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Liu He: China to Roll Out Fresh Market Opening Measures This Year

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Liu He: China to Roll Out Fresh Market Opening Measures This Year

China will roll out fresh market-opening measures this year that could exceed “international expectations”, a top Communist Party official said in Davos on Wednesday (Jan 24).

China will ease restrictions for foreign companies in its financial, manufacturing and services sectors, while stepping up efforts in protecting intellectual property and expanding imports, said Mr Liu He, who heads the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs.

China has frustrated foreign financial firms eager to expand in its multi-trillion-dollar financial sector, but announced measures late last year to ease market access.

“I can responsibly say we will realise our promises one by one this year,” said Mr Liu, who was leading the Chinese delegation to the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort.

He added: “Some measures will exceed the expectations of the international community.”

“Opening up is not only important for China, but also for the whole world.”

He added that a fresh reform push was also a celebration of the 40th anniversary of China’s shift away from a closed Communist system.

China will also lower import tariffs for cars “in an orderly way”, Mr Liu said, without giving any details.

China, which is under increasing pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump over its trade practices, imposes a 25 per cent tax on imported cars.

After Mr Trump’s visit to China in November, Beijing said it would gradually cut tariffs on vehicles.

Last week, US Senator Chuck Schumer called Chinese automotive trade rules “manifestly unfair, and a typically unfortunate example of China’s rapacious trading policies”.

Chinese-built cars shipped to the United States face a 2.5 per cent tariff.

Mr Liu said economic globalisation should be more “open, inclusive and balanced,” echoing President Xi Jinping’s remarks last year, when he urged business and political elites to reject trade war and protectionism.

Mr Xi’s appearance at Davos, which has more usually been attended by China’s premiers, showed the country has become more active in leading globalization.

“China has stood firm against all forms of protectionism,” Mr Liu said. “We have broadened access to our financial markets and taken the initiative to increase imports.”

Beijing in November took a major step towards the long-awaited opening of its financial system, saying it will remove foreign ownership limits on banks while allowing overseas firms to take majority stakes in local securities ventures, fund managers and insurers.

Mr Liu reiterated China will focus on three battles in coming years: resolving risks, reducing poverty and controlling pollution. China will make our “skies blue again”, he vowed.

Mr Liu, who was elevated to the Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo in October after many years of guiding economic policy behind the scenes, is taking on more public roles and seen as in line to become vice premier this year. The potential promotion may mean he’ll lead the State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, a new organisation charged with corralling China’s disparate financial regulators and defusing risks.


Chinese Communist Party Central Committee member Liu He addressing participants at the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan 24, 2018. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

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Australia’s capital Canberra to enter seven-day lockdown

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Australia’s capital Canberra to enter seven-day lockdown
Millions of people across Australia's southeast are now under lockdown, as the country struggles to contain multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant William WEST AFP/File

Australia’s capital Canberra was ordered into a seven-day lockdown on Thursday (Aug 12), after a single COVID-19 case was detected in the city that has largely avoided virus restrictions.

About 400,000 people in the nation’s political hub will be under stay-at-home orders from 5pm local time, joining millions more already under lockdown in Australia’s southeast.

“This is the most serious public health risk that we are faced in the territory this year. Really, since the beginning of the pandemic,” Australian Capital Territory chief minister Andrew Barr said.

He added that the COVID-positive person had been in the community while infectious.

Canberra has not been in lockdown since a nationwide shutdown in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020.

After months of pursuing a “COVID zero” strategy, Australia is struggling to contain multiple outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

More than 10 million people in the country’s biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, are currently in lockdown as authorities try to bring case numbers down.

Much of western New South Wales state was also placed under lockdown late Wednesday, amid concerns for a sizeable Indigenous population feared more vulnerable to coronavirus.

“I ask all our Aboriginal community as well to please stay at home, come forward for a test if you have symptoms and of course please get vaccinated with any available vaccine as soon as you can,” New South Wales Health’s Marianne Gale said.

In Sydney, the epicentre of the outbreak, almost 6,500 cases and 36 deaths have been recorded since a cluster emerged in mid-June.

The city is expected to spend at least nine weeks under stay-at-home orders, with several hotspot suburbs placed under harsher restrictions on Thursday.

Australia won global praise for its successful coronavirus response in the early stages of the pandemic, and most of the country was enjoying few restrictions by late 2020.

But a glacial vaccination rollout has been no match for the Delta variant, leaving cities and towns reliant on repeated lockdowns as they attempt to stamp out the coronavirus.

The nation has recorded more than 37,500 cases of COVID-19 and 946 related deaths to date in a population of 25 million. AFP

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Stagflation starts to squeeze profit margins

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Stagflation starts to squeeze profit margins

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Mainland tech rallies while Hong Kong wilts

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Mainland tech rallies while Hong Kong wilts

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Inflation fears crash US stock market

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Inflation fears crash US stock market

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Russia to reveal ‘mystery plane’ at MAKS 2021

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Russia to reveal ‘mystery plane’ at MAKS 2021

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After months of speculation, that something top secret and special was happening at Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, the countdown has begun.

UAC, part of the Russian state corporation Rostec, has teased the reveal of a new fighter jet on July 20, 2021, on the first day of the MAKS 2021 International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky, Aerotime Hub reported.

The upcoming aircraft, dubbed “Checkmate,” could be a light fighter jet “with a supersonic speed capability and low radar signature,” a source told Russian news agency TASS.

And according to a newly released trailer (attached below), this aircraft could be mainly oriented towards export.

“Russia is one of the few countries in the world with full-cycle capacities for producing advanced aircraft systems, as well as a recognized trendsetter in the creation of combat aircraft,” a Rostec spokesman commented.

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Tech giants give vaccines to Taiwan, sidestep China

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Tech giants give vaccines to Taiwan, sidestep China

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Taiwanese tech giants Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced Monday they will each donate five million coronavirus vaccine doses to the government in a deal with a China-based distributor. Taipei has been struggling to secure enough vaccines for its population and its precarious political status has been a major stumbling block. As Taipei and […]

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