Despite challenges brought by Covid-19, China and the US are still working on implementing the phase one trade deal signed in January, according to Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US.
“Hopefully, we can still do it,” Cui said in an interview earlier this month. The Chinese embassy in the US published the transcript of the interview on its website last Sunday.
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“There is no doubt” that the UK cannot have a “business as usual” relationship with China after the Covid-19 crisis, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said in a Thursday press briefing when asked if there would be a “reckoning” with China. “We have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it could have been stopped earlier,” Raab added.
He also said that Britain had worked well with Beijing in repatriating citizens and procurement.
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The US is opposing to a new fundraising plan by the International Monetary Fund to issue special drawing rights (SDRs) as it does not want China and Iran to access billions of dollars with no conditions, reported Reuters.
“I would like to stress that international financial institutions are important platforms for cooperation, not political tools in the hands of a few countries,” Zhao said, according to the Foreign Ministry’s website.
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The Chinese Ministry of Commerce named and shamed two companies for exporting low quality Covid-19 protective supplies.
Beijing-based blockchain technology company Tus Data Asset Technologies and Shenzhen-based AIPO International are banned from exporting any more protective supplies, the Ministry of Commerce said in a Monday release. Products they already exported were returned by the recipients.
Their behaviours “disrupted the market order and tarnished China’s national image”, the ministry said.
China has already introduced stricter customs checks on companies exporting ventilators, surgical masks and other medical equipment.
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China’s National Medical Products Administration has licensed two domestically produced Covid-19 vaccines to enter phase one and two clinical trials, local media Caixin reported.
The first vaccine candidate is co-developed by the Wuhan-based unit of Sinopharm and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was developed by a group of institutions led by Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech. Sinovac was also engaged in the early phase vaccine development during the 2003 SARS outbreak.
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The State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on Tuesday that it plans to relax some rules to support cross-border businesses. These include an easier process for companies to use the funds raised overseas for domestic payments.