International

Ministry to shore up bottlenecks along transport infrastructure

China will encourage investment in transport infrastructure construction, ensuring unimpeded logistics and helping solve the problems of enterprises to maintain a stable economy, a senior official from the Ministry of Transport said.

“Transportation and logistics are the arteries of the economy and important pillars to support people’s livelihoods,” Xu Chengguang, chief planner of the Ministry of Transport, told Xinhua News Agency.

China’s transport sector operated smoothly in the first quarter of the year, with freight volume increasing by 1.5 percent year-on-year. Cargo handled at ports increased by 1.6 percent, and the sector’s fixed-asset investment saw year-on-year growth of 9.8 percent.

However, since March, the latest outbreak of COVID-19 in China and the Ukraine crisis have brought challenges to the country’s economy. The transport sector saw a drop in passengers and a logistics bottleneck, especially in cross-region freight transportation.

To tackle the problems, the sector will continue to invest in infrastructure construction, building a comprehensive transport network and promoting 102 major infrastructure and transport projects, Xu said.

From January to March, fixed-asset investment in the transport sector amounted to 636 billion yuan ($97 billion), up 9.8 percent year-on-year, according to the ministry.

The growth rate climbed 1 percentage point from the fourth quarter in 2021, providing effective support for stabilizing the macroeconomy, said Wang Songbo, an official with the ministry, at a recent news conference.

The majority of the funds went to road and waterway infrastructure construction, with investment in road construction rising 11.8 percent year-on-year to 481 billion yuan in the period.

Investment in waterway construction came in at 31 billion yuan from January to March, up 5.4 percent.

Xu said the sector will focus on bottlenecks to ensure unimpeded logistics, paying attention to key regions, key enterprises and to ensuring people’s livelihoods.

The ministry has promoted the use of nationally recognized traffic permits and 24 provinces have adopted the use of them for truckers. The permit has a unified format, is recognized by local governments, is easy to apply for and valid at all checkpoints.

Other measures have been adopted such as establishing a white list for truckers, building more logistics transfer hubs, and setting up a white list system for key industrial and supply chain enterprises to meet the logistics needs of those companies.

Three additional hubs to transfer emergency supplies to Shanghai and nearby regions have been established to ensure people’s livelihoods and the production of key industrial and supply chain enterprises.

Gridlocks in the national transport network have been eased but some problems still exist, such as barring trucks from regions categorized as medium and high-risk areas in some areas, Zhou Min, deputy head of the emergency response office from the Ministry of Transport, said at a news conference recently.

China has rolled out policies to relieve the burden on enterprises amid the epidemic, such as tax and rent deductions and reducing unemployment and injury insurance fees. It is also providing financial support such as continuing offering subsidies for the purchase of new energy vehicles and extending dates to repay loans.

The ministry will ensure State preferential policies are carried out in the sector and benefit enterprises.

The ministry will also guide passenger transport enterprises to develop new business, such as tailored services, Xu said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

International

10 % ON EXPORTS TO US

US President Donald Trump says it’s Liberation Day in America as he announced his sweeping new tariffs. The new measures took effect at midnight. Since taking office in January, Trump has imposed several of the measures.

US President Donald Trump has announced a 10 percent universal tariff on all imports into the country. This includes Barbadian exports to the American market. According to Mr. Trump, the tariff is in retaliation for the 10 per cent tariff now charged by Jamaica on U.S. imports.

The tariff means American consumers are likely to see an increase in the price of Jamaican goods sold on the U.S. market.

St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Belize, Suriname, St. Kitts and Antigua are among the Caribbean countries that will also see a 10% tariff applied to their exports.

Nearly 60 countries across the world have been hit with tariffs ranging from 10 per cent to as high as 49 per cent. China, countries in the European Union, Taiwan and Vietnam are among the hardest hit. It’s one of the most sweeping impositions of tariffs in U.S. history.

Trump says the tariffs are aimed at protecting American markets from unfair global trade practices. He’s projecting a resurgence in American manufacturing as a result of the sweeping tariffs.

International

China’s Xi Jinping tells top global CEOs to use their influence to defend trade

Gathering of senior business leaders in Beijing comes amid rising tensions with US

Xi Jinping has urged global business leaders to work together to protect supply chains at a meeting with a group of executives including Rajesh Subramaniam of FedEx, Ola Källenius of Mercedes-Benz and Georges Elhedery of HSBC.

Amid a deepening trade war with the US, the Chinese leader told the group of more than 40 business leaders, which also included Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, Miguel Ángel López Borrego of Thyssenkrupp and Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco, that foreign business leaders should resist behaviours that “turn back the clock” on history.

“We hope everyone can take a broad and long-term view . . . and not blindly follow actions that disrupt the security and stability of global industrial chains and supply chains, but instead contribute more positive energy and certainty to global development,” Xi told the gathering in Beijing on Friday.

The event at the Great Hall of the People marked the second consecutive year that Xi held a carefully staged meeting with foreign chief executives in the Chinese capital. Last year’s event was held exclusively with US business leaders.

The meeting came at the conclusion of a busy week for Chinese policymakers, who are trying to strengthen relations with international business amid rising tensions with US President Donald Trump’s administration.

China’s premier annual CEO conference, the China Development Forum, was held in Beijing this week, followed by the Boao Forum for Asia in the tropical resort island of Hainan. Beijing is seeking to promote itself as a bastion of stability in global trade in contrast to the US, where Trump has launched successive waves of tariffs on products from aluminium to cars. The president has vowed widespread, reciprocal duties on US trading partners on April 2, threatening further disruption to international trade.

“A few countries are building ‘small yards with high walls’, setting up tariff barriers, and politicising, instrumentalising, weaponising, and over-securitising economic and trade issues,” said Xi, who was accompanied by his foreign, commerce and finance ministers.

He said these actions were forcing companies “to take sides and make choices that go against economic principles”. “This runs counter to the overarching trend of open markets,” he said. He added that foreign enterprises, especially multinational corporations, had “considerable international influence”.

“We hope everyone will . . . resist regressive moves that turn back the clock,” Xi said. “Together, we must safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains. “Decoupling and severing ties harms others without benefiting oneself; it leads nowhere.”

International

US to Negotiate with Regional Governments on Hiring of Cuban Doctors

US special envoy to the Caribbean and Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, says the United States intends to negotiate a mechanism with Caribbean governments regarding the hiring of Cuban doctors.

The US has threatened visa restrictions for nations who benefit from Cuban medical missions. They deem the programme as a form of forced labour and trafficking on the part of the Cuban government.

Several countries in the Caribbean rely heavily on Cuban medical missions to supplement local staff.

The special envoy says the US wants a united voice against human trafficking, in favour of international labour laws. He says they look forward to reaching a deal that allows Caribbean governments to directly hire Cuban doctors.