China Clipping

Beijing to host auto maintenance and repairing equipment exhibition
The 41st National Auto Maintenance, Repairing and diagnosing equipment, and Auto Tools and Service Article Exhibition is scheduled for Feb. 26-29 at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center.
This is the largest and the most influential exhibition of the sector in China under the sponsorship of the China Auto Maintenance and Repairing Equipment Trade Association and the China Auto Maintenance and Repairing Trade Association.
Organized by the Beijing Yasen International Exhibition Co. Ltd., the exhibition will cover an area of more than 20,000 square meters and more than 300 firms from all over the country have applied for participating. It is expected to have more than 20,000 visitors, including those from the Republic of Korea, Japan, Italy and Southeast Asian countries.
On show will be the latest products for auto testing, diagnosing, repairing and maintenance, servicing and beautification and environment protection.
China's automotive industry has maintained a strong pep of development, edging into the top four auto producing countries in the world. It is expected to become the third largest automaker in the world by 2010, only after the United States and Japan.
For more information, please contact Mr. Li Ye of the Beijing Yasen International Exhibition Co., Ltd.
Telephone: 086-010-82293260
Fax: 086-010-82293267
E-mail: yes_yasen@sohu.com <mailto:yes_yasen@sohu.com>
 
 
Foreign investors rush to China's Internet business
Lured by the recovery and bright prospects of Internet-based economy in China, foreign investors are stepping up their stakes in the market.
Alibaba, a leading B2B (business to business) website in China, recently announced it had secured 82 million US dollars of strategic investment from four overseas companies, including SoftBank Corporation, Fidelity, Granite Global Ventures and Venture TDF China.
"The new surge of investment reflected investors confidence in our company. Alibaba will use the capital to consolidate its absolute leadership role in China's e-commerce business," said Alibaba CEO Jack Ma.
Ma predicted China's e-commerce market would heat up in 2004 as more companies joined the competition.
Based in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, Alibaba Group claims to be China's biggest e-commerce platform provider. It currently operates three online markets that boast nearly 3 million registered corporate users.
After the capital injection, employees of Alibaba remain the majority stakeholder and SoftBank Corporation the second biggest shareholder of the company.
Towards the end of last year, a leading Chinese on-line bookstore, Dangdang, announced it had received 11 million dollars of venture capital from the US-based Tiger Fund.
Yahoo purchased Internet research engine enterprise 3721 Hong Kong with 120 million dollars last October; Tiger Technology Fund injected 52 million yuan into a Chinese B2C (business to consumer) website Joyo, while Tiger Technology
Fund and another investor jointly injected 15 million dollars into a Chinese website named "elong" the same month.
Further back, the US-based EBAY purchased a Chinese C2C website named "eachnet" last June.
Chinese network enterprises are also doing well in overseas listings. Ctrip, a travel information and booking service provider, raised 75.6 million US dollars through its initial public offering on NASDAQ last December. A little later, HC International Information Co, Ltd. raised 125 million Hong Kong dollars through a stock issue in Hong Kong.
Informed sources said a number of Chinese network companies are planning overseas stock listings, including online game service provider Shanda, research engine operator Baidu, chat service provider Tencent and portal website Tom.
Leading Chinese websites reported rising profits for 2003 thanks to booming short message service (SMS), online advertising and online game businesses. Among them, Sohu reported a profit of 26.4 million US dollars, Netease 39 million US dollars and Alibaba 100 million yuan (12.09 million US dollars) for 2003.
The number of netizens in China had reached 79.5 million by the end of 2003, second only to the United States.
 
 
FAO experts head for southern China on bird flu investigations
Two experts of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) left here on February 17 for areas in southern China that are hit by bird flu for a four-day investigation.
This is the first time the FAO sent experts to bird flu-hit areas in China after the highly infectious avian disease was reported in the country at the end of January.
The two experts, Xu Ji, assistant FAO representative to China, and Laurence Gleeson, consultant and senior animal disease expert with the FAO, will carry out investigations in Long'an County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China and in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China.
They are expected to hold talks with local officials about the epidemic there.
 
 
China opens up huge market of forestation, paper making
China is to invite foreign investment in a gigantic forestation and paper making program that is expected to involve 200 billion yuan (24 billion US dollars) of funds over one decade, officials said recently.
The Chinese central government has approved a national plan of building a complete industrial chain between the forestation and paper making sectors by 2010, said State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) official Liu Tienan.
Liu, heading the SDRC's Industry Department, told a press conference held in Beijing that the move is aimed at meeting the rapidly growing demand of paper consumption and easing mounting industrial pressure on ecological environment.
The program includes planting five million hectares of fast-growing trees in the southeastern coastal areas. The country will also build a number of large-scale paper mills near the forestation areas, with their raw materials mainly from harvesting the woods.
The SDRC is planning to locate the construction sites of 3-4 large-scale wood pulp mills in the southeastern coast, each of which has an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons or more.
It will also direct investment to several construction projects of bamboo pulp mills in southwest China, each with an annual capacity of between 100,000 and 500,000 tons.
For the past decade, improvement of living standards of the Chinese people has led to a double-digit annual growth of paper consumption. In 2003, China consumed 48 million tons of paper and paperboard, accounting for 16 percent of the world's total consumption.
However, China has a very limited resource of original forests that can be used for logging. Instead of wood, China's paper making industry uses straw as the main raw material. But the processing of straw fiber consumes much more water and produces greater amount of pollutants than wood fiber.
Wastes from paper mills have become a real headache for local residents in many regions in China. In October 2000, wastewater from paper mills in Qian'an city in north China's Hebei province destroyed all harvest at more than 200 hectares of aquatic farms in the Bohai Bay.
The China Paper Association predicts that China's paper consumption will reach 70 million tons in 2010. Liu Tienan said by that time, China will be able to add production capacity of 5.5 million tons of wood pulp through implementing the national program.
In the meantime, the country will upgrade the existing paper mills in north and northeast China and close down small-sized paper making factories with annual capacity of less than 17,000 tons.
Liu said the Chinese government would only provide a small part of the 20 million yuan investment, mostly as seed money to encourage enterprises to participate in the program.
Liu said the Chinese government welcomes non-government sectors and foreign investors to participate in the program. The central authorities will allow qualified paper making companies to float shares on the stock market and encourage the merger, joint business and regrouping of state-owned enterprises with private and foreign investors.
The country will introduce advanced technology and methods of papermaking and pollution control from other countries and use overseas talents and expertise to develop papermaking equipment. In addition, the country will carry out international cooperation in the fields of breeding, fire fighting and pest and disease control in forestation, according to Liu.
Industrial analysts believe the paper making industry has huge market potential and its growth will also push up demand for other industries such as farming, package, printing, chemicals, machine building and transportation.
 
 
Oil trading center to reopen doors
Chinese oil companies will likely resume activities at the oil trading center in Shanghai this year, a move to further liberalize the once tightly controlled oil market, China Daily reported.
The center will trade forward contracts for refined oil products, including gasoline, diesel oil, kerosene and fuel oil, industrial sources said.
The daily trading volume could reach 80,000-100,000 tons a day.
The forward contracts, which allow traders to buy and sell contracts at a fixed price on a set date, help traders avoid price fluctuations.
In the longer term, the center hopes to play a role in influencing oil prices on the regional, or even global, market given huge oil consumption in China, the sources said.
China opened oil futures exchanges in 1993 in Beijing and Shanghai, trading crude oil, gasoline, diesel and fuel oil. They were closed two years later due to an industry overhaul and partly because of rampant speculation.
Unlike previous futures exchanges, the new trading center will not trade oil futures, which are more standardized and strictly regulated.
Instead, the center will be a kind of spot market. It requires its members trade their forward contracts only when they hold real products in an attempt to avoid speculation risks. Short selling and buying will be prohibited.
The source said major shareholders in the center, including China's four largest oil companies PetroChina, Sinopec, Sinochem and China National Offshore Oil Corp, will hold a shareholders meeting this month to prepare for operations.
"The trading center may be set up in half a year after the shareholders meeting is held," said the source who is involved in preparations.
The center requires a registered capital of about 100 million yuan (US$12.1 million). In the initial phase, the center hopes to attract about 100 members, including oil producers, users and traders, to participate in trading.
Experts say the significance of the trading center is that it helps the market, rather than the government, decide the price of oil products.
At present, the National Development Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top planner, sets up the benchmark prices for gasoline and diesel oil, based on the average rates on the three markets in Singapore, Rotterdam and New York.
Critics have said the government-set pricing system is too rigid to reflect market price fluctuations. And non-transparent pricing could easily encourage the government to manipulate oil prices according to the needs of the national economy as a whole.
"The trading center is conducive to pushing through market reform to further liberalize prices," said the source.
China is expected to fully open up its retail oil market by the end of this year and the wholesale market by 2007.
A manager with Sinochem's Shanghai branch said the center will also help users cushion the risks of the price fluctuation.
In addition, "it could increase China's say in deciding the international oil prices with its increasing oil consumption," the manager said. Last year, China surpassed Japan to become the second-largest oil consumer in the world only after the United States.
Still, uncertainties may delay the launch of the trading center, analysts said. Although the Shanghai Municipal Government and the NDRC have given the green light to the oil trading center, the State Council may still suspend its operations, should it consider it as premature, analysts said.
Li Lei, research head of China International Futures Co Ltd, said the center may not necessarily achieve its goal.
For one thing, the absence of strong supervision and regulations in the market may lead to rampant speculation, said Li.
Also, few members may be willing to join in trading as the four biggest oil companies dominate the market. Instead, more companies are eyeing oil futures, which are more standardized and regulated, he added.
Officials have said the Shanghai Futures Exchange may launch the fuel oil futures this year. Fuel oil in China, as compared with crude or gasoline, is much more market-oriented with prices closely pegging on the international market.
 
 
Shanghai receives gas through west-east pipeline
Shanghai, China's largest city and economic center, has officially begun receiving natural gas from the west-east gas pipeline.
The project would provide 500,000 cubic meters of gas to Shanghai every day, to ease local shortages in winter, said Chen Geng, president of PetroChina in charge of the pipeline project.
Construction started in July 2002 and the project cost more than 200 billion yuan (24.1 billion US dollars). It is designed to carry 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Changqing gas field in Shaanxi to the eastern regions.
A total of 3,900 km of pipeline will be laid for the project.
The eastern section, linking Shaanxi and Shanghai, was completed and started trial operations in October 2003. When the western section, from Lunnan of Xinjiang to Jingbian in Shaanxi, is completed, the Tarim Basin will replace Changqing as the main gas source on Jan. 1, 2005.
A gas supply network is expected to be competed in Shanghai in 2005, boosting local gas consumption to 3 billion cubic meters a year from the current 300 million cubic meters.
 
 
China to increase wheat import
China imported 340,000 tons of wheat in the first 10 months of 2003, down 44.8 percent year-on-year; and exported 1.343 million tons, up 134.2 percent. Experts predict that China’s wheat import will increase in 2003/2004.
China’s wheat output is expected to be 86.1 million tons in 2003, a decrease for four years running. Compared with the annual demand for 106 million tons, the supply/demand gas is 20 million tons and is still enlarging.
Investigation of the Ministry of Agriculture shows that China sowed 293 million mu (15 mu equal to a hectare) of land to winter wheat in 2003/2004, 1.5 million mu less than in 2002/2003 and the least decrease in the past 5 years. Only by sharp increase of the sowing area and output can China achieve a balance between supply and demand.
Department of Agriculture of the United States predicts that China’s wheat inventory will be 42.58 million tons in 2003/2004, lower than the 60.38 million tons in 2002/2003, a reasonable level.
Based on these analyses, there is a great gap between China’s production and consumption of wheat, which has to be filled in by inventories. However, as China’s wheat inventories have dropped to a reasonable level, the State will be prudent in using the inventories, and the amount of old wheat to be disposed of at low prices will decrease. Wheat prices will assume a steady upward spiral.
 
 
China's auto giant increases marketing goal for 2004
The First Automotive Works (FAW) Group Company, one of China's leading automobile producers, announced on February 11 that it was hoping to sell one million automobiles this year.
An Dewu, deputy general manager of FAW Group Company, said to meet the target, the group would persist in the "customers first" concept and would make greater efforts in improving services.
FAW Group Company, based in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, produces sedan car series and heavy-duty trucks. It sold 900,000 vehicles last year.
 
 
Foreign firms eye Chinese robot market
Foreign robot production enterprises have crashed into China one after another to seek a niche on the potentially big market of China. They have set up offices or sales agents, or launched joint ventures.
Currently, China has only about 3,500 robots, of which 20 percent are of domestic make, and the remaining part is imported from Japan, the United States, Germany and Sweden.
China now has only three robot producers - the Shenyang Xinsong Robot Co. Ltd., the Harbin Boshi Automation Equipment Co. Ltd. and the Engineering Center of the Beijing Machinery Industry Automation Research Institute. Each of them produces only 200 million yuan in output value each year.
Foreign companies that have opened offices or sales agents in China include Swedish ABB, Japanese Yaskawa, OTC and Matsushita, German Cloos, Reis and Kuka, and Italian Comau. Japan's Motoman and Facuc have set up joint ventures with Chinese companies in Beijing and Shanghai.
Chinese experts called on Chinese robot enterprises to take measures to defend their market share and develop and produce robot products and systems in accordance with China's conditions. They urged for efforts to establish robot and automation equipment production bases with Chinese copyright.
The experts held that China has its own advantages in production of industrial robots in such fields as prices, technical support, after-sales service, and engineering designing and implementation.
 
 
Sinopec official on BP sale of Sinopec shares
An official with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) said here recently that British Petroleum's sudden sale of all its Sinopec shares would not affect the business prospect of the petrochemical giant, but on the contrary, would help increase the stock's liquidity.
The Sinopec official, who asked to remain anonymous, made the remark that Sinopec shares possessed by BP only accounted for a limited part of the total.
"And based on this circumstance, Sinopec sees no possible negative impact on the corporation's business by BP's action," said the official.
The official also revealed that a number of leading international investment institutions had purchased Sinopec stocks from the BP.
The China branch of the world's third oil and petrochemical giant BP announced here Tuesday that it has concluded the sale of its 2.1 percent stake in Sinopec, involving a total of 5.7 billion HK dollars (about 760 million US dollars).
The 3.5 billion shares in Sinopec were sold through stock markets for 3.15 HK dollars per share and arranged by the US-based investment institution Morgan Stanley.
BP acquired the stake when 20 percent of Sinopec shares were floated on international markets in October 2000.
The decision to sell the shares comes a few weeks after it disposed of its two percent stake in China's largest oil producer PetroChina on Jan 13, involving a cash transaction of 13 billion HK dollars (1.65 billion US dollars).
However, the Sinopec official dismissed the market speculation that BP might give up its businesses in China's oil sectors. He said Sinopec's business cooperation with BP "is proceeding well" and BP was not likely to drop out of prospective business with its Chinese partners.
BP has been the biggest overseas investor in the petrochemical field in China, the leading importer and supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in China and the only overseas partner in China's joint venture to supply fuel oil to airlines.
"The decision to sell our stake in Sinopec is entirely separate from our joint business activities with the company, to which we remain committed," said Gary Dirks, president of BP China.
Dirks had pledged a further investment of 3 billion US dollars into the Chinese market over the next five years in January.
Statistics showed that BP had poured approximately 4.3 billion US dollars into its Chinese projects by late September 2003.
 
 
Beijing records 120 million dollars in software exports
Beijing exported a record 120 million US dollars of software in 2003, a rise of 28.8 percent from 2002, said the Beijing Software Industry Productivity Center on Wednesday.
The city's annual software exports had exceeded 100 million dollars for the first time, said Jiang Guangzhi, director of the center.
The local software industry supplies overseas customers of Software and IBM companies, under agreements signed between local software makers and the two big-name companies.
Four software companies in Beijing in 2003 won nearly 3 million dollars of orders from Software.
Japan remains the leading importer of software made in Beijing, taking 67 percent of exports in 2003.
Beijing will introduce new policies to boost software exports in 2004, including attracting more multinationals to set up research and development centers and regional headquarters in Beijing.
Beijing is home to more than 2,400 software enterprises, 500 of which report more than 10 million yuan (1.2 million dollars) in annual sales.
 
 
Beijing to invite investment for five sewage treatment plants
BEIJING, August 7 (CEIS) -- Beijing plans to invite overseas investment for five sewage treatment plants next month, the first time the government monopolized sector is to open to the other parts of the world.
Zhu Xiangdong, general manager of Beijing Water Corp., a waste water treatment company, said the five plants will have a combined capacity to process 160,000 cubic meters of waste water per day.
Details of the waste water projects will be available at an international science and technology exposition slated for Beijing next month, according to him.
There are six waste water plants in Beijing, which handle half of the sewage produced in the city everyday.
Under the city government's program for the 2008 Olympic Games, six more sewage plants will be built to treat 90 percent of the waste water, and the fund for these projects will mainly be raised by market means.
Zhu said the city government has kept investing some 1 billion yuan (120 million US dollars) in building sewage treatment facilities a year over the last few years.
However, to meet the demand to create a good environment for a best ever Olympic Games, the annual investment must be doubled, he said, adding that this will put high pressure on the government if it will continue to monopoly the sector.
Zhu's company now operates Beijing's two major waste water plants that process 1.2 million cubic meters of sewage a day, or 85 percent of the city's total at present. Enditem
 
 
European gas heater manufacturers eye Chinese market
BEIJING, September 26 (CEIS) -- European manufacturers of individual gas heating systems are pinning high hopes on the booming Chinese market as the country sees rapid economic growth and greater awareness of environmental protection.
China's ongoing project to build a 4,000-kilometer cross-country gas pipeline has further encouraged European companies who have occupied 50 percent of the Chinese market in less than five years, defeating their Republic of Korea rivals who entered China in the mid-1990s.
A total of 120,000 individual gas heating systems are sold in China annually, with sales of more than 600 million yuan (73 million US dollars). Most are imported, but in recent years, Sino-foreign joint ventures have begun to manufacture the heaters in China, while some local companies are producing the products with foreign technology.
In 1950, the first wall-hung boiler appeared in Europe, and in 1960, Europeans manufactured the first individual gas heating system. Individual gas heating systems are regarded as one of the best substitutes for traditional, centralized heating systems that are still widely used in China.
It was cheap to run and energy-efficient, easy to use and install, less polluting than coal-powered heating facilities, and helped increasing awareness of energy saving, said an expert from the center.
Representatives from 12 European companies and Chinese experts and officials attended the European Individual Gas Heating System Symposium on September 25, which was sponsored by the Sino-French Professional Training Center on Energy.
The European companies are Ariston, C&M, Hermman, Aereco, Bosch, De Dietrich, Immergas, Beritta, Buderus, Frisquet, Rettig, and Wilo. Enditem
 
 
Engineering consulting service growing fast
BEIJING, August 22 (CEIS) -- Engineering consulting service, which started in China in the 1080s has experienced rapid development in China.
By the end of June 2003, there were more than 3,000 registered engineering consulting service organizations, employing 500,000 people. Class-A and Class-B engineering consulting service organizations generated 22.38 billion yuan in total income in 2001, with 37 raking in more than 100 million yuan, and 438 reporting more than 10 million yuan, and 251 reporting the per capita business income of more than 100,000 yuan.
Many engineering consulting services are now playing an important role in the economic construction in various sectors and regions, and some have established themselves in their respective areas, especially in infrastructure construction such as water projects, electrical power and transportation. They have completed big construction projects with high quality. Some have taken an active part in contracting for construction projects overseas.
According to the latest ranking issued by the American ENR magazine, China has 11 enterprises in the list of top designing and consulting companies in the world, including the China Petrochemical Engineering Corporation, and the China Power Engineering Co. Ltd.
In order to standardize the operation of engineering consulting service, China began to implement the qualification system. By the end of April 2003, some 3,943 consulting engineers had been certified. Enditem
 
 
International toy makers try to solve China market puzzle
SHANGHAI (AFP Fri Oct 10, 3:04 AM ET) - Tens of thousands of international businessmen gathered here hoping to solve one of the puzzles of the international toy business -- how to sell their products to China's 300 million children.
"China is very fashionable now ... you have to build the brand first and that takes time," Hermann Bruns, head of international sales at Ravensburger, one of Germany's leading educational toy companies, said at the Shanghai Toy Expo.
China, home to the world's largest population of children under 14 and producer of 75 percent of the world's toys, only accounts for a fraction of the 70-billion-dollar global toy market.
Its nearly 10,000 toy factories have a near monopoly on global manufacturing, yet the domestic market is only slightly larger than Spain's.
"The toy market in China compared to Europe and the US, which is worth about 47 billion dollars, is comparatively small," said Ernst Kick, chief executive officer of Speilwarenmesse, organizer of the world's largest toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany.
While China's domestic toy market is forecast to grow to 12 billion dollars by 2010, it was worth only 1.4 billion dollars in 2001, according to the latest industry statistics.
In contrast, China exported nearly eight billion dollars worth of toys in 2001 which jumped to nearly 10 billion dollars by 2002 -- accounting for 10 percent of the total exports in the country's light industry sector.
While the bouyant figures bode well for China's exporters, international toy companies have yet to crack the market -- imports jumped 36 percent but still only totaled 192 million dollars last year.
Undeterred, nearly 100 companies from Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Japan are in Shanghai for the expo, showing everything from expensive electric trains to building blocks for tots.
"You can't expect to make money here but you have to be here in China, to build the brand and the pay back comes later," Bruns said.
Marc Solano, export area manager for Spain's TecniToys, makers of electric model race tracks, added: "The business is going really well but we still have to break even and that's a few years away."
Piracy, lack of efficient distribution channels, strong domestic marketing strategies, poor sales outlets and price wars are just some of the problems international toy makers face.
While most of the world's toy giants long ago shifted production to China to benefit from the country's cheap labour, "Made in China" Western design toys are still too expensive for the Chinese consumer.
"Chinese want cheap toys and as long as a toy performs its function, they don't see that the quality of a toy has its role," said Zhong Mei, sales and marketing director of the Kid Land Company, a major distributor for Western toys in China.
"Parents here misunderstand toys. They believe that kids only need toys before they go to school," said the former Lego Company employee.
"They don't see that toys can also serve kids' education. So after kids reach the age of seven, the rate of toys purchases falls dramatically."
On a more positive note, the focus of China's toy fairs used to be on Chinese suppliers to help their exports but with the cooperation of Speilwarenmesse the focus is now also on the domestic market.
"With a good product, good price and the right distributor you can target your consumer ... but you need a least five years," said Bruns.
 
 
Good performance in import and export of textiles and garments
Beijing, September 30 (CEIS) - China's export of textiles and garments topped 33.74 billion US dollars in the first half of this year, up 8.54 percent over the same period of last year, and its import reached 7.325 billion, rising 10.71 percent.
The China National Textile Industry Council attributed the good performance of foreign trade to the sound development in the first quarter and the emergency measures adopted by the state to cope with breaking events.Due to SARS epidemic, foreign trade and production slowed and orders from overseas were reduced. Foreign trade situation did not recover until June.
Export by general trade jumped 4.8 percentage points in June as compared with the previous month, while import by processing trade dropped 3.35 percentage points from May.
Export by state-owned enterprises picked up, too, in June while that by joint ventures and collective enterprises was in a lingering state.
Export of Textiles and garments to Hong Kong, Europe and the United States increased 19.28 percent, 39.34 percent and 37.77 percent in the first half. Export to Japan slumped in May-June, but import of textiles and garments jumped 34.68 percent in June over the previous month.
Major exporting provinces such as East China's Zhejiang Province recovered quickly, with an 11.66 percentage points increase over that in May. Guangdong Province in South China and Shanghai in East China, severely influenced by SARS epidemic, still achieved increases of 15.71 percent and 30.50 percent year on year.
Major exports and imports were cotton and chemical fiber products, with export dropping but import turning upward. Exports of garments and accessories, especially knitwear, turned out well. Both export and import of cotton and cotton fabrics dropped in the first half, and that of chemical filaments and fabrics maintained a steady developing trend. Enditem
 
 
China launches crackdown on fake, inferior construction products
BEIJING, August 19 (CEIS) -- China has launched a nationwide crackdown on fake and inferior construction products, involving steel, cement, low-voltage electrical equipment, wire, cables and decoration materials. The move started on August 18.
The crackdown campaign, jointly launched by the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in cooperation with eight other central government departments including the Ministry of Commerce, will last until June next year, said Pu Changcheng, deputy director of the administration.
Outstanding problems regarding construction materials produced by medium-sized and small firms have cropped up in the past few years despite rapid structural and quality improvements of the country's construction materials sector as a whole, said the official.
Poor-quality construction materials manufactured by medium-sized and small firms have posed hidden risks to structures using them, putting people involved in jeopardy, said Pu.
China plans to establish a mechanism that will prevent fake and inferior construction and decoration materials from entering markets and construction sites, in a bid to regulate the market according to law.
In a related development Monday, the administration published a name list involving 300 steel plants it had disciplined for producing inferior steel products meant for construction projects.
These plants, usually small in scale, use waste steel as raw material and produce inferior products for construction project.
Last year, the administration banned 480 such plants from operating, confiscating 99,000 tons of inferior steel products worth 211 million yuan (nearly 30 million US dollars). Enditem
 
 
China reports drastic rise in import of dairy products
XIAMEN, August 26 (CEIS) -- China imported 180,300 tons of dairy products in the first six months of the year, up 39.09 percent from the same period last year.
According to the China Dairy Products Industry Association, of the total 202 million US dollars worth of imports, imported milk powder made up 87,000 tons, up 77.6 percent, and imported whey powder totaled 81,800 tons, up 11.3 percent.
The rising import of dairy products is attributed to slashed import tariffs and growing domestic demand for the products in China.
The country imported 257,000 tons of dairy products valued at 264 million US dollars last year. Enditem
 
 
China produces 60 percent of world's edible fungus
KUNMING, August 20 (CEIS) -- China produced 8.76 million tons of edible fungus in 2002, worth 40.8 billion yuan (about 4.9 billion US dollars) in 2002, accounting for 60 percent of the world's total.
In a speech to a recent seminar on edible fungus, Mark Wach, president of the International Society for Mushroom Science, said that China's exports of edible fungus accounted for 80 percent of that for Asia, and 40 percent of the global edible fungus trade.
China's edible fungus is exported to about 119 countries and regions, including 6,648 tons of dried fragrant mushrooms and 7,767 tons of Jew's-ear mushrooms, worth 41.5 million US dollars and 25 million US dollars, respectively.
The edible fungus sector employs a total of 20 million Chinese farmers, official figures show. Enditem
 
 
Table sugar import
BEIJING, September 26 (CEIS) - China imported 410,700 tons of table sugar in the first seven months of this year, according to Customs statistics.
Of the total, 326,500 tons were imported through general trade; 5,900 tons, by way of processing with supplied materials; 76,600 tons, by way of processing with imported materials; and 1,700 tons, by other means.
Meanwhile, export was 77,800 tons in the period. About 13,700 tons were exported through general trade; 5,100 tons, by way of processing with supplied materials; 46,400 tons, by way of processing with imported materials; and 12,700 tons, by other means. Enditem
 
 
Potential of China's plastics chips market
BEIJING, August 27 (CEIS) - China's output of plastic chips and sheets will reach 950,000 tons this year.
Statistics show the country turned out a record 348,000 tons in the first five months of this year, up 12.5 percent in the first five months of this year, and 853,200 tons in the whole of 2002, up 14.1 percent.
There are more than 300 enterprises specializing in the production of plastic chips and sheets. Included are 35 enterprises each with an annual production output of over 5,000 tons in 2002.
They include the Anhui Wuhu Hailuo Section Company Ltd., Jiangsu Qionghua Plastics Company, Chenghai Huaxiang Plastics Company Ltd., Shenzhen Petrochemical Plastics Company, Ningbo Hailuo Section Company Ltd., Zhangjiagang Aili Plastics Company Ltd., Changzhou Quli Plastics Group Company Ltd., and Qingdao Hongda Plastics Corporation. Enditem
 
 
Furniture expo attracts traders
Beijing, September 17 (CEIS)-United States furniture traders are set to remain the major foreign buyers on the Chinese market thanks to their presence at the Furniture China 2003 trade fair in progress in Shanghai.
US traders last year imported US$2.82 billion worth of furniture from China, which was 52.5 percent of China's largest buyer.
Furniture manufacturers from Italy, Thailand and South Korea are not attending the on-going exhibition, having cancelled their plans several months ago when China was affected by the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic. Jia Qingwen, chairmen of the China National Furniture Association, said: "Exports will increase as the country's furniture industry expands."
China exported furniture valued at more than US$4 billion between January and July this year, up 31 percent over the same period last year.
Imports were valued at only US$100 million in the first seven months of this year, though this figure represented year-on-year growth of 47 percent, Jia said.
Exports accounted for 25.5 pecent of all the furniture produced by China in the January-July period, he said.
Insiders said the exported furniture was mainly manufactured by joint ventures involving investors from Singapore and China's Taiwan Province and the HongKong Administration Region.
Jia said China witnessed a booming market in the first seven months of this year, with 129.6 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion) worth of furniture produced, up 23.3 percent over the same period of last year.
More than 97 percent of the furniture produced was sold, an increase of 24.8 percntage points compared with the same period last year.
Wang Mingliang, general manager of the Shanghai CMP Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co, said:"Holding such a large-scale exhibition is aimed at further pushing forward China's furniture industry."
The five-day exhibition is jointly sponsored by the furniture association and CMP.
The event opened on Wednesday at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre and more than 400 Chinese and overseas furniture businesses are represented. Seminars at the event will discuss the markets in the United States, Japan and Europe. Enditem
 
 
Bus market promising in China
BEIJING, August 28 (CEIS) - There will be 640,000 large and midsize buses in operation in China by 2005 and the figure is likely to jump to 900,000 units by 2010.
This prediction has been substantiated by a forecast made by the Ministry of Construction, which put the number of buses running in urban areas by 2010 at 500,000-600,000 as against 225,000 in 2000.
The last half a century has witnessed a big leap of bus manufacturing in China from just assembling to the current acquisition of the capability of producing luxury buses. In 1958, the country had only six bus makers with a yearly output of merely 200 units.
China now has 21 large bus makers (including chassis makers), 32 large bus-refitting enterprises, 31 midsize bus production enterprises (including chassis enterprises), and 99 midsize bus refitting enterprises.
The country's total output of large and midsize buses topped 81,871 units in 2002, and the sales reached 81,431 units.
The reform and opening up policy has injected renewed vigor into the industry. The import of the world's advanced technology and management methods has boosted the country's bus production capabilities. Enditem
 
 
China to boost leasing industry
BEIJING, September 12 (CEIS) -- China's government and non-governmental institutions are about to lay out a package of measures to boost the development of the leasing industry, the organization committee of the China Leasing Industry Forum announced on September 11.
The policies will be designed and implemented to encourage close cooperation between different industries, companies and banks, said an official from the Ministry of Commerce.
The first nationwide leasing industry forum and a grand exhibition will kick off on Oct. 9 in Beijing, said Zhou Difei, deputy secretary-general of the committee.
Many world famous leasing companies have been invited to the forum, including those that supplied services for the Sydney 2000 and Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, and would probably aim at the 2008 games in Beijing, said Zhou.
Their advantages mainly relied on efficient management and mature financing patterns, and foreign companies were likely to bring new concepts to Olympic-related projects in Beijing.
Zhou said leasing was becoming a part of daily life, was probably more cost-efficient than purchasing, and the positive effects were clearer for certain goods such as personal computers and architectural machinery, he said.
Economists from the Ministry of Commerce maintained the leasing industry was valuable in a variety of aspects, such as stimulating investment, promoting sales and optimizing capital structure. Enditem
 
 
Information industry offers broad prospects for Sino-foreign cooperation: Minister
BEIJING, July 1 (CEIS) -- China’s information industry promises broad prospects for Sino-foreign cooperation, and China will never change its policy concerning foreign investment due to SARS impact, said Chinese Minister of Information Industry Wang Xudong during an interview with Xinhua.
But it is necessary to drive home to foreign investors the fact that SARS impact on China’s economy, and the information industry in particular, is only temporary, he noted.
He reiterated that China would honor its commitments to the WTO while strengthening the study of non-trade barriers in the international market and settle trade disputes properly.
It is necessary to provide proper guidance to domestic enterprises in opening up international market, especially the emerging markets, and export more high value added products.
On the interconnection among domestic telecom operators, Wang said, it has become a key of the key problems to get all telecom operators interconnected smoothly. He promised to adopt practicable and rigorous measures to ease the settlement problems and handle property
interest distribution among them and strengthen the monitoring of the interconnection among different networks.
Market competition is there after the split of the original China Telecom, said the minister, but the competition is still not fair, effective or orderly. Some problems such as business lines and the establishment of common service mechanism will have to be settled by deepening reforms. Enditem
 
 
China to become largest medicinal market in the world
BEIJING, July 1 (CEIS) -- China's pharmaceutical industry is expected to become the fifth largest pharmaceutical market in the world by 2010, according to the fourth Asian Pacific Regional Pharmaceutical Industrial Round-Table Conference held recently in Shanghai.
According to presidents of pharmaceutical enterprises and medical scholars to the conference, Europe and the United States take the lead in the development of pharmaceutical
industry in the world at present. However, with the improvement of Asia's productivity, expansion of its research and development force and increase in the consumption, Asia's pharmaceutical industry will be integrated with faster speed. Over the past two decades, the income of prescription drugs worldwide has risen 10 percent annually. The increase speed of Asia topped that of the world, and China has occupied a prominent seat on Asia's drug market.
Statistics show that China is the seventh largest medicinal market in the world with the pharmaceutical income reaching 6.8 billion yuan in 2000. Although this figure was still far from the United States, the world's largest drug market with the sales income of 150 billion yuan, and Japan, the world's second largest medicinal market with sales income of 58 billion yuan, China is provided with the superiority of tapping and widening its potential market. The first reason is the annual rise of eight percent of the aging population in North Asian Region, especially in China. By the end of 2020, the number of people aged over 65 years will account for 16 percent of China's total population. The second reason is that China's birthrate has continuously declined to 1.8 percent at present. Facts show that if the birthrate of less than two percent continues, the features of the society as an aging society would become more obvious. The third reason is that the life expectancy of the Chinese averages 70 years, similar to that of the United States. With the increase of China's per capita GDP, the purchasing power will expand. These will enable China's medicinal market to go up six to eight percent annually. Consumption of anti-infectious drugs for treating biliary tract diseases, metabolic drugs and drugs for cardiovascular systems as well as antineoplastics and drugs to increase immunity is on the rise. China's income from medicine will reach 14 billion US dollars by the end of 2005, and 24 billion US dollars by 2010, becoming the fifth largest medicinal market in the world after the United States, Japan, Germany and France.
The possibility of the expansion of China's medicinal market is good news for foreign pharmaceutical enterprises. After China has become a WTO member, its policies will be transparent, and the Chinese government will pay attention to protecting patents' rights. Foreign pharmaceutical companies will have more development opportunities. Whether a foreign enterprise can turn the market potential into reality depends on its research, development and marketing force as well as its adaptation to China's real situation. Enditem
 
 
Joint medical center to provide diversified treatments
BEIJING, July 3 (CEIS) -- The 3,000-km distance to the Tibet Autonomous Region will no longer prevent Beijing residents from being able to benefit from treatments combining Tibetan and Western medicines, with the recent opening of a joint medical center.
The medical center established by the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital and the Beijing Tibetan Medicine Hospital will adopt new treatments combining Western, traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicines.
The cooperation will allow a patient seeing doctors at the Beijing Tibetan Medicine Hospital to also receive treatment and diagnosis from experts at the Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital, and vice versa.
An expert with the Ministry of Health said that this new "double channel" diagnosis and treatment system will provide the most convenience for those who want to receive treatments assisted both by western medicine and Tibetan medicines.
The joint medical center has established 13 regular outpatient services and provided 100 beds.
The Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital is a modern comprehensive hospital jointly established the Chinese and Japanese governments. It was also the designated hospital for treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) patients by the Beijing People's Government.
Established in 1992, the Beijing Tibetan Medicine Hospital is the only state-level ethnic medical treatment center in Beijing. Enditem
 
 
China to spend $460 million updating medical equipment post SARS
BEIJING (AFP) - China said it will spend 460 million dollars to patch up its flawed public healthcare system over the next two years, after its holes were vividly exposed during the recent SARS (news - web sites) crisis.
Most of the money will go towards buying medical equipment, Zhao Zilin, China's health ministry official in charge of financing told a news briefing, the Xinhua news agency reported Friday.
One hundred million dollars will be spent this year and a further 361 million next year, Zhao said.
Of this year's outlay, 35 million is earmarked for the country's national network for disease control, which played a pivotal role in tackling Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed 349 people and infected more than 5,000.
At the height of the epidemic, Beijing's hospitals in particular struggled to cope, severely eroding public faith in the health system.
Beijing admitted many SARS infections occurred due to insufficient preparedness in hospitals.
In a tacit admission that the capital's medical facilities were not up to the task of dealing with SARS, a completely new 1,000-bed hospital was built on the city's outskirts in barely a week.
It also emerged that that only about four percent of Beijing's 66,000 doctors and nurses had any training in treating respiratory diseases.
Even President Hu Jintao was forced last week to acknowledge "the backwardness of public health facilities and flaws in the public health system".
Premier Wen Jiabao said that over the next three years China would establish a disease control system and a mechanism to handle public emergencies. Zhao said the country would also purchase 1,060 new emergency vehicles, advanced medical equipment for Beijing hospitals and millions of dollars worth of hepatitis B vaccine.
The ministry will also overhaul its purchasing of parts for medical equipment.
 
 
Foreign investors edge into China's drug distribution market
BEIJING, July 1 (CEIS) - The first Sino-foreign drug distribution joint venture came into being in May this year when China announced the opening of the market.
The joint venture, Yongyu Xinxing Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., was launched by China Xinxing Pharmaceutical Technologies Co. in cooperation with ZuelligPharma, a world- renowned drug distributor of Switzerland.
The 51-49 120 million yuan joint venture is actually put under the total control by the foreign partner as the Chinese partner suffered fund shortages.
Some hoped that foreign investment in the drug distribution market would enliven China's drug distribution and bring in advanced management mode. But the local protectionism and taxation system would stand in the way for foreign investors to bring their roles into full play. ZuelligPharma and Xinxing have different operational modes, market concepts and management. Xinxing is a pure state enterprise, which has transferred from producing military goods to products for civil use. Because of its worn-out system and backward management, it keeps on retreating from the intense market competition. However, the Swiss company is a multinational corporation developing under market economy, employing a modern enterprise system and following the rule of market operation. It will take certain period for the two companies to cooperate harmoniously, and this will be a course for all foreign companies to seek cooperation partners in China.
At the same time, foreign companies should be faced with the competition of large Chinese pharmaceutical distributors. Soon after the Ministry of Commerce gave an official, written reply to the establishment of the Yongyu Xinxing Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., the State Property Regulatory and Management Commission approved the merger of the Chinese Medicinal Materials Corporation and the Chinese Pharmaceutical Group Corporation, which had annual sales revenue of 10 billion yuan each. The reorganization will enable the corporation to become China's medicinal supplier with the complete medicine and marketing network. To guard against the impact from China's WTO access, China plans to list ten medicinal distribution enterprises into projects of discount interest on national debt in the modernization of market distribution. These enterprises including the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group and the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group will become strong opponents of foreign companies. Enditem
 
 
More foreign banks approved to offer QFII, web banking and RMB business
BEIJING, July 3 (CEIS) - Following Shanghai branches of Citibank NA, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which have become the first group of foreign banks that have obtained the
qualification for custodians of QFII (qualified foreign institutional investors), some other foreign banks in this leading financial center of the country have submitted applications for qualification of such custodians.
Meanwhile, foreign banks in Shanghai have continued to develop online banking business. After the People’s Bank of China approved the Mainland branches of HSBC to launch online banking service, six foreign banks have so far obtained such permit. They included HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of East Asia, Hang Seng Bank, Citibank and Deutsche Bank AG. Recently four foreign capital banks including First Sino Bank and HKBOC also submitted applications for doing on-line banking service.
In the development of foreign exchange business, foreign banks have begun to involve in foreign exchange financial-planning market.
In RMB business, the China Banking Regulatory Commission has recently approved Banco di Rome, ING Bank N.V. and United Overseas Bank Ltd. to open RMB business. So far, 34 foreign banks in Shanghai have got the permit to do RMB business. Enditem
 
 
China's 1st exhibition on Internet culture to be held in Beijing
BEIJING, July 4 (CEIS) -- China's first exhibition on Internet culture is expected to be held from Oct. 23 to 26 at the China Centenary Altar in Beijing, sources with the Chinese Ministry of Culture (MOC) said here Thursday.
The exhibition will be co-sponsored by the MOC, the Beijing municipal government and the Ministry of Information Industry to boost strategic cooperation between the information and the culture industries to ensure sound development.
Chinese Minister of Culture Sun Jiazheng will chair the organizing committee of the exhibition.
The four-day event will consist of an exhibition and a forum, with five major themes relating to Internet culture, including games, music, cartoons, caricatures, videos, intellectual property and content supervision, organizers said. A total of 150 booths covering almost 30,000 square meters will be prepared for well-known companies worldwide, and another 300 booths will be set up for virtual exhibition.
Liu Yuzhu, secretary-general of the organizing committee and also director of the MOC culture marketing division, said that, only through working in close cooperation with the information industry, will China's culture industry be able to achieve rapid progress.
A new, provisional regulation concerning Internet culture supervision took effect on July 1, Liu added.Enditem
 
 
China's insurance opening-up enters new historic phase: official
BEIJING, July 8 (CEIS) -- The opening up of China's insurance market has entered a new historic phase, said Li Kemu, vice-president of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC).
He said China's insurance fulfilled World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, and kept opening up to a wider and deeper extent. The number of foreign insurance companies has increased and in the first half of this year, more foreign companies gained approval from CIRC, such as Skandia and Groupama.
The area open to foreign insurance companies has increased since China joined the WTO. Beijing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing joined the list of cities open to foreign companies before the WTO commitment schedule.
Li said China had drafted the regulations on foreign insurance company management and will ask for public opinion.
In the second half of 2003, China will create a fair environment for both domestic and foreign insurance companies and quicken the pace of reform. Enditem
 
 
China's import of organic raw materials drops
BEIJING, July 17 (CEIS) - The rise of oil prices on the international market has pushed up the prices of some organic raw materials, making China's import suffer.
Statistics show that China imported 1.777 million tons of organic raw materials in April this year, down 12.3 percent from the year-earlier period.
Included was the import of 34.79 million US dollars worth of toluene, up 99.7 percent, 150 million US dollars of phenylethene, up 46.2 percent, and 34.99 million US dollars of chloroethylene,down 10.5 percent.
China's export of organic chemical raw materials in April came to 278,000 tons valued at 470 million US dollars, up 57.3 percent and 44.8 percent, respectively.
Included was the export of 21,000 tons of benzene valued at 10.13 million US dollars, up 432 percent and 877 percent, respectively, and 31,000 tons of citrate worth 20.4 million US dollars, up 23.5 percent and 19.6 percent. Enditem
 
 
Inorganic chemical raw materials: import up, export down
BEIJING, July 17 (CEIS) - China's import of inorganic chemical raw materials continued to rise and the export growth speed continued to drop in the month of April this year.
Its import totaled 1.23 million tons, valued at 270 million US dollars, up 117.8 percent year-on-year.
The import value was 2.94 million US dollars for soda ash, up 5442.1 percent, 130 million US dollars for alumina, up 313. 5 percent, 7.77 million US dollars for silica dioxide, up 6.2 percent, 6.59 million US dollars for oxidates of iron and hydroxide, up 23.5 percent. The import
of yellow phosphorus, formonitrile, potassium chlorate and kali permangana registered a small amount basically meeting the domestic demand.
China's export of inorganic chemical raw materials came to 718,000 tons in April this year, a drop of 0.2 percent from the year-earlier period.
The export of chlorine reached 100,000 US dollars, down 73.4 percent, that of soda ash was 6.21 million US dollars, down 41.8 percent, that of hydric sulphate reached 30,000 US dollars, up 44.5 percent, that of nitric acid totaled 230,000 US dollars, up 90.2 percent, that of sodium chlorate totaled 320,000 US dollars, up 540.9 percent, and that of caustic soda amounted to 4.74 million US dollars, up 8.3 percent. Enditem
 
 
Thirty-two food firms committed to non-GM material
GUANGZHOU, July 21 (CEIS) -- Thirty-two overseas and Chinese food companies, including Mead Johnson, Lipton and Wrigley, have promised not to use genetically modified (GM) farm produce in their products, the environmental group Greenpeace announced here on July 18.
This represents the first ever declaration by Chinese and overseas companies in China of a commitment not to use genetically modified products, said Greenpeace advisor Dr. Zhu Jian'gang.
Dr. Zhu, also a research fellow of the Green Community Institute with prestigious Guangzhou-based Zhongshan University, said that written commitments had been received from 32 out of 67 requests sent to food companies.
"The response we've got from those companies indicates the non-GM concept is affecting the future food market in China," said Zhu.
According to the outcome of a 2002 survey of 1,000 citizens in Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong province, 56 percent of those surveyed said they would choose non-GM food, and only 11 percent of the respondents said they would prefer GM food, excluding the price factor.
Many cooking oil producers in China use GM farm products without declaring on labels the GM content.
Shi Pengxiang, a Greenpeace project manager, said Greenpeace expected more companies to join the non-GM food campaign.
Greenpace will offer technical assistance and information in this regard, said Shi. Enditem
 
 
European magnate Infront Sports & Media eyes Chinese sports market
BEIJING, July 22 (CEIS) -- The Chinese sports market, which will feature 2008 Olympic Games, 2007 Women's Soccer World Cup and the Chinese Soccer Super League (CSL), has
become the most attractive virgin land for world's most powerful sports companies, including Infront Sports & Media Group.
Infront Sports & Media Group (Former name as Kirch Sport), headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, shows its intensive interest in the Chinese sports market especially in soccer field. Oscar Frei, Infront's CEO, made a special trip to Beijing to seek the opportunities in the Chinese market.
"We believe the Chinese sports market has huge potentials, or we would not be here. The sport that has the greatest immediate potential is football -- the most popular sport in China, as in the rest of the world -- followed by basketball," he said.
A recent Zenith Media telephone survey conducted among China's 15-45 year olds, found that the public's interest in sport has silently spread beyond national boundaries. Almost three-quarters of this aged population would prefer to attend an event that was international in scope.
John Kristick, Infront's Marketing Manager, said: "The Chinese sports market has huge potential because of the population and the fact that China contributes huge numbers of the television viewers to international events, which makes China important to sponsors."
"We will be looking forward to the development of new markets in China, offering specialized services to events throughout the world and selling expertise based on proven achievement. For example, advice on host broadcast and commercial structuring of sports," Kristick added.
Infront, launched officially under its new name in January, represents many premium sports including the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the German Football Bundesliga, IHF World Championships in ice hockey, as well as European Handball Championships.
Frei also pointed out that Front would like to help in any way as they can, in terms of finding sponsors for women's football and the Chinese national team or promoting the sport through television.
"Obviously, China has a potentially world-beating women's team and this makes the proposition an exciting one," he said.
Frei and Kristick attended the CSL commercial promotion conference, which attracts representatives from 94 foreign companies here on Tuesday. Replacing the First Division League, the 12-team CSL will kick off from next year.
"We now are familiar with the marketing strategy of CSL and will work out a marketing plan in the near future," said Sports Marketing Manager Jimmy Qin from Coca-Cola Beverages Ltd.
 
 
China faces uphill battle against counterfeits
BEIJING, July 23 (CEIS) -- China is still faced with an uphill battle against counterfeiting though the government had gained initial success in curbing the wide-spread infringement on intellectual property rights, according to results of a survey by China's top policy consultation agent.
The Development Research Center (DRC) under China's State Council released a report on the damage that counterfeiting incurred on China economy Tuesday. The release of the report coincided with a symposium sponsored by the Quality Brands Protection Committee, an intellectual property watchdog under the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI).
According to the DRC report, the market value of counterfeited goods in China was estimated at 160 billion to 200 billion yuan (19 billion to 24 billion US dollars) in the year of 2001.
The report said though the total value of counterfeiting grew at an annual rate of 7 percent during 1999-2001, counterfeiters were losing ground in terms of market share. China retail sales market was expanding at an annual rate of 11 percent in the period, far exceeding the growth rate of counterfeiting.
Local enterprises surveyed said they would have led a much harder life if the Chinese government left counterfeiting unchecked.
More than half of the 213 enterprises surveyed said the severity of counterfeiting was alleviated in China after the Chinese government launched a nationwide market disorder rectification campaign in 2001. This reflected a change of attitude as compared with several years ago, when a similar survey conducted by the DRC in 1999 found nearly three quarters of the enterprises saying things were going from bad to worse.
In a survey concluded in May 2002, the DRC sent out 2,000 pieces of questionnaires to enterprises in various industries around China. Among the 213 valid responses, 16.4 percent were foreign-funded companies, 33.8 percent were share-holding companies and 37.2 percent state-owned enterprises. All these enterprises were producers of well-known brands in China and the world.
According to official figures, the Chinese government squashed more than 500,000 underground factories of counterfeited goods and dealt with over 1.2 million cases of counterfeiting in 2001.
Zhang Xiaoji from the DRC said the Chinese government has achieved initial result in curbing the rampant spread of counterfeiting. However, he said the country still faced an uphill battle against counterfeiting.
The DRC survey found that the greatest economic damage caused by counterfeits was loss of tax revenue, which reached an estimated 27.5 billion to 34.5 billion yuan in Enditem
 
 
China leads world in colored cotton development
SHANGHAI, July 23 (CEIS) -- China is leading the world in the development and research of colored cotton, announced Zhang Zhennan, an established cotton researcher and head of the Genetically Modified Colored Cotton Institute of northwestern China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Zhang was in Shanghai for a fair to promote garments made of colored cotton.
A total of 27 countries have been conducting the relevant researches and development of colored cotton, including the United States, China, Brazil, Egypt, Peru and India.
Nine strains of colored cotton have been approved by governments of different countries for patent rights or naming and have been authorized for mass production.
Of the nine widely recognized colored cotton strains, five were developed by Chinese research organizations, primarily the Xinjiang cotton research institute.
China was capable of turning out brown and green cotton, said Zhang, adding that researchers from the institute had been working with the Hereditary Science Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to produce red, blue and black cotton by transferring an external colored gene into naturally grown white cotton with genetic engineering technology. Enditem
 
 
Leather sector must get cracking
BEIJING, July 29 (CEIS) - The rapidly progressing leather processing industry must adjust its structure and focus more on value-added products, according to industry experts.
As a large producer and exporter of leather products, China now transports an average of over 10 billion US dollars worth of leather products annually compared with only one billion US dollars a decade ago.
Various Chinese leather products make up about 9 percent of the world's total exports and exports of Chinese leather shoes now account for 15 percent all of those sold, according to the China leather Industry Association.
The local leather industry performed well last year and is expected to maintain rapid growth over the next few years.
According to statistics from the former State Economic and Trade Commission, the gross industrial output of the industry's major enterprises, those with an annual sales volume exceeding 5 million yuan (604,600 US dollars), hit 150.73 billion yuan (18.23 billion US dollars) last year.
The export volume of major leather products was valued at over 18 billion US dollars last year, ranking it first among all light industrial products.
Leather processing is a traditional Chinese Industry, which has witnessed development from simple workshops to an industrialized system.
The world industry has entered a new development period since the 1990s. With the adjustment of the global industrial structure, leather processing - which is regarded as a labor-intensive industry - has shifted its processing bases from advanced countries to developing ones.
Despite China becoming a big leather producer in the world, it must further improve its industry structure to keep its lead and market share in the world, experts warn.
At present, about 97 percent of leather processing enterprises in the country are small and medium sized, and those with small production capacities are finding it hard to survive.
In China, raw materials mainly come from central and western areas. However, over 70 percent of the leather processing businesses are in eastern and coastal areas of southern China.Enditem
 
 
California winemakers up in arms over Chinese "Napa Valley" wine
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A cabernet sauvignon from Napa, China? The idea has winemakers in the exclusive US wine district of Napa Valley blowing their corks.
In June they filed actions in Chinese court to prevent the registration of the brand name "Na Pa He Gu", or Napa Valley, by Beijing's Hongye Grape Wine Co, industry officials said Thursday.
The name is identical to the way wine producers in the famed California appellation translate Napa Valley on wines exported to China.
"What you see on the label should be what you get in the bottle. The grapes should come from the Napa Valley," said Kimberly Flowers of the Napa Valley Vintners Association, which filed the objection.
Because the Napa name brings higher prices from oenophiles -- or wine lovers -- the association constantly fights trademark battles with winemakers in other regions attempting to cash in on it.
Flowers was however unclear on whether Hongye Grape Wine has yet produced any wine under the Napa label.
Closer to home, meanwhile, the vintners association recently stopped a Napa-based producer of Japanese sake from labeling several products "Napa Sake" and "Napa Valley".
Although the rice used in the sake comes from elsewhere, the Hakusan Sake Gardens argued unsuccessfully that the water in which the rice is brewed originates in Napa.
 
 
China to approve 1,000 joint-venture petrol stations
BEIJING (AFP) - China is expected to approve within a month a plan to set up 500 joint venture petrol stations proposed by PetroChina and Britain's BP in southern Guangdong province.
Another plan for 500 joint venture gas stations proposed by Sinopec and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu is also set to receive regulatory clearance, the China Business Post reported.
The two projects would mark the first such Sino-foreign deals in China's petroleum and chemicals sector following its entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) nearly two years ago.
In Guangdong, the 500 Sino-foreign gas stations will be operated by a joint venture between PetroChina and BP based in Jiangmen, with registered capital of 12.76 million yuan (1.54 million dollars).
BP would contribute 3.17 million yuan to the deal, the report said.
The joint venture aims to turn over annual sales equivalent to 2.5 million tons of oil, accounting for one-fourth of the province's total.
In 2000, when PetroChina was seeking an overseas listing, it promised to jointly set up 500 gas stations with BP in Guangdong in return for a 10 percent stake that would make BP PetroChina's only foreign shareholder.
China's refined oil retail market is also supposed to be open to foreign investors by the end of this year according to the country's WTO commitments.
Guangdong is the largest oil product consumer in China with 5,500 gas stations but no more than 500 of those service stations in the province recorded an annual sales volume of more than 5,000 tons.
PetroChina plans to invest up to 7.96 billion yuan by 2005 to expand its gas-station network by 25.8 percent, the company said in its annual report filed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) in June.
China's largest oil producer and distributor said that it plans to add 3,400 service stations to its current network of 13,160 by acquiring existing outlets from its parent company, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), constructing new outlets and merging with other companies.
 
 
China to prolong tentative regulations on imported GM agro-products
BEIJING, June 3 (CEIS) -- China will extend the period of the tentative regulations on imported genetically modified (GM) agro-products from September 20 to April 20 next year, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture said
on June 2.
Overseas companies, according to the tentative regulations, are still required to apply to the related Chinese government departments for a license to export their GM agro-products during the extended period, said the official.
GM plants, animals, poultry and microbes and their products as well as seed strains, fertilizers and pesticides with GM organisms, have to be identified on their packaging, and it is also demanded by the tentative regulations first issued in January 2002 and prolonged last October. Enditem
 
 
Ice-cream business heats up in summer
BEIJING, June 3 (CEIS) -- The ice-cream business in China is heating up as manufacturers are vigorously promoting new products to grab a major share of the market.
Some new participants are adding to the mix.
The Beijing-based Sanyuan, one of the country’s largest dairy producers, said it planned to enter the ice-cream business by cooperating with the Beijing Allied Faxi Food Co, the maker of Bud’s brand ice cream.
The Shanghai Bright Dairy Co Ltd, a rival of Sanyuan, also entered the business last month.
The dairy giant has invested 130 million yuan in a new company, which it expects to produce its own ice cream by the end of this year.
Industrial insiders said the prosperous future of the ice-cream market is the driving force behind the two dairy giants now both entering the market.
Zhu Nianlin, president of the China Association of the Bakery and Confectionery Industry, said the total ice-cream market in China was worth 23 billion yuan last year.
The market will grow to 40 billion yuan in three years, he said.
Zhu said he believed that as living standards improve in China, people will develop bigger appetites for ice cream.
Many investors are considering entering the fast growing market, he said. Chinese per capita consumption of ice cream is less than one litre a year, compared with nearly 23 litres in the United States.
Foreign ice-cream makers have also been working harder to grab a bigger share of the Chinese market.
China has 4,000 ice-cream producers but the Wall’s and Nestle brands still have the lion’s share of the Chinese market.
Wall’s now holds 10 percent of the China ice-cream market. Unilever, owner of the Wall’s ice-cream brand, said it expected its sales in China to increase by eight percent this year, compared with a five percent global increase.
The Swiss food giant Nestle said it planned to speed up investment in its Chinese ice-cream operations this year in an effort to outdistance its rivals. Enditem
 
 
Agriculture ministry offers safe food info
BEIJING, June 10 (CEIS) - If you feel like you’re drowning in the sea of fish and fruit available at your local supermarket wondering what is safe to eat, the choice will be made easier with the introduction of the "eco-friendly farm produce" label.
The Ministry of Agriculture has just released its first batch of agricultural products that are contamination-free and certified as safe for consumption, said Wang Huafei, a quality supervision official.
The 214 farm products in 62 categories include popular vegetables, fish, meat, fruit and tea, said Wang of the ministry’s Farm Produce Quality and Safety Center.
The new labeling system is an important step campaign to ensure that, within the next five years, agricultural products intended for human consumption will be produced using techniques that do not cause pollution or contain poisons, he said.
The achieve the goal, the ministry, along with the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China, has compiled voluminous codes with regard to the agricultural production environment, production procedures and product quality control.
Also specified are requirements to eliminate chemical resides in vegetables, Wang said.
The list of arm produce labeled as eco-friendly will continue to expand, as the ministry and the State certification agency are improving the standards for production and qualification of more agricultural products.
Certification and labeling will become preconditions for all agricultural products for human consumption to enter the market in the long term, Wang said.
The standards for these products are lower than those certified as "green food," which are also popular with consumers. But they are relatively cheaper and their safety is guaranteed. Enditem
 
 
China labels eco-friendly farm products
BEIJING, June 4 (CEIS) -- The Chinses Ministry of Agriculture announced on June 3 that farm products from 155 farming units in China have been labeled as eco-friendly.
Most of these farm products are fish, meat, vegetables, fruits and tea that are closely related to people's lives, the ministry said.
China has furthered the national scheme first launched last year to promote uncontaminated food and set a goal to markedly improve the overall quality of farm products in China's urban and rural areas within the next five to eight
years.
The authorization of labeling the eco-friendly farm products is part of the scheme aimed at effectively controlling problems of pesticide residue and food
contamination caused by noxious materials, including heavy metals.Enditem
 
 
Building-material e-market set up
BEIJING, June 3 (CEIS) - An online international building-material market was launched at the end of last month in Qingdao, a major port city in east China's
Shandong Province, according to the organizers.
Some 3,000 Chinese building-material suppliers can now make centralized purchases from up to 10,000 foreign sellers through the cyber market, located in Qingdao's Tianyue International Building-Material Free-Trade City, thus
reducing procurement costs.
Sources with the free-trade city said the trade volume is expected to reach 500 million US dollars this year. The volume may reach 4.5 billion US dollars next year, they said.Enditem
 
 
China’s commercial paper market develops rapidly
BEIJING, June 4 (CEIS) - The total issue of undue commercial bills of exchange on China’s commercial paper market at the end of February was 777.4 billion yuan and the balance of discounts was 598.5 billion yuan, increasing 5.8
percent and 15.1 percent, respectively, over those at the end of last year and rising 67.6 percent and 84 percent year-on-year.
The total amount of business in bills of exchange has been growing 40.6 percent annually since 1997，when it was 133.5 billion yuan at the end of the year.
In the first two months of this year, the total issue of commercial bills of exchange and discounts amounted to 296.6 billion yuan and 487.6 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 81.3 percent and 132.5 percent over that in the same 2002 period.
The rapid development of the commercial bill market has resulted in an effective allocation of funds and good profits for commercial banks. The funds raised through issue of commercial bills were mainly used to support the development of small and mid-size enterprises.Enditem
 
 
Two more foreign banks gain access to China's stock market
BEIJING, June 9 (CEIS) -- Morgan Stanley Co. International Limited and Citigroup Global Transaction Services of the United States became the second batches of foreign investors to be granted the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) status in the Chinese stock market, authorities said on June 8.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that Morgan Stanley and Citigroup had been granted authorization to invest in China's stock market.
The commission said that it is evaluating applications of other foreign institutions for the QFII status.
Morgan Stanley Co. International Limited and Citigroup Global Transaction Services still have to have their applications for maximum amount of investment approved by China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) before they can invest in the Chinese stock market.
According to China's regulations, foreign investors should apply to the SAFE for their maximum amount of investment before entering the Chinese stock markets. The SAFE will then make a decision on the application within 15 business days.
Prior to Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, Swiss UBS Limited and Japan's leading Nomura Securities Co. Limited were granted the QFII status by the SAFE, for respective maximum investments of 300 million US dollars and 50 million US
dollars. Enditem
 
 
More tasks to push public health
BEIJING, June 9 (CEIS) -- A wider research base and facilities to allow swifter scientific advancement in public health and safety will become cornerstones of China's scientific drive, said sources with the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Shi Dinghuan, secretary-general of the ministry, said recently the ongoing SARS disaster has accentuated the problems in China's present scientific system, which highlights the limited research database, according to Friday's China Daily.
The ministry will invite experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Education to contribute strategic and scientific information, according to Shi.
Several related ministries have jointly circulated the Stipulations for Improving Evaluation on Technological Findings, which aim to ensure down-to-earth academic studies. Enditem
 
 
China takes temporary anti-dumping measures against imported chemical
BEIJING, June 10 (CEIS) -- China took temporary anti-dumping measures on June 9 against imports of phenol, a caustic crystalline compound used in resins, plastics and pharmaceuticals.
The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced the introduction of a cash deposit for imports of phenol from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States and China's Taiwan province.
China launched the anti-dumping investigation on August 1st, 2002 and the MOC concluded that dumping had taken place and that the imports had done substantial damage to domestic industry.
The ministry's primary investigation concluded that there was a direct causal relationship between the dumping and the damage.
In accordance with anti-dumping regulations, the MOC determined that importers of such products would have to pay a cash deposit to Chinese customs, ranging from seven percent to 144 percent of the value. Enditem
 
 
Individual car ownership surging in China
BEIJING, June 11 (CEIS) -- Motor vehicles, once cited as a luxury for individuals in China, have become standard consumer products for growing numbers of families.
Latest official statistics indicate that the number of individually-owned cars in China has now exceeded 10 million, amounting to one car for 120 people on average.
However, before the 1990s, cars were purchased and used mainly by government departments or businesses. In 1992, the number of cars owned by individuals stood only at about one million.
But the figures jumped to 9.69 million by the end of 2002, and from January to April this year, 1.36 million cars were sold nationwide, with at least 800,000 going to individuals.
The surge in the number of cars bought by individuals has spurred the growth of China's car industry, which has for the first time become one of the country's five pillar industries in the first quarter of this year.
Experts predicted that China would overtake France in car production this year, becoming the world's fourth largest car producer after the United States, Japan and Germany. Enditem
 
 
Overseas-funded enterprises lead China's high-tech industry
BEIJING, June 11 (CEIS)-- Enterprises with overseas investment contributed to 62 percent of the growth of China's high-tech industry from 1996 to 2001, according to a recent national survey on basic economic entities by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Statistics show that the number of overseas-funded enterprises increased from 7,000 in 1996 to more than 10,000 in 2001, the number of employees increased from 1.09 million in 1996 to 1.96 million in 2001 and business income
increased from 178.7 billion to 646.2 billion during the same period.
According to the survey, the increase in employees in overseas funded enterprises is 1.7 times more than that of domestic funded enterprises during the period from 1996 to 2001.
Up to the end of 2001, capital of overseas funded enterprises accounted for 49 percent of the total of China's new and high technology enterprises, with business income for 47.7 percent and trade volume for 81.5 percent. Enditem
 
 
Top architects wanted by S. China city
GUANGZHOU, June 11 (CEIS) -- Foshan City, Guangdong Province, announced on June 9 that it is inviting architects worldwide to submit designs for the city's downtown expansion project.
Foshan recently became the third largest city in Guangdong after a re-organization based on a number of smaller towns and counties. This south China city plans to accelerate its modernization by using world-class talent in
the urban expansion scheme.
The city's planned central district covers 43.3 square kilometers, with a core area of 18.2 square kilometers, according to the local government department on urban construction.
Five candidates, who will be selected from among competitors around the world, will be given 100,000 US dollars each, as payment for their work. The winner will be paid another 100,000.
Foshan covers 3,813.64 square kilometers and has a population of 3.36 million. Last year, its GDP exceeded 100 billion yuan (about 12 billion US dollars). It is ancestral home to over 1.3 million overseas Chinese. Enditem
 
 
Intermediary insurance organizations mushroom in China
BEIJING, June 12 (CEIS) -- By May of this year, 249 professional insurance intermediary organizations had been authorized to operate in China.
According to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), the industry watchdog, in May alone, 63 insurance intermediary organizations obtained business licenses.
Of the total 249 organizations, 183 are insurance agent service companies, 24 are insurance brokerage firms and the remaining 42 are claim assessing companies.
The CIRC has also approved the applications for the establishment of 819 similar companies which are rapidly being established, said the same sources.
The first 13 insurance intermediary organizations appeared in China in late 1999. Enditem
 
 
Foreign joint-venture insurer to sell equities
SHANGHAI, June 12 (CEIS) -- The local partner of Shanghai-based Allianz Dazhong Life Insurance is preparing to sell its holdings in the company ahead of plans to list on the domestic stock market.
Founded in January 1999, the Allianz Dazhong Life Insurance Co. Ltd. was a joint venture between Dazhong Insurance Co., Ltd. based in Shanghai and the Allianz, a Fortune 500 company from Germany, with a registered capital of 200 million yuan (24.1 million US dollars). The German partner owned a 51 percent stake, with the Chinese side taking the remaining 49 percent.
In 2002, the joint venture garnered 123 million yuan (14.82 million US dollars) in premiums, up 122 percent year-on-year, a strong result for foreign-funded life
insurers in Shanghai.
Dazhong Insurance’s sale aims to pave the way for the Chinese assurance firm to gain a listing on the domestic capital market, said a company official.
In late May, Dazhong Insurance Co. Ltd. obtained a letter of supervision, a necessary document for stock market listing, signed by China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), the industry watchdog.
Zhou Renyong, a senior Dazhong official, said the company was ready to become the first property insurance company listed on the domestic market.
Based on international practice, a life assurance firm will normally experience seven years of losses after starting up.
Despite triple-digital growth in premium revenue, Allianz Dazhong has continued to incur losses, which will affect the planned listing and post-listing re-financing, said Zhou Renyong.
Therefore, Dazhong decided to give up its holdings in the Sino-German joint venture. The move did not indicate doubts about the joint venture's prospects, rather it reflected Dahzong's needs for self development, said Zhou.
Separate company sources revealed that a group of large domestic companies had showed interest in Dazhong's holdings in the joint venture. Insurance premiums reached 305.3 billion yuan (36.78 billion US dollars) on the Chinese mainland last year, of which 227.4 billion yuan (27.39 billion US dollars), or 75 percent, came from life insurance policies. Enditem
 
 
Proven Mo metal reserve in China
BEIJING, June 12 (CEIS) -- China abounds in molybdenum (Mo) resources and the proven reserve of the metal is 8.4 million tons at present, scattered in 222 places.
Four large mining areas, Luanchuan in Henan, Daheishan in Jilin, Jinduicheng in Shaanxi and Lanjiagou in Liaoning, account for 52% of the total Mo reserve in China.
Features of China's Mo resources are: most of the reserves are of high-grade ores; are shallowly buried and are open-cut ones.
There are nearly 20 Mo mining and dressing enterprises in China at present.
The following is a table listing China's output of Mo concentrate in the past 10 years
(Unit: 1,000 tons)
Year Output
1991 29,400
1992 43,600
1993 40,700
1994 47,500
1995 73,300
1996 65,800
1997 74,000
1998 66,700
1999 66,100
2000 64,300
2001 63,200
2002 65,500
Enditem
 
 
Opportunities and challenges for Mo industry
BEIJING, June 12 (CEIS) - China’s molybdenum industry now faces five opportunities and three challenges after the country’s WTO entry.
Opportunities:
1. To enjoy the preferential terms for WTO members and a comparatively stable multi-lateral trade environment.
2. To enjoy technical aid and consultation services offered by other WTO members.
3. To introduce more technologies to improve the quality of Mo products.
4. To speed up the pace of reform of Mo industry system.
5. To adjust the industrial structure of Mo industry and the structure of import and export commodities to meet the changes of the world market.
Challenges:
1. Production and operation of Chinese Mo enterprises may be affected.
2. The track of steady development of Mo industry in China may be diverted.
3. There may be some unfavorable influence on China’s Mo exports.
Enditem
 
 
China makes paper with ore powder
KUNMING, June 16 (CEIS) -- Paper mills in China have succeeded in turning out high-quality paper with ultra-fine ore powder, which is being used to serve as a substitute for pulpwood.
Southwestern Yunnan province, the first region in China to experiment with the new source of material in papermaking, has turned out thousands of tons of paper with wollastonite as the base material. And paper mills in western Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces and Shandong province in east China have also followed suit.
With advanced grinding technology, wollastonite could be reduced to an ultra-fine power dust to serve as pulp for making paper of all sorts ranging from ordinary writing paper to art paper.
There is no need to refit the paper-manufacturing machinery or alter techniques, said Zhong Guangrong, a senior engineer of the Institute of Non-Ferrous Metal Application in the province.
Shi Yubei, general manager of the Yunnan Ultra-Fine New Materials Co. Ltd., estimated that the consumption of one ton of wollastonite would save 3.6 cubic meters of timber and discharge less waste water from paper mills accordingly,
he added.
China was the second largest paper producer and consumer in the world, and a major paper importer in 2001. Application of the technology was of great importance, said He Ying, an official with the Yunnan Provincial Paper-Making Society.
China abounds in wollastonite with proven reserves of nearly 370 million tons, ranking second in the world after the United States. Wollastonite is found in 14 provinces and autonomous regions in China. Yunnan province, has verified reserves of 53.63 million tons, making up 28 percent of the national total.
Since the Chinese government banned timber felling on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the price of paper wood has soared, driving some paper mills into dilemma or bankruptcy. The use of wollastonite has opened a new "window
of hope" for the industry.
Papermaking required a combination of long and short fibers, said He Ying. The long fibers served as the "frame" while the shorter ones were the "cement and sand".
A mixture of pulpwood and wollastonite would complement each other and make up each other's deficiencies. As wollastonite powder is in the needle-like shape, it has stronger adhesive force than any other materials.
Paper manufactured with wollastonite raises paper opacity and improves its quality, but without producing any static electricity.
Compared with pulpwood, the price for making each ton of wollastonite paper dropped by up to 300 yuan (about 36 US dollars).
China produces 30 million tons of paper annually. With rising production costs, there would be a bigger demand for wollastonite in papermaking, General Manager Shi Yubei said. Enditem
 
 
East China province imports more finished oil products
QINGDAO, June 16 (CEIS) -- East China's Shandong province imported 861,000 tons of finished oil products valued at 174 million US dollars during the first five months of this year.
Statistics released by Qingdao Customs showed increases of 410 percent and 560 percent respectively, as compared with the same period last year.
The province's State-owned enterprises imported 859,000 tons of finished oil products during the same period, valued at 171 million US dollars, accounting for 99.7 percent and 98.5 percent respectively of the province's total.
Foreign-funded firms in the province imported 1,772.3 tons of finished oil products valued at 1.99 million US dollars, up 120 percent and 48.4 percent respectively, year-on-year.
Most of Shandong's finished oil products were imported from the Republic of Korea (ROK), which stood at 427,000 tons, valued at 86million US dollars, or 49.6 percent and 49.3 percent, respectively, of the province's total. Enditem
 
 
Beijing to foster semiconductor business
BEIJING, June 18 (CEIS) -- Beijing is to build a "healthy" industrial chain and focus on six areas to help create market demand for semiconductor companies, a
municipal official was quoted by Tuesday's China Daily as saying.
"The focus of the semiconductor industry’s development for us this year is to foster market demand for business," said Liang Sheng, chief of the technological
innovation and development division of the Beijing Municipal Economic and Trade Commission and vice-chairman of the Beijing Semiconductor Industry Association.
He said that, although the municipality had attracted leading semiconductor foundries such as the Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and had many integrated circuit design firms, the scale of the industry was still very small. Therefore, the government would concentrate its capital and energy on six major products to foster demand, he added.
The six product areas are integrated circuit cards, shared point-of-sale systems between banks and taxation bureaus, digital cameras, high-definition television, network computers and mobile communication devices.
Beijing has taken the lead in China in terms of chip design and the manufacture of these products.The Chinese capital will also work to attract
international investors and hold an international microelectronics seminar in October.
The annual seminar is usually held in May but was postponed this year due to the SARS outbreak. The municipality has been contacting industrial organizations
from the United States, Europe and Japan to encourage them to take part.
The official hoped that the forum would bring overseas technology, professionals and venture capital to Beijing to promote the development of the semiconductor industry in the Chinese capital.
According to the official, the establishment of the SMIC Beijing Co. Ltd., the backbone of the Beijing’s semiconductor manufacturing business, has been going
smoothly despite SARS.
Supporting facilities for the US$1.25 billion project are close to completion, and the construction of production facilities will finish by the end of this year to let
production begin next year, Liang added. Enditem
 
 
Trade in bags and suitcases can grow
BEIJING, June 18 (CEIS) - China's rapidly expanding export volume of bags and suitcases still has huge potential for further development, industry experts say.
According to the General Administration of Customs, China exported 4.36 billion US dollars worth of bags and suitcases last year, an increase of 12.4 percent compared with 2001.
The China Light Industrial Artcraft Import and Export Association attributed the growth to closer business relations with foreign partners after China's entry into
the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, competitive prices due to cheap labor and the continued inflow of foreign investment into the suitcase industry, which has helped local producers update their technology and management skills.
As part of its WTO membership, China opened its domestic market wider to foreign commodities. Large quantities of high-quality bags and suitcases have poured into the country from foreign countries, while a large number of overseas
suitcase producers have established offices in China.
The situation has created heavy pressure for domestic producers.
A market survey showed local demand for such products was stable.
China, which has rich labor and raw material resources, is capable of offering competitive prices.
However, it is still threatened by even lower prives offered by countries from Southeast Asia.
The slow development of the world economy, the effect of the Iraq War and increasing international trade protectionism are major factors, which will impact on the exports of Chinese-made bags and suitcases, according to association experts.
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