A senior Communist Party official says that ‘uncivilised behaviour’ by Chinese tourists is harming China’s image abroad.

Wang Yang, one of the country’s four vice-prime ministers, said holidaymakers should be more polite, singling out talking loudly and spitting as poor behaviour by his fellow citizens.

It was revealed last month that the Chinese are the world’s biggest spending tourists, splashing out $102billion on foreign trips in 2012, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.

Chinese tourists make 83million trips abroad last year, compared with only 10million in 2000, becoming the single biggest source of global tourism income.

Writing in the official party newspaper People’s Daily, Mr Wang said: ‘Improving the civilised quality of the citizens and building a good image of Chinese tourists are the obligations of governments at all levels and relevant agencies and companies.’

He said Chinese authorities should ‘guide tourists to conscientiously abide by public order and social ethics, respect local religious beliefs and customs, mind their speech and behaviour… and protect the environment’.

However, some Chinese tourists say they are treated ‘like second-class citizens’ when they are abroad.

‘Chinese internet forums were flooded with protests earlier this year when news emerged that a hotel in the Maldives had removed kettles from rooms occupied by Chinese tourists,’ said the BBC‘s Beiijing correspondent Celia Hatton.

‘Apparently, the hotel’s manager was upset that some Chinese tourists were using boiling water to eat instant noodles in their rooms, instead of spending money in the hotel’s restaurants.’

Fourteen Muslim clerics from across the globe will visit the former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland next week as part of a Holocaust awareness and anti-genocide program, organisers said Friday.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has bought a 40-percent stake in a new 290,000-square metre skyscraper project near the centre of Milan with a commercial value of 2.0 billion euros ($2.6 billion), the companies said on Friday.
Texas-based Hines’ Italian arm leads the project.
“Land is Italy’s most important natural resources and we are confident it can be a strategic engine for development and economic growth,” said Manfredi Catella, chief executive of Hines Italia.
“The agreement is a fundamental signal for the Italian economic system and the international capital market,” he was quoted as saying.
Qatar Holding last year bought a luxury resort on the Italian island of Sardinia with one of the country’s most beautiful stretches of coastline.
In 2012, Qatar also set up a joint venture with Italy with a 2.0 billion euro fund to invest in Italian business including in fashion, food, tourism and design.

Bangladesh garment manufacturers said Thursday they would reopen hundreds of factories in a manufacturing hub outside the capital, days after they shut the plants due to worker unrest following a deadly accident.
The manufacturers Monday announced the shutdown of the factories in the Ashulia industrial area after two weeks of protests over the death of 1,127 garment workers in the country’s worst industrial tragedy.
“We’ve decided to reopen the factories from Friday,” Shahidullah Azim, vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said after meeting government and labour representatives.
The association, which represents the country’s 4,500 garment factories, took the decision after the government assured it of the “highest security” for the plants, Azim told AFP.
“We met the home and labour ministers and representatives from the workers today. They assured the highest security for our factories,” he said.
Most of Bangladesh’s top garment factories, which make clothing for a string of major Western retailers including Walmart, H&M, Tesco, Inditex and Carrefour, are based at Ashulia.
Police said tens of thousands of workers joined the protests and dozens of factories and vehicles were vandalised.