| China increases preferential credit to ASEAN |
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| Sunday,October 25,2009 Posted: 11:40 BJT(0340 GMT) |
| From:Chinadaily Article type:Reproduced |
China will raise the preferential part of the commercial credit it offers to Southeast Asian nations by $5 billion, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Saturday.
The perferential part of the $15-billion credit, as a result, will increase to $6.7 billion, Wen said at a summit with dialogue partners from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hua Hin, Thailand.
"We made the offer to demonstrate our support for China-ASEAN cooperation in infrastructure construction," he said.
China unveiled the plan to offer $15 billion of commercial credit to the ASEAN countries in April. The credit is to be provided in the next three to five years.
In a move to showcase China's efforts to further ties with its Southeast Asian neighbors, China has also rolled out a plan to set up a China-ASEAN investment cooperation fund of $10 billion. The fund is designed to promote cooperation on infrastructure construction, energy and resources, information and communications.
Wen said at the summit Saturday that the first $1 billion of the fund was close to being in place.
The Chinese premier also made a number of other proposals to advance cooperation with the ASEAN in fields such as the economy, finance, trade, environment, rural development and regional cooperation.
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