2020年CRI IMF预测今年亚洲经济零增长 G20同意最贫困国家暂停还债（在线收听）

The Chinese foreign minister says the country will continue to support Pakistan in accordance with its needs to help it overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wang Yi made the pledge during phone talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Wang said the Chinese side has provided multiple batches of material assistance, dispatched medical experts to Pakistan, and convened video conferences to share China's experience in the prevention, control and treatment of COVID-19.

Qureshi expressed his appreciation for the support China has offered to Pakistan, which he said has played a major role in the country's fight against the virus.

A team of Chinese medical experts has left for Burkina Faso in Africa to help with the fight against the novel coronavirus.

Invited by the government of Burkina Faso, the 12-member team departed from north China's Tianjin Municipality.

The team includes members from the Tianjin municipal people's hospital and those from the city's disease control and prevention center.

The experts specialize in respiratory, intensive care, internal medicine, hospital infection control, traditional Chinese medicine, imaging, laboratory test, epidemiology, disinfection and nursing areas.

Chinese health authorities report there were 46 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland on Wednesday.

34 of the new cases were imported.

The other 12 were domestically transmitted, including 5 in Guangdong, 4 in Heilongjiang and 3 in Beijing.

No deaths were reported on the mainland on Wednesday.

76 people were discharged from hospitals after recovery.

The number of severe cases decreased by 18 to 95.

Hubei, the former center of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, has sent medical supplies to the border province of Heilongjiang amid the rising pressure of imported COVID-19 cases.

Three planes carrying medical protective suits, N95 masks and ventilators have landed at the airports in the provincial capital of Harbin and the border city of Mudanjiang.

The materials, worth about 30 million yuan, have been delivered to the city of Suifenhe at the China-Russia border.

Heilongjiang has reported over 350 imported COVID-19 cases, with another 50 asymptomatic cases.

The International Monetary Fund has said growth in Asia is expected to stall at zero percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lowest growth since the 1960s.

An IMF official in charge of Asia and Pacific affairs says the pandemic is worse than the Global Financial Crisis, and Asia is not immune.

However, Chang Yong Rhee adds that Asia still looks to fare better than other regions in terms of activity.

Rhee notes the region is experiencing different stages of the pandemic and "China's economy is beginning to get back to work".

Johns Hopkins University says more than 30 thousand people have died from the coronavirus in the United States.

The university also says there are over 638 thousand COVID-19 infections in the country.

New York City has recorded nearly 10,900 deaths, which exceeds that of Italy to become the highest in the world to date.

Finance officials from the Group of 20 major economies have agreed to suspend debt service payments owed to them by the world's poorest countries.

The payments will be suspended from May until the end of the year.

Mohammed Al-Jadaan is Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister.

"Our actions today include a G20 initiative to suspend debt service payments for the poorest countries. All bilateral official creditors will participate in this initiative...And through this platform I also call on private creditors working through the institute of international finance to participate in the initiative on comparable terms."

The initiative is part of efforts to bolster the global economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.