China’s economy recovers as industry, retail, investment grow

BEIJING agencieS

China’s economy continues to show improvement in combined figures of the first two months of 2023, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Wednesday.

“The restarting of China’s growth engine is gathering pace, supported by robust industrial output, the rebound of consumption and service activities as well as expanding investment in infrastructure and manufacturing,” Pang Ming, chief economist and director of Research at JLL Greater China told media. China’s value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, went up 2.4 percent year on year, NBS data showed. The growth rate rose by 1.1 percentage points compared to December 2022, and the two-year average growth rate stood at 4.9 percent.

China’s retail sales of consumer goods increased 3.5 percent year on year, marking the first gain since October last year. China’s fixed-asset investment, a gauge of expenditure on items including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment, went up 5.5 percent, which is

0.4 percentage points higher than the full-year growth rate of 2022.

“The data in January and February as a whole represents a trend of stabilization and recovery,” NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui told a press conference on Wednesday. Fu noted four positive signs, namely, rising production demand, stable employment and consumer prices, and improved market expectations.

However, real estate investment in January and February fell again, dropping by 5.7 percent compared to the same period last year, although the decline was at a slower pace compared to the 12.2 percent drop in December.

“Property investment remains a laggard yet we expect it to gradually improve in the next several quarters on the back of an unevenly recovering physical market,” said Pang.

Opposes

ISLAMABAD Mian abRaR

China is seriously concerned about the recent statement made by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on nuclear submarine cooperation between the U.S., the UK and Australia, and firmly opposes the IAEA making an endorsement for the pact “under duress”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.

The U.S., the UK and Australia recently unveiled details of their plan to create a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the AUKUS pact, Australia, a non-nuclear-weapon state, is to get its first batch of nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. and the allies will also work to create a new fleet using cutting-edge tech, including UKmade Rolls-Royce reactors.

Wang said that the commitment to nuclear non-proliferation by the three countries is pure deception as this is the first time that a nuclear-weapon state transfers nuclear submarine power re-

Endorsing

actors and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclearweapon state, which can not be effectively supervised by the IAEA under its current oversight system. It means the IAEA can’t guarantee that Australia will not use relevant nuclear materials to manufacture nuclear weapons.

“Therefore, the pact poses a serious nuclear proliferation risk, violates the purpose and principle of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and impairs the international nuclear non-proliferation system,” Wang said.

He also stressed that the IAEA and the three states have no right to reach secret dealings on the nuclear submarine safeguards issue, and the real purpose of the three countries is to seek exemption from IAEA safeguards by citing Article 14 of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA). Wang said that the international society has wide differences in the application of Article 14, and has reached no consensus on the definition of activities listed in Article 14.

uS Drone crASh: A Russian fighter jet on Tuesday dumped fuel on an American drone over the Black Sea then collided with it, causing the drone to crash, the US military said. US European Command said two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper over international waters and one clipped its propeller.

“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner,” it said.

Nato diplomats in Brussels confirmed the incident, but said they did not expect it to immediately escalate into a further confrontation

Open-AI releases GPT-4, more advanced AI model than ChatGPT

SAN FRANCISCO ReuteRS

The startup OpenAI on Tuesday said it is beginning to release a powerful artificial intelligence model known as GPT-4, setting the stage for human-like technology to proliferate and more competition between its backer Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc’s Google. OpenAI, which created the chatbot sensation ChatGPT, said in a blog post that its latest technology is “multimodal,” meaning images, as well as text prompts, can spur it to generate content.

The text-input feature will be available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and to software developers, with a waitlist, while the image-input ability remains a preview of its research.

Committee okays strategy for 50th anniversary celebration of Constitution

ISLAMABAD: In its fourth meeting on Wednesday, the Advisory Committee of the Parliament to oversee the preparations for the golden jubilee celebrations of the 1973 Constitution, chaired by Senator Raza Rabbani, approved the media strategy for the celebrations. The committee also reviewed the progress made with respect to the construction of the constitutional monument, the restoration of the old National Assembly Hall at the State Bank building in Islamabad, special messages by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and the status of declamation contests being carried out at educational institutes across the country. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb shared details of the media strategy to cover the commemoration. She said all departments of the ministry, including PTV, Radio Pakistan, Directorate of Electronic Media and Publications (DEMP), Press Information Department (PID), External Publicity Wing, and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), have planned certain activities related to the celebrations, such as airing special programs. Staff RepoRt

Pakistan urges planning to consider climate risk for vulnerable nations

UNITED NATIONS Staff RepoRt

In a discussion at the Development Cooperation Forum (DFC), Am- bassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, emphasised the need for development planning to take into ac- count climate risks, particularly forthe most climate-vulnerable countries like Pakistan, which suffered devastating floods last August.