China

لمعلا لىإ ناهز شي لقتنا ،)ينصلا( ينليج ةعطاقم ةعاذإ في جمارب مِِّّدقم ناك نأ دعب لكش ةسرامم في 2014 ماع ذنم قلطنا دقو .ةينوتركللإا ةيعمسلا ملاعلإا لئاسو في وحن لىع ةينيصلا ةمكاحلا سرلأا خيرات ةياور في لثمتي ،ةيتوصلا صصقلا نم ديدج ياهغناش في عقت ةينطو ةطحم يهو ،.مأ .فأ ايلااميه ةعاذإ لىع ،يويحو يعادبإ.ينصلا في ةيبعش رثكلأا ةيعاذلإا ةكبشلا برتعُتو

In its 2012 survey covering 178 countries Transparency International ranked China at 3.5 in what is called the Corruption Perception Index the 80th country together with Serbia and Trinidad and Tobago. To see things from another point of view China was the fourth-lowest ranking of G20 nations with only Argentina India Indonesia and Russia scoring lower. At such levels corruption poses a threat to China’s political stability and sustainable development especially at a time when China’s ‘Gini’ coefficient a statistical measure of income inequality is at 0.47 close to that 0.5 threshold where inequality is severe and calls for immediate action. Many experts believe that this widening wealth gap is partly the result of large amounts of “illegal income” resulting from corruption.

« Le don de la Chine à l’Afrique ». Le nouveau siège de l’Union africaine un imposant immeuble de 20 étages à Addis-Abeba est ainsi décrit parce que la Chine a pris en charge les frais de construction (200 millions de dollars) de ce complexe ultramoderne. Le plus haut bâtiment d’Éthiopie achevé en décembre 2011 à temps pour un sommet de l’UA organisé le mois suivant comprend une salle de conférence de 2 500 places.

India and China both carried out banking sector reforms in the 1990s. Despite taking a gradual approach India’s reforms have been the more comprehensive and have been implemented at a faster pace than in China. India’s experience suggests that the following four issues would be relevant in China’s future reform agenda: (1) privatizing the wholly state-owned commercial banks (WSCBs) and introducing measures to improve corporate governance; (2) removing Government intervention to make WSCBs more commercially oriented; (3) reducing the dominance of WSCBs by rationalizing weak banks and downsizing large WSCBs; and (4) if adopted relaxing the stringent statutory liquidity requirement which seems to discourage banks from lending. There are also lessons to be learned from India’s reforms. First the entry of new banks should be promoted provided they are sufficiently capitalized and are technology-oriented. Second diversification of banks’ business should accompany interest rate liberalization in order to compensate for the expected decline in net interest income and prevent banks from taking excessive risks. Third strict regulations should be introduced to prevent connected lending.

The paper analyses trends in fiscal decentralization in the two largest countries of the world — China and India. Both countries are in transition from a planned to a market system. The paper identifies the emerging challenges in achieving fiscal decentralization in the two countries. The challenges arise firstly from the transition to the market economy and secondly from the replacement of the old command and control systems with institutions developed to administer market-based policies and instruments. The paper argues that the approach to meet the emerging challenges has to be holistic and should deal with the sub-national budgeting system underpinning central fiscal control and not just the various components of the sub-national systems. The overall approach should ideally encompass all levels of government.

‘China’s gift to Africa.” The new headquarters of the African Union a towering 20-storey building in Addis Ababa Ethiopia is so called because China picked up the $200 million tab for the state-of-the-art complex. Ethiopia’s tallest building completed in December 2011 in time for an AU summit the following month includes a 2500-seat conference hall. The gift prompted Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to refer to Africa’s current economic boom as a “renaissance” due partly to China’s “amazing re-emergence and its commitments to a win-win partnership with Africa.”

In a sweltering monsoon afternoon in Xiaobei in Guangzhou a city in southeast China a group of young and middle-aged African men take positions up and down a street lined by shops alert to the passing of potential clients. Not far from them in an adjacent street another group of Africans—three women and a man holding a child in his arms— huddle around bales of merchandise. As the sun slowly sets the town square fills up with people.

This paper studies the pump-set industry in rural China which has led to the widespread diffusion of inexpensive and readily repairable pumping technology in countries such as Bangladesh Pakistan and Viet Nam. To do so we first describe the rise of China’s pump-set industry which includes hundreds of small family-owned enterprises that are doing business in a manufacturing cluster located in a single small town in southern China. We then discuss the advantages and disadvantages associated with this type of industrial structure. We conclude by examining the dynamics of the industry that have emerged during the past decade and speculate on future developments of China’s pump-set industry and the ways that it may continue to support the further expansion of food production in Asia.