惊声尖笑

A |           　　据山东省统计局、国家统计局山东调查总队8月24日发布消息：今年前7个月，我省坚持稳中求进、提质增效，全力以赴稳经济、增动能、激活力，全省经济持续稳健向好、进中提质、承压前行。　　生产供给平稳增长 工业实现较快增长      　　1-7月，规模以上工业增加值同比增长7.2%。从三大门类看，采矿业增加值同比下降3.4%，制造业增长8.7%，电力、热力、燃气及水的生产和供应业增长3.7%。从行业增长面看，全省41个行业中有32个实现增长，增长面为78.0%。    Dozens of businesses, government offices, vehicles, and at least three police stations went up in flames in Freetown, Makeni, Kamakwie, and other cities across Sierra Leone from August 10 through 12, with over 113 people arrested and police introducing an emergency nationwide curfew and deploying tear gas and live ammunition to disperse crowds.,The curfew was lifted on August 13, with banks, businesses, government offices, and most stores reopened and communal services beginning to clear the damage. However, ramped-up security measures, including federal troop deployments to assist police, have been left in place.,What Happened?,Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world, ranking 186 out of 198 in a recent GDP purchasing power parity ranking. An estimated 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, many of them in the country’s rural areas. Like other nations in Africa, the country has faced special difficulties amid the global economic calamity brought on by COVID, and exacerbated by Western restrictions on Russian exports of agricultural goods and fertilizers amid the security crisis in Ukraine, which has caused a major jump in food prices.,AfricaAnti-Russia Sanctions Left Africa Without Access to Grain and Fertilisers, African Union Chief Says3 June, 11:13 GMT,As a net importer of both energy and food, Sierra Leone is especially vulnerable to global economic conditions, and along with food and fertilizers, fuel and electricity costs have also soared. Food prices alone have jumped by over 40 percent over the past few months, with a bag of rice once costing 350 leones now going for over 500. The country’s Central Bank recently removed three zeros from the national currency in a bid to restore confidence. The country has also been overcome by weeks of strikes by government workers, including doctors and teachers, and by small traders protesting poor conditions.,Coup Plot?,However, President Julius Maada Bio has also accused protesters of having ulterior motives beyond the cost of living crisis.,“This was not a protest against the high cost of living occasioned by the ongoing global economic crisis. The chant of the insurrectionists was for a violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government,” Bio said in an address on August 12 after returning to the country from a holiday in London.,Local media pointed to the chants of “Bio must go” among protesters as they gathered in the capital, and the president accused some of the demonstrators of consisting of “APC Warriors,” a reference to the opposition All People’s Congress party, which governed the country from 2007 until 2018, when Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party won national elections.,No doubt mindful of the violent civil war which shook the country between 1991 and 2002, claiming as many as 70,000 lives and displacing over 2.5 million people, Bio vowed that “in the coming weeks and months, [the] government will undertake necessary security actions meant to guarantee the peace and security of all citizens.”,“The security forces will, and must, act with great restraint and within their professional codes of service. But be assured that my government will crack down hard on violent insurrectionists, their collaborators, their sponsors and their supporters. My government will relentlessly fight those who would rather use terror and gruesome violence to achieve political goals,” the president said.,As a government, we will continue our engagement with Civil Society as we strive to promote sustainable peace, national cohesion and socio-economic development in Sierra Leone. #newdirectionagenda— President Julius Maada Bio (@PresidentBio) August 18, 2022,Bio did not elaborate on who these “sponsors” and “supporters” were, or whether they included any foreign actors.,Geopolitical Context,Like other African nations, Sierra Leone recently rejected calls by Washington and Brussels to show solidarity with the West and Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. But even before the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, relations between Freetown and Washington were tense at times. Last year, US President Joe Biden snubbed Bio by refusing to invite the African leader to the US’ so-called “Democracy Summit.” No reasons were given. However, neighboring Liberia, which faced mass civil unrest of its own between 2019 and 2020, and whose officials have been sanctioned by the US over suspected corruption, did get an invite.,While Sierra Leone maintains economic and political ties with its former British colonial masters, and remains a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Freetown has sought to expand its partnerships with other geopolitical power centers, including Russia and China. President Bio attended the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi in 2019, where he discussed ways to strengthen economic cooperation between the distant nations. In February 2021, Freetown signed onto Moscow’s efforts to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space. In May 2021, Bio spoke by phone to President Xi Jinping of China, where they discussed the friendly, “brotherly” relations between the two nations, as well Chinese assistance to Freetown in measures against COVID, and agricultural and economic development.,In this context, the reactions of major foreign powers to this month’s unrest have been telling. While the United States, Britain, and the European Union collectively expressed “grave concern” over the “disturbing reports of violence” and urged the parties to “stay calm, promote accountability and ensure respect for human rights,” China’s Embassy smoothed over the protests altogether, refraining from wagging its finger at Freetown and instead trumpeting the expanding cooperation between the two countries.,We are gravely concerned by reports of violence surrounding today’s demonstrations in Sierra Leone. We urge all parties to stay calm, promote accountability, and ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.— Bureau of African Affairs (@AsstSecStateAF) August 10, 2022,Similarly, while UK High Commissioner to Sierra Leone Lisa Chesney lectured President Bio about how “violence has no place in a democracy and the necessary investigation into August 10 can sit alongside de-escalation,” the Russian Embassy in the Republic of Guinea, which concurrently serves as the Embassy in Sierra Leone, only presented a bare bones report on the situation in the country, Bio’s meetings with community and tribal leaders, and indicated that an internal “debriefing” was being created “regarding the causes, course and consequences of the riots on August 10.”。服务业运行稳健。1-6月，规模以上服务业企业营业收入同比增长5.6%。10大行业门类全部实现增长，其中，居民服务修理和其他服务业、租赁和商务服务业营业收入分别增长12.3%、9.0%。　　市场需求有序释放 投资质效总体稳固      　　1-7月，固定资产投资同比下降14.6%。其中，第一产业投资增长7.9%，第二产业投资下降9.0%，第三产业投资下降20.1%。

B | 消费市场稳中向好。1-7月，社会消费品零售总额同比增长2.7%。其中，限额以上零售额增长1.3%。限额以上单位粮油食品类、服装鞋帽针纺织品类、家用电器和音像器材类零售额分别增长5.4%、4.4%、1.6%。      图为山东港口日照港      　　进出口规模持续扩大。

C | 1-7月，实现进出口总额21244.2亿元，同比增长4.3%。其中，出口增长1.8%;进口增长8.1%。对共建“一带一路”国家进出口1.36万亿元，增长3.8%，占进出口总值的64%。　　新动能支撑有力 工业动能向新明显      　　1-7月，规模以上装备制造业增加值同比增长11.5%，高技术制造业增加值增长12.9%，分别高于全部规上工业增速4.3、5.7个百分点。工业机器人、半导体分立器件产量分别增长78.0%、23.0%。

D | 消费新业态发展良好。

E | 1-7月，限额以上单位通过公共网络实现的零售额1587.9亿元，增长25.1%，高于全部限上零售额增速23.8个百分点。　　经济运行韧性显现 财政金融保障有力      　　1-7月，全省实现一般公共预算收入5240.1亿元，同比增长1.8%。一般公共预算支出7206.9亿元，下降1.3%。截至7月末，全省本外币存款余额增长7.6%，贷款余额增长7.2%。其中，企(事)业单位贷款增长11.5%。民营经济活力充沛。1-7月，民营企业实现进出口1.63万亿元，增长5.3%，占全省进出口总额的76.8%。　　民生保障持续加强 就业形势总体稳定      　　1-7月，全省城镇新增就业80.0万人，增长5.7%。物价运行保持平稳。1-7月，全省居民消费价格(CPI)同比上涨0.5%，比1-6月回落0.1个百分点。分类别看，食品烟酒及在外餐饮价格下降0.5%，生活用品及服务价格上涨1.9%，教育文化娱乐价格下降0.2%，衣着类价格上涨0.6%，交通通信价格上涨0.8%，医疗保健类价格上涨0.3%。其中，7月份下降0.1%。民生领域保障有力。1-7月，卫生健康支出增长13.3%,社会保障和就业支出增长3.3%。

F |