Monday, April 13, 2009

China offers funds to boost Asean


China has unveiled plans to establish a $10bn (£6.8bn) investment fund for south-east Asian countries.

It has also offered credit of $15bn to the Association of South-East Asian Nations, or Asean.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had planned to announce the fund at the cancelled Asean summit this weekend.

Asean was set up in 1967 in part to counter influence from communist China but has since become a vehicle for close ties.

The collapse of the Asean summit, scheduled in Pattaya, Thailand, this weekend, delayed the conclusion of a key investment agreement between China and the economic bloc.

That deal is intended to create the world's largest free trade area, covering nearly two-billion people.

China funds

China's Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, announced the new funding plans in Beijing to a gathering of envoys from the 10 members of Asean - Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The $10bn investment fund was designed for cooperation on infrastructure construction, energy and resources, information and communications, China's state news agency Xinhua quoted Mr Yang as saying.

Over the next three to five years, China planned to offer $15bn in credit, including loans with preferential terms of $1.7bn in aid for cooperation projects.

China also planned to offer 270 million yuan ($39.7m) in special aid to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to meet urgent needs, inject $5m into the China-Asean Cooperation Fund, and donate $900,000 to the cooperation fund of Asean Plus-3, the side grouping of Asean plus China, Japan and the South Korea.

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