Addis Ababa – May 5th, 2026 – Visa (NYSE: V), a global leader in digital payments, unveiled its new office location in Addis Ababa, marking an important milestone in the company’s continued engagement with Ethiopia’s financial services sector and broader economy.

While Visa has operated in Ethiopia for several years, the new location reflects a strengthened local presence and an evolved approach to partnership, collaboration, and market engagement.

Over the past three years, Visa’s presence in Ethiopia and Eastern Africa has grown substantially, marked by a larger team, expanded regional capabilities, and increased strategic engagement.

Today, the Addis Ababa office serves as a regional hub supporting six markets across Eastern Africa. It reflects Visa’s confidence in the region and its intent to stay close to clients, partners, and stakeholders through day-to-day engagement on the ground.

The new office will serve as a hub for closer engagement with regulators, banks, fintech partners, and the wider business community, supporting the continued growth of secure, inclusive, and innovative digital payments in the market.

The office inauguration brought together senior stakeholders from across the financial ecosystem, including representatives from regulatory institutions, bank executives, and strategic partners.

A defining feature of the new office is a FIFA World Cup–inspired mural, unveiled as part of Visa’s global Visa–FIFA Illustrator Program. Created by Ethiopian visual artist and muralist Efrata Birhanu, the artwork celebrates football’s unique ability to connect people while reflecting Ethiopian culture, creativity, and community.

The mural also highlights Visa’s commitment to the creator economy and its support for artists through global and local platforms.

“While Visa has been present in Ethiopia for several years, opening this new office location marks an important next phase in how we engage with the market,” said Yared Endale, Head of Eastern Africa at Visa. “Having a refreshed, purpose-built space allows us to work more closely with regulators, banks, fintechs, and partners, while signalling our long-term commitment to supporting Ethiopia’s digital payments ecosystem and creative economy as it continues to evolve.”

The mural unveiling also underscores how digital payments can help artists and creators access new audiences, receive payments securely, and build sustainable livelihoods, aligning with Visa’s broader role in enabling participation in the global digital economy.

“This new office location in Addis Ababa reflects the continued strengthening of Visa’s footprint across the region,” said Michael Berner, Head of Southern and Eastern Africa at Visa. “Ethiopia joins Kenya and Tanzania as one of our key physical hubs in East Africa. While Visa has operated in Ethiopia for some time, investing in this new space reinforces our belief in the market’s potential and our intention to stay close to clients, partners, and regulators. As we continue to grow, we expect to expand our presence further across the region this year.”

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at http://Visa.com

Media Contact 

Bryan Wesonga

bwesonga@visa.com

Countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative have expressed a keenness to be involved in a meteorology project China set up recently that uses artificial intelligence to improve weather forecasting. The project is particularly pertinent given the increasingly frequent extreme weather worldwide.

Kouam Magloire, head of the data processing office of meteorological services in Cameroon, said the project could provide an opportunity for the country to strengthen its early warning systems and respond more effectively to extreme weather events.

The project, set up last month, is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and led by the Centre for Earth System Modelling and Prediction of the China Meteorological Administration.

It builds on China’s MAZU early warning system, an open-source meteorological service platform now being used in countries including  Ethiopia and Pakistan to support real-time weather monitoring and disaster alerts.

Leta Bekele Gudina, an expert with the Ethiopian Meteorological Institute, said China is at the forefront of meteorological forecasting and AI development.

“Ethiopia hopes to gain access to advanced technologies through the project, train local professionals and help fill the country’s gap in nowcasting and early warning services,” he said.

Many countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative face rising risks from extreme weather and climate events, the China Meteorological Administration said. Between 1980 and 2022 direct economic losses from meteorological disasters in these countries averaged $214.7 billion a year, accounting for about 28.4 per cent of global losses.

Many of these countries have limited meteorological infrastructure, including sparse observation networks and insufficient computing capacity. The meteorological gap has become a key constraint on disaster preparedness and sustainable development.

To tackle these challenges, the project aims to develop an integrated AI-based forecasting system that can produce predictions from short-term to subseasonal time scales. The system combines physical atmospheric models with AI approaches and will be adapted for local conditions.

An integrated intelligent forecasting device will be designed for flexible deployment in countries with different levels of technical infrastructure, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Han Wei, the project leader, said the platform will operate for at least six months in more than six countries, with early warning services expected to reach about 10 million people.

By LI MUYUN and HE CHUN

On a desk in Li Li’s office, two meticulously preserved rice ears stand as symbols of a mission that spans generations.

One specimen is labelled Xizi 3, China’s first nationally approved low-cadmium rice variety. The other is a third-generation hybrid, representing the unfinished mission of the late Yuan Longping, the legendary “father of hybrid rice”.

For Li, 44, the specimens represent decades of commitment. She is a former student of Yuan and is now vice-president of the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and has devoted the past 20 years to advancing rice varieties for consumers across China and beyond.

“As Yuan always said, people are like seeds, and one must strive to be a good seed. Being a good seed means rooting oneself in the soil, persevering through hardship and bearing fruit that serves others. As agricultural researchers, our mission is to safeguard food security and serve the people.”

One of the most significant challenges in Li’s career was in 2013, when her team embarked on a mission to solve a problem that had baffled scientists everywhere: preventing rice from absorbing cadmium, a toxic heavy metal that contaminates the soil.

Starting from scratch, Li and her colleagues collected thousands of parent materials worldwide and planted them in cadmium-contaminated fields.

In 2018 the team finally discovered what it had been searching for: a mother plant with a natural genetic mutation that prevented cadmium absorption. Through repeated experiments, this low-cadmium germplasm was developed into Xizi 3.

In 2023 Xizi 3 became the first low-cadmium rice variety to receive national approval for commercial cultivation. It was planted on more than 30,000 hectares by last year, the Hunan Provincial Department of Agriculture says.

Another major challenge arose in 2021 with the death of Yuan, which sent shock waves through the research world he had nurtured.

“For a period after his passing the team felt lost,” she said.

At that time it was grappling with funding shortages and difficulties in promoting and industrialising the third-generation hybrid rice, which Yuan considered the most promising for harnessing the full potential of hybrid technology.

Yuan’s words continued to inspire Li and her colleagues in their moments of despair. “We always remembered how he faced every challenging moment, and how he would say, ‘So what if you fail 99 times? One success will be worth everything’,” Li said.

The team persevered with carrying on Yuan’s unfinished mission, including establishing a seed production technological standard for the third-generation hybrid rice, which is crucial for its industrialisation. After two failed attempts, the document was approved by the Hunan Provincial Standardisation Committee last November.

For Li, a good seed knows no borders. Yuan’s ambition to bring hybrid rice to the world has also become her own. In recent years Li has been increasingly engaged in promoting Chinese hybrid rice technology in countries across Africa through the Belt and Road agricultural co-operation initiative.

The Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Centre in Changsha was designated as a reference centre by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2014, opening its doors to the world for research and training related to hybrid rice technologies.

Since then the centre has trained more than 10,000 professionals from developing countries, said Li, a key member of the centre. Many of those trainees have returned home and become the backbone of their countries’ rice research efforts.

For Li and her team, the story of one seed changing the world is still unfolding. In the long run, they aim to help more countries in Africa and Southeast Asia build their own research and industrialisation systems for hybrid rice.

China-Africa relations are most effective when they produce tangible results that everyday people can feel. These include creating more jobs, stabilising incomes, strengthening businesses and expanding consumer choices.

For African economies aiming for sustainable growth, one of the most beneficial and practical factors is market access: clearer, more affordable routes for African products to reach the world’s largest consumer market.

This is why China’s decision to implement zero-tariff treatment — starting on May 1 for imports from 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic ties — deserves attention basically as an economic story.

In the simplest terms, it signals an intent to widen the door for African exports by reducing tariff levels and backing that change with mechanisms meant to ease entry, such as an upgraded “green channel” and support for economic partnership pacts.

From an African perspective, when a market as large as China’s becomes more reachable, it strengthens the business case for investment at home.

Exporters are more likely to invest in irrigation, aggregation, cold storage, packaging lines, food safety compliance and certification when there is a realistic prospect of stable demand.

 Manufacturers are more likely to add shifts, upgrade machinery and train workers when tariff headwinds are reduced and orders become more predictable.

What should Africa prioritise to maximise this moment? Three practical actions stand out.

First, compliance infrastructure is needed. Exporting at scale requires credible standards, testing and certification. Investment in laboratories, inspection services, traceability systems and food safety regimes is the passport to premium markets.

Second, logistics and trade facilitation are critical. Faster customs clearance, stronger cold chain systems and more dependable shipping transform nominal market access into actual market entry.

Third, value addition matters. Africa generates greater revenue — and creates more jobs — when it exports higher-value goods.

China’s zero-tariff move for 53 African countries is a positive signal of openness and partnership. Kenya’s reported conclusion of trade deal negotiations, with broad duty-free coverage for exports, is a concrete illustration of what market access can look like in practice. And Africa’s existing major exporters show that scale is possible.

The author is executive director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi-based communications development think tank. This is an abridged version of an article that appeared in China Daily Global Edition. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

By ZHOU LANXU

China’s economic growth accelerated to 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 despite mounting external uncertainties, underscoring that the resilience of the world’s second-largest economy is underpinned by its vast domestic market, officials and experts said on April 16.

Domestic demand contributed more than four-fifths of GDP growth, they said, with investment returning to positive growth and inflation picking up — a trend expected to anchor steady economic expansion in the coming months.

China’s GDP came in at 33.42 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion) in the first quarter, growing 5 per cent year-on-year in real terms and 0.5 percentage point faster than in the fourth quarter of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

“The Chinese economy got off to a good start, with main macroeconomic indicators improving and new growth drivers expanding rapidly,” said Mao Shengyong, deputy head of the bureau, adding that the economy is well-positioned to maintain steady growth in the coming period.

Beating market expectations, first-quarter growth was supported by improving domestic demand and resilient export growth. Retail sales, a key gauge of consumption, grew 2.4 per cent year-on-year, up 0.7 percentage point from the previous quarter, the bureau said.

Fixed-asset investment rose 1.7 per cent year-on-year during the first quarter, reversing a 3.8 per cent decline in 2025, as infrastructure spending strengthened and manufacturing investment accelerated, while the contraction in property development investment narrowed.

In total, consumption and investment accounted for 84.7 per cent of first-quarter GDP growth, up nearly 30 percentage points year-on-year, the bureau said, pointing to a continued shift towards a growth model driven by domestic demand.

Technological and industrial innovation also provided strong support. High-tech manufacturing contributed 32.6 per cent of overall industrial output growth, which is up 6.1 per cent year-on-year, 1.1 percentage points faster than in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Inflation picked up as demand strengthened. Figures calculated by the Japanese investment bank Nomura show that China’s GDP deflator — a broad measure of price levels — improved from -0.6 per cent in the previous quarter to -0.1 per cent in the first quarter, the highest in three years.

“China’s reflation has transitioned from hope or expectation to reality,” said Xiong Yi, Deutsche Bank’s chief economist for China.

Solid economic performance has provided support for China’s stock market, with the ChiNext Index rising 3.17 per cent to close at 3,626.27 points on April 16, an 11-year high.

Junjie Watkins, equity partner at Pictet Group, a Swiss financial services company, said the Chinese market offers “a degree of certainty in an otherwise uncertain environment”, underpinned by its long-term development planning, improving earnings revisions and attractive valuations.

Improving sentiment is also reflected in foreign direct investment trends. A report by the US consulting firm Kearney said China climbed two places to rank fourth globally in the firm’s 2026 FDI Confidence Index, with China’s leadership in artificial intelligence and its vast domestic market being key sources of appeal.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia/Manama, Bahrain, March 27, 2026 – iibGroup has officially opened a Representative Office in Addis Ababa, marking a significant milestone in the Group’s long-term regional strategy in East Africa. The new office will enable iibGroup to deepen its engagement with Ethiopia’s financial ecosystem, support cross-border investment, and position the Group to play a constructive role as the country advances reforms aimed at modernizing and opening its financial landscape. While there are 15 representative offices in Ethiopia, iib is the first to obtain this significant license post-reform, which underscores our commitment to the Ethiopian market.

Ethiopia’s Financial Liberalization Creates New Opportunities
As regulatory reforms continue to unfold, the market is expected to unlock new opportunities in foreign investment, trade facilitation, and financial services innovation. Building on its regional platform through iib East Africa in Djibouti, iib’s presence in Addis Ababa positions the Group among the first international financial institutions establishing a footprint in Ethiopia. Through its regional expertise and transactional banking capabilities, the bank aims to support Ethiopia’s expanding trade and investment landscape while building long-term partnerships with local institutions and businesses. iib is well positioned to leverage its experience and networks across the Horn of Africa to support Ethiopia’s financial sector transformation.

“Ethiopia represents one of the most exciting frontier opportunities in global finance today,” said Sohail Sultan, Chairman of iibGroup. “As we deepen our understanding of the local market and build trusted partnerships with Ethiopian businesses and institutions, we will continue to explore opportunities to expand our presence in line with Ethiopia’s evolving regulatory framework. Our office in Addis Ababa reflects our long-term commitment to Ethiopia and to the broader East African region.”

Strengthening the Ethiopia–Djibouti Trade Corridor
With a presence in both Djibouti and Ethiopia, iib East Africa will provide commercial and transactional banking services with a focused mandate on the Ethiopia–Djibouti trade corridor, one of the region’s most strategically important trade routes through which most of Ethiopia’s import and export trade flows.

Operating within the regulatory framework governing banking offices, iib East Africa in Ethiopia will focus on developing relationships with local financial institutions, engaging with key stakeholders, and conducting market research to identify emerging opportunities in Ethiopia’s evolving financial sector. The office will also serve as a liaison through which Ethiopian businesses and potential partners can access iibGroup’s international banking capabilities and connect with the bank’s broader regional network.

“We aim to serve as a bridge between Ethiopian businesses and international markets,” said Mrs. Aynalem Ababu, Chief Representative Officer in Addis Ababa. “At the same time, we look forward to supporting international investment into Ethiopia’s major infrastructure initiatives, including the Bishoftu airport project and its planned aerotropolis development.”

About iibGroup Holdings W.L.L. (Bahrain)
iibGroup is a diversified international investment and banking group with operations across East Africa, the Middle East, West Africa, and the Caribbean. The Group provides banking, investment, and advisory solutions while also deploying capital into high-impact sectors such as trade, digital infrastructure, and financial inclusion. Through its regional platforms, iibGroup supports SMEs, empowers women- and youth-led enterprises, and channels capital to industries that strengthen regional integration and sustainable growth across emerging markets. For more information, visit www.iibanks.com

About iib East Africa (Djibouti)
iib East Africa is a licensed banking institution based in Djibouti, serving corporate and institutional clients across the Ethiopia–Djibouti corridor. The bank is committed to advancing financial inclusion, innovation, and private sector development in the region. For more information, visit www.iibanks.com/eastafrica

China’s commitment to high-quality development and its emphasis on dialogue and long-term planning underscore its role as a key contributor to world stability and development, experts said, while highlighting the global relevance of the two sessions, the annual meetings of China’s top legislative and political advisory bodies.

The central focus of this year’s meetings, which concluded on March 12, is the adoption of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), a crucial blueprint that will steer the nation’s modernisation drive in the coming years.

According to the Government Work Report delivered for deliberation on March 5 during the opening meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, the country will continue its investment momentum in research and development spending and make pursuing high-quality development a major strategic task in the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU, a Brussels-based nonprofit international association that promotes Sino-European business co-operation in the digital sector, said the work report sends a clear signal that China is accelerating its transition towards a new industrial paradigm driven by technology, innovation and advanced manufacturing.

“Combined with continued leadership in manufacturing and strong investment in digital industries, this strategy is positioning China at the centre of the next wave of technological transformation.”

The Government Work Report highlights China’s commitment to expanding high-standard opening-up alongside domestic economic development. This includes measures to keep the volume of foreign trade stable and refine its mix, expand two-way investment co-operation, and promote high-quality Belt and Road co-operation by strengthening strategic alignment with partner countries.

Adhere Cavince, an international relations scholar specialising in China-Africa co-operation, said the work report offers a critical operational framework that aligns China’s 15th Five-Year Plan with external development goals.

The report set out a path for high-quality development and technological innovation that directly influences the scale and focus of China-Africa co-operation, providing a predictable framework for African governments, Cavince said, adding that China’s five-year plans are not merely abstract documents because they guide spending and overseas engagement.

“The key areas that will define China-Africa strategic co-operation include balanced trade and market access,” Cavince said, referring to China’s plan to implement zero-tariff treatment for imports from 53 African countries starting on May 1.

Zhang Zhouxiang and Yang Ran contributed to this story.

As the world grapples with a slowdown in multilateral co-operation and growing economic fragmentation, the Global South is increasingly searching for policy anchors that offer predictability, scale and development continuity. In 2026, China’s two sessions arrived at precisely such a moment, not merely as a domestic political milestone, but as a bellwether for South-South economic co-ordination in an unsettled global landscape.

This year’s two sessions — the annual meetings of China’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — marked the formal start of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), a planning period expected to define China’s development engagement with the Global South for the rest of the decade.

Official data show that during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), China’s GDP trajectory remained resilient. China accounted for roughly 30 per cent of global economic growth annually during the period, and its share of the world economy expanded from about 11 per cent in 2012 to about 17 per cent by 2025.

The two sessions provide two critical public policy signals. First, through the Government Work Report, China’s leadership sets near-term economic targets, budget priorities, regulatory emphasis and social service commitments. Second, the discussions and resolutions influence investor expectations and partner country planning.

In 2026, global economic conditions remain complex. China’s domestic policy stance, whether emphasising export support, domestic consumption, technological development or resilience, will ripple outward.

The country has become a central trading partner for many developing economies.

The Belt and Road Initiative has been a flagship mechanism for physical connectivity and economic co-operation between China and Global South partners. World Bank research estimates that the BRI could boost trade flows for participating countries by an average of 4.1 per cent.

Partnerships established have laid a foundation that many developing countries now depend on for trade diversification, industrial capacity building and energy and digital connectivity. These forms of co-operation were visible well and will be reflected in how the 15th Five-Year Plan is ultimately articulated.

The author is the executive director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi-based communications development think tank. This is an abridged version of an article that appeared in China Daily Global Edition. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

By CAO DESHENG

China has set its GDP growth target for 2026 at 4.5 to 5 per cent, a moderate projection that experts said allows greater policy flexibility to focus on high-quality development while maintaining stable growth, given the structural challenges in the country’s economy and the uncertain global landscape.

The annual growth target was unveiled on March 5 in the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Qiang to the National People’s Congress, as the nation’s top legislature opened its annual session in Beijing.

The draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), a blueprint for the country’s economic and social development in the next five years, was also reviewed during the opening meeting of the fourth session of the 14th NPC.

“The GDP growth target is well aligned with our long-range objectives through the year 2035 and broadly in line with the long-term growth potential of China’s economy,” the Government Work Report said.

In the next five years, China expects to keep its GDP growth within an appropriate range, with annual growth rates to be determined in light of actual conditions, according to the report.

Over the past five years, China’s economy has grown steadily amid strong headwinds, with an average annual growth of 5.4 per cent, well above the global average.

In 2025, the GDP of the world’s second-largest economy surpassed 140 trillion yuan ($20.3 trillion) for the first time.

This year’s growth target comes amid the Chinese economy facing a grave and complex landscape, where external shocks and challenges are intertwined with domestic difficulties and tough policy choices.

Sun Xuegong, director-general of the department of policy study and consultation at the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said that this year’s GDP growth target is “reasonable and necessary”.

“On the one hand, it aligns with our medium — and long-term development goals; on the other hand, this growth rate target also leaves room for structural adjustment in the pursuit of high-quality development,” Sun said.

The main targets for development in 2026 also include a surveyed urban unemployment rate of around 5.5 per cent, over 12 million new urban jobs, an increase in the consumer price index of around 2 per cent, growth in personal income in step with economic growth, a basic equilibrium in the balance of payments, and a drop of around 3.8 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP.

The report said that the nation will continue to implement a more proactive fiscal policy and an appropriately accommodative monetary policy.

To pursue innovation-led and green development, China projects an annual average increase of at least 7 per cent in nationwide R&D spending, and envisages a total reduction of 17 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP between 2026 and 2030, according to the report.

The report laid out key tasks for the government in 2026, pledging to make efforts to build a robust domestic market, foster new growth drivers at a faster pace, and move faster to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology.

The report also highlighted the country’s commitment to continuing to deepen reform in key areas and expand high-standard opening-up. “We will expand market access and open up more areas, particularly in the service sector. We will further expand opening-up trials for value-added telecom services, biotechnology, wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and other fields, take well-ordered steps to expand opening up in the digital sector, and shorten the negative list for cross-border trade in services.”

Zhou Lanxu, Ouyang Shijia and Zhang Zhouxiang contributed to this story.

Caption: Employees work on a production line at a welding workshop of Yangzhou Hongquan Industrial Co in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, on February 28. REN FEI / FOR CHINA DAILY

By HOU LIQIANG

China’s proposed ecological and environmental code is a milestone achieved after widespread consultations with stakeholders and alignment with the country’s strategic priorities, experts say.

The draft of the code was received at the annual session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. It will become China’s second formal statutory code after the Civil Code was adopted in 2020.

The code will further forge a solid legal foundation for China to achieve modernisation with harmony between humanity and nature, Lou Qinjian, spokesman for the fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress, said.

The code is expected to make legislation in this field more systematic, integrated, co-ordinated and timely, he said.

The experts said it includes provisions that focus on emerging challenges such as human-wildlife conflict, and includes new parameters to tackle the climate crisis.

The code could also offer other developing countries a model for integrated governance, they said.

Lyu Zhongmei, vice-chairperson of the NPC Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee, said the scale of input into the code’s development had been immense.

The draft was delivered to the NPC Standing Committee for a third reading in late December. Lyu said she personally passed on revision suggestions from scholars, companies, central governmental bodies and local authorities.

The version submitted for the third reading features more than 420 substantive changes compared with the initial one, she said. The changes are closely aligned with the country’s latest strategic priorities, Lyu said.

After President

Xi Jinping announced China’s updated Nationally Determined Contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in September, the NPC’s code drafting team conducted a comprehensive revision of the provisions on green and low-carbon development.

For example, China will reduce economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 per cent to 10 per cent from peak levels, and basically establish a climate adaptive society by 2035.

The draft ecological and environmental code submitted for the third reading stipulates that the national government should develop and implement climate change adaptation strategies and take effective measures to mitigate the adverse impacts and risks of climate change to establish a climate adaptive society.

Lyu said institutions and systems that were not clearly defined by previous laws but have matured through practical exploration have been refined and summarised in the draft. The draft has responded to major topics of public concern, Lyu said, citing human-wildlife conflict as a prime example.

“To address the issue of human-wildlife conflict arising from wild animals encroaching on the residences of communities adjacent to protected areas, the draft code specifically introduced appropriate pro+visions.”

In areas severely affected by wildlife damage, local people’s governments at or above the county level are to organise bodies and individuals to implement measures to prevent, control and mitigate damage, the draft says.

In emergency situations, where personal safety is threatened by wildlife, legal liability is not incurred for measures taken that result in harm to wildlife, the draft says.

Hou Jiaru, director of the Environmental and Resources Law Institute at the China University of Political Science and Law, welcomed these provisions. They are designed to deal with the growing “extreme dilemma” of whether to protect humans or animals in conflicts, he said.

The draft code has a dedicated section on low-carbon development. It establishes China’s first legal framework for climate action that sets out the principles and basis for future climate laws in the country.

Dimitri de Boer, director for China at ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, said this was the most impressive aspect of the draft code. It will provide a strong legal basis for a smooth climate transition and greatly promote climate mitigation and adaptation in China, he said.

The draft code has five sections — general provisions, pollution control, ecological conservation, green and low-carbon development, and legal liability and supplementary articles.

De Boer said the code will serve as the fundamental law of China’s environmental legal framework, and establish a unified and comprehensive legal basis for environmental governance.

He also highlighted the international significance of the ecological and environmental code.

Many countries regulate environmental issues through fragmented laws and regulations. China’s comprehensive ecological and environmental code can demonstrate how to integrate pollution control, biodiversity protection, climate governance, and liability mechanisms into a single, coherent legal architecture.

“As one of the world’s largest economies with diverse ecological regions, China’s efforts to codify environmental governance will provide insights for other countries on how to achieve full-scale green and high-quality economic development,” he said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Credit of the picture: SONG CHEN / CHINA DAILY