Recovery contributor

THE country’s banking and insurance sector has taken a slew of measures to buoy the recovery of the country’s economy amid COVID-19 disruptions, an official said Tuesday.

By the end of 2020, outstanding yuan loans increased by 19.6 trillion yuan (US$3.03 trillion) over the beginning of the year, and 6.6 trillion yuan of loans had been extended, said Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, at a press conference. Last year, new loans to the manufacturing sector stood at 2.2 trillion yuan, exceeding the total amount of the previous five years, while new loans to private enterprises totaled 5.7 trillion yuan, 1.5 trillion yuan more than in 2019, said Guo.

FDI source

CHINA became the largest source of foreign direct investments (FDI) for Malaysia in 2020, said the Malaysian Investment Development Authority on Tuesday.

Malaysia recorded a total of 164 billion ringgit (US$40.41 billion) in approved investments through 4,599 projects in 2020. In contrast, a total of 5,287 projects with investments of 211.4 billion ringgit were approved in 2019. In 2020, domestic direct investments accounted for the bulk of the total approved investments with a contribution of 60.9 percent, while foreign direct investments made up the remaining 64.2 billion ringgit, or 39.1 percent.

Clean energy

THE coastal province of Fujian saw a boom in the clean energy development over the past five years in its pursuit of reducing the use of coal and slashing carbon emissions.

With major nuclear and wind power projects in operation, the province saw its installed capacity of clean energy production grow to around 35.1 GW by 2020 from 25.3 GW five years ago, according to the State Grid Fujian Electric Power Co. Clean energy accounted for 55.1 percent of the total installed power generating capacity in the province.