China accelerated state-led investment in roads, railways and factories last month as the government tried to stem an economic slowdown stemming from the SARS epidemic.
Fixed-asset investment -- which includes spending by government and state-owned enterprises -- rose 35 percent from a year earlier to 331 billion yuan (US$40 billion) after increasing 29 percent to 279 billion yuan in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement released in Beijing.
PHOTO:REUTERS
"It could be partly the front-loading of government spending," said Prakash Sakpal, an economist at ING Bank NV in Hong Kong.
China urged state-owned enterprises to bring forward planned spending "to outweigh the impact of SARS," he said.
The spread of SARS curbed consumer spending in cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, and kept foreign tourists, investors and buyers away, slowing economic growth. In Beijing, the world's worst-infected city, growth slowed three-fifths last month, retail sales dropped by a tenth and foreign tourist arrivals plunged 94 percent.
The fixed-asset-investment growth rate in the Chinese capital was 6 percentage points higher in the first five months than it was in the January-to-April period, the bureau said. For the whole country, the rate rose 1 percentage point to 32 percent, giving spending for the first five months of 1.06 trillion yuan.
China is spending record amounts on projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, a railroad to connect Qinghai Province to Tibet and a West-to-East gas pipeline to keep the world's sixth-largest economy growing at least 7 percent a year. That's the pace of growth the government says is needed to create jobs for about 8 million people entering the workforce each year.
The central government plans to invest 100 billion yuan over the next three years to build 176,000km of roads, the Ministry of Communications said last month. There are 184 towns and 54,000 villages, mostly in the poorer, western part of the country, that have no access to roads.
The government is projecting a record budget deficit of 320 billion yuan this year and prior to the SARS outbreak had planned to rein in spending to help narrow the gap in its finances. It may be inclined to press ahead with this plan now the disease has been brought under control and life returns to normal.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS