Cooperation in fighting the epidemic Focuses on common development – China's international development cooperation promotes the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, October 26 Title: Cooperation to Fight the Epidemic Focus on Common Development - China's international development cooperation promotes the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind

Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Bin and Sun Nan

Implement thousands of complete sets and material assistance projects, carry out tens of thousands of technical cooperation and human resource development projects, train more than 400,000 people of all kinds for developing countries, and provide more than 1.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the outside world since 2021...

The Information Office of the State Council held a press conference on October 26 to introduce China's anti-epidemic assistance and international development cooperation. At the press conference, the relevant person in charge of the China International Development Cooperation Agency said that since 1950, China has provided various types of assistance to more than 160 countries, and in the future, China will give priority to health, green as the focus, people's livelihood as the key, and multilateralism as the guide, and promote international development cooperation to help build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Covid-19 assistance to solve the problem: more than 1.5 billion doses of vaccine have been provided this year

According to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in the world has exceeded 240 million, and the number of deaths has reached more than 4.9 million. The fight against the epidemic remains the most urgent task facing the international community at present.

Luo Zhaohui, director of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, said that China has not only achieved a "double lead" in the fight against the epidemic and economic recovery, but also carried out the emergency humanitarian relief operation with the longest aid time and the widest scope since the founding of New China. "Since the beginning of this year, China has provided more than 1.5 billion doses of vaccines to 106 countries and 4 international organizations, playing an important role in preventing and controlling the epidemic and leading international cooperation against the epidemic."

Timely launch the "Anti-epidemic Emergency Support Plan", coordinate all parties to urgently provide emergency supplies to many countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia where the epidemic has rebounded sharply, provide emergency vaccine and anti-epidemic material assistance to the northern region of Myanmar, and promote the advance of the epidemic prevention threshold... Luo Zhaohui said in introducing anti-epidemic assistance to neighboring countries that China's timely and efficient anti-epidemic assistance has played an important role in ensuring the safety of people's lives and reducing property losses for relevant countries, effectively responding to the overall situation of domestic and foreign anti-import and internal defense and rebound, so that China's traditional friendship with neighboring countries and people-to-people friendship have been further sublimated.

In response to the safety and efficacy of China's vaccines, Deng Boqing, deputy director of the State Agency for International Development Cooperation, said that from a scientific point of view, the World Health Organization has included China's Sinopharm and Kexing vaccines in the list of emergency use, which is recognized by international authoritative organizations from a professional point of view; from a practical point of view, China's large-scale vaccination has fully verified the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and the international community is full of confidence in China's vaccines, and international scientific research and clinical data from various countries have also provided strong support.

Development cooperation to benefit people's livelihood: we will actively carry out gas-to-climate environmental protection projects

From hybrid rice to fungal grass cultivation, from artemisinin to COVID-19 vaccines... For decades, the "business cards" of China's foreign aid have written a vivid story of China's help to the common development of all countries and improve people's livelihood and well-being.

A series of major projects such as the China-Laos Railway and the Hungarian-Cypriot Railway have made breakthroughs; the number of China-Europe express trains and the volume of goods transported throughout the year have increased by 50% and 56% year-on-year; China's non-financial direct investment in countries along the route has increased by 18.3% year-on-year... Deng Boqing said that during the epidemic period, the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" not only did not press the "pause button", but went against the trend, the enthusiasm of all countries to participate in the "Belt and Road" is still high, and the willingness to work together to promote global development cooperation is still strong.

Climate change is nature's wake-up call to humanity. Zhang Maoyu, deputy director of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, said that in the past eight years, China has implemented more than 200 foreign aid projects to deal with gas transition, including about 70 gas change mitigation projects such as the solar power supply project at the Parliament Building in Pakistan and about 150 projects to adapt to gas change such as the floods in Nepal and the fiji hurricane.

"China will actively carry out gas-to-climate environmental protection projects, do a good job in clean energy projects such as photovoltaics, biogas, hydropower stations and the prevention and control of desertification, and will strengthen the assessment of environmental protection and gas-change factors in foreign aid projects, and promote the transformation of complete sets of projects to 'climate-friendly'." Zhang Maoyu said.

Outstanding advantages of multilateral cooperation: Positive and open attitude towards trilateral cooperation in international development

In recent years, under the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund, China has cooperated with a number of United Nations organizations to implement development cooperation projects in the fields of food aid, post-disaster reconstruction, refugee relief, and maternal and child health in more than 50 countries. China, Switzerland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and other countries have jointly implemented tripartite cooperation projects that meet the needs of recipients in the fields of agriculture, health and other livelihoods.

"In the next step, China is willing to continue to actively explore trilateral cooperation in an open and pragmatic manner, encourage the private sector, civil society organizations and charities to play a greater role, and inject new impetus into international development cooperation." Zhang Maoyu said.

More than three years ago, the Chinese government specially established the China International Development Cooperation Agency, which provided an important institutional guarantee for promoting the quality and upgrading of foreign development cooperation. Luo Zhaohui said that China's international development cooperation is strengthening its integration with international standards and accelerating the transformation from bilateral assistance to multilateral cooperation.

Luo Zhaohui said that in the next step, China's foreign aid and international development cooperation will give priority to health and fully support international cooperation against the epidemic; focus on green and continuously implement the sustainable development agenda; take people's livelihood as the main purpose and actively contribute to global economic recovery; and take multilateralism as the guide to continuously optimize global governance in the field of development cooperation.