New measures unveiled to spur growth
The government unveiled yesterday a slew of infrastructure projects and increased export rebates for the third time in recent months - in a wide-ranging initiative to stimulate growth and offset the effects of the global downturn. An executive meeting, presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, approved projects with a combined investment of more than 200 billion Yuan ($29 billion) designed to help boost domestic demand. The projects include a gas pipeline from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region to Guangdong and Hong Kong; expansion projects for two nuclear power plants in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces; water conservation projects in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Guizhou and Jiangxi provinces; and new airports in Anhui province and in Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
(Infrastructure and construction projects will be a primary effort of China's stimulus funds, photo from chinadaily.cn)
China reports $216 bln trade surplus in Jan.-Oct. period
China's General Administration of Customs announced on Wednesday that the country's trade surplus in the first ten months of this year stood at 215.99 billion U.S. dollars, with the trade surplus in October reaching 35.24 billion U.S. dollars. Figures also show that the country's combined exports from January to October reached 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars, up 21.9 percent compared to last year.
Crude oil down 5% on gloomy demand forecast Crude oil slid another 5 percent on Wednesday as the U.S. government lowered its oil demand forecast due to global economic downturn. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report on Wednesday that it has cut the forecast of crude output in 2009 by 740,000 barrels per day. The EIA report also predicted that the United States may see the oil demand fall by more than 1 million barrels a day for the first time since 1980.
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