A handover ceremony for media equipment donated by China Media Group (CMG) to the Antigua and Barbuda Broadcasting Services (ABS) was held on Friday at the Prime Minister's Office in the capital St. John's.
In order to promote media exchanges and cooperation between China and Antigua and Barbuda, CMG donated digital mixers, cameras and other equipment to the ABS.
Antigua and Barbuda's Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Foreign Minister Everly Paul Chet Greene, Minister of Information Melford Walter Fitzgerald Nicholas, and Chinese Ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda Zhang Yanling attended the handover ceremony.
At the ceremony, Prime Minister Browne and Ambassador Zhang exchanged a donation agreement, signed by the Antigua and Barbuda government and CMG, and expressed his gratitude to China and CMG.
"In fact, this gift arose from discussions that we held in China back in January of this year. And it was Mr. (Garfield) Burford, the director at ABS, that would have made this request. We thought that the timeline was extremely short, but they had indicated to us that they will do their best to help us to build capacity for the SIDS conference. We are extremely grateful," Browne said.
The 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) will be held in Antigua and Barbuda next week.
Foreign Minister Greene said that the media equipment would enable Antigua and Barbuda to make substantial progress in media technology and greatly facilitate cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Nicholas said that he warmly welcomes colleagues from CMG and other Chinese media to come to Antigua and Barbuda for interviews and reporting.
ABS was established in 2000 and owns television stations, radio stations and new media platforms.
Handover ceremony for CMG-donated media equipment held in Antigua and Barbuda
China's investment in fixed assets maintained steady growth in the first five months of 2024, accompanied by ongoing optimization of the investment structure, an official from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) told a press conference in Beijing on Monday.
Driven by the advancements in high-end, smart, and green manufacturing, investment in the manufacturing sector has posted strong growth momentum since the beginning of the year, according to the NBS,.
From January to May, investment in the manufacturing sector grew by 9.6 percent year on year, 5.6 percentage points faster than that of the total investment and contributing 57.3 percent to the growth of the total investment.
Notably, investment in high-tech industries has continued to expand, while investment in equipment upgrading and technological transformation has experienced accelerated growth.
"With the robust support of policies for large-scale upgrading of equipment, investment in the purchase of machinery and equipment showed a good growth momentum. In the January-May period, such investment increased by 17.5 percent year on year, outpacing the growth in the January-April period by 0.3 percentage points. Besides, there has been an accelerated pace of transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. During the same period, investment in technology transformation in the manufacturing sector grew by 10 percent year on year, marking a 1.5-percentage-point acceleration," said NBS spokeswoman Liu Aihua.
In addition, investment in major projects played a crucial role during the first five months, with completed investments in projects each with a planned total investment of 100 million yuan or more recording a year-on-year growth of 8.5 percent, driving a 4.6-percentage-point rise in the nation's total investment.
Looking ahead, China has broad space to increase effective investment and has huge investment potential in aspects such as innovation-driven development, transformation and upgrading, green transition, and people's livelihood, said the official.
China's investment in fixed assets grows steadily in Jan-May period
