Extracts. CPC Branches in Private Enterprises Bu Yaohu, a private enterprise owner in east China's Zhejiang Province, regards the grassroots organization of the Communist Party of China in his company as a dependable participator. Bu rebuilt a 20-sq-m office as a room for the Party branch. In the room, colored photos of the ten members of the Party branch were hung on the wall. Bu runs a supermarket chain-store company in Haining City. With 700 employees, the company has four supermarkets and 25 chain- stores. "The Party branch is of great help to my company," the private enterprise owner said. With the support and cooperation of the Party branch, the company is carrying out a reform of the employees' wage system. The reform will change the current wage system, he said. The new system will focus on working ability and results rather than being based on working years, to raise or lower employees' wages. Those performing outstanding work will earn 1,000 yuan (about 120 U.S. dollars) per month, up 300 yuan from their current wages. The Party branch held a discussion on the change, and held that it would facilitate management and the tapping of the employees' initiative. Qian Mengqing, secretary of the Party branch, said that after work the ten CPC members in the company often make efforts to solve problems which concern the employees. Qian, 39 years old, is also chairman of the company's workers' union. "We by no means ask for extra pay from the company for our extra efforts," she said. "What we do is the duty of each Party member." She joined the CPC 16 years ago. She was re-employed by the company four years ago as a laid-off worker from a local state- owned cotton-textile enterprise. The Party is calling for its members to play an outstanding role in all walks of life, including the sector of private industry. Last year, the CPC members were cited as outstanding employees of the company. "Promoting the development of the privately-owned economy is one of the Party's polices," Qian said. The company's Party branch was established last February, with the theme of implementing the Party's policies, and improving employee quality and the company's development. "Studying related policies and laws about the country's private economy and playing the role of pioneer for the company's development in the new century have been listed in the Party branch's work plan this year. Operating the business is the responsibility of the owner, but enhancing the employees' unity and initiative is the work of the Party branch, she said. The Party branch is responsible for providing solutions for all employee marriage problems and poverty-relief issues. Meanwhile, it has sponsored diversified professional training programs for the employees. In addition, the Party branch has organized a series of cultural and sports activities for the employees. The development of the company would be impossible without the Party branch, Bu said. "It is a bridge between me and the employees," he explained, adding that many valuable opinions and suggestions as well as supervision ideas are conveyed to the company's managers via the branch. Last year, the Party branch suggested improving the living conditions of the employees during the hot summer. As a result, the company bought electric fans for the employees' dormitory, and promised to install air-conditioners. Bao said that no conflicts have ever occurred between him and the Party branch. "So far as I have not violated related laws and regulations in business operation, the Party branch has always supported and respected my decisions and property rights," he said. The province's first batch of CPC branches set up in private companies, including that in Bu's company, were established about five years ago. More and more private enterprises in China favor the establishment of Party organizations in their enterprises. Statistics show that more than 44,000 CPC branches and committees have been set up in private enterprises in the country. Zhejiang has over 10,000 such organizations in its private enterprises, and the CPC members in the enterprises reach 150,000, accounting for 2.08 percent of the total number of employees in the enterprises. Zhejiang is one of the parts of China where private enterprises are most concentrated. By the end of 2000, the province had 180, 000 private enterprises, with three million employees. **** Friendly Ties Beneficial to China, India: Premier Zhu Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Tuesday that Sino-Indian friendship is in the fundamental interests of the people of both countries. As the world's two largest developing countries, both China and India are endeavoring to develop their economies and improve people's living standards, and, therefore, they need a peaceful and stable environment, Zhu said in a meeting with Najma Heptulla, president of the Council of the Inter-parliamentary Union. "The need for promoting Sino-Indian cooperation far overweighs the existing differences between us," Zhu told Heptulla, who is also deputy chairperson of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. Heptulla is leading an Indian delegation consisting of parliamentarians of various party affiliations, entrepreneurs and trade union members on a visit here. Zhu said Sino-Indian relations have recently witnessed marked improvement and development. During Indian President Kocheril Raman Narayanan's China visit last year, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the Indian President reached consensuses on a number of issues during their fruitful talks, he said. The visit paid by Li Peng, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, to India last January pulled bilateral ties even closer, he said. Heptulla's visit demonstrated the prospects of the development of Sino-Indian relations, Zhu said. Zhu also talked about the importance of furthering economic and trade relations between the two countries, saying that such cooperation is the wish of the two countries' people and also meets the needs of both countries in developing their relations. China is willing to join efforts with India to fulfill this goal, Zhu said. Heptulla said there exists great potential for business and trade cooperation between the two countries even though many achievements have already been made in the field. She told Zhu that India is confident of the development prospects of India-China friendly relations. Members of the delegation also expressed hope that the two countries would increase exchanges and cooperation in all areas and enhance coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs and make joint efforts to safeguard the interests of developing countries. **** Switzerland Freezes Money Allegedly Linked to France-Taiwan Arms Deal A local senior judicial official said Tuesday that Switzerland has frozen some 800 million Swiss Francs (445 million U.S. dollars) in bank accounts suspected to be bribes allegedly offered by a French company for the 1991 sale of warships to Taiwan. Geneva's chief prosecutor Bernard Bertossa said the money in Swiss bank accounts consists of bulk of the bribes, and that there are also accounts frozen in Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. France is investigating allegations that money was channeled from the former state-owned energy group, Elf Aquitaine, now part of Total Fina Elf, to help another French firm Thomson-CSF, now called Thales, to secure a controversial contract to sell Taiwan six Lafayette frigates in 1991. Last month, former French foreign minister Roland Dumas was convicted of corruption for illegally taking gifts from Elf. Bertossa's comments came after the Saturday edition of French-Swiss newspaper Le Temps reported that 400 million Swiss Francs (222.5 million dollars) had been frozen in connection with the inquiry led by Geneva investigating magistrate Paul Perraudin. However, Bertossa did not disclose names of the banks in several Swiss cantons where suspected accounts are blocked. Last May, Credit Suisse Group said it had frozen more than 250 million Swiss Francs (139 million dollars) in deposits it thought were linked to the warship sale. On Friday, a Liechtenstein court froze nearly 33 million dollars in accounts on the same ground. **** Lebanon Says Israeli Fighters Infringe Lebanese Air Space Israeli warplanes infringed Lebanese air space and broke sound barriers over the capital of Beirut and central Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanese security sources said. Israeli planes also hovered over southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, in which thousands of Syrian troops are deployed, the sources added. Israel had promised to Steffan de Mistura, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's personal representative for southern Lebanon, last Thursday that it would cease cross-border flight over Lebanon. One day later, however, Israeli planes flew over south Lebanon after the Lebanese resistance guerrilla group Hezbollah attacked an Israeli position in the disputed Shebaa Farms. As a follow-up retaliation, Israeli planes Sunday bombarded a Syrian radar station in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, leaving two Syrian soldiers and one Lebanese injured. Israeli troops withdrew from south Lebanon in May, 2000, ending a 22-year occupation there. But Lebanon and Syria say that the Shebaa Farms area, which is occupied by Israel, belongs to Lebanon. Hezbollah, or Party of God, vows to continue fighting against Israel as long as it occupies the land. The Jewish country insists that it captured the farms in the 1967 Middle East war and the issue should be solved in its negotiation with Syria. It has warned that it would hold Syria responsible for any attacks launched by Hezbollah against its targets. **** l9 Contracts Under Oil-for-Food Program Suspended: Iraqi Official A senior Iraqi trade official has said that 19 contracts signed between Iraq and foreign enterprises under the UN-Iraq oil-for-food program were suspended by the United States and Britain. US and British representatives at the UN Sanctions Commission 661 suspended the contracts that had been signed in line with financial allocations of the oil-for-food deal, the INA news agency quoted the official as saying on Tuesday. The contracts involve power equipment, trucks, water treatment units, air compressors, diesel generators, digging machines, and medicine and other necessities, according to the official. The United Nations started the oil-for-food program in 1996, which allows Iraq to sell oil to buy U.N.-monitored food, medicine and other necessities to offset the impact of the decade-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq, imposed after its invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990. On June 1, the U.N. Security Council decided to extend the oil- for-food program to July 3. Three days later, Iraq suspended its oil exports in protest of the one-month extension of the oil-for- food program, a move which Iraq claims was designed to pave the way for the adoption of U.S.- and British-backed "smart sanctions" against it. Iraq has strongly opposed the new version of the U.N. crippling sanctions on Iraq, which calls for easing Iraqi import of civilian goods and tightening curbs on military-related materials.�� On Monday, the U.N. Security Council decided to indefinitely put off a vote on the new sanctions regime, paving the way for the resumption of Iraq's oil exports. **** China to Offer Better Water Supplies to Poor Rural Areas China plans to bring 24 million rural people, the last batch of its existing 30 million rural residents still living in chronic poverty, out of destitution by offering them water supplies and irrigation systems. More than 80 million rural people lived under absolute poverty before 1993 due to a lack of sufficient and clean drinking water and a constant irrigation supply caused by a worsening local ecological environment and water-related calamities, such as droughts and soil erosion, according to Zhang Jiyao, vice-minister of water resources. He was quoted by China Daily as saying that more than 53 million previously poverty-stricken people have bid farewell to poverty thanks to a government-launched seven-year poverty-alleviation program (1993-2000), in which water conservancy projects took center stage as the most important infrastructure improvement for impoverished areas, Zhang said. However, some 24 million rural farmers in China's hinterland still have great difficulty in getting water due to harsh natural conditions and water-related issues like droughts and soil erosion. "Our anti-poverty program is designed to help the 24 million more rural residents get access to drinkable water by 2003," said Zhang. Meanwhile, thousands of medium and small water-supply, irrigation, water and soil erosion-control and hydropower projects are to be implemented during the 2001-2003 period to benefit the 24 million rural residents, Zhang said. He said that effective water-control and supply projects will ensure every member of the rural poor (whose annual per capita net income only stands at around 600 yuan (72.3 US dollars) or less than one third of the national average) receives 0.5 mu to 1 mu (0. 03 to 0.07 hectare) of farmland with a stable yield for their grain ration. The Ministry of Water Resources intends to introduce water- efficient irrigation to 20 percent of the country's drought-prone areas and help bring around 13 percent of total infertile land under control. To improve electricity supplies, the ministry will finance local participation in the building of small hydropower stations in areas with available resources. China's water authorities have played a key role in eradicating the country's poverty. The Ministry of Water Resources has spent over 30 billion yuan since 1993 on the construction of three million water supply projects with a daily capacity of 20 million tons. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
