders from meeting with the Dalai Lama, will be held under the framework of the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union. The delegation of the People's Republic of China will be led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

"The EU would be mistaken to let business and trade interests trump human rights," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Without the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights China simply cannot become a better partner for the EU."

Although the EU holds regular human rights dialogues with China, including one in Prague on May 14, those discussions have consistently failed to deliver any concrete result since they began over a decade ago.

"The human rights dialogues increasingly serve as a pretext to segregate human rights concerns away from high level talks such as the present summit," said Richardson. (For more information on Human Rights Watch's view of EU-China relations, please click here).

Human Rights Watch pointed out that since the last EU-China summit the human rights situation in China has markedly worsened in several key respects, including:

• In Tibet, where hundreds of detainees are still unaccounted for, and which is still not freely accessible to media and visitors;
• The ongoing detention of one of China's most prominent dissidents, Liu Xiaobo, for his role in drafting an appeal for human rights and democracy, Charter 08; and
• The harassment of the families of school children who died during the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, many of whom are demanding an official inquiry into the buildings' deficiencies.

As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre nears, Human Rights Watch also called on the EU to stand firm on the arms embargo put in place shortly after the bold crackdown on students and demonstrators during the night of June 3 to 4, 1989.

"China still refuses to acknowledge that it did anything wrong by turning the army against its own people in 1989," said Richardson. "Until this happens, the embargo should stay."

Brazil And China In Plan To Axe Dollar.

"Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil's central bank and aides to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president. The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world's leading international currency.... An official at Brazil's central bank stressed that... what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil...." [Financial Times/Factiva]

AFP adds that "... 'It's absurd if two important trading nations such as ours continue to carry out our commerce in the currency of a third nation,' Lula said in an interview published in the most recent issue of China's Caijing magazine.....China - an energy-hungry nation that is hugely interested in Brazil's natural resources - in March became the Latin American nation's biggest trading partner, ahead of the US. Brazilian exports to China - mainly iron ore and soya products - so far this year have grown 65 percent over the same period in 2008, a jump from $3.4 billion to $5.6 billion...." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

AP reports that "...in an editorial in Tuesday's official China Daily, Lula said emerging economies like Brazil and China had a responsibility to help build a 'more just and fair international order.' The two nations should be 'fully aware of Brazil's and China's shared responsibility to help bring about the fundamental reforms in global governance that the world so urgently needs,' Lula wrote...." [Associated Press/Factiva]

Foreign Investment In China Drops 22.5 Percent In April.

"China's foreign direct investment dropped 22.5 percent from a year earlier in April, marking the seventh month of decline as corporations cut spending amid the global economic crisis, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MoC) said Friday...." [Kyodo (Japan)/Factiva]

Xinhua adds that in the first four months of 2009 "...the figure shrank to $27.67 billion, said MOC spokesperson Yao Jian. In April alone, the investment dropped... to $5.89 billion, the seventh straight monthly fall, said Yao.... The number of new foreign-funded ventures also saw a 34.2 percent decline to 6,241 in the first four months, as companies became more prudent about expanding...." [Xinhua/Factiva]

AFP reports that "...the data was released at the end of a week in which a series of statistics showed the economy was still severely impacted by the global financial crisis. On Wednesday, the government said industrial output... had grown by 7.3 percent in April from a year earlier, a weakening from 8.3 percent growth in March....However, economists told state media Friday they did not expect the steep declines in foreign direct investment to continue for much longer. 'The economy's contraction is likely to relax in the second half of the year,' Dong Xian'an, an analyst with Southwestern Securities, told China Daily...." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Mexico To Seek Compensation For Swine Flu. "Mexico will seek economic compensation for damages suffered during the swine flu outbreak, which drove away thousands of tourists - a critical source of foreign revenue, the country's health minister said Thursday. 'There are grounds to apply for compensation ... for the country that has been hardest-hit' by the virus, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said at a news conference....

Cordova said compensation for lost tourist revenue could come from the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD).... The flu's impact was expected to cost the economy around $2.3 billion - around 0.3 percent of gross domestic product - and Mexico has launched a $1.06 billion business support program to help counter the damage...." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Xinhua adds that "...in an outbreak, 'the nation that gives the most information is the nation that suffers most,' Cordova told a press conference. 'Without international support, nations with disease outbreaks are punished for their honesty,' he argued...." [Xinhua/Factiva]

AP reports that "...swine flu has infected Mexico's relations with China and other countries that have canceled airline flights and halted some trade.... [The Mexican government] rebuked Cuba, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru for banning flights to Mexico, saying they were acting 'incongruously with our traditional ties of friendship.'...[Additionally,] Haiti rejected a Mexican ship last week carrying 77 tons of food aid because of swine flu fears...." [Associated Press/Factiva]

ONE YEAR ON, UNICEF CONTINUES SUPPORT TO CHINA’S QUAKE VICTIMS

ONE YEAR ON, UNICEF CONTINUES SUPPORT TO CHINA'S QUAKE VICTIMS
New York, May 12 2009 6:00PM
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is continuing its assistance to women and children in China's Sichuan province, as they seek to rebuild their lives after last year's devastating earthquake.

On 12 May 2008, the south-west Chinese province was hit by the country's worst earthquake in three decades. The quake, measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale, left nearly 100,000 people either dead or missing, and almost 400,000 injured.

It also damaged or destroyed millions of homes, leaving five million people homeless, and caused extensive damage to basic infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, roads, and water systems.

A new report released today in Beijing details how <"http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/china_49645.html">UNICEF has assisted the Government in education, health, nutrition, clean water, sanitation, psychosocial support, child protection, HIV/AIDS and social policies for children.

"The scale of the Sichuan earthquake was large and the Government of China has made tremendous progress in providing shelter for families, getting children back to school and repairing damaged infrastructure in the earthquake zone," said Dr. Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF Representative for China.

"We will continue to support these efforts, with emphasis on children and women, as there are still many families who need assistance to return to their normal lives."

The agency has provided $20 million dollars for earthquake relief and recovery over the past year. Assistance has reached nearly 30 counties and districts across Sichuan, as well as Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, covering 2.5 million children and four million women. UNICEF plans to continue assistance for earthquake recovery through 2011.

About half of UNICEF's funds have supported health, water and sanitation interventions, while one third has gone toward helping children return to safe, well equipped, "child friendly" schools. The rest has supported child protection, psychosocial support, shelter and other costs.

"We were only able to respond as quickly and effectively as we did to support the Chinese Government's efforts in this emergency because of the swift and generous support of our donors," said Dr. Nwe.

UNICEF, which relies entirely on voluntary donations to help meet the needs of children, has received donations totalling $37 million so far. It is aiming to raise a total of $45 million to finance its medium- to long-term projects in the earthquake zone.
________________

CHINA BREAKS GROUND IN ‘SOUTH-SOUTH’ AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION, UN AGENCY SAYS

In creating a $30 million trust fund to boost the food output of developing countries, China has cemented its role as a major global player in cooperation between developing countries, the United Nations agricultural agency said today.

"This historic agreement underlines the importance of the role which China has come to play in the global arena today," José Maria Sumpsi Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said after signing an agreement with the Chinese Vice-Minister for Agriculture.

Under the agreement, China will provide technical experts and resources to developing countries to improve their agricultural productivity and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a list of targets for cutting extreme poverty and other global ills by 2015.

The trust fund will have a strong focus on Africa, but will not exclude other regions, FAO said, and will last for three years, with China releasing $10 million per year.

The agency notes that China has been providing technical cooperation through FAO in Africa for many years and in 2005 it formalized a Strategic Alliance for south-south cooperation in which developing countries help each other through transfer of knowledge, personnel and technologies.

The Strategic Alliance is carried out under the umbrellas of FAO's National and Regional Programmes for Food Security and envisages the provision of up to 3,000 Chinese experts and technicians to developing countries under the trust fund arrangement.

Five hundred experts and technicians from China were fielded to Nigeria between 2003 and 2007 and, overall, over 700 Chinese experts have been fielded to all regions of the world since the inception of the south-south cooperation programme, FAO said.
________________

BRIC Nations Call For More Balanced IMF.

Brazil, Russia, India & China (BRIC) Saturday sought a re-balancing of representation on the executive board and the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The demand was made at the G20 finance ministers' meeting being held near London.... They also asked for speeding up of the second phase of voice and representation reform in the World Bank group by April 2010.

The BRICs said it was necessary for developing countries to have a greater voice and representation. Similarly, leadership of the IMF and World Bank should not be subject to 'nationality or regional considerations.'

In related news, it was reported that the G20 summit should find ways to give other states a say in decisions by the world's richest to mitigate disasters like the US mortgage loan crisis, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.

Reiterating Russia's view that global finance needs sweeping reform, Medvedev said new tools and rules were needed 'so that the problems which start in one state will not trigger the hardest chain reaction' in others..

China Hit By Massive Drop In Exports.

Chinese exports slumped 25.7 percent in February, much higher than analysts had expected, as the global economic crisis began to take its full toll on the country's export sector. China's exports have decreased for four months in a row, but until February the rate of decline had been much slower than seen in other Asian countries with large export sectors.

China's trade surplus in February totaled $4.84 billion, the lowest since $2.5 billion in February 2006 and a sharp drop from $39.1 billion in January. Trade in key commodities - including crude oil, coal and iron ore - reflected plummeting world-wide demand for metals and energy resources as well as a slowing domestic Chinese economy. The latest data could hurt China's first-quarter gross domestic product as exports have been a key growth driver.

China's imports fell by 24.1 percent, less than January's 43 percent plunge but still a blow to its trading partners, especially other Asian nations that supply its export industries with components and raw materials. The commerce minister warned Tuesday the slump is unlikely to end soon, saying trade will be a 'grim picture' in coming months.

ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CALLS ON CHINA TO SUPPORT REFORM OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CALLS ON CHINA TO SUPPORT REFORM OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
New York, Feb 25 2009 7:00PM

The President of the General Assembly today appealed to China to support United Nations initiatives to transform international financial, economic, monetary and trade policies in response to the current global economic and financial crises.

"The enormous economic crisis that we face today threatens to tip millions, perhaps billions, of our people into poverty of catastrophic proportions," General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto told a gathering at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.

He told the meeting that over 150 participating States at the Financing for Development Conference in Doha at the end of last year had called for a high-level international conference to review the international financial and monetary architecture, including a possible expansion in the representation of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The 192-member General Assembly has decided that its President, Mr. D'Escoto, should be responsible for organizing the conference to be held in June.

He announced today that he had appointed Yu Yongding, the Director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as president of a commission of experts to assist UN Member States in identifying problems and recommending solutions that will be considered in the run up to the June conference.

"The coming June conference represents an historic opportunity for the G77 and China," said Mr. D'Escoto.

"A new system is possible that can truly facilitate the integration of the developing countries into global decision making and ensure that the interests and concerns of all counties are taken into account," he added.

The Assembly President noted that the transformation of China as an economic powerhouse has captivated the world, and that it has "demonstrated what wise management, forward planning and cooperation – particularly South-South cooperation – can do."
________________