OSMEP deputy director general Chawan Svasti-xuto said the organisation will promote this cooperation while at the same time will develop and build a network for enterprises at a community level in each province to build local production capability as well as to gather and propose more handiworks to the Chinese company in order that Thai merchandises can be distributed to more marketing channels in China.

Such goods include; for example, clothing products, wickerwork, silverware, and niello.

OSMEP believes at least Bt20 million would be in circulation in the first year of this cooperation of small- and medium-level entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, Giyen managing director Li Yong said the company currently imports pewter handicraft products from Thailand valued at some Bt20 million annually. He said he hoped the  agreement would stimulate more imports to China of other types of Thai handiwork products.

Mr Li said he is unworried about the ongoing political problems in Thailand, for his company has for a long time been doing business with the country, and he hoped all the tensions would end soon. He also said there had never been a problem to trade between the two countries despite the Thai domestic political stalemate.

OSMEP will select merchandise from several Thai entrepreneurs, including Narai Phand and Silpacheep, Thailand’s Support Arts and Crafts International Centre.

According to Mr Chawan, China is Thailand’s biggest world market with its population of more than 1.3 billion. Last year, as China’s economy grew more than 8 per cent, the country was Thailand’s second largest trading partner following the United States.

Moreover, in January and February this year, Thailand exports to China grew around 84.4 per cent, making it Thailand’s most valuable export market, with high growth potential.

The OSMEP deputy director general added the current protests by the anti-government of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) caused a drop in the tourist numbers, affecting also businesses of small and medium enterprises. He said his organisation is now collecting information for further assistance to those impacted from the situation. (TNA)

The agreement was signed during the 41st ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting (AEM) held in Bangkok.

Hailing the agreement which followed six years of negotiations — since 2003, AEM chair Pornthiva said that the move will protect Chinese and ASEAN investor interests, as well as increasing new capital inflows to offer sustainable profits is in line with a plan to establish an ASEAN Economic Community by the end of  2015.

Under the agreement, Chinese businesses will expand investment in agriculture and food industries in ASEAN and plan to extend loans amounting to US$15 billion for infrastructure development programmes, including construction of a railroad from southern China to Malaysia.

It is expected that the agreement would boost investment between ASEAN and China to $5 billion from the $3.6 billion now within the next three years.

Latest statistics showed that China now ranks fourth in terms of key goods imported from ASEAN while the grouping ranks third as principal importer of that country.

Chinese investment now ranks eighth in ASEAN and its cumulative investment since last year totaled about $6.1 billion, while ASEAN investment in that country were approximately $5.6 billion.

China and ASEAN signed a Framework Agreement of Comprehensive  Economic Cooperation in 2002, proposing an ASEAN-China free trade area to be realised by January 1 next year. (TNA)

Following the complaints on the Thai Jasmine rice on sale in China, Ms. Chutima Bunyapraphasara, the Director General of the Department of Foreign Trade, pointed out that the department’s authorities had travelled to the country to look into the matter. She explained the Thai delegates would meet Chinese relevant agencies to discuss the issue, observe the places selling Thai rice, purchase Thai Jasmine rice on sale there and bring back the rice for examination in its DNA in order to probe whether it was substandard or not.

She further stated that the visiting authorities would also scrutinize the quality guarantee logo on the packages of the rice to check whether it was properly sealed.

Concluding his four-day official visit to China, Mr. Abhisit said he is happy to see China enjoy sustainable economic growth and development. Both countries are determined to strengthen cooperation, he noted.

Mr. Abhisit said he had visited a fruit market Saturday morning and was happy to observe that an increasing number of Thai fruits are being exported to China despite the sluggish economy. There is still room for further expansion of fruit exports to China, he said.

Meeting with the governor of Guangzhou governor and senior officials, Mr. Abhisit said, resulted in a decision to form a Thai-Guangdong committee aimed at setting trade, investment and tourism targets between both sides.

Deputy Prime Minister Korbsak Sabhavasu, Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office Virachai Virameteekul and Kiat Sithi-amorn, president of the Thailand Trade Representative Office, will be responsible for overseeing the committee’s works, he added.

Mr. Abhisit and his delegation are scheduled to arrive in Bangkok Saturday evening. (TNA)

SINGAPORE – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Europe and China to step up their involvement in rebuilding Afghanistan, saying Saturday that America alone cannot put the conflict-ridden nation back on its feet while mired in a fight against the Taliban.

The pact must ensure wealthy nations “take on quantified targets to drastically reduce emissions,” said the statement, issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (www.ndrc.gov.cn), which steers Chinese climate change policy.

Developed countries should also give 0.5 to 1.0 percent of their annual economic worth to help other nations cope with global warming and curtail greenhouse gas emissions, China said in the document, laying down demands for a conference in Copenhagen in December meant to seal a new climate change pact.

The Copenhagen conference is looking to agree on a treaty that will build on the current Kyoto Protocol.

The document echoed one that Beijing made submitted to the United Nations climate change body (unfccc.int) last month.

The new document pointedly says a new treaty “ensure developed countries that have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol assume corresponding and comparable emissions reduction commitments.”

That demand appears aimed at the Obama administration.

The United States under President George W. Bush set aside the Kyoto Protocol, citing among its reasons that China and other big developing countries did not assume emissions caps.

Beijing’s latest statement also says that it and other developing countries must be allowed to balance efforts to combat climate change with the need to develop.

China’s own emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are likely to keep growing until 2035, experts told an official newspaper, urging massive spending to create a low-carbon economy and contain global warming.

Experts from the state-run Energy Research Institute told the China Daily the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide could reach 5.5 billion tonnes in 2010 and 8.8 billion tonnes in 2035.

“But from 2035 to 2050, emissions will remain stable or decline marginally if the proper technological route is followed,” the paper said on Thursday, quoting the experts.

China is widely believed to be the world’s biggest emitter of CO2, the gas from fossil fuels, industry, farming and land clearance that is accumulating in the air, trapping more solar radiation and threatening to dangerously overheat the globe.

The latest reported estimates of China’s emissions are much lower than other recent estimates, including those from Chinese experts. The report did not say what economic and technological assumptions lay behind the projections.

The projected 2035 peak and then gradual falloff in emissions may be an unsettling prospect for governments and experts who have urged Beijing to take swifter action to contain and eventually cut its fast-rising emissions.
Thomson Reuters

Finished in 2004, the skyscraper is a rare example of green design in Asia, a region with the world’s busiest construction sector yet one of the poorest records for eco-friendly building.

China alone is said to be building half of the world’s new floor space, but the vast majority of these new projects will be energy guzzlers. Environmentalists worry that these buildings will produce high carbon emissions for decades to come.

“Energy efficiency is fast becoming one of the defining issues of our times, and buildings are that issue’s ‘elephant in the room’,” Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said in a statement.

“Buildings use more energy than any other sector and as such are a major contributor to climate change,” he added.

In China, 80 percent of the nearly one billion square meters (10.7 billion square feet) of new buildings constructed every year are high-energy buildings that consume 2 to 3 times more energy per unit of floor-space than buildings in developed countries, according to a report by the Asia Business Council.

Beijing and other governments in the region are trying to encourage green construction, but Asia lags far behind Europe which has a 2019 deadline for all new buildings to produce the same amount of energy they consume.

COST CUTTING

Office buildings use at least 30 percent of an average country’s total energy consumption and produce a similar proportion of their greenhouse gas emissions.

Turning buildings green could reduce carbon emissions by 1.8 billion metric tons per year worldwide, according to the United Nations Environment program. That is easier said than done, especially in Asia, where the bottom line is often all that counts.

Asia’s price-sensitive builders baulk at the steeper materials and construction costs for green buildings, about 5 percent higher, for features ranging from alternative energy systems to fixtures such as low-energy lights and reinforced glass that cuts down on heating and air-conditioning costs.

Despite the initial higher cost of environmentally friendly construction, architects say that it pays for itself after 5 or 10 years due to lower energy and water bills.

Apart from the energy savings, developers usually get higher rent yields if their buildings are ‘green’.

“Asia is the latecomer,” said Peter Halliday, vice-president of Siemens Ltd Taiwan. “It’s true that the developers are (still) holding back on green buildings, though over the life of a building you get your money back.”

Experts hope that pressure from Western firms for ‘green’ office space that includes features ranging from low-energy lights to waste recycling, might change that in the coming years.

“There are an increasing number of multinationals and large overseas corporations that require green-rated buildings,” said Tan Loke Man, head of the Malaysian Architects Association.

“This will be the case as more and more companies become more environmentally concerned.”

China aims to reduce energy use by 60 percent in new buildings, offering tax rebates as incentives. But “enforcement is always an issue in China,” said Janet Pau, from the Asia Business Council, which monitors green construction.

“China needs to do more. They need a more coordinated building policy,” Pau added. “Buildings last for decades and just by being there, they will slowly be damaging to the environment.”

The government’s efforts, as well as demand from foreign firms for green office space, has spurred several high profile projects that may kindle interest in low-energy buildings across the region.

The Shanghai Tower, in China’s commercial capital, will minimize wind resistance and energy consumption when it is completed in 2014 at a cost of $2.2 billion.

The building will house 54 wind turbines to power heating and air-conditioning, along with a rainwater collection system.

GREEN BUILDINGS

China has 166 projects registered by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). By contrast, India has LEED certificates for 56 building projects and South Korea 49.

LEED criteria include bike storage, low-water landscaping, recycled materials in new construction and waste reduction.

Other energy efficiency measures includes simple improvements such as window insulation. Windows, for example, are the greatest sources of heat loss and air leakage, accounting for 11 percent of total losses of energy in buildings.

Developers can reduce the carbon footprint of buildings by using zero-carbon materials, such as recycled wood, bricks and metal. Opting for local materials rather than those that require transportation also helps reduce the environmental impact.

The message is slowly seeping in, helped by corporate responsibility programs and government aid.

Taiwan’s Chinatrust Bank broke ground this year on a super-green T$15 billion ($450 million) new headquarters in Taipei. Of that, T$852 million was for eco-friendly features.

The complex, due to open in 2012, will include low-power air-conditioning, site selection designed to reduce car trips and a campus that’s 52 percent open space including a public park, said Chinatrust Secretary General Thomas Chen.

Chinatrust will offset the costs of making the complex green in three to four years and rent out a third of the space, likely to multinationals.

“As far as I know, no space in Taiwan is as green as this one will be,” Chen said.

The Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore offers incentives of up to about $4 per square meter for new energy-efficient buildings. It, too, hopes to win multinational tenants.

“Once a government gives more incentives, things get done,” said Kendrew Leung, a managing director with Savills Property Management in Hong Kong. “Now green building is a trend but not a must … It takes time to make it a habit.”