Day: March 9, 2023

A string of positive signals is coming out China’s ongoing “two sessions” — an economic growth target of around 5 percent for 2023 and reaffirmed commitment to high-level opening up. These have boosted the global business community’s confidence in China’s continued contribution to the world economic recovery and stability. China’s devotion to advancing opening up has reinforced its appeal for foreign companies and investors amid flagging global economic recovery and headwinds of protectionism.

* Last year, foreign direct investment in the Chinese mainland, in actual use, expanded 6.3 percent year-on-year to 1.23 trillion yuan (about 178 billion dollars).

* Ahead of the “two sessions,” in a global survey Xinhua conducted on the development of China, more than 95 percent of the respondents agree that China made impressive achievements in the past decade.

(KPL/Xinhua) — A string of positive signals is coming out China’s ongoing “two sessions” — an economic growth target of around 5 percent for 2023 and reaffirmed commitment to high-level opening up. These have boosted the global business community’s confidence in China’s continued contribution to the world economic recovery and stability.

When attending a deliberation on Monday at the first session of the 14th National People’s Congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged efforts to meet the requirements of building a high-standard socialist market economy and promoting high-standard opening up.

China’s devotion to advancing opening up has reinforced its appeal for foreign companies and investors amid flagging global economic recovery and headwinds of protectionism.

Looking back to the past five years, China has made major achievements in economic and social development, with its GDP growing to 121 trillion yuan (17.5 trillion U.S. dollars) at an average annual rate of 5.2 percent, according to the government work report delivered at the opening meeting of the session on Sunday.

As China steadily pushes forward economic recovery to promote high-quality development, the agenda for 2023 is set to be dominated by one topic in particular: growth.

These days, global financial banks have raised their forecast for the world’s second-largest economy in unison. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lifted its projection for China’s economic growth in 2023 to 5.2 percent. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other investment banks have also revised upward their forecasts.

“The rebound in China will be a net positive for the economy; the growth effect should dominate,” Thomas Helbling, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department, told a February press briefing.

Among the major driving factors for China’s social and economic development, sci-tech innovation has a paramount role.

Source: Lao News Agency

Republic of Korea’s new COVID-19 cases stayed over 10,000 for the third straight day Thursday amid eased COVID-19 virus curbs.

The country reported 10,890 new COVID-19 infections, including seven cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 30,605,187, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Thursday’s tally is slightly down from 12,798 a day earlier and higher than 7,555 a week earlier, KDCA data showed.

The country added 20 COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 34,081. The number of critically ill patients came to 143, up from 139 the previous day.

Health authorities are mulling ways to further ease the antivirus measures in the coming months as new infections stay at low levels.

On Jan. 30, the government lifted the indoor mask mandate that had been enforced since October 2020.

People can visit most places, including schools, kindergartens and gyms, without masks, but the mask mandate remains in place at hospitals, pharmacies and on public transportation.

Source: Lao News Agency

The Laos-China Railway Co., Ltd has announced it will begin selling tickets through its newly developed application LCR Ticket from March 15, 2023 onward. Yet the service is available for domestic passengers only.

The mobile application is compatible to both Android and IOS smart phones.

Previously the app was just used for checking information on train station of the Laos-China Railway.

With the LCR Ticket APP, passengers can check information regarding their trips, buy tickets, make a reservation (up to seven days in advance), change reservation information or even cancel their reservation.

After purchasing a ticket using the app, passengers can bring the QR Code to pick up the ticket at any stations of the Laos-China Railway.

On March 4, Laos-China Railway transported more than 10,000 passengers, the highest daily number of passengers ever recorded since the launch of the railway in early December 2021.

In the first two months of this year, the Laos-China railway carried 417,400 passengers, an increase of 256.2% compared to the same period last year. Goods transport via the railway reached 647,700 tons, an increase of 320% year on year, according to the railway company.

Source: Lao News Agency

On March 6, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Saleumxay Kommasith delivered remarks at the General Debate of the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha, Qatar.

“The implementation of the Istanbul Program of Action (IPOA 2011-2020) has allowed the LDCs to make some progress but still uneven. The LDCs have been severely affected by the multiple challenges particularly the unprecedented impacts of the COVID- 19 pandemic, financial difficulties, food and energy crises and armed conflicts, which further exacerbated their already existing structural vulnerabilities, limited productive capacity and extreme poverty,” said the Deputy Prime Minister.

He noted that the adoption of the Doha Program of Action for LDCs (DPoA) marks an important milestone for the international community to help the LDCs to achieve rapid recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, build resilience against future shock, eradicate extreme poverty, achieve graduation and the Sustainable Development Goals.

He urged the international community to double efforts to ensure the effective and timely implementation of the Doha Program of Action by fulfilling commitments contained therein noting that the LDCs are in need of enhanced international support measures and strengthened partnerships more than ever so that they can move forward from their potential to prosperity, and importantly that no-one and no-country will be left behind.

He reaffirmed the Lao PDR commitments to graduate smoothly, qualitatively and sustainably from the least developed country status and called on the international community to continue to provide cooperation and support to the Lao PDR during graduation, transition and beyond graduation.

On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Saleumxay also met with UN Assistant Secretary General for Development Coordination Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to discuss the UN’s role in coordinating and promoting the performance of UN agencies to make sure their efforts are in line with development priorities of the Lao government, and UN’s support for Laos’ graduation from the least developed country status.

Source: Lao News Agency

D-Book Printing in cooperation with the National University of Laos on Wednesday launched Book Festival 2023 at the National University of Laos, Vientiane. The annual event will last through March 12.

D-Book Printing Director Sommay Phoummachanh said, “This year book festival gathers more than 100,000 books for exhibition and sales purposes including books from Thailand, France, England, China, Korea and Japan and other countries.”

Seminars, lectures, cultural performance, and other activities are also held on the sidelines to promote reading, according to Mr Sommay.

“This year book festival helps materialize Laos’ strategic plan on human resource development through 2025, which aims to increase the reading ratio to 2/3 of population in the country by 2025,” said Mr Sommay. “The event also marks the 28th anniversary of World Book Day – March 2 and the 113th anniversary of International Women’s Day – March 8 as well as the 68th anniversary of the founding of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party – March 22.”

Source: Lao News Agency