China has outlined plans for revitalizing and restructuring its light industries and often loss-making oil refining sector, in the government’s latest effort to help create jobs and boost economic growth.
The plans, issued by the State Council late on Monday and posted on the government’s Web site, are aimed at creating about 3 million jobs and helping manufacturers weather a sharp downturn in export demand amid the global financial crisis.
The measures are typical of the Chinese Communist Party’s penchant for grand, multiyear economic plans.
PHOTO: EPA
However, the government gave no specific dollar amount for the programs and it was unclear whether or not some costs are included in a 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) economic stimulus package announced late last year, which focused on construction projects.
The outline for the refining sector calls for raising crude oil processing capacity by about 18 percent from last year to 405 million tonnes a year by 2011.
By then, China plans to build three or four major refineries in the Yangtze River Delta, near Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta, near Hong Kong in southern China, the notice by the State Council said.
Each plant would be able to process 20 million tonnes of crude oil per year, it said.
Meanwhile, existing refineries will be upgraded to become less polluting, with energy efficiency to be improved and discharges of waste water and sulfur dioxide to fall by more than 6 percent.
Chinese refineries processed more than 342 million tonnes of crude oil last year, while much of the country faced chronic shortages of diesel and gasoline, particularly before growth slowed late in the year.
Soaring crude oil prices left major refiners with massive losses because of price controls that prevented oil companies from passing on higher costs for oil imports to end users.
The government’s plans for the light industrial sector, also issued on its Web site, also did not include any financial details.
They call for upgrading technology and providing more support for small and medium-sized businesses that dominate the sector but suffer from a lack of access to back loans and other financing.
Light industries such as home appliance, apparel, shoe, furniture and plastics products makers employ some 35 million people and once dominated China’s export sector.
But thousands of such factories have closed amid the global downturn and many of those remaining need upgrading and improved environmental protection.
“At the same time that our light industry has grown very quickly, some long-term, acute contradictions and problems have emerged,” the plan said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS