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SHANGHAI — China will reduce import tariffs on ethane and certain recycled copper and aluminium raw materials from next year, the government said on Saturday.
The Ministry of Finance announced adjustments to various import tariff categories, effective January 1, aimed at increasing imports of high-quality products, expanding domestic demand and promoting high-level opening-up, it said in a statement.
Provisional import tariffs below the most-favoured-nation rates will be applied to 935 items, the ministry said. Import tariffs will be reduced on ethane and certain recycled copper and aluminium raw materials to advance green and low-carbon development.
Tariffs will rise on commodities including molasses and sugar-containing pre-mixed powders will increase but be reduced on items such as cyclic olefin polymers, ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymers and automatic transmissions for special-purpose vehicles such as fire trucks and repair vehicles.
Import tariffs will also be reduced on items such as sodium zirconium cyclosilicate, viral vectors for CAR-T tumour therapy, and nickel-titanium alloy wires for surgical implants.
The China-Maldives Free Trade Agreement will come into effect on January 1, with tariff reduction implementations, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese-linked Salt Typhoon cyberespionage operation targeted AT&T, and Verizon’s systems, but the wireless carriers’ US networks are now secure as they work with law enforcement and government officials, the companies said on Saturday in their first acknowledgment of the attacks.
“We detect no activity by nation-state actors in our networks at this time. Based on our current investigation of this attack, the People’s Republic of China targeted a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest,” an AT&T spokesperson said.
While only a few cases of compromised information were identified, AT&T was monitoring and remediating its networks to protect customers data, and continues to work with authorities to assess and mitigate the threat, the spokesperson said.
“We have not detected threat actor activity in Verizon’s network for some time, and after considerable work addressing this incident, we can report that Verizon has contained the activities associated with this particular incident,” Verizon’s Chief Legal Officer said in a statement.
An independent and highly respected cyber security firm has confirmed the containment, Verizon said.
On Friday, US officials added a ninth unnamed telecom company to the list of entities compromised by the Salt Typhoon hackers and said the Chinese involved gained access to networks and essentially had broad and full access, giving them the capability to “geolocate millions of individuals, to record phone calls at will.”
The US Department of Defence and the Federal Communications Commission did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the company statements. China’s foreign ministry could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Chinese officials have previously described the allegations as disinformation and said Beijing “firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms.”— Reuters.
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