18/04/2020
BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) — China supports the action plan issued by the Group of 20 (G20) to deal with the impact of COVID-19 and will contribute to the G20 efforts to fight the pandemic through its own policy actions, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Friday.
G20 finance ministers and central bank governors agreed Wednesday to suspend debt service payments for the world’s poorest countries from May 1 until the end of the year.
China will implement more proactive fiscal policies with higher quality and efficiency, appropriately increase the fiscal deficit ratio, issue special government bonds, increase the scale of special bonds for local governments, and further cut taxes and fees, the MOF said.
In the process, China will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination with G20 members and jointly support the implementation of the G20 action plan, the MOF said.
China will carry out specific work through bilateral consultations at the request of relevant poor borrowers in accordance with the G20 consensus, the MOF said.
To achieve better results of the action plan, China calls on multilateral creditors and commercial creditors to take appropriate actions as soon as possible to jointly help the poorest countries tide over their difficulties, the MOF said.
China has been providing support to the international community through other bilateral and multilateral channels, including donating 20 million U.S. dollars to the World Health Organization and earmarking 10 million U.S. dollars in its Poverty Reduction and Regional Cooperation Fund under the Asian Development Bank to support outbreak control programs in the region.
Source: Xinhua
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10/04/2020
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will promote the sales of export products in domestic markets, as foreign trade faces unprecedented challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, an assistant commerce minister said on Friday.
As the coronavirus spreads to almost all of China’s trading partners, the world’s second-largest economy is set to reach a grim milestone for full year growth, with the pace of expansion likely to be the slowest since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. And, the export sector is facing millions of job losses and factory shutdowns.
“Due to the rapid spread of the epidemic in the world, foreign demand has slumped and the biggest difficulty facing foreign trade companies is the plunge in orders,” said Ren Hongbin, the assistant minister at the Ministry of Commerce.
He said firms across the board have had their orders cancelled or delayed, and new orders are “very hard to sign”.
“The uncertainty about the pandemic has become the biggest uncertainty for foreign trade development.”
Forecasters expect China’s 2020 growth could be nearer the 2.0% mark – the slowest in over 40 years – due to the sweeping impact of the pandemic both at home and overseas. The economy grew 6.1% last year.
China’s overseas shipments fell 17.2% in January-February from the same period a year earlier, marking the steepest fall since February 2019. Imports sank 4% from a year earlier.
Among the government measures to support the sector, China is accelerating efforts to build online trade fairs and guiding exporters to work with e-commerce retailers for sales in domestic markets and coordinating with its trading partners to stabilise supply chains, said Ren.
The Canton Fair, China’s oldest and biggest trade fair due to take place online, will feature live-streaming services for participants, Li Xingqian, another commerce ministry official, told the same briefing. The fair was originally scheduled to begin on April 15, but was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
China is willing to boost trade relations with other countries, including the United States, under the new circumstances, said Ren, adding that Beijing hopes to work together with Washington to promote bilateral trade.
Both countries have been engaged in a near two-year long trade war with tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s goods, before negotiators called a truce with an interim trade deal in January.
Source: Reuters
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