The China Export and Import Bank (Eximbank) signed agreements in
Beijing Monday with six Chinese provincial government departments
to use 5.59 billion yuan (US$698.75 million) of Japanese
governmental loans.
An Eximbank spokesman said the loans would be used in nine
projects in China's underdeveloped areas in Anhui, Guizhou, Henan,
Hunan and Jilin provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region to
improve local infrastructure, environmental protection, education,
energy structure and scientific research.
The loan projects include the establishment of urban natural gas
networks in Henan and Anhui, a comprehensive environmental
improvement project in Nanning City of Guangxi, a poverty relief
scheme in the Wuling mountainous areas of Hunan, and various
educational programs in Anhui, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan and
Jilin.
Over the past years, the Eximbank has established good
cooperation with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation over
decades of managing Japanese loans, the spokesman said. By the end
of June this year, the Eximbank had transferred 137.861 billion
yuan (US$16.64 billion) of loans, 78 percent of which was in
Japanese yen.
(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2003)