China | World Bank

Environmental management of upgrading and rehabilitation of rural roads in the Ningxia province in China

The development objective of the Ningxia Highway Project of China is to improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Ningxia Autonomous Region through a more effective, equitable, and sustainable use of the regional road infrastructure in support of industry and poor agricultural producers as measured by reduced transit times on improved highways and improved access for rural communities. Negative impacts are as follows: ecological impact, traffic noise, surface water pollution, air pollution, linkage isolation, visional landscape, risk accident, and soil erosion. Mitigation measures include: 1) in line selection high quality wood land and farm land shall be occupied as little as possible while wasteland and shrub land shall be used as much as possible; 2) noise reduction measures shall be considered during highway design and corresponding cost estimation shall be made, 3) according to the prediction, sound isolation window, sound barrier, height increased fence or dismantle may be done depending on different sensitive site, which will be included in design and bid document, 4) strengthen design of crash carrier for river crossing bridge; 5) during line selection phase, sensitive sites shall try to be avoided. During design phase, the locations of construction access and lime soil mixing station shall be reasonably selected so as to try to avoid dense populated area. Material transportation route shall be reasonably designed so as to be away from residence area as far as possible; and 6) solid wastes in the construction camp should be collected regularly and sent to specified municipal solid waste disposal station for treatment.

Policy framework for resettlement and land acquisition of local roads improvement program

The development objective of the Ningxia Highway Project of China is to improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of the Ningxia autonomous region through a more effective, equitable, and sustainable use of the regional road infrastructure in support of industry and poor agricultural producers as measured by reduced transit times on improved highways and improved access for rural communities. Negative impacts of the project include: permanent land acquisition, structure to demolished, affected people, affected trees, and affected vulnerable groups. Mitigation measures include: (a) involuntary resettlement and land acquisition will be avoided/minimized as much as possible; (b) if resettlement and land acquisition cannot be avoided, action plans will be prepared for compensation and rehabilitation of the affected people; (c) adequate funds will be timely provided for implementing such action plans; (d) preparation and implementation of such action plans will be conducted in consultation with the local governments and the affected people, on all the components with resettlement and compensation; (e) compensation will be paid at replacement costs without depreciation; (f) compensation will be paid prior to the move and acquisition of land; (g) the affected people will be assisted during relocation and in their livelihood rehabilitation activities; (h) the living standards of the affected people will be restored at least or improved after resettlement activities; (i) all the costs related to land acquisition and structure demolition will be included in the project cost estimates; and j) the action plans will be prepared on an annual basis for each county, and the plans will be reviewed by the province/municipality and be accepted by the World Bank before the relevant civil engineering work.

China - Zhejiang Qiantang River Basin Small Town Environment Project

China - Liaoning Medium Cities Infrastructure Project : procurement plan

China quarterly update, November 2009

Large fiscal and monetary stimulus has supported a recovery in China's economy. Falling exports amidst the global recession have been a major drag on growth. Nonetheless, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rose to 8.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter on the back of the stimulus. Although most of the stimulus has shown up in infrastructure oriented government-led investment, some has been consumption-oriented and domestic demand growth has been broad based. Resurgent housing sales have started to feed through to construction activity. Investment in manufacturing is affected by spare capacity, but consumption has held up well. The strong domestic demand has buoyed import volumes and the current account surplus may fall to 5.5 percent of GDP this year even with import prices down sharply. The downturn has clearly affected the labor market, but the impact has been smaller than expected and the trough may have been past. In the medium term, the recovery can only be sustained by successful rebalancing of the economy. Rebalancing and getting more growth out of the domestic economy call for more emphasis on consumption and services and less on investment and industry. On earlier initiatives, some further steps have been taken in recent months to rebalance and boost domestic demand, including increasing the presence of the government in health, education, and social safety; improving access to finance and SME development; and mitigating resource use and environmental damage. These are useful steps, but more policy measures will be needed to rebalance growth in China, given the strong underlying momentum of the traditional pattern. Structural reforms to unleash more growth and competition in the service sector and stimulate more successful, permanent migration would be particularly welcome.

China - HaJia Railway Project

China - Power Sector Transformer Efficiency Program Project

China - Wuhan Second Urban Transport Project

Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) - FY09 : East Asia and Pacific region - China

The Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) report for FY09 provides information on all International Bank and Rural Development (IBRD)/International Development Association (IDA) projects that were active on June 30, 2009. The report is intended to bridge the gap in information available to the public between the project appraisal document, disclosed after the Bank approves a project, and the implementation completion report, disclosed after the project closes. In addition to the project progress description, the FY09 SOPE report contains project level comparisons of disbursement estimates and actual disbursements, and a table showing the loan/credit/grant amount and disbursements to date for all active projects.

A comparative perspective on poverty reduction in Brazil, China and India

Brazil, China and India have seen falling poverty in their reform periods, but to varying degrees and for different reasons. History left China with favorable initial conditions for rapid poverty reduction through market-led economic growth; at the outset of the reform process there were ample distortions to remove and relatively low inequality in access to the opportunities so created, though inequality has risen markedly since. By concentrating such opportunities in the hands of the better off, prior inequalities in various dimensions handicapped poverty reduction in both Brazil and India. Brazils recent success in complementing market-oriented reforms with progressive social policies has helped it achieve more rapid poverty reduction than India, although Brazil has been less successful in terms of economic growth. In the wake of its steep rise in inequality, China might learn from Brazils success with such policies. India needs to do more to assure that poor people are able to participate in both the countrys growth process and its social policies; here there are lessons from both China and Brazil. All three countries have learned how important macroeconomic stability is to poverty reduction.

An analysis of various policy instruments to reduce congestion, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in Beijing

Using a nested multinomial logit model of car ownership and personal travel in Beijing circa 2005, this paper compares the effectiveness of different policy instruments to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 emissions. The study shows that a congestion toll is more efficient than a fuel tax in reducing traffic congestion, whereas a fuel tax is more effective as a policy instrument for reducing gasoline consumption and emissions. An improvement in car efficiency would also reduce congestion, fuel consumption, and CO2 emissions significantly; however, this policy benefits only richer households that own a car. Low-income households do better under the fuel tax policy than under the efficiency improvement and congestion toll policies. The congestion toll and fuel tax require the travel cost per mile to more than triple. The responsiveness of aggregate fuel and CO2 are, approximately, a 1 percent drop for each 10 percent rise in the money cost of a car trip.

China - Liaoning and Shandong Technical and Vocational Education and Training Reform Project : environmental management framework

The objective of the Liaoning and Shandong Technical and Vocational Education and Training Reform Project for China is to support technical education by strengthening the training ability, improving the quality and correlation, and increasing the management efficiency, thereby providing a basis for establishment of planning and policy development mechanism. Negative impacts include: noise; air and water pollution; wastewater; and solid waste. Mitigation measures include: 1) management on construction sites should be strengthened. All wastes are not allowed to be burned on construction sites, flying dust control should be taken when carry out earth work. Measures should be taken to keep vehicle clean at the entry and exit of construction sites and remove the mud adhere to surface of the vehicles; 2) prevention and control acoustic elimination and acoustic insulation measures should be equipped for equipment with high noise; 3) pile-up, collection and clean-up of garbage, constructors must abide by the local regulations on solid waste disposal by applying for approval of disposal; 4) wastewater from laboratory should be disinfected and chemically neutralized and be treated together with sewage by wastewater treatment plant in school; 5) laboratories must be installed with ventilation equipment and as well as exhaust fans with appropriate numbers, canteen must be installed with oil smoke purifier; 6) domestic garbage will be collected and disposed by environment and sanitation department, waste liquid from laboratories will be stored in special containers or temporary tanks, then treated by qualified units; and 7) low noise machinery and fans should be selected and acoustic elimination and vibration treatment should be taken, control the use of bells.

China - Ningxia Highway Project : social assessment

Environmental impact assessment framework

The objective of the Second Energy Efficiency (EE) Financing Project is to scale-up commercial debt financing for EE investment across China through an EE debt financing mechanism. Sub-projects to be financed by the project include: (a) adoption of energy saving industrial technologies such as more efficient industrial boilers, kilns, and heat exchange systems; (b) recovery and utilization of by-product gas, waste heat and pressure; (c) installation of highly efficient mechanical and electrical equipments, including motors, pumps, heating and ventilation equipments; and (d) reduce energy use. Generally these types of sub-project have either minor or no adverse environmental impacts and provide environmental benefits (reductions in local pollution such as dust and sulfur dioxide emissions or reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide). In order to insure that consultation, disclosure, and community engagement continues throughout the sub-project construction and operation phases, the sub-borrower will, consistent with the risks and adverse impacts of the project, establish a grievance mechanism as part of their environmental management system. This will allow the sub-borrower to receive and facilitate resolution of concerns and grievance about the sub-projects environmental performance raised by the affected communities or individuals. The sub-borrower will inform the affected communities during the public consultation and the mechanisms to ensure any concerns are addressed promptly and transparently.

Implications of the growth of China and India for the other Asian giant : Russia

Continuing rapid growth of China and India can be expected to raise incomes in Russia, but also to put adjustment pressure on Russian firms. The impacts of the rapid growth of China and India on the Russian economy are explored by examining a baseline projection using a global general equilibrium model, and then assessing the implications of higher-than-expected growth in China and India. The authors find that a major source of benefits to Russia is likely to be terms-of-trade improvements associated with higher energy prices - a quite different channel of effect from that for many developing countries that benefit primarily through expanded opportunities to trade directly with these emerging giants. Taking into account the likely improvements in the quality and variety of exports from China and India, the gains to Russia increase substantially. The expansion of the energy sector and the contraction of manufacturing and services are a sign of a Dutch disease effect that will increase the importance of policies to encourage adaptation to the changing world environment.

Korea and the BICs (Brazil, India and China) : catching up experiences

This paper tests a neo-Schumpeterian model with industry-level data to analyze how Brazil, India, and China are catching up with South Koreas technological frontier in a globalized world. The paper validates Aghion et al.s inverted-U hypothesis that industries that are closer to the technological frontier innovate to escape competition while longer distances discourage innovating. It suggests that for effective catching up, distance-shortening (or innovation-enhancing) policies may be a necessary complement to liberalization. South Korea and China combined a variety of distance-shortening policies with financial subsidies to promote high tech industries and an export-led growth strategy. Post-liberalization, they leveraged swift competition to spur catch-up. In comparison, Brazil, which was as rich as South Korea, and India, which was as rich as China in 1980, are catching up more slowly. Import-substitution industrialization strategies saddled Brazil and India with a large anti-export bias, and unfocused attention to innovation-enhancing policies dampened global competitiveness. Post liberalization, many of their industries were too far behind the technological frontier to effectively benefit from competition. The catch-up experiences of Brazil, India, and China with South Korea illustrate that distance from the technological frontier matters and that the design of country-specific distance- shortening policies can be an important complement to trade liberalization in promoting catching up with richer countries.

Left behind to farm ? women's labor re-allocation in rural China

The transformation of work during Chinas rapid economic development is associated with a substantial but little noticed re-allocation of traditional farm labor among women, with some doing much less and some much more. This paper studies how the work, time allocation, and health of non-migrant women are affected by the out-migration of others in their household. The analysis finds that the women left behind are doing more farm work than would have otherwise been the case. There is also evidence that this is a persistent effect, and not just temporary re-allocation. For some types of women (notably older women), the labor re-allocation response comes out of their leisure.

The pattern of growth and poverty reduction in China

China has seen a huge reduction in the incidence of extreme poverty since the economic reforms that started in the late 1970s. Yet, the growth process has been highly uneven across sectors and regions. The paper tests whether the pattern of China´s growth mattered to poverty reduction using a new provincial panel data set constructed for this purpose. The econometric tests support the view that the primary sector (mainly agriculture) has been the main driving force in poverty reduction over the period since 1980. It was the sectoral unevenness in the growth process, rather than its geographic unevenness, that handicapped poverty reduction. Yes, China has had great success in reducing poverty through economic growth, but this happened despite the unevenness in its sectoral pattern of growth. The idea of a trade-off between these sectors in terms of overall progress against poverty in China turns out to be a moot point, given how little evidence there is of any poverty impact of non-primary sector growth, controlling for primary-sector growth. While the non-primary sectors were key drivers of aggregate growth, it was the primary sector that did the heavy lifting against poverty.

U.S.-Japan and U.S.-China trade conflict : export growth, reciprocity, and the international trading system

First Japan and more recently China have pursued export-oriented growth strategies. While other Asian countries have done likewise, Japan and China are of particular interest because their economies are so large and the size of the associated bilateral trade imbalances with the United States so conspicuous. In this paper the authors focus on U.S. efforts to restore the reciprocal GATT/WTO market-access bargain in the face of such large imbalances and the significant spillovers to the international trading system. The paper highlights similarities and differences in the two cases. The authors describe U.S. attempts to reduce the bilateral imbalances through targeted trade policies intended to slow growth of U.S. imports from these countries or increase growth of U.S. exports to them. They then examine how these trade policy responses, as well as U.S. efforts to address what were perceived as underlying causes of the imbalances, influenced the evolution of the international trading system. Finally, the authors compare the macroeconomic conditions associated with the bilateral trade imbalances and their implications for the conclusions of the two episodes.

China - Second Energy Efficiency Financing Project : resettlement policy framework

The objective of the Second Energy Efficiency (EE) Financing Project is to scale-up commercial debt financing for EE investment across China through an EE debt financing mechanism. Some of the negative impacts and their mitigation measures are as follows: a) wherever possible, project designs and resettlement plans (RPs) should be conceived as development opportunities, so that displaced persons may benefit from the services and facilities created for, or by, project activities; b) all displaced persons are entitled to compensation for lost assets, or to alternative but equivalent forms of assistance in lieu of compensation; lack of legal rights to the assets lost will not bar displaced persons from entitlement to such compensation or alternative forms of assistance; c) compensation rates as established in a RP refer to amounts to be paid in full to the individual or collective owner of the lost asset, without depreciation or deduction for taxes, fees or any other purpose; d) when cultivated land is acquired, effort should be made to provide land-for-land replacement; e) replacement house plots, sites for relocating businesses, or replacement agricultural land should be of equivalent use value to the land that was lost; f) the resettlement transition period should be minimized. Compensation for assets should be paid prior to the time of impact, so that new houses can be constructed, fixed assets can be removed or replaced, and other necessary mitigation measures can be undertaken prior to actual displacement; g) displaced persons are to receive support (direct assistance or allowances) to meet moving expenses or for temporary subsistence until they can resume productive activities; h) displaced persons should be consulted during the process of RP preparation, so that their preferences regarding possible resettlement arrangements are solicited and considered; RPs are publicly disclosed in a manner accessible to displaced persons; i) the previous level of community services and access to resources will be maintained or improved after resettlement; and j) responsibility must be clearly established for meeting all costs associated with land acquisition and resettlement, and for ensuring that sufficient funds are available as they become needed.

The project Zhejiang Qiantang River Basin Small Town Environment Project is now in the pipeline.

2009-11-18T05:00:00.000Z

The project Zhejiang Qiantang River Basin Small Town Environment Project is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

China Shares Experiences on Financial Crisis Response with Middle-Income Countries

2009-11-13T02:10:53.000Z

Contact:

Li Li, tel: 86-10-5861 7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

BEIJING, November 13, 2009 - High-level policymakers from China, Brazil, the United States, Korea and Malaysia will join leading scholars and international development practitioners on November 13-15 in Beijing to exchange their experiences with fiscal stimulus packages. The International Seminar on Fiscal Stimulus Measures in Responding to Financial Crisis: Experiences and Going Forward is jointly sponsored by China’s Ministry of Finance and the World Bank and co-sponsored by Beijing Finance Bureau. Among those taking part in the seminar are Vice Finance Minister Ding Xuedong, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Justin Lin, Secretary of Finance of Brazil’s Rio De Janeiro State Joaquim Levy, U.S. Department of Treasury's Economic and Financial Emissary to China David Dollar, and representatives from the Korea Development Institute, along with some 120 mid to senior level Chinese finance officials.

The global economic slowdown which started in the second half of 2008 led to a drastic fall in demand for exports from emerging market economies, along with a drop in capital flows into those economies. The impact of these shocks has been especially severe in countries with high initial current account and fiscal deficits, or with highly indebted household, financial, and business sectors. The Chinese Government, for example, responded quickly with a 4 trillion RMB ($586billion USD) stimulus package. Now it is assessing how best to design and implement its crisis response to also support the country’s longer-term structural changes such as rebalancing its export-driven growth model.

With some countries beginning to emerge from the crisis, can a sustained recovery be expected, or is a double-dip recession on the way? This seminar examines the background and causes of the global financial crisis, how fiscal and financial policy can be used as instruments of macroeconomic control, and analyzes some of the fiscal programs that have been used to stimulate domestic demand, protect and improve people’s livelihoods, and encourage employment, and economic recovery.

Developing countries have been hardest hit by the crisis which has called into question many of the established approaches to development. New models will have to be constructed through debate, experimentation, and learning from those who have lived through successes and failures. “Sharing the knowledge that comes from experience is as important as providing finance,” says Justin Lin, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. “The World Bank is helping its client countries use exchanges like this one to learn from each other.” This event is part of a series of Development Debates designed by the World Bank Institute.

'Climate Smart’ World Within Reach, Says World Bank

2009-11-10T02:23:27.000Z

Contacts:

Li Li , 86-10-5861 7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

BEIJING, NOVEMBER 9, 2009 – Developing countries can shift to lower-carbon paths while promoting development and reducing poverty, but this depends on financial and technical assistance from high-income countries, says a new World Bank report presented here today. High-income countries also need to act quickly to reduce their carbon footprints and boost development of alternative energy sources to help tackle the problem of climate change.

World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change, released in advance of the December meetings on climate change in Copenhagen, is being presented today in Beijing by the report’s co-Director, Rosina Beirbaum, Dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. “Grappling with climate shocks that are already hampering development will not be easy. But promising new energy technologies can vastly reduce future greenhouse gas emissions and prevent catastrophic climate change. We also need to manage our farms, forests, and water resources to ensure a sustainable future,” says Dr. Bierbaum.

The report says that advanced countries, which produced most of the greenhouse gas emissions of the past, must act to shape our climate future. If developed countries act now, a ‘climate-smart’ world is feasible, and the costs for getting there will be high but still manageable. A key way to do this is by ramping up funding for mitigation in developing countries, where most future growth in emissions will occur.

“The countries of the world must act now, act together and act differently on climate change,” said World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. "Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change – a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important.”

Countries need to act now because today’s decisions determine both the climate of tomorrow and the choices that shape the future. Countries need to act together because no one nation can take on the interconnected challenges posed by climate change, and global cooperation is needed to improve energy efficiencies and develop new technologies. Countries need to act differently, because we cannot plan for the future based on the climate of the past.

Developing countries will bear most of the costs of the damage from climate change. Many people in developing countries live in physically exposed locations and economically precarious conditions, and their financial and institutional capacity to adapt is limited, says the report. Already, policymakers in some developing countries note that an increasing amount of their development budget is being diverted to cope with weather-related emergencies.

At the same time, 1.6 billion people in the developing world lack access to electricity, the report notes. These developing countries—whose average per capita emissions are a fraction of those of high-income countries—need massive expansions in energy, transport, urban systems, and agricultural production. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.

The report finds that existing low-carbon technologies and best practices could reduce energy consumption significantly, saving money. For example, the report notes that it is possible to cut energy consumption in industry and the power sector by 20–30 percent, helping reduce carbon footprints without sacrificing growth. In addition, many changes to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases also deliver significant benefits in environmental sustainability, public health, energy security, and financial savings. Avoided deforestation, for instance, preserves watersheds and protects biodiversity, while forests can effectively serve as a carbon sink.

“Developing countries face 75-80 percent of the potential damage from climate change. They urgently need help to prepare for drought, floods, and rising sea levels. They also need to intensify agricultural productivity, contain malnutrition and disease, and build climate-resilient infrastructure,” said Justin Lin, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President.

China will be one of the countries most affected by climate change. It is projected to have temperatures rising more than the world average, sea levels rising across its dense eastern seaboard, water shortages increasing in the North, weather events increasing in the South, and dramatic melting of Qinghai-Tibet glaciers that feed the country’s major rivers. In terms of managing its emissions, China has made important progress in addressing its rising trend in carbon emissions, particularly in the energy sector. China is also exerting leadership in shaping the global response to the climate change problem, in Copenhagen and beyond.

The current financial crisis cannot be an excuse to put climate on the back burner, the report warns. While financial crises may cause serious hardship and reduce growth over the short- to medium-term, they rarely last more than a few years. The threat of a warming climate is far more severe and long-lasting.

The report is available on the web at: http://www.worldbank.org/wdr2010

The World Bank’s climate change blog is at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange

Domestic Demand in China Helps Fuel the Region's Resurgence but Some Countries Still Struggling, Says World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Update

2009-11-04T04:00:00.000Z

Contacts:
In Washington, DC:
Elisabeth Mealey +1 (202) 458-4475
emealey@worldbank.org
Mohamad Al-Arief +1 (202) 352-4745
malarief@worldbank.org

Washington, DC, November 3, 2009 -- The economic rebound in East Asia and the Pacific has been surprisingly swift and very welcome but take China out of the equation and the regional picture is less rosy, says the World Bank's half-yearly assessment of the economic health of the East Asia and Pacific region.

The latest East Asia and Pacific Update, titled Transforming the Rebound into Recovery, says large and timely fiscal stimulus spending in most East Asian and Pacific countries – led by China and Korea – along with a powerful process of inventory restocking now underway, have driven the rebound in the region and contributed significantly to confidence in a global pick-up.

Developments in the East Asia & Pacific region remain strongly influenced by China, where the projected increase in GDP in 2009 will offset three quarters of the decline in the GDPs of the U.S., the Eurozone and Japan. But despite Indonesia and Vietnam performing well, developing East Asia¹ excluding China is projected to grow at around 1 percent in 2009 -- more slowly than South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, and only slightly stronger than Sub-Saharan Africa. Some countries remain especially hard hit – GDP is contracting in Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand and is barely growing in Mongolia and some of the Pacific Islands, the report says.

As enterprises, both formal and informal, adjusted to weaker demand earlier in the year, workers across the region have been impacted in different ways. Enterprises cut workers’ hours, eliminated extra shifts, let temporary or contract workers go, or lowered wages – but some of these measures are now being reversed. Relatively few full-time employees have been laid off as companies have tried to limit recruitment and training costs when demand picks up. Workers who have been let go have typically found jobs in services and agriculture, often in the informal sector at lower pay and in more challenging working conditions. In some countries, fiscal stimulus packages have supported the creation of temporary public employment.

The report estimates that 14 million people who would have emerged from $2-a-day poverty if the region’s economies had kept growing at pre-crisis levels, will remain in poverty in 2010.

However, with projected growth of 8.4 percent in China this year and the country’s domestic demand racing ahead of global demand, countries exporting consumer durables, electronic components and raw materials to China have felt the positive flow-on effects. As a result, the World Bank is projecting growth of 6.7 percent in 2009 for developing East Asia and the Pacific and 7.8 percent next year.
As officials, ministers and heads of state from the 21 member countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum head to Singapore later this week, the World Bank’s chief economist for the East Asia & Pacific region, Vikram Nehru warned that risks to a sustainable recovery remain.

“Some governments in the region will have the fiscal space to sustain fiscal stimulus until recovery is on a firmer footing,” he said. “The time to begin removing monetary accommodation may come earlier however, especially given concerns about asset price bubbles.”

He said looking beyond 2009, countries in the region can still grow rapidly even if growth in the advanced economies is slow. To take advantage of the growth potential ahead, countries need to resist protectionism, remain open and become more, not less integrated with the regional and global economies.

“Moving up the value-added chain in global and regional production networks should lead to further productivity gains and strong growth, and allow for new technologies and innovation to spread more widely through the region’s economies,” Nehru said.

The report’s lead author Ivailo Izvorski said the crisis has helped governments realize that more growth can be extracted from domestic demand if incentives that have limited expansion in private consumption and services are tackled.

“Rebalancing growth need not be presented as a choice between relying on global markets or on domestic markets,” Izvorski said. “It can be about extracting more growth from domestic demand as a complement to increasing integration within the region and the global economy. Facilitating the development of the service sector, addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, and boosting the quality of education need to be accompanied by developing better targeted and better funded social protection systems.

“Together with education and health, improved social protection systems will help reduce precautionary saving, promote domestic cohesion at a time of rapid regional and global integration, and enable countries to reap the full benefits from agglomeration economies, all of which are key to long-term economic success.”

___________________________________________________________________

¹ Developing East Asia includes China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea and the island economies of the Pacific.

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The East Asia and Pacific Update is the World Bank’s comprehensive review of the region’s economies. It is published twice yearly and is available on our website at http://www.worldbank.org/eapupdate

China’s Economic Growth is Likely to Remain Robust, but the Costs of Keeping Policy Expansionary Increase Over Time, Says World Bank

2009-11-04T04:00:00.000Z

Contacts:

Li Li in Beijing

86-10-5861 7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

Lester Dally in Washington

Ldally@worldbank.org

Mohamad Al-Arief in Singapore

malarief@worldbank.org

BEIJING, November 4, 2009 – Large fiscal and monetary stimulus has supported a recovery in China’s economy, according to the World Bank’s latest China Quarterly Update released today.

The Update, a regular assessment of the Chinese economy, finds that falling exports amidst the global recession have been a major drag on growth. Nonetheless, real GDP growth rose to 8.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter on the back of the stimulus.

Most of the stimulus has shown up in infrastructure-oriented government-led investment. But some has been consumption-oriented and domestic demand growth has been broad based. Resurgent housing sales have started to feed through to construction activity. Investment in manufacturing is affected by spare capacity, but consumption has held up well.

The strong domestic demand has buoyed import volumes and the current account surplus may fall to 5.5 percent of GDP this year even with import prices down sharply. The downturn has clearly affected the labor market, but the impact has been smaller than expected and the trough may have been past.

“On the back of a larger than expected monetary stimulus, China is on track to meet the target of 8 percent GDP growth this year,” said Ardo Hansson, Lead Economist for China. “We project GDP growth of 8.4 percent. Growth is likely to remain robust in 2010, but the composition will change.”

The global recovery is likely to be slow and subject to risk. Nonetheless, China’s export growth is likely to resume, helped by strong fundamental competitiveness and the recent depreciation of the nominal effective exchange rate, and net exports are likely to stop being a drag on growth. Real estate investment is also bound to be stronger. However, the growth impact of the government stimulus is set to decline sharply next year and investment in parts of manufacturing is likely to remain under pressure from spare capacity in China and abroad. This spare capacity is also expected to keep inflation pressures low. With exports and imports projected to grow at broadly the same pace next year and the terms of trade likely to deteriorate, the current account surplus may edge down further.

Turning to economic policies, “the costs and risks of sustaining the current expansionary policy stance will increase over time,” said Louis Kuijs, Senior Economist and main author of the Update. “In our view, macroeconomic conditions in the real economy do not yet call for a major tightening. However, risks of asset price bubbles and misallocation of resources in the face of abundant liquidity are real and the overall monetary stance will have to be tightened eventually.”

On the fiscal stance, the World Bank thinks that, given its economic projections, in 2010 an unchanged or only slightly higher fiscal deficit, compared to 2009, would fit best but flexibility is important and this includes allowing the automatic stabilizers to work, this year and in 2010.

The Update concludes that, in the medium term, China’s recovery can only be sustained by successful rebalancing of the economy. Rebalancing and getting more growth out of the domestic economy call for more emphasis on consumption and services and less on investment and industry. Following on earlier initiatives, some further steps have been taken in recent months to rebalance and boost domestic demand, including increasing the presence of the government in health, education, and social safety; improving access to finance and SME development; and mitigating resource use and environmental damage. These are useful steps, but more policy measures will be needed to rebalance growth in China, given the strong underlying momentum of the traditional pattern. Structural reforms to unleash more growth and competition in the service sector and stimulate more successful, permanent migration would be particularly welcome.

-#-

To read the full report and summary, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org/china

And to read Louis Kuijs’ blog on the Chinese economy, go to: http://eapblog.worldbank.org/

The project HaJia Railway is now in the pipeline.

2009-10-31T04:00:00.000Z

The project HaJia Railway is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project Gansu and Xinjiang Pastoral Development Project has changed to Closed

2009-10-29T04:00:00.000Z

The project Gansu and Xinjiang Pastoral Development Project has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project development objective of the Gansu and Xinjiang Pastoral Development Project for China is to promote sustainable natural resource management by establishing improved livestock production and marketing systems that would increase the income of herders and farmers in the project areas. The project would empower farmer and herder households in project areas to better manage their grassland resources and improve the forage and feed production on arable lands. More efficient and quality focused livestock production would increase the farmers and herders incomes and generate marketable surplus to improve living standards. Developing efficient livestock marketing systems in the project counties would also increase the efficiency of the whole livestock production system and contribute raising the living standards of farmers and herders. The global environmental objective of the project is to maintain and nurture natural grassland ecosystems to enhance global environmental benefits. More specifically, the project aims to mitigate land degradation, conserve globally important biodiversity, and enhance carbon sequestration, through promotion of integrated ecosystem management in the grassland, desert, and forest ecosystems of the Qilian Shan, Tian Shan, and Altaishan mountain ranges in Western China. The global environmental objective would be achieved by implementing community based grassland management in selected project areas with high global biodiversity values; providing incremental investments for implementing grassland management plans; and carrying out monitoring of these grasslands' habitats. The project has five components: (1) Grassland Management and Forage Improvement; (2) Livestock Production Improvement; (3) Market Systems Development; (4) Applied Research, Training, and Extension; and (5) Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation. The project will finance works, equipment, materials, Technical Assistance (TA) and training. Communities will contribute their labor. This constitutes the Baseline Scenario. The GEF Alternative builds on the Baseline Scenario b y conserving key mountain grassland eco-systems and their biodiversity and carbon storage capacity in selected sites of global environmental significance. Four of the five project components have incremental GEF financed activities that will: (a) conserve global grassland values and native livestock agro-biodiversity; (b) support applied research, training and extension for multiplication of indigenous grassland species for rehabilitation of degraded grasslands and the protection of native sheep and yak; and (c) establish integrated grassland management monitoring processes at provincial, county and townships levels.

The project Irrigated Agriculture Intensification Loan III has changed to Closed

2009-10-19T04:00:00.000Z

The project Irrigated Agriculture Intensification Loan III has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The objectives of the Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation in Irrigated Agriculture Project in China of are : to enhance adaptation to climate change in agriculture and irrigation water management practices through awareness-raising, institutional and capacity strengthening, and demonstration activities in the Huang-Huai-Hai Basin (3H Basin). This will help mainstream climate change adaptation measures, techniques, and activities into the national Comprehensive Agricultural Development (CAD) Program which is China's largest national investment program in irrigated agriculture. There are three components to the project. The first component is the identification and prioritization of adaptation options. The second component is the demonstration and implementation of adaptation measures. The purpose of this component is to introduce, demonstrate and implement the specific adaptation measures in selected demonstration areas, and adjust and integrate appropriate adaptation measures into the implementation of the Third Irrigated Agriculture Intensification Project (IAIL3), in order to reduce vulnerability to climate change in the 3H Basin. Finally, the third component is the mainstreaming adaptation into national CAD program and institutional strengthening. The component will aim at integrating and mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the national CAD program, including a series of capacity building, technical assistance, knowledge sharing, public awareness activities, and preparation of a national climate change adaptation plan for CAD by State Office of Comprehensive Agricultural Development (SOCAD), with the close cooperation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Finance (MOF) national climate change adaptation offices.

East Asia & Pacific Countries Vulnerable To Climate Change, But ‘Climate-Smart’ World Is Still In Reach

2009-09-15T14:00:00.000Z

Contacts:
Merrell Tuck, tel.(202) 473-9516
mtuckprimdahl@worldbank.org
Kavita Watsa, tel. (202) 458-8810
kwatsa@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON, September 15, 2009 — The latest World Development Report finds that although many countries in the East Asia and Pacific region are vulnerable to climate change, developing countries can shift to lower-carbon paths while promoting development and reducing poverty if they receive financial and technical assistance from high-income countries.

World Development Report 2010: Development in a Changing Climate, released in advance of the December meetings on climate change in Copenhagen, says that advanced countries, which produced most of the greenhouse gas emissions of the past, must act to shape our climate future. If developed countries act now, a 'climate-smart' world is feasible, and the costs for getting there will be high but still manageable. Ramping up funding for mitigation in developing countries where most future growth in emissions will occur is vital.

"Countries must act now, act together and act differently on climate change," said World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. "Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change – a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important."

Countries need to act now because today’s decisions determine both the climate of tomorrow and the infrastructure and built-environment choices that shape the future. Countries need to act together because no one country can take on the interconnected challenges posed by climate change, and global cooperation is needed to improve energy efficiency and develop new technologies. Countries need to act differently, because business-as-usual could put the world onto a potentially catastrophic path with unacceptable costs to development.

Developing countries will bear most of the costs of the damage from climate change. Many people in developing countries live in physically exposed locations and economically precarious conditions, and their financial and institutional capacity to adapt is limited, says the report. Over half the countries in the East Asia and Pacific region are Pacific island nations, a number of which may not exist in 50 years on the current global climate path. Already, policymakers in some developing countries note that an increasing amount of their development budget is being diverted to cope with weather-related emergencies.

In the East Asia and Pacific region, the report finds three major drivers of climate vulnerability:

The large number of people living along the coast and on low-lying islands—for example over 130 million people in China, roughly 40 million in Vietnam and around 2 million Pacific Islanders, many of whom live on low lying islands and atolls.
The continued reliance, particularly among the poorer countries, on agriculture. As pressures on land, water, and forest resources increase—as a result of population growth, urbanization, and environmental degradation caused by rapid industrialization—greater variability and extremes will complicate their management. In the Mekong River basin, for example, the rainy season will see more intense precipitation, while the dry season lengthens by two months.
The regional economies’ high dependence on marine resources. The value of well-managed coral reefs is $13 billion in Southeast Asia alone—which are already stressed by industrial pollution, coastal development, overfishing, and runoff of agricultural pesticides and nutrients.

For developing countries to achieve the shift to a lower-carbon world depends on financial and technical assistance from high-income countries, the report says. High-income countries also need to act quickly to reduce their carbon footprints and boost development of alternative energy sources to help tackle the problem of climate change.

The report cites examples of strong action to combat climate change in the region. The Chinese government has taken the most aggressive energy efficiency campaign and has the largest renewable energy capacity in the world. Its target of a 20 percent reduction in energy intensity from 2005 to 2010 would reduce annual CO2 emissions by 1.5 billion tons by 2010, five times the 300-million-ton reduction of the European Union’s Kyoto commitment. In Rizhao, a city of 3 million people in northern China, skyscrapers are built to use solar power, and 99 percent of Rizhao’s households use solar-power heaters. In total, the city has over 500,000 square meters of solar water heating panels. As a result, energy use has fallen by nearly a third and CO2 emissions by half. Meanwhile, the Philippines and Indonesia have the world’s second and third largest geothermal capacities respectively.

The remarkable high economic growth in East Asia and Pacific, accompanied by rapid urbanization, deforestation and land use changes, comes at a heavy environmental price. Coal still dominates the energy mix in the region and most countries—whose average per capita emissions remain a fraction of those of high-income countries—need massive expansions in energy, transport, urban systems, and agricultural production. Sustaining growth using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.

"Solving the climate problem requires a transformation of the energy systems towards higher energy efficiency and more low-carbon technologies," Justin Lin, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President, Development Economics. "It is in the interests of developing countries to act now to avoid locking into high-carbon infrastructure."

The World Bank Group’s "Strategic Framework for Development and Climate Change" emphasizes mitigation and adaptation initiatives in its lending, while recognizing that developing countries need to encourage economic growth and reduce poverty. Investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate adaptation projects are growing.

The number of World Bank-financed studies that help client countries plan and implement low-carbon growth strategies are also growing, and the Bank Group’s energy financing is increasingly turning towards renewable energies and energy efficiency. In the East Asia & Pacific region, the Bank has completed several studies on the impacts of climate change and vulnerabilities to natural disasters and is increasing its support for climate change adaptation.

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The project CN-CF-Yingkou Economic Dev Zone Heating is now in the pipeline.

2009-09-05T04:00:00.000Z

The project CN-CF-Yingkou Economic Dev Zone Heating is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project Dashiqiao Central Heating Supply Project is now in the pipeline.

2009-09-05T04:00:00.000Z

The project Dashiqiao Central Heating Supply Project is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project Inner Mongolia Highway and Trade Corridor has changed to Closed

2009-09-05T04:00:00.000Z

The project Inner Mongolia Highway and Trade Corridor has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The main objective of the China - Inner Mongolia Highway and Trade Corridor Project is to sustain and promote the development of cross-border trade between China, Russia and Mongolia by improving transport infrastructure and logistics. The project includes the following components: Component I-Hailar-Manzhouli Highway. Expansion of highway capacity by upgrading or constructing about 177 km o f HMH. Component 2-Border Roads for Trade. Upgrading and rehabilitation of about 4 13 km o f the highway network, sections identified either as key links for international trade facilitation at smaller border crossings with Russia and Mongolia, or as critical missing links in the highway network. Component 3-Cargo transfer terminal and trade facilitation program. Development of facilities and trade regime designed mainly for China's import and export trade with Russia and Mongolia, but also meeting the requirements of potential trade in transit shipped through Chinese seaports to other countries. Component 4-Institutional strengthening and training. Technical assistance and training program aiming to improve the trade logistics planning, trade promotion, and cargo terminal management, as well as project management, environmental monitoring, and supervision of highway construction.

China Playing Important Role in Steadying World Economy, Zoellick Says

2009-09-02T10:50:12.000Z

Contact:

In Beijing: Li Li (8610)5861 7850

Mobile: (86) 13501258056

lli2@worldbank.org

BEIJING, September 2, 2009 – China is taking decisive action to help stabilize the world economy and is persisting with efforts to re-balance its economy towards greater domestic demand, said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.

“China has steered a steady course through the stormy seas of the economic crisis,” Zoellick said during his third official visit to China as World Bank Group president. “Through its massive stimulus and strong lending program, China has contributed to the early signs of a global recovery by keeping its growth rate up. With growth in China now projected at close to 8 percent for 2009 as a whole, and signs of stabilization in many other economies in Asia and around the world, the chances of a truly global recovery have increased measurably.”

Zoellick said he was especially impressed by the fact that the recent rebound in the Chinese economy had come almost entirely from domestic demand. This had led to a welcome pick-up in imports, especially in raw materials from within and outside the Asia-Pacific region as well as in machinery and equipment.

“China’s trading partners are benefiting from this domestic demand and that is helping to strengthen levels of confidence across the world,” he said. “The challenge for China now is to deepen the domestic consumption trend through even stronger government investment in health and education, financial sector reform, liberalizing services further, and strengthening the integration of migrants in China's cities.”

A key aspect of China’s stimulus is the extent of its investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon alternatives to road and air transport. “Through its stimulus package, China is spending $90 billion on new rail projects this year, with a similar amount planned for next year,” Zoellick said. “China will spend $85 billion on energy conservation and environmental measures in 2009-10. These are wins for the people of China as well as for the global environment.”

Zoellick discussed emerging signs of global recovery and the Chinese economy yesterday with Premier Wen Jiabao.

Over the past two days, Zoellick also met with State Councilor Dai Bingguo, Minister of Finance Xie Xuren, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission Zhang Ping, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan of the People's Bank of China, Minister of Commerce Chen Deming, Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission Liu Mingkang, Chairman of China Investment Corporation Lou Jiwei, Deputy Administrator of the State Forestry Administration Zhu Lieke and Vice President of the Export-Import Bank of China Zhu Hongjie.

Tomorrow, Zoellick will visit Anhui Province to see World Bank Group-supported projects in forestry, water conservation and highway development. He will also meet students from the University of Science and Technology of China to discuss China’s role in global economic recovery.

After departing Beijing on Friday morning, Zoellick will attend the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in London.

For more information on the World Bank’s program in China, please visit: www.worldbank.org/china

The project Sustainable Forestry Development Project has changed to Closed

2009-09-01T04:00:00.000Z

The project Sustainable Forestry Development Project has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The objective of China's Sustainable Forestry Development Project is to ensure that viable, participatory, and locally-managed systems for conservation, management, and sustainable use of forest resources and associated biodiversity are developed and adopted in project sites to promote sustainable development and management of forest resources and protect the natural environment. These practices, developed and applied for the protection and sustainable management of natural forest resources in pilot areas in China, will provide models for wider replication under the government's Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP). There are three main project components, which will be financed over a period of seven years. The first component includes the following subcomponents: 1) Natural forest management; yield regulation and control policy studies; implementation of forest management plans through demonstrations, non-timber forest products domestication, and establishment of yield plots to model growth and yield and assess biodiversity change; and monitoring and evaluation; 2) forest management training and vocational training; and community development activities. The Protected areas Management component supports conservation and improved management of biodiversity of global importance in selected, high priority nature reserves. The third component increases wood production to meet the growing gap between domestic supply and demand.

The project Jiangsu Wuxi Lake Tai Environment Project is now in the pipeline.

2009-08-23T04:00:00.000Z

The project Jiangsu Wuxi Lake Tai Environment Project is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project CN-CF-Shandong Provincial BiogasCDM Prog is now in the pipeline.

2009-08-07T04:00:00.000Z

The project CN-CF-Shandong Provincial BiogasCDM Prog is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project Hubei Shiman Highway Project has changed to Closed

2009-08-05T04:00:00.000Z

The project Hubei Shiman Highway Project has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The Hubei Shiman Highway Project aims to support socioeconomic development of Hubei province by enhancing its access to other provinces, particularly the western region of China, improving local mobility within poor, remote western parts of the province, and strengthening governance of the provincial road sector. The project has three components: (1) Highway capacity investment: The project will finance the construction of the 105.1 km Hubei section of the Shiyan Manchuangan Expressway (SME), a 106.8 km highway linking Shiyan City in northwestern Hubei province to Manchuangan in Shaanxi province. The project also includes a 6 km connecting road in the Shiyan city area, six interchanges, one monitoring center, one monitoring sub-center one service area, two rest areas, two maintenance areas, and electrical and mechanical equipment (E&M) for maintenance operations and management. E&M equipment includes toll, telecommunications, and traffic monitoring systems, and safety and fire emergency facilities in tunnels. (2) Local Road Improvement Program (the LRIP): The Local Road Improvement Program (LRIP) addresses the lack of accessibility in remote, low- income areas of Hubei province. Under this program, the project will rehabilitate and upgrade a series of low-class local roads in Shiyan City. (3) Institutional strengthening, policy development, and road safety initiatives. These activities aim to strengthen capacity of the Hubei Provincial Communications Department (HPCD) to manage the provincial highway network efficiently and improve the sustainability of provincial highway sector financing. Expected improvements in the quality of roads will lead to lower transport costs throughout the province and lower life-cycle costs for road maintenance. Adopting more efficient practices for managing road will promote effective use of public funds, thereby enhancing the contribution of the highway network to economic development and its responsiveness to social needs. Finally, road traffic safety initiatives will reduce accident rates, thereby saving lives and addressing negative road impacts.

The project Liaoning and Shandong Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project (TVET II) is now in the pipeline.

2009-07-31T04:00:00.000Z

The project Liaoning and Shandong Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project (TVET II) is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

World Bank Report Highlights Need for Continued Reform Efforts in China’s Rural Health Sector

2009-07-23T03:00:00.000Z

Contacts:

Li Li, 86-10-5861 7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

Beijing, July 23, 2009 – A new report by the World Bank presented in Beijing today commends the government’s health reform efforts to date, concurs that its planned further reforms are necessary, and offers ideas for concretizing the broad ideas set out in the recently-issued government’s masterplan. The report also uses the experiences of the OECD countries to gaze into China’s future: it asks not only what China’s health system might look like but also how the country might get there from where it is today.

The report, Reforming China’s Rural Health System, begins by setting the context for the recent and planned reforms by examining the symptoms and causes of China’s health challenges at the start of the new Millennium. In the 1980s and 1990s improvements in health outcomes were outpaced by China’s economic growth. Inequalities emerged. Health care costs rose rapidly, and made health care unaffordable for some. The causes included: the decline of the old commune-based rural health insurance system; the relatively slow growth of government health expenditure; the shift from government finance of health facilities to patients paying out-of-pocket; relative prices that resulted in health providers earning higher margins on drugs and tests; and the high degree of fiscal decentralization, with fiscal transfers reducing but not eliminating geographic inequalities in fiscal capacity.

Reforming China’s Rural Health System next looks at the health reforms of the 2000’s. It concurs with the government that the reforms were a major step in the right direction. The report goes on to set out ways to address the remaining challenges in the context of the government’s ongoing reform efforts. It looks at options for raising further revenues for the new cooperative medical insurance scheme (NRCMS) and the targeting of NRCMS subsidies, exploring possible mechanisms for a tighter link between household and local government contributions on the one hand and income levels on the other. The report explores options for a benefit package that covers outpatient and preventive care, and has smaller deductibles. It discusses how NRCMS might evolve from being a passive bill-payer into a “purchaser” of services, including primary care.

Reforming China’s Rural Health System also sets out ideas for reform, at a time when the government has called for sweeping reforms for the years 2009-2011. For example it looks at medium-term reform in service delivery and public health. It discusses options for revising prices and shifting ultimately from fee-for-service to prospective payments. It also discusses the interrelated issues of health facility autonomy and governance. It calls for a balancing of government regional planning with more autonomy and accountability at the facility level under a revised incentive framework. In public health, Reforming China’s Rural Health System reaffirms the importance of public finance, and the need for generous central government transfers that limit geographic differences in public health capacities. The report discusses ways of clarifying responsibilities in public health at different levels of government, and across agencies including NRCMS.

“This volume will be immensely useful, not only for informing the ongoing national health reform in China, but also for many other countries around the world struggling with similar issues.” said Emanuel Jimenez, Director of Human Development for the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region.

“Reforming China’s Rural Health System not only breaks new ground analytically but provides an evidence-base for Chinese policymakers in assessing and implementing reforms”, said Jack Langenbrunner, Human Development Coordinator of the World Bank’s China program. Mr. Langenbrunner continued: “The report comes at an opportune time in the Government-Bank partnership to fund grants to ‘flagship counties’ in eight provinces to design and implement a series of reforms in financing, delivery, and public health. The report is a tutorial for the student just starting, or a useful guide for the seasoned policymaker leading the effort at any level… The student of health care policy will better understand the missteps of the ‘market reforms’ of the 1980s and 1990s, but will be heartened by the strides to reestablish a system in this decade which may lead to improved efficiency, better outcomes and financial protection.”

The final part of the report looks to the longer-term reform agenda. The reader can align the authors thinking with China’s health care reform strategy through 2020. It looks at some of the challenges created by fragmentation across insurance schemes and the reliance on individual contributions. Possible problems based on the experience of OECD countries include inefficiencies in the delivery of care, adverse selection through selective enrollment, underreporting of earnings, and informal work arrangements to avoid mandatory contributions. The report discussed options for narrowing gaps between schemes, for joint management, and for the eventual merger under a single health finance agency, either at the provincial level or national level. Finally, Reforming China’s Rural Health System examines different options for a unified financing model, including a tax-financed minimum benefit package (whose generosity might vary geographically), with voluntary contributions to expand benefits above the minimum.

Financial Crisis Highlights Need for More Social Safety Nets, Including Conditional Cash Transfers

2009-07-15T08:00:00.000Z

Related Contents

> Download the Report

Beijing, July 15, 2009 – Demand for well-designed safety net and cash transfer programs to assist poor families is growing across the world, as 2009 has developed into a year of tough economic challenges-especially for households already hit by the recent food and fuel crises, and for governments concerned that the financial crisis could turn into a humanitarian one, according to a World Bank report presented in Beijing today.

The report, Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty, evaluates CCT programs that offer qualifying families cash in exchange for commitments such as taking babies to health clinics regularly or keeping children in school. It finds that these programs—where the responsibility for breaking out of poverty is shared by the state and poor households—can reduce poverty both in the short and long term, particularly when supported by better public services.

After early successes in South Asia and Latin America, CCT programs are now found on every continent. They operate in more than two dozen developing countries, as well as in several developed countries, including the United States. In countries such as Mexico and Brazil, CCT programs were introduced as part of larger efforts to make safety nets more effective, replace badly targeted subsidies, or integrate smaller programs. Colombia's nationwide Familias program has generated important and positive evaluation results and has received sustained support from the World Bank.

CCTs have also grown tremendously within countries. Mexico's Progresa began in 1997 with 300,000 households; its successor Oportunidades now reaches 5 million households. Positive evaluations by researchers encouraged this scaling up. In economic terms, the program's transfers account for about one-fifth of the consumption of the median recipient household.

"With their focus on mothers and young people and their ability to deliver critical health and education services, conditional cash transfers are a vital safety net for countries seeking to help those hardest hit by the financial crisis," said Justin Lin, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President, Development Economics.

The report's analysis of more than 20 impact evaluation studies of these programs shows that CCTs have led to many positive results: higher household consumption; increased use of preventive health services; a reduction in child labor; and higher school enrolment.

"CCT programs have also helped modernize social sector management since they require coordination across many agencies," said Ariel Fiszbein, report co-author and Chief Economist for Human Development at the World Bank. "Many have built in careful monitoring and evaluation that is invaluable in assessing results objectively and helping design better programs going forward."

KEY LESSONS LEARNED

CCT programs should be seen as part of a social protection system. CCT programs are mainly intended to support poor households with children. They should be supplemented by other transfer programs such as social pensions or workfare to provide social protection to all vulnerable groups.

CCT programs have reduced poverty. In general, transfers have been well targeted to poor households, raising consumption levels among beneficiaries, and reducing the incidence of poverty by several percentage points. Concerns that participants might exit the labor force or have more children as a result of receiving cash are not borne out-such effects were absent or very small.

CCT programs have increased the use of health and education services. For example, in Mexico the CCT program decreased the drop-out rate between 6th and 7th grade by 9 percentage points; while in Cambodia, two pilot programs have reduced the drop-out rate between these grades by 20 to 30 percentage points. In Pakistan, another program increased the number of 10- to14-year-old girls in school by 11 percentage points. CCT programs have increased the use of preventive health care services in Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua by between 8 and 33 percentage points. Encouragingly, many of these improvements have been concentrated among the poorest households.

CCT programs cannot work in isolation. Using services more has not always translated into improved outcomes in health and education. For example, in Cambodia and Mexico higher school enrollment rates have not been matched by better performance in learning tests. To actually reduce child mortality or improve learning, CCTs need to be complemented by higher-quality education and health services and a strong focus on giving children a head start, such as via better nutrition or preschool programs.

"CCT programs enable households to make critical investments in child nutrition, health, and education," concluded Norbert Schady, report co-author and a Senior Economist in the World Bank's Development Research Group. "But many obstacles remain at the household level, including a lack of information and inadequate parenting practices. CCT programs are now experimenting with new complementary approaches to help address these constraints."

“CCT programs have growing relevance for China,” noted Jack Langenbrunner, Human Development Sector Coordinator in the World Bank’s Beijing office. “In Health, coupon programs are being piloted in Chongqing, allowing mothers to better access post-natal care services and child nutritional supplements. With growing numbers of multi-drug resistant TB patients (now over 100,000), CCTs also could be utilized to improve compliance with drug treatment programs, helping patients and reducing risks to those around them. To improve the quality and effectiveness of education, CCTs hold the potential in areas such as Early Childhood Development to provide cash to poor families if they can send kids to kindergartens or child centers. These could be used to help provide subsidies to poor families if the children can complete compulsory education, and, finally, CCTs can help in the areas of technical and vocational education and training by providing cash to poor families that send graduates of junior or senior secondary to enter into vocational schools and obtain skills certification.”

The report and related materials are publicly available on the web at: www.worldbank.org/ccts-report

World Bank Group Significantly Boosts Support to East Asia and Pacific

2009-07-06T18:16:25.000Z

Contacts in Washington, DC:

Elisabeth Mealey (emealey@worldbank.org)

+1-202-458-4475

WASHINGTON, 6 July, 2009 — The World Bank Group responded quickly to the impacts of the global financial crisis on the countries of the East Asia and Pacific region in fiscal year 2009 with over US$9 billion in financing for development. This represents a significant increase on the amount of financing of the previous year. The World Bank Group also ramped up its technical assistance to help governments in the region address the social and economic impacts of the crisis.

World Bank Group Commitments fiscal years 2009 and 2008 (year ends June 30)
World Bank Group	FY09*	FY08*
IBRD	US$6.9	US$2.7
IDA	US$1.2	US$1.8
IFC	US$ 1.1**	US$ 1.6
Billions of U.S. dollars * Preliminary data

“Although growth in East Asia and Pacific still compares favorably with that of other regions, the poor and the vulnerable have been deeply affected by the global economic crisis,” said World Bank Group Vice President for the East Asia and Pacific Region, James W. Adams “In this region alone, more than 10 million people who would otherwise have moved out of poverty are expected to remain below the poverty line. We have adjusted our regional strategy and increased resources for the region to help countries weather the economic crisis and ensure priority programs remain on track. This includes investments in infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, and social safety nets.”

Many countries in the region were just beginning to recover from the food and fuel crisis of 2008 when the global financial crisis hit. The World Bank Group responded by increasing its support --in loans, grants, equity investments and guarantees-- to help countries and private-sector firms deal with the devastating effects of the global financial meltdown.

Commitments from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)—which provides financing, risk management products, and other financial services to middle-income countries— increased in FY09 to $6.9 billion, up from $2.7 billion the previous year. The International Development Association (IDA), which provides interest-free credits and grants to the lowest-income countries, provided $1.2 billion in support in FY09.

As the largest provider of multilateral financing for the private sector in the developing world, the Bank Group’s private sector arm –the International Finance Corporation (IFC)— also increased its support to help boost private sector-led recovery. In FY2009, preliminary results indicate that IFC generated $1.1 billion of new business in 45 projects, seven of these are located in conflict-affected countries and regions, while one in every five projects has a climate change component.

Karin Finkelston, IFC’s Director for East Asia and Pacific, said “To help the region navigate the financial crisis, we focused our efforts on the poorest and most vulnerable countries. We are pleased that we were able to increase our financial commitments to IDA countries to nearly $400 million from around $200 million in 2008.”

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) supported infrastructure development in south-west China, where fast urbanization and industrial growth have led to severe wastewater issues. The agency issued guarantees of $75.3 million to support two water projects, which will promote improved water quality as well as better environmental practices.

“As the leading international institution promoting foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging and transition economies, MIGA can help investors mitigate risks in these uncertain times and play an important role in helping countries attract FDI,” says MIGA’s Executive Vice President Izumi Kobayashi. “MIGA can act as a stabilizing influence in the market.”

The Bank Group’s support in FY2009 in the East Asia and Pacific region by sector is as follows:

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*For more information about the World Bank in the East Asia Pacific region, visit: www.worldbank.org/eap

The project Reforestation on Degraded Land in Northwest Guangxi is now in the pipeline.

2009-07-04T04:00:00.000Z

The project Reforestation on Degraded Land in Northwest Guangxi is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project Second Anhui Highway Project has changed to Closed

2009-07-02T04:00:00.000Z

The project Second Anhui Highway Project has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The Second Anhui Highway Project for China aims to support the social and economic developmentof Anhui Province by providing an efficient, safe, and cost-effective highway infrastructure and improve transport links. There are five project components: Component 1 expands highway capacity and promote regional integration by constructing approximately 116 km of trunk highway. Component 2 improves accessibility to low-income counties by rehabilitating and improving 243 km of the Class III/ IV highway network. Component 3 improves road safety by upgrading selected dangerous sections (blackspots) that are key to the road network. Component 4 strengthens the highway management capacity of Anhui Provincial Comnunications Department (APCD) through technical assistance and training, including studies on construction supervision, and overloading of vehicles. Component 5 finances land acquisition and resettlement.

The project Wuhan Urban Transport Project has changed to Closed

2009-06-30T04:00:00.000Z

The project Wuhan Urban Transport Project has changed to Closed. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The Wuhan Urban Transport Project will promote the development of an integrated, efficient, and sustainable transport system for the movement of people (especially the poorer sections of society) and goods in Wuhan. The project has the following six components. Component 1) Addresses the immediate need to improve the road network operations within the city, and to expand the bicycle and pedestrian networks. The five programs, within the component, are designed to: provide suitable routes for through or cross-town traffic; improve utilization of existing cross-river bridges; relieve congestion in central down-town areas; provide adequate road networks in development areas; provide safe conditions for pedestrians. Component 2) Aims to build upon the strengths of the existing transport network management to better utilize existing assets and resources. The detailed content includes: pedestrian and bicycle measures, bus priority measures, channelization of junctions, provision of traffic signals at junctions and an urban area traffic control (ATC) system, a road safety and accident analysis program, a road user education program, road marking equipment. Component 3) Will to facilitate an increase in the efficiency and effectiveness of bus services in the city. A key element of the effort related to public transport is support for the ongoing reform of public transport operations. Component 4) Aims to: assist the government's intent to reform and improve the current road maintenance management through training and study for Road Maintenance Management Information System (RMMIS) improve the current road maintenance facilities by purchasing advanced road maintenance equipment reconstruct the most damaged road sections in Wuhan. Component 5) Aims to mitigate the adverse impacts of road construction, minimize vehicle emission, and increase the positive environmental impacts of the project. The detailed content includes: constructing noise barriers and other facilities to mitigate noise from the new roads planting along new roads expanding the vehicle emission and traffic noise monitoring system facilitating implementation of a motor vehicle emission control strategy upgrading the vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) system. Component 6) Will strengthen the technical and management skills of the municipal staff, and includes: domestic and international training for officials from project implementing agencies, funding for consultant studies on issues and topics related to the other five components of the project, office equipment to enhance the productivity of the implementing agencies.

The project Shanghai Urban Environment (APL Phase III) has changed to Active

2009-06-27T04:00:00.000Z

The project Shanghai Urban Environment (APL Phase III) has changed to Active. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The objective of the Third Phase of the Adaptable Program Loan for the Shanghai Urban Environment Project is to improve Shanghai's resource and environmental sustainability in the core and suburban areas through strategic priority investments and selective institutional reforms in the water and wastewater sectors. There are four components to the project; the first component of the project being water supply and management component. This component includes the construction of the Nanhui raw water conveyor, which is one of the nine components of the Qing Cao Sha Raw Water Project (QCSRWP). The remaining eight components of the QCSRWP are being funded by Shanghai, and are not part of the Third Phase of the Adaptable Program Loan (APL3). The Nanhui raw water conveyor, which will have a capacity of 1.28 million m/day, will supply raw water to the rapidly growing metropolitan areas in southeastern Shanghai, including the new container port development, and the high tech industry and logistical complexes around the Pudong international airport. The second component of the project is the wastewater component. This component supports construction of the Puxi trunk sewer, which is one of two sections of the extension of the Bailonggang southern trunk sewer system. The Puxi trunk sewer will collect about 390,000m/day of wastewater in the Xuhui district, and consists of 6.66 km of DN 3000 mm trunk sewer, 1.10 km of Diameter Nominal (DN) 3000 mm river crossing, 0.45 km of DN 2200 mm connecting sewer, and a 7.96 m/second pumping station. The third component of the project is the district environment management program component. This component will support the District Financing Vehicle (DFV), a subsidiary of Shanghai Chengtou Corporation, which is dedicated to financing environmental investments in Shanghai's suburban areas. Finally, the fourth component of the project is the institutional strengthening and training component.

ECO2 Cities: Q & A with Abha Joshi Ghani, Manager of Urban Development

2009-06-26T18:21:20.000Z

The lifestyle associated with cities is a key driver of global warming yet cities also offer the best means for slowing it, according to the Little Green Data Book 2009 (pdf), released last month at the 17th Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. The World Bank’s Manager of Urban Development, Abha Joshi Ghani, looks at some of the challenges facing our rapidly urbanizing world, and offers a vision for the model city of the future.

Abha Joshi-Ghani, Manager
of Urban Development, WB

How big a problem is the pollution caused by cities?

Cities use 70 percent of the world’s energy and related resources, such as coal, oil and natural gas, the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions. They also consume more than 80 percent of the agricultural products and timber harvested in rural areas. But it’s the consumption oriented lifestyle of residents, not cities themselves, that leads to pollution. Interestingly, people who live in city centers tend to use fewer resources and generate less waste than their suburban neighbors. A resident of New York, for example, produces about a third the greenhouse gas emissions of a resident of a more spread-out city like Denver.

Is discouraging the growth of cities an option?

No. With more than half of their GDP coming from cities , the economic future of most developing countries will be determined by the productivity of these burgeoning urban populations. There is also an increasing recognition of the benefits of urbanization on poverty reduction. Moreover, cities can help provide a lifestyle that combines a high quality of life with the least amount of resource consumption. Cities, with their compact form, are much more efficient in delivering services such as water, sanitation, and shelter. It’s also not really possible to discourage the growth of cities. People want to move to cities. Countries that have tried to slow this movement are rarely successful.

What is wrong with the way cities currently operate?

The current design and planning practices for cities are rooted in the 19th century. Hugely successful in their time, these 19th century models are no longer the best solution, and in fact have become part of the problem. The world is now a lot more crowded and complex and requires more efficient, longer-term solutions for servicing urban areas.

What is the ideal city for the future?

The ideal city of the future offers a very compact, concise lifestyle. It’s a city that optimizes its growth potential by creating jobs. At the same time, it offers a good quality of life, good living standards, and services such as water, sanitation, and sewerage and transport. It’s also a city which is less consumption oriented, well managed, financially sound, and a city which is ecologically friendly, inclusive , and well managed. In short it is a sustainable city.

How can cities become more ecological and sustainable, while also playing a vital role as an engine of economic growth and driving force of poverty reduction?

A lot depends on what sort of public transportation systems has been installed, what energy efficiency actions have been taken, what policies are in place and are enforced,what kind of housing is available for its citizens, especially the poor. Is it pedestrian friendly? Do people actually have to travel long distances to get to their jobs?

Some cities are now putting in their main infrastructure arteries. A major transport system is like a skeletal system for a city and can last more than 100 years. If you’re not conscious about what kind of public transport system you’re putting in, the larger the city grows, the more congestion there will be on its roads. The richer the people are, the more they will want to drive. Then, it would be difficult for a city to grow into a more environmentally sustainable city.

That said, there are many things cities can do. Most of them are city-specific, but one thing all cities can do is prepare for the future. The future will bring many changes, and cities that are resilient will be able to respond better to future challenges. Part of that involves fostering robust and respectful communications between city officials and the community. Building in redundancy for key infrastructure is also important. Levels of pollution need to be low enough and managed well enough to ensure that the local and global ecosystem can accommodate them. Sustainability is usually predicated on providing a healthy environment for all residents, particularly the most vulnerable.

Are some cities too well established to change?

I think it’s difficult for a city to suddenly reinvent itself, because a certain amount of the DNA of a city—how it has grown for the last 60, 70 years—will always remain there. But they can definitely determine how they plan to grow as more people move in, and also how they want to rehabilitate areas that need regeneration. Also, cities are organic, they are constantly changing and renewing themselves.

What is the World Bank's Eco² program and how will it help?

“Eco² Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities” is a new program to help cities in developing countries achieve greater ecological and economic sustainability. The program will provide practical and scalable, analytical and operational support to cities. The program also aims to build a global partnership among forward-looking cities in developing countries, global best-practice cities, academia, and international development communities.

Are there any success stories out there?

Some of the cities we look to are Yokohama, Japan, Curitaba, Brazil, Barcelona, Spain, Bogota, Colombia, and the old city in Stockholm called Hammarby.

These cities have introduced more efficient public transport—metro and bus rapid transit--and green spaces. They have consciously brought down their energy use through more efficient street lighting and buildings and being energy efficient in the utilities they run. They’ve introduced bicycle paths and encouraged people to cycle. There are also almost always a few neighbourhoods within big cities that are a little farther advanced than the rest of the city. Good examples are really almost everywhere. More importantly, some cities are just beginning to grow – and they have all the potential to grow in a sustainable way carefully managing their resources.

Sustainable Urbanization – Economically and Ecologically - Is Focus of New Program

2009-06-26T17:51:22.000Z

Urbanization in developing countries is a defining feature of the 21st century
While urbanization has enabled economic growth, it has contributed to climate change, pollution, congestion, and the growth of slums
The World Bank’s new Eco² Cities Program aims to alter the way cities develop by avoiding growth that fosters inefficient use of energy and resources
Successful cities create opportunities for citizens in an inclusive, sustainable, and resource-efficient way, while protecting the local ecology and global public goods

June 26, 2009—It took the world hundreds of years to build today’s urban space of 400,000 square kilometers of cities.

It will take only about another 30 years to build that same amount of urban space in cities of developing countries, according to projections for urbanization in developing countries.

This rapid urbanization may be the “single greatest development challenge and opportunity in our century,” says a report outlining a new World Bank program called Eco² Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities, launched today in Singapore.

The report notes that while urbanization has enabled economic growth, it has also contributed to environmental and socio-economic challenges, including climate change, pollution, congestion, and the rapid growth of slums.

The Eco² Cities Program is, in effect, a call to alter the way cities develop—to avoid the kind of growth that fosters heavy and inefficient use of energy and resources, while helping cities become climate-friendly economic centers. And to do so quickly.

“We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to plan, develop, build and manage cities that are simultaneously more ecologically and economically sustainable,” says Katherine Sierra, World Bank Vice President of Sustainable Development.

“The Eco² Cities Program is complementary to the ongoing efforts the World Bank and its development partners are making in sustainable development and climate change.”

Eco² Cities Offers Urban Development Framework

Jim Adams, vice president for the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region, adds that the pace of urbanization in Asia alone points to the urgency for an integrated economic and ecological approach to city development.

“Eco² is being launched at a critical historic juncture – urbanization in developing countries is a defining feature of the 21st century,” he said. “There is only a short space of time in which to make an impact on how this development takes place.”

Stockholm, Sweden

The Eco² Cities Program has just completed its first phase—a comprehensive three-part book presenting the overall analytical and operational framework of the program.

The program’s next step is to apply this framework in several cities, and eventually be mainstreamed through national-level urban development strategies.

Representatives from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia will hear about the program first-hand this week at a presentation in Singapore.

Eco² Cities team leader Hiroaki Suzuki and co-team leader Arish Dastur say the program recognizes that successful cities create economic opportunities for their citizens in an inclusive, sustainable, and resource-efficient way, while also protecting and nurturing the local ecology and global public goods, such as the environment, for future generations.

Urban Sustainability Will Pay Compounding Dividends

Cities like Curitiba, Brazil, Stockholm, Sweden, and Yokohama, Japan, have demonstrated that they can greatly enhance their resource efficiency while decreasing harmful pollution and unnecessary waste.

“By doing so, they have improved the quality of life of their citizens, enhanced their economic competitiveness and resilience, strengthened their fiscal capacity, and created an enduring ‘culture’ of sustainability,” says Suzuki.

“What is encouraging is that most of the imaginative and practical solutions used by these cities are affordable and they generate economic returns, including direct and indirect benefits for the poor.”

Adds Dastur: “Sustainable urban planning is in fact an investment in the future of a city’s economy and welfare. An organized approach that consolidates and transfers these lessons to rapidly urbanizing countries can lock in systemic benefits for current and future generations.”

Cities Develop Their Own Eco² Pathway

The Eco² framework is designed to be adapted to local conditions. Each city taking part in the program should use it to develop its own “Eco² pathway” taking into account its own unique set of challenges and constraints, says Suzuki.

Yokohama, Japan

The World Bank plans to provide technical assistance through diagnostics studies that look at how efficiently the city is using resources and identify where improvements could be made.

The diagnostics would also look at the city’s infrastructure systems, urban form, policies and regulations for opportunities to realize greater synergies through integration and coordination of these elements, says Dastur.

The Bank’s technical assistance will also promote the use of life cycle costing—a method that looks at total costs, including resource depletion and environmental impact.

“A fundamental ingredient in the process is the political will to truly make a change – a genuine desire by city leadership and stakeholders to invest in the future of the city and the well-being of the citizens,” says Suzuki. “If we start with that, the knowledge exists, the methods exist, and growing support is now in place.”

Ideal City of the Future Offers ‘Concise Lifestyle’

The Eco² program is an integral part of the World Bank’s new urban strategy, scheduled for formal approval in September. The strategy looks at how to help cities harness their economic growth to improve the quality of life of their citizens.

Abha Joshi-Ghani, sector manager for the World Bank’s global urban unit , says that cities, “if managed and planned in a sustainable way, have the potential to offer a high quality of life with the least amount of resource consumption. They are also more enjoyable places to live.”

“It’s the consumption-oriented lifestyle of residents—not cities themselves—that leads to pollution. Compact, well-managed cities reduce the need for car ownership and long commutes, and are potentially much more efficient in delivering services such as water, sanitation and shelter to large numbers of people,” she says.

“The ideal city of the future is economically and ecologically sustainable,” she adds. “It’s a city which is optimizing its growth potential, creating jobs and attracting people, but at the same time offering a good quality of life, good living standards, services such as water, sanitation, sewerage. It’s also a city which is less consumption-oriented, well managed, financially sound, and which is green and ecologically friendly.”

“Really, it’s a city which offers a very compact, concise lifestyle.”

With 90 percent of urban growth in the next three decades expected to take place in developing countries, Suzuki and Dastur argue what’s needed is a “paradigm shift.”

“We’re building, for all intents and purposes, a whole new world at 10 times the speed, in countries with serious capacity constraints. At the same time, we now know what it takes for cities to be more ecologically sustainable, economically dynamic and socially viable. It would be a tremendous loss if we do not act on this opportunity. The stakes are very high.”

Eco² Builds on Real Cases

Curitiba, Brazil, sustainably absorbed a population increase from 361,000 (in 1960) to 1,797,000 (in 2007), through innovative urban planning, city management and transport planning. The city has the highest rate of public transport ridership in Brazil (45%), the lowest congestion-related economic losses, and also enjoys the lowest rates of urban air pollution. While preserving urban density and vibrancy, Curitiba invested in large parks as ecological assets for flood prevention and recreation. Its waste collection and recycling program allows the poor to exchange collected waste for transport coupons and food.
Stockholm, Sweden, has demonstrated how integrated and collaborative planning and management can transform an old inner city industrial area into an attractive and ecologically sustainable district. Core environmental and infrastructure plans were jointly developed by three city agencies overseeing water, energy and waste. The goal was to create a cyclical system that optimizes use of resources and minimizes waste. For instance, biogas is produced in the wastewater plant from digestion of organic waste and sludge and used as fuel in eco-friendly cars and buses. Some of the initial results have been a 30% reduction in non-renewable energy use, a 41% reduction in water use, and a 29% reduction in global warming potential.
Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city, has demonstrated how an integrated approach to waste management, combined with cooperation from stakeholders, particularly citizens, could reduce solid waste by 38.7% during a period when the population actually grew by 170,000. The city conducted environmental education and promotional activities to enhance public awareness and call for collaborative action. The resulting waste reduction allowed Yokohama to shut down two incinerators, saving the city $1.1 billion, as well as $6 million in annual operation and maintenance costs.

The project NanGuang Railway Project has changed to Active

2009-06-25T04:00:00.000Z

The project NanGuang Railway Project has changed to Active. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The objective of the NanGuang Railway Project is to provide additional transport capacity and reduce transport time between the less developed western region of southwest China and the relatively more developed Pearl River Delta region. The components of the project include: the project achieves its development objective by connecting the existing railway network in the western region of southwest China and the existing railway network in the Pearl River Delta region. It will also connect to numerous network improvements underway or planned which will directly contribute to optimizing the benefits to rail transport provided by this project. The project alignment is relatively direct connecting urban centers such as Litang, Guigang, Wuzhou, and Zhaoqing. The project passes through generally lightly-populated country and traverses a variety of terrains including flat alluvial terraces and eroded basins and hilly river valley basins. Sixteen intermediate railway stations and four overtaking stations are planned to be built or reconstructed as part of the project. The new track of the project will run parallel to the existing track between Litang and Guigang (about 59 km). Between Litang and Guigang, freight trains will operate on the existing track while the passenger trains will use the new project track. Power will be provided from the nearby city grid to the 'traction substation' (i.e. transformer house) in the railway station under an electricity purchase contract and by the local power company. There will be connection lines between the traction substation and the city grid. These lines are parts of the city grid and not separate dedicated electric transmission lines for the project. The planned construction period is about four years. Construction commenced in April 2009 and the project is proposed to be commissioned by 2014. At the time of appraisal, mid- April 2009, land acquisition had begun, though resettlement and construction had not. Nonetheless, construction, once begun, is expected to proceed rapidly.

China: NanGuang Railway Project

2009-06-24T21:18:29.000Z

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2009 - The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved the following project:

IBRD Loan: US$300 million

Terms: Maturity = 25 years; Grace period = 5 years

Project ID: P112359

Project Description: The development objective of the NanGuang Railway Project is to provide additional transport capacity and reduce transport time between the less developed western region of southwest China and the relatively more developed Pearl River Delta region.

Media Contact

Mohamad Al-Arief

(202) 458-5964

malarief@worldbank.org

For more project information, please visit: http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P112359

For more information, please visit the Projects website.

World Bank Supports Rail Expansion and Urban Environment in China

2009-06-24T20:11:58.000Z

Contacts:

In Beijing: Li Li (86-10) 5861-7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

In Washington DC: Elisabeth Mealey (202) 4584475

emealey@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, June 25, 2009 – Today the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved two loans to the People’s Republic of China -- $300 million to assist in the construction of the NanGuang Railway Project and $200 million to support Shanghai Urban Environment Project (APL Phase III).

The NanGuang Railway Project aims to provide additional transport capacity and reduce transport time between China’s less developed southwest region and the relatively more developed Pearl River Delta region by connecting the existing railway networks in these two regions. Specifically the loan will finance the construction of about 400 km of double track electrified railway from Litang West Station (about 95 km northeast of Nanning) to New Zhaoqing Station in Guangdong province; and partially finance 62 km of four-track railway being constructed between New Zhaoqing Station and Sanyanqiao Station (near Guangzhou). The World Bank will provide international experience and advice in the process. This important project is part of the China’s economic stimulus program in response to the global economic crisis. “The NanGuang Railway project will not only support further regional economic development by connecting the prosperous coastal region to the interior,” said John Scales, Transport Coordinator from the World Bank Office, Beijing. “But it also provides a platform for the continued high-level engagement that began 25 years ago between the Bank and the Chinese Government on railway development, while simultaneously supporting operational development of the Chinese railway network.”

The Shanghai Urban Environment Project, the third phase of the Bank’s Adaptable Program Loan (APL) started in 2003, will focus on increasing the secure provision of good quality water, reducing pollution load discharged without treatment into water sources, and facilitating sustainable investments in environmental infrastructure in suburban areas of Shanghai Municipality. Through the first two phases, the Bank supported several key infrastructure investments and institutional and policy reforms in the water, wastewater, and solid waste sectors. The new US$200 million loan will finance the construction of infrastructure projects such as Nanhui Raw Water Conveyor and Puxi Trunk Sewer, further contributing to Shanghai’s goal of building a resource-efficient and environmentally sustainable city and hosting a successful “World Expo 2010: Better City - Better Life”.

___________

For more information about the projects, please visit our website.

For NanGuang Railway Project

For Shanghai Urban Environment (APL Phase III)

With growth remaining respectable, China can have the confidence to emphasize forward looking policies and structural reforms, says World Bank

2009-06-18T03:00:00.000Z

Contacts:

Li Li in Beijing

86-10-5861 7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

Lester Dally in Washington

Ldally@worldbank.org

Mohamad Al-Arief in Singapore

malarief@worldbank.org

BEIJING, June 18, 2009 – While China’s economy has continued to feel the brunt of the global crisis, very expansionary fiscal and monetary policies have kept the economy growing respectably, according to the World Bank’s latest China Quarterly Update released today.

The Update, a regular assessment of the Chinese economy, finds that the fiscal stimulus is centered on the infrastructure-oriented “RMB 4 trillion” stimulus plan while the monetary stimulus has led to a surge in new bank lending. Government-influenced investment has soared. Market-based investment has lagged, although positive signs have emerged in the real estate sector. Consumption has held up well. Very weak exports have continued to be the main drag on growth, while import volumes have recovered in the second quarter of 2009 as raw material imports rebounded.

Global growth prospects remain subdued even as signs of stabilization have emerged. Financial markets have become less strained and there are prospects for stabilization of activity. However, a rapid global recovery seems unlikely and uncertainty remains. The risk of global deflation seems low, although spare capacity will continue to put downward pressure on prices of manufactured goods. Monetary policymakers in major countries should in principle be able to prevent inflation from rising in the medium term, although risks remain, including political ones.

“Growth in China should remain respectable this year and next, although it is too early to say a robust sustained recovery is on the way,” said Ardo Hansson, Lead Economist for China. “Government influenced investment will strongly support growth in 2009. However, there are limits to how much and how long China’s growth can diverge from global growth based on government influenced spending.”

The Update finds that market based investment is likely to continue to lag for a while because of a squeeze on margins amidst spare capacity in many manufacturing sectors. Prospects for real estate activity appear reasonably good, but consumption is unlikely to pick up speed. In all, the World Bank thinks that China’s growth is unlikely to rebound to very high single digit rates before the world economy recovers convincingly, and projects GDP growth of 7.2 percent in 2009.

“China can have the confidence to focus on forward looking policies and structural reforms,” said Louis Kuijs, Senior Economist and main author of the Update. “On current projections it is not necessary and probably not appropriate to add more traditional stimulus in 2009. One reason is that the fiscal deficit is on course to be significantly higher than budgeted this year and additional stimulus now would reduce the room for stimulus in 2010.”

At the same time, in a changed global setting, with more subdued global demand and thus less export growth, China needs more growth from domestic demand—consumption in particular. Also, relative prices need to change, notably those of natural resources. The Update concludes that transition to more consumption-led, service sector-oriented, and labor-intensive growth requires policy adjustments that: (i) help channel resources to sectors that will grow in the new setting, instead of to sectors that have traditionally been favored and done well; and (ii) support thriving domestic markets and successful, permanent urbanization. Such reforms could be pursued all the more boldly and successfully if they are flanked by a well-functioning public finance system and social safety net.

-#-

To read the full report and summary, please visit:

http://www.worldbank.org/china

And to read Louis Kuijs’ blog on the Chinese economy, go to:

http://eapblog.worldbank.org/

The project Jiangsu Water and Wastewater has changed to Active

2009-06-11T04:00:00.000Z

The project Jiangsu Water and Wastewater has changed to Active. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The development objective of the Jiangsu Water and Wastewater Project for China is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of water and wastewater services and reduce pollution discharges to local rivers in Jiangsu province. There are three components to the project. The first component of the project is water supply expansion, this component will improve town water supply in 78 towns through expansion of the city water supply systems in Danyang, Taixing, Yancheng, and Zhenjiang. The second component of the project is wastewater management, this component will improve wastewater service delivery in Danyang, Nanjing, and Taixing to reduce pollution discharges to local rivers and improve water quality. The third component of the project is implementation and capacity building support, this component will support project management, monitoring and design review services; utility company capacity building; and strategic studies and training.

New World Bank Loans to Help China Improve Urban Environments and Build Skills for Workers

2009-06-02T21:49:13.000Z

Contacts:

In Beijing: Li Li (86-10) 5861-7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

In Washington DC: Elisabeth Mealey (202) 4584475

emealey@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, June 2, 2009 – Three new World Bank loans to China, totaling US$250 million, were approved today by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors in support of projects to improve water and wastewater management in Jiangsu Province, enhance flood protection in Qinghai Province, and increase the quality and relevance of technical education in Guangdong.

The Jiangsu Water and Wastewater Project, with a World Bank loan of US$130 million, seeks to improve the living standards of the urban residents in Jiangsu Province on the eastern coast of China through improved water supply and wastewater systems. The project will support the aggregation of city water supply systems from central urban areas with those from smaller, nearby towns to increase service efficiency and improve the quality and reliability of town water supplies. It will finance the construction of new water intakes, water treatment plants, water transmission lines, booster pump stations and distribution networks. It will also support the construction of wastewater treatment plants and associated sewerage pipelines in several key cities and towns in Jiangsu Province.

The Xining Flood and Watershed Management Project, with a World Bank loan of US$100 million, will assist Xining Municipality in Qinghai Province to enhance its flood protection capacity, increase the collection of wastewater which currently flows directly into the river and improve soil and water conservation in 17 watershed areas. More specifically, the project will finance infrastructure such as dikes, access roads, water level control structures, and wastewater and storm water collection pipeline systems. A participatory approach to watershed management will be adopted so that local communities are involved in the design and implementation of the program activities.

The Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project focuses support on Guangdong Province -- one of China’s major labor-intensive manufacturing centers and the recipient of a large number of rural migrant workers. The project aims to expand employment opportunities for youth and migrant workers by improving the quality and relevance of technical and vocational education and training in selected schools in the province. The US$20 million loan will be used to pilot test a competency-based approach to technical and vocational education and help to strengthen local capacity to deliver a curriculum that emphasizes the skills sought by industry. The experience gained will be shared with other schools in Guangdong and used as a guide to further school reforms and policy development.

“These projects are excellent examples of the ways in which the World Bank is helping China address environmental and social issues through innovative approaches that can potentially be scaled up to have significant effect at the national level,” said David Dollar, World Bank Country Director for China.

For more information on the projects, please visit:

Jiangsu Water and Wastewater Project:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P096926

Xining Flood and Watershed Management Project:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P101829

Guangdong Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P096707

For more information on the Bank’s work in China, please visit:

http://www.worldbank.org/china

###

China: Xining Flood/Watershed Project

2009-06-02T20:04:03.000Z

IBRD Loan: US$100 million

Terms: Maturity = 30 years; Grace period = 5 years

Project Description: The development objective of the project is to improve the protection of property and safety of people from floods and bring about sustainable utilization of land and water resources within Xining Municipality.

Media Contact:

Mohamad Al-Arief at (202) 458-5964

malarief@worldbank.org

For more project information, please visit:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P101829

For more information, please visit the Projects website.

China: Guangdong Technical/Vocational Education Project

2009-06-02T20:00:03.000Z

IBRD Loan: US$20 million

Terms: Maturity = 26 years; Grace period = 5 years

Project Description: The development objective of the project is to improve the quality and relevance of technical education in three schools and produce lessons from this experience as a guide for future school reforms and policy development.

Media Contact:

Mohamad Al-Arief at (202) 458-5964

malarief@worldbank.org

For more project information, please visit:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P096707

For more information, please visit the Projects website.

China: Jiangsu Water Project

2009-06-02T19:37:38.000Z

IBRD Loan: US$130 million

Terms: Maturity = 25 years; Grace period = 8 years

Project Description: The development objective of the project is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of water and wastewater services and reduce pollution discharges to local rivers in Jiangsu Province.

Media Contact:

Mohamad Al-Arief at (202) 458-5964

malarief@worldbank.org

For more project information, please visit:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P096926

For more information, please visit the Projects website.

The project China: Anhui Medium Cities Urban Transport Project is now in the pipeline.

2009-05-29T04:00:00.000Z

The project China: Anhui Medium Cities Urban Transport Project is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

The project DM06-1333 Musseling-in on Pollution is now in the pipeline.

2009-05-22T04:00:00.000Z

The project DM06-1333 Musseling-in on Pollution is now in the pipeline. To see more information, see the project information in the World Bank project database

World Bank project to help China reduce greenhouse gas emission

2009-05-20T02:35:11.000Z

Contacts:

In Beijing: Li Li (86-10) 5861-7850

Lli2@worldbank.org

In Washington DC: Elisabeth Mealey (202) 4584475

emealey@worldbank.org

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2009 – Yesterday the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a loan of US$80 million to help China increase the development and utilization of coal bed methane (CBM) and coal mine methane (CMM) as substitutes to coal to meet the country’s growing demand for energy and reduce greenhouse gases and local air pollutants associated with coal combustion.

China’s rising energy demand has been met largely by domestic coal, which accounted for about 69% of China’s total energy consumption in 2007. The fast increase in coal production and consumption has contributed to China’s severe air pollution and rapid rise in the emission of greenhouse gases. Particularly, the direct combustion of coal by industries and households at or near ground level to meet fuel and heating needs is the main culprit for the poor air quality in most Chinese cities.

The production of coal results in the emission of methane (CH4) as a greenhouse gas (GHG) into the atmosphere, which is approximately 21 times more potent as a GHG than carbon dioxide (CO2). On the other hand, methane is a high quality and clean energy which can be recovered either during mining operations or ahead of mining activities and utilized as a clean fuel by households, commercial and industrial establishment or for power generation.

As part of the overall government efforts to promote cleaner energy resources, improve the safety of mining operations and help achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions, the Government of China plans to increase significantly the development and utilization of CBM/CMM resources.

The Shanxi Coal Bed Methane Development and Utilization Project will focus on Shanxi Province which produces one quarter of China’s coal production of 2.6 billion tons and hosts one-third of the estimated 32 trillion cubic meter (TCM) CBM resource in China.

The project will assist the Shanxi Provincial Government in furthering the development and implementation of an integrated CBM/CMM development plan and policy framework, and in helping bridge existing shortfalls in knowledge and skill through strengthening institutional capacity so as to foster a sustainable CBM/CMM industry in the province. It will finance the exploration and development of about 350 vertical CBM production wells with an estimated annual production capacity of 250 million Nm³ as well as the construction of a LNG plant consisting of four modular with individual production capacity of 50,000 tons/year for an ultimate production capacity of 200,000 tons/year. The LNG produced will be sold to households and industrial and commercial users in towns and cities in Shanxi and other provinces.

China’s energy and environmental sustainability is one of the priorities in the Bank’s program in China. As part of the Bank’s overall efforts to promote the CBM/CMM industry development in China, the Bank has supported the efforts of Central Government of China to develop a comprehensive set of institutional and policy initiatives. The Bank has also supported the world’s largest CMM capture and utilization project in Shanxi province to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon finance.

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For more information about the project, please visit project site.

For more information, please visit the Projects website.

China: Shanxi Coal Bed Methane Development and Utilization Project

2009-05-19T21:53:08.000Z

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2009 - The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved the following projects:

IBRD Loan: US$ 80 million

TERMS: Maturity = 20 years; Grace = 5 years

PROJECT #: P100968

Project Description: The Shanxi Coal Bed Methane Development and Utilization Project for China aims to increase the production and utilization of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) and Coal Mine Methane (CMM) to replace coal as a fuel for thermal use and to reduce Green House Gas (GHGs) and local air pollutants associated with coal combustion in China.

Media Contact

Mohamad Al-Arief

(202) 458-5964

malarief@worldbank.org

For more project information, please visit:

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P100968

For more information, please visit the Projects website.