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TUESDAY JULY 29, 2008

PAGECHINA DAILY

Stable economic growth to get priority

slowdown over in ation control

By Xin Zhiming

Protection zone

to be set up for Qiang culture

>QIANG, From Page 1

It is this miraculous feature that could fetch the structures international recognition be-cause the central government has been trying to get them a UNESCO world cultural herit-age site status.

Zhang Bai, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said yester-day: “Their unique structure and outstanding quake-resist-ant feature make them a very eligible candidate.”

During a group interview, organized by the 2008 Beijing International Media Center, Zhang said Taoping’s application would be submitted in the next few years along with those of the Songshan Mountain, the Wutai Mountain and the Silk Road.Though Taoping did not suf-fer much damage, some other places where the Qiang people live, such as Beichuan county, were devastated by the quake.“We’re going to set up a cul-tural protection zone for Qiang culture in Sichuan (this year) because it needs urgent protec-tion,” said Zhang Xu, director of the intangible cultural heritage department of the Ministry of Culture.

The Qiang cultural protec-tion zone covers Beichuan, Wenchuan, Lixian and Maox-ian counties.

Some anthropologists say the Qiang minority group de-scended from a legendary 21st-century BC Chinese emperor. Others say it is a lost Israelite tribe. Still others have traced its origin to other sources.

The Qiangs numbered only about 300,000, and as their mis-fortune would have it, almost all of them lived within 100 km of the epicenter, and lost about 10 percent of its population to the quake.

The quake damaged or destroyed 23 national-level intangible cultural heritage relics.

Zhang Xu said the central and local governments will share the cost of setting up the zone and will try to rebuild Qiang villages, preserve the relics, give “Qiang cultural masters” more opportu-nities to practice their traditions and resume their festivals, and make video-clips in the Qiang language.

The authorities look set to give priority to the country’s stable economic growth in place of in ation control in the second half of the year, economists have said.

“It is a departure from the previous policies … which aimed to prevent the economy from overheating and keep ris-ing prices from evolving into entrenched inflation,” said Zhang Jun, director of the China Center for Economic Studies at Fudan University, yesterday.

The forecast follows a central

bank move over the weekend, which put stable and relatively swift economic growth as part of its top priority.

The central bank’s posi-tion is in turn in line with that of the top leadership, which has said that the authorities should “treat maintaining stable but rapid economic growth and control-ling excessive rises in prices as the top priorities in mac-roeconomic controls”, Xinhua has reported.

Previous policies to pre-vent the economy from over-heating and rein in inflation were set late last year, when the economy steamed ahead

with an 11.9 percent annual growth rate.That gure has cooled to 10.4 percent for the rst half of this year, amid expectations of the slowdown worsening.

Financial giant UBS has reaf- rmed its forecast of 10 percent GDP for the country this year, but lowered the forecast for 2009 from 9.5 percent to 8.8 percent.

“The Chinese economy is set to slide further,” said Wang Tao, head of the China economic research unit of UBS, citing a weaker global outlook and slower export-related invest-ment.

Wang also echoed Zhang’s view, that the authorities are looking to give stable economic growth more weight.

“The government is now somewhat more concerned about a sharper economic slowdown than inflation,” Wang said.

If that happened, she said, the authorities could allow room for local policy maneuvers to help re-orbit the economy onto a stable growth track, although an overall readjustment of the tight monetary policies would not be possible.

“We think this opens the door for policy stimulus that targets certain sectors and re-gions, while an overall easing of monetary and credit policy does not seem to be in the play yet,” she said.

“The local governments would be given more room to stimulate the economy.”

Zhang said policymakers may shift the focus of the blanket tightening policy to a “structural adjustment”, which

means policies would become more exible and more targeted toward different sectors.

“After the Olympic Games, more policies may come out to combat economic slowdown,” he said.

China’s economy will be “healthy” so long as its growth rate falls between 8 and 10 per-cent, said Wang Xiaoguang, a senior economist in Beijing. When the rate falls below 9 percent, the nation should start to relax policies, he said, adding that major stimulus measures should be taken if it goes down to below 8 percent.

The central bank also said over the weekend in its latest statement that it will keep the yuan “basically stable” at a “bal-anced level”, while analysts said

Yuan appreciationa rise in the value of the yuan may start to stabilize after its sharp appreciation in the rst half of the year.

In a previous statement after its monetary policy committee meeting for the rst quarter, the central bank had said it would resort to the market “in a larger extent” in deciding the value of the yuan, an indication that was absent in its latest statement.

“It may mark a major ad-justment of the exchange rate policy,” said Liu Dongliang, a currency analyst with China Merchants Bank.

“The yuan’s appreciation may start to slow.”

The yuan’s mid-point rate was 6.8277 against the US dollar yesterday, the seventh consecutive day it stood at the 6.82 level.

Local banks ready to offer ‘ rst-rate services’

have said. English-speaking

employees in bank branches will also be able to exchange

The country’s banks are fully 16 foreign currencies with prepared to provide rst-rate Chinese yuan.

Lenders in Beijing have services to overseas and do-mestic visitors to the Beijing also reportedly set up 201

Games, a senior industry of-ATM machines around

Games venues, hotels and cial said yesterday.

“After three years’ prepa-the airport, which are able ration, we are now ready to to accept credit cards that meet customers’ demand for carry Visa, Master and China financial services during Unionpay logos.

To deal with credit card fraud, the Olympics,” said Yang

Zaiping, executive vice-the Bank of Communications president of the China Bank-has worked with Visa to carry

out anti-fraud training for its ing Association.

Local banks have improved employees in Olympic venues their service standards, net-including Beijing, Shanghai, work and hardware over the Shenyang and Qingdao, of- cials said.past years and are now ready

Improvements have also to welcome the expected 1 mil-lion visitors coming to China reportedly been made to local

for the Olympics next month, banks’ services.

A recent survey showed Yang said.

In Beijing, there are now that 84 percent of bank cus-363 currency exchange tomers waited more than 15 offices, 82 of which are ex-minutes before being served, pected to provide services compared with 37.5 percent

last May, the banking asso-round the clock.

Similarly, 1,887 of the ciation said.

The association has also capital’s 3,200 banking

branches will be capable of opened a 24-hour “12345”

handling foreign currencies, Olympic hotline in Beijing, Travelers walk past an ATM machine at the Olympic Media Village in Beijing last weekend. Chinese banks are ready to provide foreign credit cards and offering its services in eight rst-rate services for visitors to the Games, including round-the-clock currency exchange and a multi-language hotline.traveler’s checks, officials different languages. Xu Jingxing

By Wang Xu

Central

MeteorologicalObservatory

WEATHER

July 29-30

Migrant workers need to be protected urgently

>MIGRANTS, From Page 1

Xu Lu, deputy pision chief of ACFTU’s international liaison department, said there was an urgent need to protect migrant workers from HIV/AIDS, and prevent them from becoming a high-risk group for the gen-eral population. “It’s important that we take immediate steps, focusing on migrant workers, to prevent the spread of the epidemic.”

Xu Zhenhuan, ACFTU vice-chairman, said his organization had been using its network to educate migrant workers on HIV/AIDS prevention and treat-ment. The ACFTU launched the Red Ribbon Campaign in 2004, aiming to raise mil-lions of workers’ awareness on HIV/AIDS.

And in line with China’s AIDS Action Plan for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10), the government will introduce

AIDS intervention program among 90 percent of the mi-grant workers by 2010.

Constance Thomas, director of the ILO Of ce for China and Mongolia, said the ACFTU-ILO project would help China focus on higher risk segments of the migrant work force and develop messages and services to change their specific risk behaviors.

“We need to move beyond just raising awareness to changing risk behaviors that lead to HIV infections among workers and their families.”

Leading actor Wang Bao-qiang, who was once a migrant worker in Beijing, was chosen to speak for the campaign. “The HIV situation in China is worrying … It’s time we took rm action to protect migrant workers from the disease … If I can save even one life with my words, I will consider it a job well done,” he said.

Huge civilian casualties

>BLAST, From Page 1

The attack came on the eve of deliberations by Turkey’s top court on whether to ban the ruling party for allegedly trying to steer the country toward Islamic rule. There was no evidence of a link or claim of responsibility.

Turkey is home to a variety of militants, including Kurdish rebels and Islamic extremists, and alleged coup plotters with ties to the secular establishment.Opposition leader Deniz Baykal said security of cials told him the type of bombs used were similar to those used in at-tacks in Ankara and the mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir that were blamed on the PKK.

The high level of profession-alism in the Istanbul bombings, apparently designed to in ict

maximum casualties among

civilians, was unsettling.

Authorities said the vast majority of the deaths and in-juries occurred when a curious crowd gathered after the rst, but much smaller blast.

“First, they exploded a per-cussion bomb to grab attention. Then, 10 minutes later, in an-other trash-can, they exploded a fragmentation bomb,” said Hayati Yazici, deputy prime minister.

The Cihan news agency said the second bomb consisted of the same plastic explosive used in a May 2007 suicide attack in An-kara that killed seven people.

Agencies

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