WUHAN, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- A total of 30,000 testing kits donated by central China's Hubei Province, once hard hit by COVID-19, left for Mongolia on Saturday as gifts in appreciation of their previous donation of sheep in support of China's COVID-19 fight.

The testing kits for detecting the novel coronavirus are expected to arrive at the port of Erenhot, Inner Mongolia, on Dec. 14, making use of strict safety measures and cold-chain transportation.

At a ceremony in Hubei's capital city of Wuhan earlier this month, the province also promised to donate three units of PCR testing equipment and 22,000 locally produced brick-tea products to Mongolia.

Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga visited China in February, during a critical stage of China's COVID-19 battle, and promised to send 30,000 sheep as a token of support.

The first batch of 11,267 sheep arrived in Wuhan in late November after being slaughtered. The Hubei government decided to deliver the mutton to medical workers in Hubei who contributed to the COVID-19 fight, as well as to the relatives of those who died in the line of duty, and medical teams across the country that were sent to Hubei to offer a helping hand.

Many would be desperate to bid goodbye to 2020 as the year of the novel coronavirus epidemic, the resulting global economic downturn, and the global problems created by the growing trade protectionist and unilateralist policies.

Yet for China and Mongolia, 2020 has been a year of friendly exchanges, deepening cooperation and heartening stories. One such story is Mongolia donating 30,000 sheep to China in 14 batches－an example of friendship and mutual help during the pandemic.

During his visit to Beijing in February when China was battling the worst stage of the pandemic, Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga reaffirmed support for China as a comprehensive strategic partner and said his country would gift 30,000 sheep to help the Chinese people fight the epidemic.

With the pandemic still raging in many parts of the world, it is time to focus on what China and Mongolia can do to overcome the multiple challenges posed by the pandemic and the global downturn.

As for deepening Sino-Mongolian relations, China dispatched testing kits and other medical equipment to Mongolia to help the authorities there to cut the virus's transmissions chains, and maintain a high level of alert.

The mutual lessons China and Mongolia have learned over the past months have helped them to better plan their moves to prevent more outbreaks. Mongolia has been trying to contain the epidemic essentially by quarantining people infected with the virus. The country has imposed a nationwide lockdown till Dec 1 to halt the virus's spread and to identify all the people who had contact with locally transmitted COVID-19 patients. And if there is a drastic increase in the number of infections, the Mongolian authorities can ask the people to start joint control and prevention programs against the pandemic.

After all, China succeeded in containing the virus partly because it mobilized local residents and volunteers to ensure the anti-pandemic measures were properly implemented and followed at the community level.

And since the pandemic has also caused a global economic recession, China and Mongolia need to find new ways to boost bilateral trade. In fact, the two countries have devised ways to expand bilateral trade, for example, by opening "green freight channels" but closing the passenger channels. The "green freight channels" have made major contributions to bilateral trade－for one, they have made Mongolia China's largest coal supplier. The coal trade has benefited Mongolia－as the mineral industry is one of the pillars of Mongolia's economy－and helped China to meet its demand for coal.

During State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to Mongolia on Sept 15-16, China and Mongolia agreed to deepen cooperation in different fields, and expedite the alignment of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Mongolia's Development Road development initiative. The construction of sewage treatment plants and hydropower stations, and the project to transform shantytowns into safe, hygienic living spaces will continue in Mongolia. Also, China will increase the import of coal and agricultural products, including meat and dairy products, from Mongolia, which will further deepen cooperation between the two sides, especially between cross-border economic zones.

Besides, based on broad agreements, China and Mongolia should boost cooperation on key projects while upholding multilateralism and enhancing mutual trust, because despite economic globalization facing severe challenges, it is the only way different economies in the world and the global economy as a whole can recover from the impact of the pandemic and flourish in the future.

China and Mongolia have helped each other during the worst global public health crisis in a century. But the two countries should also further strengthen mutual security and development because the pandemic is yet to be contained at the global level.

Which brings us back to Mongolia's gift of 30,000 sheep. For the Mongolian people, the 30,000 sheep reflect their friendship with the Chinese people because they consider sheep as the best gifts for friends and family.

During his visit to China in February, Battulga quoted a Mongolian proverb, "a needle in need is of greater use than a camel in prosperity", which means adversity reveals the true quality of friendship. In response, President Xi Jinping quoted an ancient Chinese proverb,"If you have received a drop of beneficence from other people, you should return to them a fountain of beneficence" credited to Confucius.

True to the words of the two countries' presidents and in the spirit of Sino-Mongolian friendship, the two sides have been consolidating their good neighborly relations, and will continue to do so in the future.

Rio Tinto’s legal destruction of ancient Australian rockshelters showed the mining sector was exposed to material investment risks without more reforms, institutional investors said on Thursday, backing the findings of a review into the incident.

The interim parliamentary review into how global miner Rio legally destroyed the sites in May recommended it pay restitution to the traditional owners, and that the industry improve how it obtains consent from Aboriginal groups to impact heritage sites on their ancestral lands.

“The report has … highlighted the material risks for investors,” said Australian Council of Superannuation Investors Chief Executive Louise Davidson.

“Long-term investors support structural and cultural changes to the way companies approach their relationships with First Nations stakeholders,” Davidson said in a statement, supporting legal reform that would ensure consent was gained in line with global standards.

ACSI represents 37 asset owners and institutional investors which collectively own on average 10% of every ASX200 company.

The focus by investors has been on ensuring continuing, free, prior and informed consent which is defined as a human right under United Nations principles for dealing with First Nations people.

The concept has made uneasy some in the mining industry who see it as potentially undermining certainty for their multi-year, billion dollar investments.

“Action must be undertaken by the Western Australian Government and the mining industry to rebalance the relationship between the mining industry and Traditional Owners,” the report found.

While new legislation in Western Australia is being established, expected some time next year, the mining industry must take extra care to ensure proper consent is obtained, the inquiry said. Iron ore miner Fortescue Metals said during the inquiry it had continued with the development of a rail line around “Spear Hill” in 2017 despite opposition by Eastern Guruma traditional owners because the group had not earlier raised concerns despite a “detailed consultation process.”

The rail line was ultimately re-routed after the Western Australian government intervened.

“Mining companies failing to negotiate fairly and in good faith with traditional owners represents a clear systemic risk to investors,” said chief executive Debby Blakey of HESTA, an investor and health industry superannuation fund.

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast)

Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) will get a substantial boost next year due to a rebound in consumption and services, accelerating income growth and fiscal stimulus, international economic research firm Capital Economics says.

The Chinese economy is projected to grow by 10 percent in 2021, higher than the current market consensus of 7.9 percent, according to the company’s analysts.

“Looking ahead, while the analyst consensus has turned more upbeat in recent months, we think there is still room for further upside surprises,” the latest research note by the London-based consultancy reads.

According to Capital Economics, domestic drivers of growth will stay strong in the near term with the latest boost in exports to start unwinding amid vaccine rollouts in developed markets.

An increase in savings rates registered earlier this year will reportedly cause a boost in spending as confidence improves. The fourth quarter of 2020 will see China’s economic output grow higher compared to Capital Economics’ forecast a year ago, with its economic output to stay above the trend for the next year.

The projected economic rise will reportedly trigger some state policy tightening in 2021 with focus to be shifted back to controlling the swift growth in national debt. The country’s central bank will start to hike the rates on its lending facilities next year, according to the research.

“This policy reversal is unlikely to derail the recovery and we expect China’s economy to remain a global outperformer next year,” Capital Economics said.

At the same time, China’s economy reportedly faces some downside risks from the property sector and credit markets. The economic growth will slow down by the end of 2021 with the appreciation of the national currency to level off.

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Chinese state-owned companies are starting to default on their debts. It's a problem that could ripple through the country's financial system, threatening to slam the brakes on the nation's economy and hobble the global recovery from the pandemic.

State firms defaulted on a record 40 billion yuan ($6.1 billion) worth of bonds between January and October, according to Fitch Ratings. That's about as much as the last two years combined.

The problem has only gotten worse in recent weeks. A slew of major companies — including BMW's (BMWYY) Chinese partner Brilliance Auto Group, top smartphone chip maker Tsinghua Unigroup, and Yongcheng Coal and Electricity — declared bankruptcy or defaulted on their loans last month, sending shock waves through the nation's debt market. Bond prices have plummeted and interest rates have spiked, and the turmoil has even spilled over into the stock market, where shares of state-owned firms have been sinking.

It's alarming on a couple of fronts. First of all, the close relationships between these companies and local Chinese governments typically make them safe bets in times of trouble. If investors are worried that the state is no longer willing to support them, they suddenly become much riskier propositions.

Second, the success of the state sector is critical to China's financial system. While such firms contribute less than a third of GDP, they account for more than half of the bank loans offered in China and some 90% of the country's corporate bonds, according to data from the People's Bank of China and Chinese brokerage firm Huachuang Securities.

"The credibility of government guarantees has been the most important bulwark against [financial] crisis so far. Now we are seeing signs that this credibility is eroding," according to Logan Wright, director of China markets research at Rhodium Group.

Historically, Beijing has been reluctant to let these companies fail. The Chinese Communist Party enjoys tight control over wide swaths of the economy, including business, and it believes that the ties between these firms and the government are important for maintaining that.

Now, they appear to be willing to allow at least some to collapse. But too many defaults on loans and corporate bonds would leave the financial system incredibly vulnerable, making that approach fraught with risk.

"Although authorities want market discipline for riskier firms, they cannot know how much credit risk might create broader contagion," Wright wrote in a recent research note. "No one can know this line clearly, given that there is no precedent for this risk in China's financial system."

If Beijing's ability to manage the debt is called into question, Wright warned that the fallout could strain the financial market, reducing available credit and liquidity. Already there have been some consequences: Bond financing dropped sharply in November, according to statistics released Wednesday by the People's Bank of China.

These problems could ultimately drag on what has been a fragile recovery for the world's second largest economy. While the International Monetary Fund expects China's economy to grow 1.9% this year, better than its big global peers, that would be the weakest annual rate of expansion in more than four decades.

The efforts to reign in risky borrowing "will weigh on the pace of non-bank credit," wrote Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist for Capital Economics, in a Wednesday research note.

"While it won't derail China's economic recovery overnight, it will gradually weaken the recent tailwinds from policy stimulus," he said, referring to moves by the Chinese government this year to cut interest rates and free billions of dollars worth of spending to prop up growth.

'Inevitable' defaults

While the record amount of bond defaults this year likely has a lot to do with the coronavirus pandemic, China's state-owned businesses have been accumulating debt for years.

"We viewed these defaults as inevitable," wrote analysts at Nomura in a recent research report. They noted that the Chinese government has been propping up the sector with trillions of dollars in stimulus since the 2008 global financial crisis.

But those investments didn't generate as good returns as expected.

The shortcomings of state-owned businesses have been widely acknowledged. Such firms are often less competitive than their private peers and generate lower returns on investment, said Ning Gaoning, the chairman of the state-owned chemical conglomerate Sinochem Group, at a major political gathering in Beijing in May.

At the same time, China has been historically biased toward its prized state firms and offered them far more access to financing than their private counterparts. That trend has accelerated in recent years as President Xi Jinping has called for a stronger and more dominant state sector.

All of those factors now appear to be coming together this year to create a perfect storm. To help companies recover from fallout related to Covid-19, China dramatically loosened restrictions on financing — a decision authorities acknowledged earlier this year would result in an uptick in bad loans.

Unsurprisingly, state-owned companies accounted for the lion's share of credit bond issuance through the first nine months of the year. Such firms raised some 8.5 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion), compared to the private sector's 857 billion yuan ($131.2 billion), according to Pengyuan International, a Chinese rating agency.

Defaults, meanwhile, have risen dramatically. The Nomura analysts estimated that by mid-November, companies had defaulted on some 178 billion yuan ($27 billion) worth of bonds in the mainland Chinese market. About 43% of that came from state-owned firms, more than 30% above the recent yearly average.

"Most likely we will see many more such defaults in coming years," the Nomura analysts wrote.

Striking a balance

Beijing has been taking some steps to help calm the market. Last month, the People's Bank of China injected one trillion yuan ($153 billion) worth of loans into markets to ease the stress on liquidity and soothe the nerves of investors.

Vice Premier Liu He, who chairs China's financial stability committee, has been trying to boost confidence, too. During a recent meeting with financial and economic officials, he urged local governments in China to prevent worst-case scenarios by strengthening the warning systems they use to detect systemic risks and keeping sufficient liquidity.

Even so, Liu and others have made it clear that not everyone should be saved. In that same meeting, he warned state-owned firms that Beijing has "zero tolerance" for "strategic defaults" — remarks that have been interpreted to mean that the government thinks some companies are deliberately evading debt obligations that they should have been able to meet.

Analysts have also noted that rescuing some state-owned firms from collapse is probably a dead end, given how financially cumbersome the sector can be. Along with their other inefficiencies, such companies also employ just 10% of the workforce.

Still, allowing for too many defaults could jeopardize the financial stability and near-term recovery. Analysts at Goldman Sachs recently pointed out that widespread failures in the sector could spill over into the banking system, causing banks to cut back on lending more broadly, or increase interest rates — the latter of which is already starting to happen.

"Although the central government has been trying to reduce implicit guarantees in the market," they are aiming to do so in an "orderly way," those analysts wrote in a recent research note.

"Given China's post-Covid economic recovery is still ongoing, the bottom line is the government will try to contain" those risks, they added.

Mongolia is quickly becoming a hub of international trade and investment. According to the 2020 World Investment Report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, foreign direct investment flows to Mongolia totaled US$2.4 billion in 2019, an increase from US$2.2 billion in 2018, owing largely to a continuation of large mining projects, including the country’s world-class Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine.

Recently, a number of diplomatic and legislative initiatives were made to protect and promote partnerships between Mongolia and its neighbors Russia and China, as well as overseas investors.

The China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor

The start of 2019 marked seven decades of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and China. China’s Mongolian component of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor (CMREC) — is designed to facilitate trade between Mongolia and its neighbors while at the same time opening Mongolia to overland routes to the European Union as well as sea ports in Asia.

The CMREC is one of six major corridors envisioned by China’s BRI. The project aims to promote infrastructure connectivity and regional economic integration while developing trade and investment. The corridor intends to position Mongolia as the critical link in newly-developed trade networks between the East and West and, once completed, is expected to reduce freight times, create new export routes and cut down bureaucratic barriers. The Mongolian government itself has invested in national infrastructure through railway expansion and the construction of more than 6,000 km of roads.

The CMREC will begin in the Chinese port of Tianjin, trending northwest toward the cities of Zhangjiakou and Erenhot before crossing the China-Mongolia border. Mongolian stops along the corridor include Choyr, Ulan-Bator and Darkhan. The corridor then crosses the Mongolia-Russia border toward the Russian towns of Kyakhta and Ulan-Ude. For northeast China’s provincial powerhouses, the CMREC represents the shortest path to Europe, positioning Mongolia as a key logistics hub.

Mining success

Roughly 80 percent of Mongolia’s current export volume is directed toward China. While the CMREC will open Mongolia to additional international investment partners, the country has already begun the process of expanding its horizons. In particular, the Mongolian government only has 34 percent equity stake in the high-profile South Gobi Oyu Tolgoi mine, often referred to as the backbone of the Mongolian mining industry, as a symbol of Mongolia opening its doors to international majority-holding partnerships like Canada-based companies Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN,OTCQX:IVPAF) and Turquoise Hill Resources (TSX:TRQ,NYSE:TRQ).

Oyu Tolgoi is one of the largest known copper-gold deposits in the world. The mine has seen immense success since open pit mining began in 2011. In 2013, the mine’s copper concentrator, the largest industrial complex ever built in Mongolia, began processing mined ore into copper concentrate. Production is expected to continue for decades to come.

As Mongolian legislation continues to pave the way for large-scale resource development, Mongolia remains one of the world’s most significant prospective sources of lithium. With confirmed reserves of at least 200,000 tonnes of lithium, the country has positioned itself as the ideal candidate for lithium exploration and development. As rising demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and lithium-ion batteries may begin to challenge the world’s existing lithium sources, most of which originate from South America’s Lithium Triangle, new sources of lithium could prove extremely valuable.

One of the companies hoping to capitalize on one of the world’s most unique mining opportunities is ION Energy (TSXV:ION), an early-stage exploration company that currently holds one of the largest and highest-grade lithium licenses in a country that neighbors the world’s leading lithium consumer. ION has secured a sizable 81,758 ha license in Mongolia’s southern Gobi region, only 24 km from the Mongolia-China border. Early exploration work on the property has identified both lithium brine, as well as spodumene targets with grades as high as 811 parts per million with notably low potassium and magnesium content.

Mongolia’s arid climate and 250 days of sunshine per year help maintain high evaporation rates when processing lithium brine, a low-cost and environmentally friendly method of lithium production. Brine deposits account for 66 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, occurring in saline desert basins known as salars. In comparison to hard rock lithium extraction, brine extraction is up to 50 percent cheaper when it comes to exploration capital and operating expenses. Its impact on the environment is also much cleaner, owing to the fact that lithium brine is already a solution, eliminating the need for ore processing or extensive logistics.

In 2019, China accounted for 39 percent of global lithium consumption. Its eastern neighbors, South Korea and Japan, were the second and third largest consumers of lithium, at a 20 and 18 percent share of global lithium consumption, respectively. In the same year, the global EV lithium-ion battery market reached a total of US$17.4 billion and is expected to grow to US$95.3 billion by 2030.

Lithium, Mongolia and the US

Over the last decade, Mongolia has focused efforts on strengthening its third neighbor foreign policies.

In 2019, during Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga’s state visit to Washington, the US became Mongolia’s fifth strategic partner. Mongolia’s third neighbor foreign policy towards the US has sought fruitful economic cooperation, and the Mongolia-US strategic partnership aims to diversify Mongolia’s mining-dependent economy, increase its workforce and reinvigorate free trade.

In addition to the diplomatic strategic partnership, the recent Biden win and the worldwide “greening” of economic stimulus announcements further solidify Mongolia’s potential as an emerging leader on the lithium front.

Changing regulations

In September 2016, Canada and Mongolia signed an international Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments, also known as the Canada-Mongolia Investment Agreement, a framework that offers greater certainty for Canadian investors. The agreement is one of many bilateral agreements between nations meant to promote and protect foreign investments — it has been estimated that more than 2,900 similar international investment agreements (ILAs) exist worldwide. Canada has entered into 32 ILAs while Mongolia takes part in 43.

The Canada-Mongolia Investment Agreement was designed to protect Canadian investors when investing in Mongolian territory. According to the United Nation’s Investment Policy Review on Mongolia, Canada held an 8 percent share in Mongolia’s total foreign investment inflows between 1990 and 2012. With the Canada-Mongolia ILA ratification in February 2017, Canadian investors are now more protected than ever and can effectively rely on international law to secure their investments in Mongolia.

Takeaway

Mongolia’s geological potential, arid climate and close proximity to major Asian markets solidifies its position as one of the last frontiers for mineral exploration and mining. Diplomatic and legislative initiatives, including the ongoing Mongolia-US strategic partnership, CMREC and the Canada-Mongolia Investment Agreement, are expected to promote infrastructure connectivity, economic growth and international trade.

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Mongolia has put into operation its second fuel processing plant here, the government's press office said Wednesday.

The plant, built in Nalaikh district of the capital city Ulan Bator, has an annual capacity of processing 600,000 tons of fuel.

"Reducing air pollution in Ulan Bator was one of our government's challenges. Thanks to the government's decision in 2019 to replace low-grade coal with processed fuel in Ulan Bator, air pollution in the city, which is home to over 1.5 million people, has been reduced by 50 percent," Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh said at the opening ceremony of the plant on Tuesday.

The first fuel processing plant, commissioned in early 2019, has the same processing capacity as the new one.

The Mongolian government reduced the price of processed fuel by 50 percent from Dec. 3 to April 1 in order to support the livelihoods of residents of ger areas of Ulan Bator during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The original price of processed fuel is 150,000 Mongolian tugriks (about 52.8 U.S. dollars) per ton.

Around 220,000 households live in Ulan Bator's ger (yurt, or round-shaped dwelling) districts, with no running water, central heating or sewerage systems, according to government data. Enditem

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (10 December 2020) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have signed a loan agreement and project agreements for the Inner Mongolia Sustainable Cross-Border Development Investment Program — Project 1 totaling €166.53 million (about $200 million).

Signing for ADB today was People's Republic of China Resident Mission Country Director Yolanda Fernandez Lommen while PRC Deputy Director General of Finance Han Bin and designated officials from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR), including Chairman of IMAR government Bu Xiaolin, mayors of Baotou and Erenhot municipal governments, and chairman of Bank of Inner Mongolia, signed for the PRC.

ADB approved the $420 million multitranche financing facility (MFF) to improve economic opportunities and living conditions among communities along the border between the IMAR in the PRC and Mongolia on 21 October 2020.

“The ADB program will ensure that the benefits of growing bilateral and regional trade can be shared by both sides of the border,” said Director for Public Management, Financial Sector, and Regional Cooperation at ADB’s East Asia Department Xiaoqin Fan. “Innovative technologies such as smart drip irrigation with reclaimed water for forestation, smart port management based on information and communication technology, and smart waste collection and transfer will bring about environmental improvements, and robust economic and financial returns for long-term sustainability and benefits to livelihoods.”

The first tranche of the MFF, which was approved on 26 November, will help finance the delivery of a smart port management system in the Erenhot–Zamyn-Uud economic cooperation zone (ECZ), a service area and customs supervision center at the Mandula port, and upgrade of equipment at the international hospital in Erenhot. Ecological restoration will be carried out in the ECZ, and a smart waste collection system established in Erenhot. Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financing support, the construction of a quarantine station at the Mandula port, and the establishment of a product tracing and management system and Poverty Alleviation Program (PAP) will contribute to expanding income-generating opportunities.

These first tranche activities will benefit 2.95 million people in Erenhot and Baotou municipalities by providing greater livelihood opportunities for the poor as well as the overall population. The program will have strong regional spillover benefits for Mongolia, with expanded trade creating about 3,300 direct and indirect jobs in Mongolia. Health and other services will benefit disadvantaged communities on both sides of the border.

Greater efficiency at the IMAR border crossing points could accelerate trade growth in the region. Expanded financial and business support to SMEs will spur local income growth. International best practices in gender equity will be applied through targeted support for women-led SMEs, the gender-sensitive design of border town facilities, and poverty alleviation program support for low-income households headed by women.

The program will address climate change and adaptation challenges that confront both the IMAR and Mongolia. This will include support for carbon pollution reduction by building protective forest strips and the use of renewable and clean energy for heating supply. The establishment of an agricultural value chain will enhance livelihoods on both sides of the frontier.

The project closely complements other ADB projects in Mongolia, including an Economic Cooperation Zone project at Zamyn-Uud free zone approved in June 2020 that will create jobs and serve as a catalyst for diversifying Mongolia’s economy and additional financing for Regional Improvement of Border Services approved in 2019.

The total cost of the investment program is $888.35 million, of which the government will provide $351.42 million, and $116.93 million will come from other sources, including private sector. The closing date for the third tranche is the end of September 2031.

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

MANILA (Reuters) - Developing Asia is on course to contract this year, but probably less than previously thought as China recovers faster than expected, although the prolonged pandemic remains a risk to the outlook, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Thursday.

Economic output in developing Asia, a group of 45 nations in the Asia-Pacific, is seen to shrink 0.4% this year, the ADB said in a supplement to its Asian Development Outlook report, short of its earlier estimate of a 0.7% decline.

This year’s expected decline would be the region’s first in nearly six decades.

For 2021, the region is still forecast to recover and grow 6.8%, the ADB said, as Asian economies gradually recover from the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected nearly 68 million people and killed more than 1.5 million.

Developing Asia’s subregions are forecast to contract this year, except for East Asia, which is expected to grow 1.6%, higher than earlier projected, supported by faster-than-expected recoveries in China and Taipei.

China, where the coronavirus surfaced in December, is projected to grow 2.1% this year, faster than the ADB’s September estimate of 1.8%. The ADB kept its 7.7% growth forecast for the world’s second largest economy for 2021.

“A prolonged pandemic remains the primary risk, but recent developments on the vaccine front are tempering this,” said ADB Chief Economist Yasuyuki Sawada.

The ADB still expects India’s economy to bounce back with growth of 8.0% next year, emerging from a projected contraction of 8.0% this year, less than the 9.0% decline previously forecast.

Southeast Asia remains under pressure, as virus outbreaks and restrictions continue in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, prompting the ADB to downgrade its 2020 and 2021 growth forecasts for the sub-region.

Southeast Asia faces a bleaker outlook with this year’s economic output seen to suffer a deeper slump of 4.4%, before growing 5.2% next year, down from an earlier forecast for 5.5% growth.

Regional inflation this year is expected to ease marginally to 2.8% from a prior estimate of 2.9% and slow further to 1.9% in 2021.

Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

An Australian parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site in May this year has urged the company to halt all mining activities in the area, undertake land rehabilitation and review all of its agreements with traditional owners.

The interim report, published on Wednesday, also concludes that land owners of the Juukan Gorge shelters were not sufficiently supported by the federal and Western Australian state governments, native title law or even their own lawyers.

The harshest parts of the document were reserved for Rio Tinto and its “inexcusable” role in what the inquiry describes as a “tragedy.”

Parliamentary Inquiry, Dec. 2020

“Rio knew the value of what they were destroying but blew it up anyway. It pursued the option of destroying the shelters despite having options which would have preserved them,” the document reads.

“Never again can we allow the destruction, the devastation and the vandalism of cultural sites as has occurred with the Juukan Gorge — never again!”

The inquiry did not refer to what, if any, financial compensation Rio Tinto should pay to the traditional owners as part of a negotiated restitution package. It only said the agreement should include keeping intact places where artefacts and other material could be stored and displayed.

Rio Tinto reiterated its apology to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples (PKKP) in the Pilbara region, adding that such devastation should not have occurred.

“We recognize the destruction of the Juukan rock shelters caused significant pain to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people and we are working very hard to progress a remedy with them,” chairman Simon Thompson said in a statement.

“We are committed to learning from this event [and] have made important changes to the way we manage cultural heritage sites and our relationships with Traditional Owners, including a commitment to modernize our agreements.”

The world’s second-largest miner had already issued a public apology and three senior executives, including top boss Jean-Sébastien Jacques, left Rio Tinto due to the incident.

“Archaic” legislation

The destruction of the caves was technically legal, as Rio Tinto had received permission to conduct the blasts in 2013 under Section 18 of the Western Australia Aboriginal Heritage Act.

The inquiry is investigating the adequacy of state and Commonwealth heritage protection laws and the way they interact.

“The Western Australian legislation that enabled the destruction of Juukan Gorge is woefully out of date and poorly administered. Everyone accepts this,” the report reads.

The WA Government is currently reviewing these laws, which were written decades before Native Title was introduced.

Rio Tinto should pay compensation for sacred caves blast — inquiry

Juukan Gorge cave sites seen before the destruction. (Screenshot via YouTube.)

Until they are reformed, in the absence of clear consent of traditional owners, all miners should hold off new applications that would damage Aboriginal heritage sites, the committee says.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia, a lobby group representing miners, said recommending a moratorium on Section 18 notices under existing laws was a “blunt instrument” that would damage communities and the economy.

Some analysts say the recommendations could lead to delays in proposed mine expansions if companies were forced to revisit past approvals.

The inquiry was called in June, three weeks after Rio Tinto blew up the heritage site. It has since held several public hearings, and received more than 140 submissions from miners, heritage specialists and Aboriginal and civil society groups.

The panel aims to finish its report in the second half of 2021, as covid-19-related disruptions have slowed down the process.