Asian Development Outlook- April 2025
<p>Weak consumption in the People’s Republic of China will partly offset robust domestic demand in South Asia. Disinflation is expected to continue, driven by lower food and energy prices, along
China
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CPC hopes to revive project with CNOOC
CPC Corporation of Taiwan, the state-owned oil company, said yesterday it hoped to resume joint oil exploration soon with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in the Taiwan Strait, which divides the self-governing island from the Chinese mainland. The plan reflects hopes that a warmer political climate between Beijing and Taipei could revive the sensitive project, which has been held up for years by tensions between China's Communist government and the island's democratically elected government.
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Analyst warns of $200 crude oil
Crude oil prices could surge to $200 a barrel in the next two years, according to theGoldman Sachs analyst who three years ago correctly predicted a price "super-spike" above $100 a barrel. The warning by Arjun Murti came as oil prices hit a fresh record high above $122 a barrel, boosted by supply disruptions in Nigeria, lower output in Russia and continued robust demand in China ahead of the Olympics. Mr Murti said the energy crisis could be coming to a head as a lack of adequate supply growth was becoming apparent.
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Olympics-Beijing Pollution No Added Risk For Asthma Athletes
Athletes suffering from asthma face no greater health risk at this summer's Beijing Olympics than other athletes, despite the city's pollution problem, a European anti-asthma organisation said on Tuesday. Beijing has been under increasing pressure to improve air quality ahead of the Aug. 8-24 Games after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said there was some risk to athletes competing in endurance events lasting more than an hour.
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President Hu looks forward to a 'warm spring'
Chinese President Hu Jintao called for bolstered trust and cooperation with Japan as he arrived in the country Tuesday for the first visit by a Chinese head of state in a decade. Hu, who arrived on a special Air China flight, is scheduled to hold summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday, after a meeting with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko earlier that day.
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EU joins U.S. chorus to blame India
The European Union too has jumped on the U.S. bandwagon to target India and China for driving food prices worldwide. EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural development Mariann Fischer Boel on Tuesday said change in dietary habits in India and China was responsible for the spiralling global food prices.
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Grain truths
By holding higher grain consumption in India and China responsible for global food crisis, US President George W Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, have needlessly started a blame game which is so far removed from the facts as to be laughable, which does not improve Mr Bush's already dodgy reputation on sticking to the facts, and which in any case leads the world nowhere in its combat against hunger.
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Streams of blood, or streams of peace
When Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the world before an audience of powerful businessmen and politicians, at a meeting in Switzerland earlier this year, he could have chosen any topic he liked. What he focused on was both a hoary old favourite, and a newly popular preoccupation, of debates on world affairs: the rising risk of wars over fresh water, as populations increase and the world gets drier.
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Anti-pollution march staged in western China
Hundreds of people marched in a western provincial capital over the weekend to protest environmental risks they say are associated with the construction of a petrochemical factory and oil refinery, witnesses said Monday. It was the latest in a series of rare but increasingly ambitious grass-roots movements in Chinese cities aimed at derailing government-backed industrial projects that could damage the environment and people's health.
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Chinese playing big role in Russian power expansion
MOSCOW: Chinese engineers are coming to the rescue of the Russian electricity sector under a five-year expansion plan that will rival the efforts of Lenin and Stalin to electrify the Soviet Union. An estimated 41,000 megawatts of new generating capacity is expected by 2011, much of it powered by coal rather than natural gas. This goal is way out of reach for Russian machine builders and even threatens to swamp the order books of global companies like General Electric and Siemens.
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26 children dead in Chinese viral outbreak
Authorities have reported more than 6,300 cases in a deadly viral outbreak and on Monday raised the death toll to 26 children. The latest fatality was in coastal Zhejiang province. The provincial Health Ministry's website said that in addition to the one death, 1,198 children had been stricken with enterovirus 71. The ministry appealed for any sick children "to be sent immediately to health clinics" and for people to "report the case immediately to health and education departments."