China hopes to promote peace, stability, prosperity with ASEAN: spokeswoman

China

China hopes to promote peace, stability, prosperity with ASEAN: spokeswoman

2024-10-08 16:26 Last Updated At：21:57

China looks forward to working with ASEAN and other regional countries to build consensus and strengthen cooperation, as part of the efforts to promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and beyond, said Chinese Foreign Affairs Spokesman Mao Ning at a press conference on Tuesday in Beijing.

At the invitation of Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the current ASEAN chair, Chinese Premier Li Qiang will attend the 27th China-ASEAN Summit, the 27th ASEAN Plus Three Summit and the 19th East Asia Summit to be held in Vientiane, Laos, from Wednesday to Friday, and pay an official visit to Laos.

Ahead of the leaders’ meetings focus on the regional development, Mao said, China looks forward to working with ASEAN and other regional countries to maintain peace, stability, development and prosperity.

"The world has entered a new period of disorder and transformation. While the East Asian region has generally maintained a sound momentum of peaceful development, it is facing increasing instability, uncertainties and unpredictable factors. In the face of the new situation, countries and people in the region cherish the hard-won peace and stability all the more, are more eager to achieve common development, and need to meet challenges through solidarity and cooperation," said Mao.

"China supports the theme of 'ASEAN: Strengthening Connectivity and Resilience' at this year's leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation, supports Laos in its role as the rotating chair of ASEAN, and supports new progress in the building of the ASEAN community. China looks forward to working with ASEAN and other regional countries to build consensus, deepen mutual trust and strengthen cooperation, so as to inject new impetus into peace, stability, development and prosperity of the region and the world at large," said the spokeswoman.

China to further expand domestic demand

2024-10-08 21:11 Last Updated At：21:37

In expanding domestic demand through consumption growth, China will integrate efforts in boosting consumption with those in delivering benefits to the people, and further promote increase of the earnings of middle- and low-income groups, said Zheng Shanjie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Further expanding domestic demand is one of the measures for systematically implementing a package of incremental policies to solidly promote economic growth, structural optimization and sustained momentum of development, according to Zheng.

"We will intensify support for specific groups. Before the National Day holiday, we have issued one-time living allowances to people in difficulty including those facing special difficulties and orphans. We will lift the level of financial aid for students and expand coverage of relevant policies. We will raise the cap of government-subsidized student loans for junior college and university students, and those pursuing master's or doctor's degrees, and promote the lowering of interest rates of such loans," said the official.

Zheng said China will promote continued expansion of consumption on bulk commodities through large-scale upgrading of equipment and the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones.

"We will expand consumption on services including elderly care and childcare, which are paid widespread attention across the society. We will support and regulate social forces in developing elderly care and childcare industries, enhance improvement of the policy system to boost birth rates, upgrade basic public services for childbirth and pediatric medical care. And we will foster new forms of consumption such as digital consumption and green consumption, and make the supply side better adapt to medium- and high-end demands," said Zheng.