{"id":17928,"date":"2014-07-03T18:38:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T10:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=17928"},"modified":"2014-07-03T17:40:04","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T09:40:04","slug":"chinese-envoy-says-philippines-china-must-work-jointly-to-boost-weak-economic-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/07\/03\/chinese-envoy-says-philippines-china-must-work-jointly-to-boost-weak-economic-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese envoy says Philippines, China must work jointly to boost weak economic ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/shutterstock_112743715.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-17929\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/shutterstock_112743715.jpg\" alt=\"philippines china\" width=\"1000\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/shutterstock_112743715.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/shutterstock_112743715-300x167.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014China\u2019s ambassador to the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0says economic ties between the two countries are at disappointing levels and both must work to advance their common prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>Southeast Asian\u00a0nations including the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0and Vietnam are embroiled in territorial rows with China over the South China Sea, where China claims most of the waterway that is one of the world\u2019s busiest shipping lanes. Relations between China and Japan have also been strained by disputed islands in the East China Sea.<\/p>\n<p>Ambassador Zhao Jianhua did not refer to the territorial dispute but called the\u00a0Philippines\u2019 share of the Chinese investment pie \u201ctoo disappointing,\u201d with\u00a0Philippine\u00a0companies investing more in China than the other way around.<\/p>\n<p>He told a business audience that the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0gets only 1.4 per cent of China\u2019s outbound direct investment to 10\u00a0Southeast Asian\u00a0countries, with Singapore receiving about 46 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is imperative and essential that the two countries focus on things that can unite us, focus on things that can promote common prosperity,\u201d he said in a speech Tuesday evening before the\u00a0Philippine\u00a0Chamber of Commerce and Industry.<\/p>\n<p>There was no\u00a0Philippine\u00a0government reaction to the speech.<\/p>\n<p>Zhao also said 426,000 Chinese tourists visited the country last year, a 70 per cent increase from a year earlier \u201cdespite the difficulties we\u2019re having.\u201d But he compared that with 4 million Chinese that tourists go to Malaysia yearly and 3 million to Thailand.<\/p>\n<p>If the country can attract 1 or 2 million Chinese tourists, it will be a huge boost to the local tourism industry, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mainland China is the\u00a0Philippines\u2019 third largest trading partner, with two-way trade at $14.62 billion last year. But the diplomat said if Hong Kong and Macau are included, China would be the\u00a0Philippines\u2019 top trading partner with total trade at $38 billion last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are importing more from China than you are exporting to China so we need to do something about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA,\u00a0Philippines\u2014China\u2019s ambassador to the\u00a0Philippines\u00a0says economic ties between the two countries are at disappointing levels and both must work to advance &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}