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Kuwait News Agency
4 hours ago
- Business
- Kuwait News Agency
Kuwait Amb. in China reaffirms support for constructive media dialogue at SCO conf.
ZHENGZHOU, China, July 25 (KUNA) -- Kuwait's Ambassador to China Jassem Al-Najem affirmed Kuwait's commitment to supporting initiatives aimed at fostering constructive media dialogue and expanding cooperation between media institutions and think tanks. Speaking at the Media and Think Tank Conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Ambassador Al-Najem highlighted the importance of such conferences in strengthening mutual understanding among SCO member states. He noted the summit's focus on pressing global issues such as digital innovation, green development, sustainable growth, and cross-border cooperation, emphasizing Kuwait's readiness to expand partnerships within the SCO framework. Ambassador Al-Najem also underlined Kuwait's "Kuwait Vision 2035," which includes key infrastructure projects like Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port and the Northern Economic Zone to enhance regional connectivity and investment. He praised China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a vital platform for global development and reiterated Kuwait's early commitment to the initiative since 2014. He also conveyed Kuwait's support for global cooperation efforts launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Ambassador Al-Najem highlighted Kuwait's recent full membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and reaffirmed Kuwait's role in supporting development through the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), which has financed projects in over 100 developing countries. The ambassador conveyed greetings from Kuwait's Minister of Information, Culture and State Minister for Youth Affairs Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi, wishing the summit success in strengthening regional and international media cooperation. Kuwait's delegation at the forum includes Acting Director General Mohammad Al-Mannai, Acting Editor-in-Chief Mohammad Al-Bahar and Head of Marketing and Public Relations Lamia Al-Farsi. (end)
Asia News Network
10 hours ago
- Business
- Asia News Network
Revisiting the complex history of Indonesian cooperatives
July 25, 2025 JAKARTA – The launch of President Prabowo Subianto 's Red and White Cooperatives program, which the government claims is the poor's 'tool of struggle', has brought renewed attention to cooperatives, an economic institution that has outlived various regime changes thanks to its firm roots in the Indonesian social value of gotong royong (mutual support). During the launch ceremony in Klaten, Central Java on Monday, the President described the initiative as a way for 'economically weaker groups' to build collective strength and a 'strategic movement' aimed at challenging the longstanding economic dominance of big players. With only 108 village cooperatives opened during the initial phase, the government aimed to have more than 80,000 firms established in three months, according to Coordinating Food Minister Zulkifli Hasan, who leads the task force behind the initiative. While the program's proponents have praised it as a means to reinvigorate local economies down to the village level, critics argue that it contradicts the fundamental spirit of cooperatives, which has been repeatedly tested in the country's history. The history of the cooperative movement can be traced to 1895, when Raden Aria Wirjaatmadja, an aristocrat from Purwokerto in Central Java, launched a savings and loan scheme to help civil servants avoid predatory lenders. While not yet called a 'cooperative', the initiative, which later became the embryo of state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), laid the groundwork for community-based lending. After Indonesia's independence in 1945, cooperatives gained political momentum at the national level. On July 12, 1947, the first National Cooperative Congress was held in Tasikmalaya, West Java. The date has since been recognized as National Cooperatives Day. Six years later, then-vice president Mohammad Hatta was named 'father of Indonesian cooperatives' during the second congress for his consistent support of the movement. 'Cooperatives were widely adopted by various communities because as a whole, Indonesian society already had a tradition of working collectively, thanks to the value of gotong royong,' said cooperatives researcher Iip Yahya. Troubling times Economist and former president Sukarno's finance minister Soemitro Djojohadikusumo, who is also father of President Prabowo, also talked the importance of cooperatives to help village farmers to escape poverty. But cooperatives were caught in the country's political divide in the mid-1960s, when their grassroots ideals were associated with left-wing movements and politicians. Many healthy cooperatives at the time were politicized, according to Iip: 'Cooperative leaders often could not resist offers to back certain parties, which resulted in consequences that proved harmful and even fatal for the cooperatives they ran.' When then-president Soeharto rose to power, his administration curtailed any lingering left-leaning influence in the country, including by disbanding cooperatives. Various studies revealed that the number of cooperatives dropped from over 73,000 in 1966 to less than 12,000 by 1967. Soeharto then launched his own village unit cooperative program (KUD), which turned cooperatives into extensions of the central government throughout the 1970s and 1980. Cooperatives expert Suroto said that the KUD program served mainly to maintain the government's presence down to the village level. 'Cooperatives should be formed from the ground up,' he said. 'When their formation is forced top-down, like what happened with the KUD, they don't last.' Repeating mistakes? The reform era became another turning point for cooperatives, thanks to various economic stimulus programs introduced by the government in the early 2000s. The incentives doubled their number from 52,000 in early 1998 to over 103,000 in 2001. But Suroto called the economic stimulus 'overly sympathetic' and 'damaging' in the long term, as many cooperatives that emerged during this period became overly dependent on state support. In 2024, the then-Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry disbanded nearly 80,000 inactive cooperatives. He also warned that President Prabowo's Red and White Cooperatives program risks repeating mistakes made by previous administrations with its top-down formation and state-backed financing that could foster long-term dependency. 'Cooperatives should be fundamentally autonomous and independent organizations,' Suroto said. 'All of these aspects contradict the way [the Red and White Cooperatives] were set up.' Rather than rushing to establish more than 80,000 cooperatives, Suroto urged the government to instead focus on strengthening existing ones and prioritizing to improve their capacity. Meanwhile, cooperatives researcher Iip said Prabowo's program may represent the strongest government support for such institutions in the country's history. 'But only time will tell if this support truly upholds cooperative principles or serves short-term political interests.' Sharing Suroto's concerns of resurfacing past mistakes, Iip remains cautiously optimistic on the trajectory of the program, as long as 'the government stays open to input from the cooperatives community'.
The Print
a day ago
- Business
- The Print
India hits out at CPEC's expansion, calls Afghanistan's inclusion ‘unacceptable'
India's position on CPEC was 'clear and consistent', Kirti Vardhan Singh said in a written response to a question submitted by Member of Rajya Sabha Golla Baburao. 'Government has consistently protested to parties concerned over the inclusion of the so-called 'China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)', which passes through parts of the Indian Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, under illegal occupation of Pakistan, as a flagship project of 'OBOR/BRI' and asked them to cease these activities.' India had also protested against the inclusion of portions of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh—illegally occupied by Pakistan—in the CPEC and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure projects, he added. New Delhi: India had conveyed its strong opposition to the inclusion of a third country, Afghanistan, in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project to both Islamabad and Beijing, calling the move 'unacceptable', Minister of State for External Affairs of India Kirti Vardhan Singh Wednesday informed the Rajya Sabha. The MoS added: 'Any proposed participation of third countries or expansion of the so-called CPEC projects to third countries is unacceptable. Government has consistently conveyed this position to relevant parties.' On 21 May 2025, the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—Wang Yi, Ishaq Dar, and Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, respectively—met in Beijing as a part of a trilateral mechanism. At the meeting, they decided on expanding the CPEC to Afghanistan to 'strengthen the building of regional connectivity networks', a Chinese readout, at the time, said. CPEC has long been an issue for New Delhi, considering that the multi-billion-dollar project violates India's sovereignty in the creation of transportation networks through the illegally occupied portions of Ladakh and J&K. India has refused to join the BRI, Chinese President Xi Jinping's trillion-dollar initiative for building transportation infrastructure across countries. BRI, which remains India's primary issue, includes CPEC. India's other concern with BRI is the potential unviability of the projects creating a debt trap, as witnessed in the case of Sri Lanka, among other countries. A key BRI thrust is the CPEC, the connectivity project that will link Pakistan's Gwadar port and the Chinese province of Xinjiang. It will reduce Beijing's reliance on the Straits of Malacca, allowing it to meet its transportation needs for key energy requirements. India has recently promised to step up its developmental assistance to the Taliban, given that both Islamabad and Beijing have moved forward in engaging with the regime in control of Kabul. In May, Foreign Minister Jaishankar held a conversation with his counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, via telephone, following the Pahalgam terrorist attack and the subsequent Operation Sindoor. The talks marked the first ministerial-level contact between New Delhi and the Taliban. Last year, China recognised the Taliban's envoy to Beijing—the first country to do so. Since the return of the Taliban in Kabul nearly four years ago, the regime has had little international recognition. China, along with Russia and Pakistan, are among the countries that have moved forward with the normalisation of ties with Afghanistan's Taliban regime. (Eited by Madhurita Goswami) Also Read: China-Pakistan ties under stress. CPEC security concerns frustrating Chinese, hurting Pakistanis
The Diplomat
a day ago
- Business
- The Diplomat
US Foreign Aid With Chinese Characteristics
The dismantling of USAID is the culmination of a decade-long realignment of Western approaches to development, inspired by China's Belt and Road Initiative. The GSEZ Mineral Port in Gabon, one of the projects supported by public-private partnership via the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. As President Donald Trump takes a chainsaw to U.S. foreign aid programs, it would be easy to attribute such extreme measures to MAGA isolationism or DOGE zealotry. While anti-globalist and anti-government ideologies certainly played a role, the shift away from traditional foreign aid is not limited to the U.S. and does not represent a full-scale abandonment of development finance. Indeed, Trump's moves represent the culmination of a decade-long realignment of Western approaches to development, inspired by China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The retreat from traditional foreign assistance cuts across the Western world. By 2026, estimates hold that foreign aid budgets will have fallen by over one-quarter in Canada and Germany and by close to 40 percent in Britain, compared with 2023 levels. Overall, G-7 countries, which account for 75 percent of foreign assistance, spent 28 percent less in 2025 than in 2024. Yet even as Trump's Big Beautiful Bill cut foreign aid, it also provided new funding – a $3 billion revolving fund – for the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC), which was created by the 2017 BUILD Act. The IDFC is up for renewal this year, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee has already voted in support of authorizing its operations for another seven years with a lending cap of $120 billion, double the initial level. The IDFC was intended as an answer to China's BRI, which represented an alternative to traditional Western approaches to aid. The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) – a club of Western donor countries – defines Official Development Assistance (ODA) as concessional finance directed toward developmental projects in low- and middle-income countries. The DAC encourages transparency and discourages the tying of aid to purchases of goods and services from the donor country. Most DAC countries emphasize 'soft' aid, focused on health, education, and humanitarian assistance. ODA typically draws upon budgeted funds that must be renewed annually. Very little of Chinese development finance meets these criteria. Instead, China's development finance is commercial in orientation. Most loans are initiated by policy banks – the China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank – that raise funds by issuing bonds to investors. Loans carry near-market interest rates and must be repaid in full. Much of Chinese development finance has been channeled through the BRI, which focuses on infrastructure construction. Loans through these policy banks and others have amounted to well over a trillion dollars over the past decade. Western countries have followed China's lead both in commercializing development finance and in driving more resources toward infrastructure development. The latter move has transpired under the guise of various initiatives: the BUILD Act (U.S.), Build Back Better World (U.S.), the Global Gateway initiative (European Union), the Blue Dot Network (U.S., Australia, Japan), the Quality Infrastructure Investment Initiative (Japan), and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (G-7). The competitive ambitions of the West have been limited by a paucity of available public funds, which makes it difficult to match the scale of China's BRI. This problem gave rise to efforts to leverage public money to mobilize private capital for development purposes through blended finance initiatives. At the multilateral level, a group of multilateral development banks issued a planning document titled 'From Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance' in 2015. This paper outlined a vision for mobilizing private financial resources toward Global South infrastructure and other developmental needs. This was followed by the World Bank's 'Maximizing Finance for Development' initiative and the United Nation's 'Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance.' These projects and those discussed below constituted what Daniela Gabor characterized as a 'Wall Street Consensus.' Many types of infrastructure take the form of public (or semi-public) goods. Public goods, by their nature, are underproduced relative to their social utility because producers cannot exclude consumers from benefiting once the goods are produced. The Wall Street Consensus aims to make infrastructure projects 'bankable' or attractive to private investors by shifting the risk of unprofitability to the state. If successful, private money is pooled with public funding through blended financing models such as syndicated bond issues. In this 'development as derisking' model, private capital is 'escorted' into the process of financing infrastructure through the creation of new asset classes freed of investor risk. In 2018, the G-20 declared support for a Roadmap to Infrastructure as an Asset Class. Two types of risks must be minimized for private investors: regulatory risk and financial risk. Reducing regulatory risk includes lower environmental and safety standards, guaranteed grid access, legal protections against nationalization, and liability limits. Financial risk is managed through guaranteed toll revenues, preferential credit, loan guarantees, tax relief, or subsidies. Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) or DAC donors help build state capacity in project identification and development, provide expertise in securitizing infrastructure assets for the market, and offer partial financing or loan guarantees. The necessity for subsidies and other forms of state support arises from the fact that more than half of infrastructure projects in emerging economies do not promise sufficient cash flow to attract private investors. Even projects with dedicated revenue streams often carry demand risks, meaning they turn unprofitable if demand for the service declines. Governments may be compelled to include contract provisions that promise to cover revenue shortfalls with public funds when demand falls below certain thresholds. Seth Schindler, Ilias Alami, and Nicholas Jepson noted that what Gabor referred to as the 'derisking state' becomes both more dependent upon global finance and increasingly interventionist in shaping market outcomes. This contrasts with the Washington Consensus, which counseled state neutrality vis-à-vis the market, but also differs from the East Asian development model, where state intervention sought to shape the behavior of national capital rather than global capital. By relieving private investors of risk, states aim to amplify the capital that can be mobilized toward critical development needs beyond national savings or the resources of MDBs and bilateral donors. The trade-off is the acceptance of risk by the developing state, a danger highlighted when the COVID-19 pandemic and rising interest rates threatened the solvency of many highly indebted countries. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation fits this model. The BUILD Act described its purpose as to 'provide countries a robust alternative to state-directed investments by authoritarian governments and United States strategic competitors.' With a financing authority of $60 billion, the IDFC seeks to 'crowd-in' private capital with a flexible toolkit that includes nonconcessional loans, loan guarantees, export credits, political risk insurance, equity investments, and technical assistance. Largely due to IDFC activity, nonconcessional development finance flows jumped from 4 percent of overall U.S. aid spending in 2020 to 36 percent in 2021. Among the major projects funded by the IDFC are investments related to the Lobito Corridor in Southern Africa, which aims to create transportation links allowing Western firms to access critical minerals that are presently monopolized by China. Ironically, this growing Western emphasis on nonconcessional, commercialized development finance with an emphasis on infrastructure development comes at a time when China has scaled back the BRI (largely due to growing evidence that many recipient countries have exceeded their borrowing capacities) and begun allocating more resources to 'soft' aid through the Global Development Initiative. An obvious drawback of the blended finance model is that it diverts attention and resources from traditional concessional aid and the investment in health, education, and disaster assistance that remain essential. But even on its own terms, the effectiveness of the Wall Street Consensus remains in doubt. A 2020 report by the Center for Global Development concluded that the overall flow of blended finance had been disappointing and that the great bulk of MDB-mobilized private financing was directed to middle-income rather than low-income countries. A 2019 study by ODI Global reached similar conclusions. In low-income countries, on average, each $1 in public development financing mobilized only $0.37 in private finance. Blended finance was constrained by the low risk tolerance of both public and private actors in the face of environments hampered by poor governance and few profitable investment opportunities. Since most blended finance flowed to middle-income countries and to 'hard' sectors, such as transport and energy, as opposed to social sectors, the report suggested that the increased priority given such investments came at the expense of programs that more directly targeted poverty in low-income countries. Indeed, the proposed doubling in the funding cap for the IDFC cannot substitute for the human costs that follow from the cuts to U.S. Official Development Assistance, which one study suggests will lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years. Traditional aid may have drawbacks, whether evaluated as a tool of U.S. foreign policy or in terms of development effectiveness, but abandoning it in favor of the privatization of development finance is neither wise nor humane.
Deccan Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- Deccan Herald
Maldives outreach: Advantage India
In the fierce geostrategic tussle between India and China for influence in the Maldives, New Delhi seems to have the upper hand in Malé, for now. Else, New Delhi would not have planned the state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the strategically located Indian Ocean archipelago to participate in its Independence Day celebrations on July has been invited as a 'guest of honour' by Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu after some initial hostility and turbulence in bilateral ties. It will mark Modi's first visit to the neighbouring country in six years, the last one being in June 2019 when an India-leaning government under President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih was in place. He will be the first head of government to be hosted by Muizzu, who took over in November visit's symbolic significance is noteworthy. To the world at large, it will signal that New Delhi, and not Beijing, remains the archipelago's preferred development partner. Muizzu, in turn, will be able to convey to his domestic audience that he's an able administrator who can deliver outcomes and draw benefits from his country's biggest renewed outreach to the Muizzu government indicates a growing confidence that the Maldives, a key maritime neighbour, will remain mindful of its strategic interests. Battling strong competition from China in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), New Delhi has faced a tough diplomatic challenge to ensure it does not cede strategic space to Beijing. Like many of India's neighbours, the Maldives has joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a vital component of its Maritime Silk Road ambitions. Leaders of IOR island nations have become adept at playing the two Asian giants against one another to leverage benefits, further queering the pitch for alignment with the Quad nations – the US, Australia, and Japan – in the wider Indo-Pacific is part of its strategy to counter Beijing's expanding footprint in the IOR and beyond. India has even recast its earlier doctrine of Vision Sagar (Security and Growth for All) in the Global South as Vision Mahasagar (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) to widen its ambit of and visit serves as a marked indicator of this shifting tide in India's favour. There is an unmissable irony in Muizzu's invite, given that he rode to power fuelling anti-India sentiments. This campaign culminated in Muizzu forcing India to pull out its 80 military personnel in the archipelago, within a few months of becoming President. However, a little over a year later, bilateral relations are on the mend, with Modi's impending visit signalling the final reset. Muizzu was in India twice last year – for the Modi 3.0 government's inauguration and a bilateral visit. While the closeness witnessed during Ibu Solih's tenure may not be there, India has little cause for complaint. Despite Muizzu's perceived pro-China leanings, Beijing hasn't been able to make a comeback in the archipelago as was expected during his Maldives could not secure the anticipated financial assistance from China, its largest external creditor, and some Islamic countries. Consequently, Muizzu had to turn to India to navigate a debilitating economic crisis. Muizzu has also been seeking investments to promote his country as a business and financial hub. Even if this does happen, it will take time to now, the Maldives is under debt distress. Under the risk of defaulting on its external debt repayments, Muizzu's anti-India sentiments have given way to pragmatism and realpolitik as he now has to deliver results in his economically beleaguered has played its cards skilfully. It initially stepped in to assist the Solih government after the Maldives reeled under a dire economic situation during the pandemic, with its tourism-dependent economy taking a huge hit. Then, it decided to continue with its financial assistance to the Muizzu government despite initial bilateral tensions, which has helped the Maldives avoid a default on its external debt the Maldivian economy is not yet out of the woods. Muizzu still has to find ways to service an external debt of $1 billion in 2026. While India has helped out through currency swaps and rolling over of treasury bills worth $100 million, China has held back in the fear that other debt-distressed countries might also seek similar this seemingly positive outlook for New Delhi, it cannot afford to slacken its outreach to Malé. China is keenly waiting in the wings to usurp India's strategic space. India has to ensure that the Muizzu government can be relied upon to be a loyal friend in the long run..(The writer is a senior journalist)
