BEIJING, Oct 20 (Reuters) - China is willing to offer assistance to Sri Lanka without political conditions and buy more of its exports, President Xi Jinping told his Sri Lankan counterpart on Friday in Beijing, state media said.
“The two sides should make every effort to promote Colombo port city and Hambantota,” Xi told Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, a summary of their meeting showed, referring to major projects China has backed in its ‘Belt and Road’ effort.
Wickremesinghe was in the Chinese capital for the Belt and Road Forum that ended on Wednesday as well as talks on restructuring debt.
“China is willing to continue to provide assistance to Sri Lanka without attaching political conditions, to help it cope with the difficulties it faces,” Xi added.
Last May Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt as dollar reserves fell to a point where it was unable to pay for essential imports such as fuel and medicine.
“China is willing to expand the import of Sri Lanka’s … products and will encourage Chinese enterprises to invest,” Xi said.
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BEIJING, Oct 18 (Reuters) - China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected clip in the third quarter, while consumption and industrial activity in September also surprised on the upside, suggesting the recent flurry of policy measures is helping to bolster a tentative recovery.
Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.9% in July-September from the year earlier, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed, versus analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 4.4% increase but slower than the 6.3% expansion in the second quarter.
The government is walking a tight rope as it tries to restore economic equilibrium, with policymakers having to navigate a domestic property crisis, high youth unemployment, depressed private sector confidence, a slowdown in global growth and Sino-U.S. tensions over trade, technology and geopolitics.
Beijing has in recent weeks unveiled a raft of measures, but its ability to spur growth has been hamstrung by fears over debt risks and a fragile yuan, which has been hit hard this year due to widening yield differentials as global interest rates remain elevated, led by the Federal Reserve’s tightening campaign.
A grace period for a $15 million coupon payment by Country Garden Holdings (2007.HK), China’s biggest private property developer, expired earlier in the day, fuelling fears that it had defaulted on its offshore debt.
“In the near-term, our expectations are still for a further round of 10bp rate cuts in Q4 from the PBOC, a step-up in the easing of homebuying restrictions, and modest increases in state-directed infrastructure spending,” said Louise Loo, China economist at Oxford Economics, in a note.
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Xi also lauded his grand plan launched 10 years ago of building global infrastructure and energy networks connecting Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes, saying that “blueprints turned into real projects”.
Representatives of more than 130 countries, largely from the Global South, attended the forum including several heads of state, of whom the most prominent was Xi’s “dear friend” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We stand against unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and supply chain disruption,” Xi told more than 1,000 delegates gathered in an ornate conference room in the Great Hall of the People west of Tiananmen Square.
Western leaders insist that their goal is to “de-risk”, not “decouple”, from China, saying that they want to diversify supply chains that have become overly dependent on the world’s second-largest economy.
On Wednesday, Xi reinforced those trends, pledging to “deepen cooperation in green infrastructure, energy and transportation,” and “put forward global initiative for artificial intelligence governance.”
A European business representative, who did not want to be named for sensitivity reasons, said on the sidelines of the ceremony that BRI was, “creating impact for some of the countries involved” and that, “I think there is some truth to some of the speeches about improving livelihood and connectivity.”
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Biden has been widely expected to ask Congress to pass a supplemental spending bill within days, as Washington responds to the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants while looking to continue to support Ukraine as it grapples with a Russian invasion.
The news broke as Biden prepared to depart for Tel Aviv and Amman to show support for Israel and also to meet leaders of Jordan and Egypt on the Gaza humanitarian crisis
U.S. Senate leaders had said earlier on Tuesday they expected Biden to send them a request by the end of this week for billions of dollars in assistance for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and for security at the U.S. border.
A congressional source familiar with the request said Israel had asked for $10 billion, as it responds to an attack on its citizens by the Iran-backed militant group Hamas.
Congress has already approved $113 billion in security, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine since Russian troops poured into its territory in February 2022.
Top Biden administration officials will hold a classified briefing on Wednesday for the Senate on the situation in Israel and Gaza.
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