Annan: int'l community grateful for China's aid efforts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-01-06 15:26

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Thursday that the international community is "grateful" to the Chinese government for its help to tsunami victims.

Annan, who is here to attend the one-day Special ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on Aftermath of Earthquake and Tsunami, told Xinhua at a press conference that China has donated over 60 million US dollars to the relief and reconstruction efforts undertaken under the helm of his world body.

In his speech at the opening session of the emergency meeting held under the auspices of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations, Annan said, "The governmental response has been matched by unprecedented generosity from the general public. Consider the six-year-old boy in Shenyang, China, who donated his life savings of 22 dollars."

China, which so far has donated 60.46 million US dollars to tsunami affected countries, has sent a second batch of relief materials worth of 1.21 million US dollars to Medan on a chartered plane.

China has also sent a 35-member search and rescue team, including a field hospital, to Aceh. The Chinese companies in Indonesia have donated 131,000 US dollars in cash and 880,000 US dollars worth of goods and equipment to the tsunami victims in Aceh and North Sumatra.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is here attending Thursday's emergency meeting, is scheduled to meet with Kofi Annan in the afternoon.

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