Supplementary memorandum by the World
Service on the World Service's Activities in China
The World Service is currently drawing up its
3-Year Plan 2001-04, outlining how the resources made available
in the government's Spending Review will be utilised from April
2001. This plan will be approve-d by the BBC Board of Governors
and agreed with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before the
end of the year; it will specify any detailed changes in the World
Service's activities in China.
However, it is clear that two of the key priorities
in our 3-Year Strategy on which the Treasury based the World Service
funding settlement are particularly relevant to China, namely
the Internet and English Language Teaching.
We shall therefore further develop our online
offer in Chinese by increasing the range of information we provide,
as well as updating it more frequently. At the same time we will
add an e-mail news service, an interactive English learning section
and more multimedia content.
Given the crucial importance of English in the
Chinese market we also intend to launch a pilot teaching project
together with the British Consul, both on radio and on the Internet.
Importantly, the Spending Review 2000 provides
the necessary capital funding to refurbish the short wave transmitter
in Singapore. This will substantially improve audibility in China.
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