XI TELLS COUNTRIES TO REJECT PROTECTIONISM

Major multilateral institutions urged to join US$124b project

BEIJING March and forecasts of seven per cent in a survey by Bloomberg News.

Other figures also disappointed. April retail sales rose 10.7 per cent year-on-year, below the previous that can be drawn from the global financial crisis and is still very relevant to the development of the world economy today,” he said.

“We need to seek win-win results through greater openness and cooperation, avoid fragmentation, refrain from setting inhibitive thresholds for cooperation or pursuing exclusive arrangements and reject protectionism.”

The Belt and Road initiative is seen as part of China’s answer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, a regional trade pact involving Pacific Rim nations, excluding China.

In contrast, Xi said China’s Belt and Road plan would be inclusive and open to all.

“In a world of growing interdependency and challenges, no country can tackle the challenges, also the world’s problems, on its own,” said Xi.

Leaders from 29 countries, including month’s reading and estimates of 10.8 per cent.

Fixed-asset investment excluding rural areas rose 8.9 per cent in the first four months of the year, compared with 9.2 per cent Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, as well as the heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, are attending the Belt and Road forum.

But some Western diplomats have expressed unease about both the summit and the plan as a whole, seeing it as an attempt to promote Chinese influence globally.

European Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen said yesterday that EU member states would not be signing ministerial statements connected to the summit, though he downplayed the significance.

“The European Commission, which has a mandate, which has the capacity to negotiate on behalf of member states on traderelated issues, we were not given a chance to negotiate on the text,” he said. Reuters

We need to improve policy coordination and reject beggarthy-neighbour practices.

in January-March.

“All the data sends the same message: The economy slowed down meaningfully in April,” said Macquarie Securities head of China economics Larry Hu. AFP