CHINA TO DONATE ANOTHER US$800,000 AND MORE MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR SUPPORTING PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

China and Pacific Island countries held a special Vice Foreign Ministers’ video conference on COVID-19 recently.

Delegates from China and 10 Pacific island countries discussed domestic epidemic situation, anti-epidemic measures, global containment efforts, bilateral co-operation between China and Pacific Island countries, and coordination on multilateral occasions, reaching broad consensus.

At the conference, the Chinese government announced to inject a further US$500,000 (FJ$1,108,950) to the “China–Pacific Island Countries AntiCOVID-19 Co-operation Fund”, bringing the total fund to US$2.4 million (FJ$5.32m), to help combat the COVID-19 epidemic and strengthening the public health systems.

China has also donated US$200,000 (FJ$443,580) to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Samoa, to support the secretariat in its efforts to address priority concerns of Pacific island countries, who suffer from both climate change and the COVID-19 crisis.

Further, China will donate US$100,000 (FJ$221,790) to the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO), to help the Pacific tourism-driven countries affected by the epidemic.

Another batch of medical supplies donated by China’s Guangdong Province will be delivered to the Pacific to help with local anti-epidemic fight. The supplies include 200,000 face masks, 200,000 pairs of surgical gloves, 50,000 protective suits, 10,000 COVID-19 test kits, 300 infrared thermometers.