Home Economy China hails Obama’s economic team, pledges cooperation

China hails Obama’s economic team, pledges cooperation

By Xinhua,

Beijing : China Tuesday congratulated Obama’s economic team, saying the country would like to work with the new administration to promote bilateral ties.

“We noticed that US President-elect Barack Obama had nominated some members of his government, and we express congratulations to them,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular press briefing here.

“We would like to strengthen cooperation with them so as to further promote the Sino-US friendly and constructive cooperation in a wide range of fields,” he said.

With the economy in crisis, Obama Monday unveiled his economic team to shore up financial markets and tackle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Timothy Geithner, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will become Secretary of the Treasury and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers will be head of the National Economic Council.

Meanwhile, Obama pledged he would propose a recovery plan for both Wall Street and the High Street (country’s business centres), a plan “that stabilises our financial system and gets credit flowing again,” while creating and saving 2.5 million jobs.

Obama’s team is putting together a new economic stimulus plan containing more than $500 billion in federal spending and tax cuts over the next two years, Obama aides and advisers were quoted as saying.

Commenting on this “far more aggressive” recovery plan, Qin said each country should take measures based on its domestic situation to maintain a stable financial market, revive market confidence, and secure economic development.

“As the world’s biggest economy, the US keeping its economic growth and financial stability matters much to the economic development of the world,” he said.

“We hope the US economy can sustain development, which is good for China and the world. The Chinese side will continuously coordinate and cooperate with the US side to deal with the current international financial crisis,” he added.