PRC Economy and Industry: News and Discussions

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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

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China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide Emitter

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/world ... ina&st=nyt

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By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: June 14, 2008

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Beijing, shrouded in smog on Friday, has heavy air pollution, as does much of the rest of China.


Dot Earth: China Pulls Ahead in the Great Carbon Race (June 14, 2008)
World View With Libby Rosenthal (mp3)

The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, found that in 2007 China’s emissions were 14 percent higher than those of the United States. In the previous year’s annual study, the researchers found for the first time that China had become the world’s leading emitter, with carbon emissions 7 percent higher by volume than the United States in 2006.

Many experts had been skeptical of the earlier study, whose results were less clear-cut than those released Friday. The International Energy Agency had continued to say only that China was projected to overtake the United States by the end of 2007. Now there is little doubt.

“The difference had grown to a 14 percent difference, and that’s indeed quite large,” said Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the Dutch agency. “It’s now so large that it’s quite a robust conclusion.”

China’s emissions are most likely to continue growing substantially for years to come because they are tied to the country’s strong economic growth and its particular mix of industry and power sources, the researchers said.

China is heavily dependent on coal and has seen its most rapid growth in some of the world’s most heavily polluting industrial sectors: cement, aluminum and plate glass.

Twenty percent of China’s emissions come from its cement kilns, essential for its construction boom and likely to be working overtime this year amid preparations for the Olympics and rebuilding after last month’s devastating earthquake.

The Dutch agency’s findings were based on recently published information on cement production and on energy use from the oil company BP.

The United States still has a vast lead in carbon dioxide emissions per person. The average American is responsible for 19.4 tons. Average emissions per person in Russia are 11.8 tons; in the European Union, 8.6 tons; China, 5.1 tons; and India, 1.8 tons.

Experts said the new data underscored the importance of getting China to sign on to any new global climate agreement. Neither China nor the United States participated in the current treaty to limit emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and will be replaced by a new agreement to be signed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

On Friday in Bonn, Germany, 2,000 world leaders concluded two weeks of negotiations on what kind of agreement should replace the Kyoto Protocol. United Nations leaders told them to “pick up the pace.”

“With a little more than a year to go to Copenhagen, the challenge to come to that agreement remains daunting,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Late last year, a United Nations panel of scientific experts warned that the world had only a few years to reverse a growing emissions trend in order to avoid severe consequences of global warming, from a large rise in sea level to species death.

“Everyone recognizes that we’re only going to get to an answer by addressing issues in all countries, including China,” Mr. de Boer said.

Still, he added that China had been “acting progressively on environmental policy” in the past year, developing plans to shut down highly polluting small- and medium-size industries and to find more alternative energy, for example.

Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, said the Dutch study “was something of a harbinger of things to come, namely, of China’s uncontested pre-eminence in this world of rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Asia Society has started a bilateral climate change initiative that includes groups like the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and involves leaders in both countries, including Al Gore.

“There cannot be a solution to the global climate change questions without China being integrally involved,” Mr. Schell said. But he added that Chinese leaders would not become more engaged unless the United States also made new commitments.

The Dutch researchers said there were some signs that China’s rapid emissions trajectory would be somewhat blunted this year, although they still predicted rapid growth. Its emissions rose 8 percent in 2007, compared with more than 11 percent annually for the previous two years.

In comparison, emissions in the original 15 European Union member states fell 2 percent in 2007, though Dr. Olivier, at the Dutch agency, cautioned that this drop was at least partly attributable to a warm winter that reduced the need for heating.

But with high oil and gas prices this year, other forces favor emissions growth in the future. High oil prices have created a resurgence in interest in coal-fired power plants for industry, which are heavily polluting.

Eighty percent of the world’s coal demand comes from China, according to the International Energy Agency, which advises industrialized nations on energy policy. But the United States is also a major user of coal to power its industry.

“It is crucial for countries like China and the United States to explore technologies to deal with that,” said Mr. de Boer, referring specifically to projects that would pump emissions underground instead of into the atmosphere.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/world ... ref=slogin

Booming, China Faults U.S. Policy on the Economy

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A steel factory in Kunming. China’s economy has generally maintained strong growth while the American economy has stagnated.

BEIJING — Not long ago, Chinese officials sat across conference tables from American officials and got an earful.

The Americans scolded the Chinese on mismanaging their economy, from state subsidies to foreign investment regulations to the valuation of their currency. Your economic system, the Americans strongly implied, should look a lot more like ours.

But in recent weeks, the fingers have been wagging in the other direction. Senior Chinese officials are publicly and loudly rebuking the Americans on their handling of the economy and defending their own more assertive style of regulation.

Chinese officials seem to be galled by the apparent hypocrisy of Americans telling them what to do while the American economy is at best stagnant. China, on the other hand, has maintained its feverish growth.

Some officials are promoting a Chinese style of economic management that they suggest serves developing countries better than the American model, in much the same way they argue that they are in no hurry to copy American-style multiparty democracy.

...............................
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

what time was the Beijing pic taken ? if thats the scene on a normal day , the problem
looks very severe..the scene looks like 7:30pm on a cloudy day in a indian city.
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Investors Seek Asian Options to Costly China

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When it comes to multinational manufacturing, Vietnam is fast becoming the new China. The electronics maker Samsung is building a factory in Yenphong Industrial Park, in Yenphong, Vietnam.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/busin ... ina&st=nyt
HANOI — Canon is no longer building or expanding factories in China, but the company is doubling its work force at a printer factory outside Hanoi to 8,000.
Skip to next paragraph
Multimedia
Investment and Concerns in AsiaGraphic
Investment and Concerns in Asia

Nearby, Nissan is expanding a vehicle engineering center. Hanesbrands, the underwear company based in Winston-Salem, N.C., is setting up two new factories here, as is the Texhong Textile Group from Shanghai.

China remains the most popular destination for foreign industrial investment in the world, attracting almost $83 billion last year. But a growing number of multinational corporations are pursuing a strategy that companies and analysts call “China plus one,” establishing or expanding Asian bases outside China, particularly in Vietnam.

A long list of concerns about China is feeding the trend: inflation, shortages of workers and energy, a strengthening currency, changing government policies, even the possibility of widespread civil unrest someday. But most important, wages in China are rising close to 25 percent a year in many industries, in dollar terms, and China is no longer such a bargain.

Even as companies seek other places to make their goods, they are stalked by overheated economies: in Vietnam, for example, inflation was 25.2 percent last month.

More than corporate profit margins are at stake. When the cost of making goods in Asia rises, American consumers inevitably feel pain. The Labor Department said Thursday that import prices were 4.6 percent higher in May than a year earlier for goods from China and 6.4 percent higher for goods from southeast Asia.
......
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Flooding in Southern China Claims Scores of Victims

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world ... ref=slogin

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SHANGHAI — Torrential rains that have caused some of the worst flooding in 50 years and killed scores of people continued to batter a huge swath of southern China on Tuesday near one of the biggest manufacturing zones in the country.

The government said the storms and floods killed at least 63 people over the past week, left 13 missing and affected more than 17 million people in nine southern provinces. The high waters have also inundated about 5.4 million acres of cropland, set off landslides and forced more than 1.5 million people to flee their homes in southern and central provinces.

Some factories in coastal Guangdong Province — one of the biggest export centers in the country, producing everything from textiles to electronics — have been forced to suspend or curtail operations, according to the state-run news media.

The national meteorological service also warned of more danger in the coming days, saying the Yellow River faced serious flood risks.

The floods are the latest in a series of powerful natural disasters to strike China this year, and come as the country is still mourning the loss of almost 70,000 people who were killed in an earthquake in May.

Heavy rains this week in Sichuan Province, where the earthquake was centered, are also threatening to set off landslides and are forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of quake survivors, most of whom were already in temporary shelters.

The government said that about 20 provinces were affected by heavy rains and flooding and that some areas were experiencing their worst flooding in 100 years. China Central Television reported Tuesday that about 200 people had been killed or were missing because of floods in recent weeks.

The flooding has created a new round of government promises to fight back against the forces of nature.

“We should not underestimate the seriousness of the ongoing flood situation and disaster,” said Deputy Prime Minister Hui Liangyu, according to Xinhua, the official state news agency. “Neither should we underestimate the difficulties in preventing and fighting flooding.”

Severe snowstorms devastated parts of southern China this year, killing more than 50 people, crippling the rail system and causing billions of dollars in damage.

The natural disasters have fed superstitions that this year is somehow cursed, even though many Chinese had hoped 2008 would be a year of Olympic glory, since the number eight is considered lucky.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

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vietnam is going to be the next tiger economy. cambodia is also marching nicely now.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by ramana »

X-posted. Gives good pciture of what PRC and Indian economy are facing.
Amitayus wrote:
its upto the political leadership, at the street level the country is always willing to fight and back their leaders.
Frankly speaking, I can't share this enthusiasm. The question that really bogs me is to what extent we average Indians are serious about taking on the PRC. When we hear about incursion in Som-drong-Chu or or north Sikkim, there are some raves and rants (with stoic silence from the left) and the business goes on as usual.
A few simple examples. Assam Govt. runs a chain of handicrafts emporiums named "Pragjyotika". Whenever I visit Guwahati, I just drop in their store at Bordoloi Road to buy some gift items at a reasonable rate. On one such visit last week, I was shocked to see that they have proudly stocked China made Buddha statues and wall hangings (all third grade machine crafted items) in their showroom. Can you ever imagine any Chinese Govt. handicraft emporium meant to promote Chinese handicrafts sell any low quality Indian item?
Look at the broader picture. The left, in spite of its big talks of strengthening Indian PSUs are depriving BHEL and awarding contract to Dong Fang in West Bengal. (Presently both the turbines at Sagardighi & DPL have gone kaput within 15 days of inauguration). Heard CESC and RPower would be importing Chinese equipments to minimize costs. Already Chinse toys and other plastics items have completely swamped our market. Last month when I went to buy a water bottle for my daughter in the local market, I could not find a single India made bottle at a reasonable price (only available was Milton).
Compare this with Chinese market, where outside suppliers are atively discouraged, payment terms are horrible and no reliable statistics is ever available. Although PRC is a very mineral rich country, they lack in quality iron ore which we are merrily supplying. The Rs 300/tonne export duty on iron ore as announced in last year's budget was a welcome step but again the Finmin had to mellow down due to the powerful mineral lobby. PRC also started complaining heaviliy as they were feeling the pinch (http://www.financialexpress.com/old/fe_ ... _id=161487).

IMO, first reaction of GoI should be again jack up the export duty on iron ore and scrap the trend of exporting primary commodity to PRC and importing value added products.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

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China Sharply Raises Energy Prices

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world ... ref=slogin

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By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 20, 2008

HONG KONG — Faced with increasingly severe fuel shortages and the prospect of power failures during the summer air-conditioning season, the Chinese government unexpectedly announced sharp increases late Thursday night in regulated prices for gasoline, diesel and electricity.

The increases are the latest sign of how China’s integration into the global marketplace has limited the flexibility of the country’s leaders in responding to economic crises.

The government has come under intense pressure recently from both environmentalists and other governments to ease up on its fuel subsidies, which are blamed for distorting global markets, encouraging greater consumption and pushing oil prices higher for other nations.

The government, like many around the world, has struggled to keep up those subsidies as oil prices have spiked in recent months. Finally, despite fears that it will spur inflation, the government raised the retail price of diesel by 18 percent, to the equivalent of $3.58 a gallon, and the price of gasoline by 16 percent, to $3.83 a gallon. Electricity tariffs and the price of jet fuel were also raised.

The higher prices could prompt businesses and people across China to use less fuel and electricity, potentially slowing China’s voracious oil consumption as well as its steep rise in emissions of global warming gases. Following the news, world oil prices immediately dropped more than $4 per barrel.

But some experts said the Chinese market was so heavily distorted by state subsidies for fuel that the higher prices might encourage refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel for Chinese consumers, possibly stoking new demand.

Either way, higher energy costs threaten not only to push up prices here, but also the prices of many of the goods China ships to the United States. Inflation in China was 7.7 percent last month and over 8 percent in February, March and April. While top Chinese officials are worried about inflation, they have faced another problem in recent weeks: the Shanghai stock market has slid steeply, leaving large numbers of angry shareholders.

Hours before the government raised energy prices, the Shanghai market had plunged 6.5 percent in Thursday trading, falling partly on worries of heavy losses among Chinese energy-related companies, which have been selling fuel and energy for less than it costs to produce them.

Until now, the government’s preoccupation with consumer price inflation had many economists wondering when fuel prices would be allowed to rise at all, despite problems in the stock market.

China is the world’s second largest oil consumer, after the United States. With the announcement Thursday, China became the eighth Asian country to raise fuel prices in the past month after concluding that low retail prices could not be sustained indefinitely through government subsidies.

American concerns about China’s price controls on fuel were raised as recently as this week in high-level economic talks between China and the United States in Annapolis, Md. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. raised the subject during the talks, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mr. Paulson, in a speech the previous week, called on China to lift controls and cut subsidies in the energy sector, arguing that they were harmful to the dynamics of supply and demand. Fuel price controls, he said, were producing “persistent gasoline and diesel shortages” in China, and also contributing to “power outages during snowstorms this past January and February.”

Price controls, he added, also “often lead to smuggling and corruption” as well as shortages that contribute to global price spikes in the energy sector.

Treasury officials did not say Thursday that American pressure had led to the change in China’s policies, but they welcomed the move as a possible sign that China was listening to analysts from other countries.

Chinese officials have spoken for several years of their desire to move toward a more energy-efficient economy. They have periodically mentioned an intention to impose taxes on energy once world oil prices begin to fall, so as to keep the pressure on Chinese businesses and consumers to improve efficiency.

Prices for gasoline and diesel had been fixed since Nov. 1, even as world oil prices rose 45 percent in that period. If the Chinese retail price increase on Thursday has a lasting downward effect on world oil prices, it could strengthen the position of economists who have argued that the United States should raise gasoline taxes to limit demand and drive down global oil prices.

Until now, the government’s subsidies have forced the state-controlled refiners to lose money by selling gasoline and diesel for less than the cost of the crude oil needed to make them. Power companies, too, have become reluctant to operate oil-fired power stations when they cannot sell the electricity for enough money to cover the cost of oil.

As refineries cut back their output this spring, the result has been crippling fuel shortages, particularly for diesel. Those shortages have already produced long lines of trucks at service stations, and might threaten the gathering of the summer harvest.

President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao took the highly unusual step on June 5 of ordering that tractors and other farm vehicles be given top priority for all supplies of diesel — usually the kind of measure that would be handled by far more junior officials.

Farmers were exempted on Thursday night from the latest increase in fuel prices, as were three provinces damaged in earthquakes last month: Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces.

Power plants that rely on oil have also been shutting down because of high prices. While China relies mainly on coal and hydroelectric power for electricity generation, oil-fired plants are important in southeastern China.

Severe snowstorms in January and February, followed by earthquake damage and disruption for the national rail network last month, have interfered with coal shipments to some power plants and made electricity generation from oil-fired plants even more important.

China struggles each summer to generate enough electricity, although there have been a few signs that electricity generation capacity is beginning to catch up with demand. The government also announced on Thursday night that it was limiting increases in coal prices, which would help power companies afford their fuel — although at the risk of introducing the same kind of price control distortions to the coal market that have already caused problems for diesel users.

Steven R. Weisman contributed reporting from Washington.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

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China increases energy prices

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9f469b4-3e0b ... fd2ac.html

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing and Javier Blas in London

Published: June 19 2008 15:35 | Last updated: June 19 2008 20:03

China raised energy prices across the board on Thursday in a big policy shift that risks stoking the country’s already high inflation.

International oil prices fell immediately as Beijing said that petrol and diesel would go up by to 18 per cent and electricity tariffs rose by just less than 5 per cent. Oil prices – already under pressure as Saudi Arabia is expected to announce on Sunday an increase in oil production – fell more than $4 a barrel to $132.32.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: Oil - Apr-29
Editorial comment: Saudi oil dilemma - Jun-18
Lex: The king and Ben - Jun-17
UK Daily View: Oil nears $140 despite Saudi move - Jun-16
Saudis eye big boost in oil output - Jun-16
Oil giants could get in much hotter spotlight - Jun-14

The decision of China to slash its oil subsidies will cause the country’s largest one-off increase in at least a decade in petrol and diesel prices. The increases come into effect on Friday. Analysts had expected the authorities to hold off price increases until at least after the August Olympics.

China has been under growing international pressure to reduce its oil subsidies, with western countries accusing Beijing of artificially stimulating demand for oil by maintaining its price caps. Before the announcement, Chinese gasoline prices were about 40 per cent below the US. In the last month, India, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia have all cut their subsidies amid mounting fiscal cost and in spite of concern about high inflation.

The Group of Eight finance ministers said last weekend that for example, “reducing subsidies” was important to lowering oil prices.

Eduardo López, demand analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris, said that the retail price rise was a step in the right direction. “It is a surprise because Beijing has repeated it was not raising energy prices because of the high inflation environment.”

But Mr López warned against expectations of lower Chinese oil use in the short-term, saying that the move was more likely to stimulate supply in China than to curb demand.

The price caps caused problems with the two large state-owned refiners complaining about huge losses and shortages at petrol stations across the country as many small refineries stopped operations.

Analysts warned that the increase in retail prices could now boost Chinese demand, rather than curtail it, at least in the short term. That is because higher prices would encourage refiners to import more oil and boost sales to ease current petrol and diesel shortages.

The IEA said earlier this month that the fuel shortages that have beset China since 2007 suggest that “pent-up demand remain considerable”.

Trevor Houser, a China oil specialist at Rhodium Group in New York, said that the drop in inflation in May gave Beijing just enough breathing room to increase fuel prices. “When truck drivers had to wait six hours to refill their tanks, the shortages had got to a stage that threatened economic efficiency,” Mr Houser said.

China was likely to present its decision as its contribution to lower global oil prices at this Sunday’s oil producers and consumer meeting in Saudi Arabia, analysts and traders said.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

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NYT

China Presses Injured Athletes in Quest for Gold

RISKING EVERYTHING Hu Jia hopes to capture a second gold medal in diving despite injuries to his retinas that could endanger his sight.

The parents of the diver, Hu Jia, had surrendered him to trainers from the Chinese sports establishment at the age of 10, and had seen little of him since then. In an interview with a Chinese newspaper after the diver’s injury, his father suggested that this was sacrifice enough. Had he known his son risked blindness, the father said, “I would never have sent him off to dive.”

But less than two months before China hosts the Olympics for the first time, Mr. Hu is training and competing fiercely again, aiming to bolster a national diving squad that China hopes will dominate the sport this summer.

“The Beijing Olympics is an enormous glory to our generation,” Mr. Hu, whose other retina was also injured, was quoted in the Chinese media as saying last year. Speaking of another gold medal, he added, “I will do my utmost to grab one, unless my eyes are really blind.”

Pressured by the national athletic system and tempted by the commercial riches awaiting star performers in the 2008 Games, China’s athletes are pushing themselves to their limits and beyond, causing some to risk their health in pursuit of nationalist glory.

“An astonishing amount of manpower, money and goods have been poured in, so much so that it’s inappropriate to be revealed publicly,” said Lu Yuanzhen, a professor of sports sociology at the Academy of Sports Sciences at South China Normal University. If the country’s athletes do not perform up to expectations, he added, “the entire nation and its people will lose face.” :twisted:

Since surpassing Russia to win the second most gold medals in the 2004 Olympics, its highest ranking ever, China has held an unofficial but undeniable ambition to cap the hosting of the Games by surpassing the United States and finishing atop the medal board.

The resulting pressure is felt by nearly all of China’s Olympic aspirants, from still largely unheralded performers in relatively unglamorous sports to the country’s brightest marquee names, like Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets center who sat out the final two months of the N.B.A. season with a stress fracture in his left foot but is still expected to play for China’s national team.

Athletes regarded as potential gold medalists have been urged out of retirement, and some female stars have been urged to resume training and competing soon after giving birth. Previous gold medal winners, meanwhile, have heard for four years that failure to pull off a repeat victory will let the whole nation down. Many have trained for the Games despite serious injuries. A female weight lifter, Tang Gonghong, persevered until early this year despite having such high blood pressure that her chief coach said it “threatens her life at any moment.”

‘Don’t Retreat’

These pressures can perhaps be seen most clearly in the recent experience of Liu Xiang, a Chinese track athlete who became a national hero and the country’s most popular sports star in Athens when he won the 110-meter men’s hurdles, a sport in which China had never excelled. Mr. Liu’s coach was recently quoted in China Daily, the official English-language newspaper, as saying, “Officials from the State General Administration of Sport once told us that if Liu cannot win another gold medal in Beijing, all of his previous achievements will become meaningless.”

So far, Mr. Liu has not had to contend with a serious injury. But last August, after winning the track world championships in Japan, he spoke of the agony of high expectations. “I’ve been tortured these days,” Mr. Liu said. “I was afraid of speaking too much. I’ve never been so nervous; more nervous than in the Olympics, because there’s too much attention on me.”

For many athletes, playing through injuries is standard practice. Most of China’s Olympic-caliber competitors are tightly controlled by a system that manages almost every aspect of their lives, often from early childhood. This includes housing, education, medical care and interactions with the public and the news media. In this system, decisions about training regimens and the risks of injuries do not get much of a public airing. The case of Zheng Jie, a top female doubles tennis player, however, provides a glimpse of how the obligation to perform often operates.

Despite a painful ankle injury, Ms. Zheng played a punishing schedule last year to gain tour points required to compete in the Olympics. In a news conference after she lost in the first round of the French Open, she broke down in tears. “The pain in my foot was so strong I could hardly concentrate,” she said.

Ms. Zheng said her doctor had told her that she risked permanent injury if she kept playing without treatment and rest. But in an interview, she said her coach denied her request to concede the French Open match. In a television interview after her defeat, the coach, Jiang Hongwei, said Ms. Zheng and her teammate, Yan Zi, “had too much concern for their injuries, which was an important factor in their performance.”

“The philosophy of our sports system has several bad points,” said Chen Peide, former director of the Zhejiang Province Sports Bureau. “Urging people to tenaciously strive to succeed, to be faster, to jump higher, to be stronger and to win more gold medals usually comes at the expense of athletes’ health.

“When they’re having a 100- or 102-degree fever, we tell them not to give up so easily,” he said.

Mr. Chen said that a Communist war slogan, “Don’t retreat from the front lines with light injuries,” was a pet phrase of Chinese athletes and coaches.
:rotfl:

While Ms. Zheng invoked her doctor’s advice in appealing to her coach, for many other Olympics hopefuls, medical decisions are made without consulting medical professionals.

“The athletes themselves basically have no idea of their injuries and they usually don’t have a say” in how they are treated, said Dr. Wang Yubin, the medical director for the sports injury department at Shanghai East International Medical Center. Decisions about how to handle injuries of important athletes, he said, are made by officials of the sporting establishment.

Sacrificing for a Payoff

If it is true that the system pushes athletes hard, many athletes are just as demanding of themselves. Since the 1980s, when the commercialization of sports began in China, money has become a powerful incentive alongside the drive for glory. “I once treated a national weight-lifting champion and warned him not to carry on in the sport anymore,” Dr. Wang said. “I told both him and his parents that in the worst case, he could be paralyzed for life. The parents replied that there was nothing for their child to do but persevere.

“They said, ‘What else can he do if he doesn’t lift weights?’ ”

Li Zhuo, a retired silver medalist in the women’s weight-lifting 48-kilogram category in 2004, put it another way. “Once you win gold, your status is changed and you become another person,” she said, referring to the monetary awards and business opportunities showered on victors. “One Olympics can change an athlete’s life, and that’s pressure.”

Hu Jia, the gold medal diver, for example, was born to laid-off workers in Hubei Province in central China. When he was 6 years old, his parents piled quilts on the ground, then let him jump from a bed to practice diving. Three years later, he was spotted by a former diver and sent to train with a coach in Guangdong, where he made the provincial team. He was considered relatively untalented by coaches and mocked by the public as a perpetual also-ran before the 2004 Games. But he distinguished himself through unrelenting hard work, eventually beating out the favorite, Tian Liang, for a gold.

Although a spot on this year’s squad is no sure thing, he has shown the same determination in working his way back from injury, forgoing anesthesia during eye surgery because he hoped it would speed recovery. “There are so many difficulties, surgery and injuries on the road, but I have to keep up to the last,” he told a newspaper in Wuhan.

According to a study published in 2000, 24 percent of Chinese divers have had retina injuries. Yu Fen, a former national coach, said the high rate was because of poor screening of young athletes for congenital eye problems and antiquated, high-intensity training methods. Divers wear no goggles, and repeated impact with the water can damage eyes, Chinese medical experts say, especially if divers fail to close their eyes just before hitting the water.

Dr. Wang Yongli, a sports medicine expert at Beijing Sports Hospital who discovered a high incidence of retina damage when he conducted a survey at the end of 1990s, said there had been minor changes in training techniques since then. But he said he did not expect them to have much effect on the rate of injury.

“I don’t have any solid numbers to show what it’s like in other countries, but the rate should be lower compared to what I’ve found in the Chinese team,” Dr. Wang said.

“The training regimen of foreign athletes by no means compares to ours, meaning the hours devoted to training, and the number of dives into the water. Chinese divers are professionals, which means they practice all day long, while Australians and Canadians might be a bank clerk or a dentist, who only spend two hours practicing after work.”

As suggested by the injunction to athletes against retreating from the front lines, China’s national sports system does indeed borrow heavily from wartime, albeit largely from the cold war. Within five years of taking power in 1949, Mao Zedong adopted many of the features of the heavily centralized sports system of China’s then-Communist ally, the Soviet Union.

As in the Soviet Union, China’s new sports establishment was deliberately conceived as an instrument of nation-building, a tool of mass mobilization and even of foreign policy, aimed both at increasing the country’s prestige and promoting feelings of integration among the people.

Experts say, however, that the two systems quickly diverged as ties between Moscow and Beijing soured.

“The Soviet system was centered on industry, with factory sponsors for each team, while the Chinese system was centered on government and military units,” said Susan Brownell, professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of “Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China.” “This created an aspect in the Chinese system of intense rivalries between the provinces, as well as between provinces and the central government.”

Selection of athletes at the provincial level may begin when they are as young as 6, experts say, with as many as 2 percent of grade school students flagged as promising. These children are placed in all-expenses-paid sports schools and “filtered” through increasingly intensive competitions that weed out all but an elite 80,000 who find homes on provincial teams. Of those, only a tiny fraction will make the next big step, earning a place on China’s national team.

The Strategy of Success

“Pressure doesn’t just come from the central government, but from each province, and even from the cities the athletes come from,” said Mr. Chen, the former Zhejiang Province Sports Bureau director. “Quotas are assigned to each province, and if a province won several gold medals last time, it should perform at least as well this time. The promotion of sports officials in each province depends on how many medals their province has won.”

In many sports, parents can go years without seeing their children, and may speak to them only once or twice a year. But local and provincial officials are unstintingly attentive, showering gifts on the families during Spring Festival, China’s most important holiday, to make up for the children’s absence.

Major changes to China’s sports policy were instituted at the start of the era of economic reform in the early 1980s. Deng Xiaoping, then China’s top leader, announced the “Ten Year Sports Guidelines” and China returned to Olympic competition after a 32-year absence.

This led to greatly increased spending on sports and new training methods, pioneered in the 1980s by Ma Junren, a legendary coach from Liaoning Province who insisted on multiple, grueling training sessions per day for track athletes rather than the two sessions that were customary in the West. Mr. Ma and many of his runners, known as “Ma’s army,” fell into disrepute and were withdrawn from Olympics competition in the late 1990s when many tested positive for steroids.

A pillar of China’s recent strong rise in the Olympics-medal tallies has been the astute targeting of sports where medal opportunities seem greatest. In some categories, competition is relatively thin.

“The Chinese have been very strategic in where they have put their energies,” said Ms. Brownell, a visiting professor at Beijing Sport University. “They have put major efforts into training for new events, so that they can set records as soon as the events come into effect. This has been the case with the triple jump, the pole vault and with women’s weight lifting.”

Speaking of women’s weight lifting, Dai Guangyu, former vice chairman of the China Weight Lifting Association, said China’s national system had allowed it to invest in developing female weight lifters beginning in the 1980s. “Other countries didn’t have that many people involved,” Mr. Dai said.

Since the 2000 Olympics, when women’s weight lifting was introduced, China has won half of the 14 gold medals awarded, and on the eve of the Beijing Games, pressure is as high in this sport as in any to at least hold the line on gold medals. Mr. Dai acknowledged that a successful push in this sport — widely seen as dangerous and unglamorous, making it hard for muscle-bound women to find work or spouses when their careers end — depends on recruiting among the rural poor. With its heavy training, it also depends on being able to closely control an athlete’s life.

Wang Mingjuan, one of three aspirants to represent China in the 48-kilogram category, was asked to try out recently in a higher weight category to give China an even better shot at winning medals. But she injured her lower back and has returned to her normal weight class. Her parents, who say they see her once every three or four years, said she had told them in their last phone call not to worry.

“We don’t have much money, and the life was hard,” her mother, Wang Meiyu, said, explaining the decision to send her to a sports school at the age of 9. “She was so little and we couldn’t see her often, but when we visited, my heart felt bitter and sour. It was so tough.”

Unless Ms. Wang and her teammates win gold, Chen Xiaomin, a women’s weight-lifting champion in the 2000 Olympics, said the bitterness was likely to continue. “It takes at least 10 years’ practice before you can become a world champion,” Ms. Chen said. “Once you win a world championship, you can go to college for free, or work, or become an official. If you don’t, you get nothing but injuries all over your body. No diploma, no job, no skill.”
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by pradeepe »

Looks like half the nation will commit suicide if they dont win the most number of golds in the Olympics.
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Post by wrdos »

For Chinese, the Reality of Higher Gas Prices
Reuters

Image
Cars lined up Thursday at a gas station in Wuhan, China, before the government let companies increase prices up to 18 percent.

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By JIMMY WANG
Published: June 21, 2008

GANSU — Returning the fueling nozzle to the pump, Zhang Li jumped into the driver’s seat of his gas-guzzling Land Rover. “Such a long line,” said the 45-year-old tour guide, shaking his head. “What’s the world coming to? My stocks are worth air, and now I have to wait an hour for overpriced gas, too.”

Mr. Zhang’s lament elegantly captured the twin dilemmas that led China’s leaders to unexpectedly raise gas prices here by double-digit percentages Thursday. While much has been said about China’s hesitance to raise domestic prices for fear of inflation, Beijing was facing an equally vexing problem: artificially low gas and diesel prices were indirectly depressing China’s stock markets by hurting the performance of the energy giants Sinopec and PetroChina.

Price controls have saved Chinese consumers and businesses billions — and prevented the kind of protests that led to rioting, and even a murder at the pump, the last time prices rose.

But controls have also squeezed Sinopec and PetroChina, China’s top oil refiner and producer, respectively. They still had to pay near-record oil prices on world markets even if they were not allowed to charge market prices to consumers. The companies lost money on every gallon of gas they sold in China.

Combined, the companies make up 16 to 20 percent of the Shanghai Composite Index. PetroChina alone had a market capitalization — the total value of all its shares — larger than General Electric or Microsoft at the end of 2007.

Many Chinese investors are angry over the prolonged downturn. “I invested 80 percent of my savings,” said Wang Li, a 30-year-old manager in Shanghai. “And I’ve lost over half my money now. I’m angry — the government’s measures to keep the stock market above 3,000 have failed.”

Such stories are common. Record numbers of Chinese invested in China’s stock market from late 2006 through the end of 2007. Now, many of those investors have been caught in a steep, sustained drop in prices since the end of 2007.

Before the government let diesel prices increase 18 percent and gas prices 16 percent Thursday, the Shanghai exchange had lost 14 percent of its value last week — and more than 50 percent since its high last year.

Sinopec’s Shanghai-listed stock ended 2.1 percent higher Friday. PetroChina rose 4.6 percent, while the Shanghai index gained 3 percent to 2,831.74 points.

The price of light crude fell $4.02 to $132.66 a barrel following the fuel price increase announcement.

Mr. Zhang’s complaints about high gas prices might not elicit sympathy from Americans: after the hikes, prices rose to about $3 a gallon.

As a matter of policy, the Chinese government sets gasoline and diesel prices well below international market prices in order to encourage economic growth. In 2007, China’s subsidy of gasoline alone was $22 billion, close to 1 percent of its gross national product.

While in the past this formula for economic growth worked miracles by allowing businesses and factories in China that use oil to operate at low cost, it is now at the crux of one of China’s biggest policy issues.

With oil prices topping $130 a barrel mark this week, Sinopec and PetroChina shut down gas stations across the country. Long lines formed in front of gas and diesel pumps as the oil giants strove to cut their refining losses by selling less fuel.

The decision by the Chinese government to raise consumer fuel prices illustrates the balancing act Beijing is compelled to perform in advance of the Olympics.

On one hand, raising gasoline prices could stoke inflation, and that could spark protests among poor Chinese who are hit hardest by price increases for staples like food and fuel.

On the other hand, the surprise announcement about the fuel price increases seemed to be a reply, at least in part, to widespread calls for change.

Financial analysts have urged China to raise its gasoline and diesel prices, suggesting prices that more accurately reflect cost will help determine supply. Henry M. Paulson Jr., the United States’ Treasury secretary, this month urged Beijing to reduce subsidies.

Lon Fong Shon, director of China Market Research for JPMorgan, wrote in the June 11 edition of The Securities Times, a Chinese newspaper: “If China were to have the courage to increase gasoline and diesel prices by 20 percent, it will send a message to the global market. Then perhaps global oil prices may fall.”

Back on the highway in Gansu, Mr. Zhang is happy to be exiting the gas station and its long, tiresome lines. He tunes the radio to an upbeat pop song, and rockets his Land Rover down the highway. Then he complains a little more about his stocks:

“When the market took a dive earlier this year, I was really depressed for a while,” he said. “I didn’t go to work several days; I just drank. Now I’m anxious everyday; I watch the stocks and I can’t sleep. I’m just simmering inside with anger. Who knows? One day I might just explode.”

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Lucy Liang contributed research from Beijing.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by ramana »

Do we monitor the quality of education in PRC? Is there a interest for separate thread or use this to capture that info? wrdos would you like ot create a thread on that subject?
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by abhischekcc »

wrdos wrote: Image
Beijing, shrouded in smog on Friday, has heavy air pollution, as does much of the rest of China.
Delhi did not look so bad even before the Supreme Court ordered the polluting industires outof the city. After that, the city only imroved.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

there is a town Linfen in Shanxi province (coal mining hub) which is the most
polluted in PRC. but the title has been snatched by Urumqi - the capital of you know
which province.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04 ... ina_ch.php


Chinese riots over girl's death

Angry crowds have attacked government buildings in south-west China in protest at the death of a teenage girl.

Reports said several thousand people took part in the riots, setting fire to police stations and cars in Wengan county in the province of Guizhou.

Local residents were angered after a police inquiry concluded that the girl, found dead in a river earlier in June, had committed suicide.

Her family accused the son of a local official of raping and killing her.

Order 'restored'

"Local residents were very angry about the injustice exercised by local authorities," one resident, who is a local official, told Reuters news agency.

"About 10,000 people rushed to the site and totally burned down the county party office building, and burned other offices in the county government.

"They also burned about 20 vehicles, including police cars," the official said.

AFP news agency said riots had erupted on Saturday when the girl's uncle was pronounced dead in hospital after seeking justice for his niece.

It quoted locals saying he had been badly beaten - it is not clear by whom.

Chinese news reports said provincial leaders had gone to the area to deal with the unrest.

Xinhua news agency said order began to return after crowds dispersed early on Sunday morning local time.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

in the quest for coal seems the CCP allows thousands of unregulated pvt mines to
dig up as much as they can. its these small mines where 1000s die each year in
accidents.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by wrdos »

Chinese Riot Over Handling of Girl’s Killing
Kyodo News, via Associated Press

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/world ... ref=slogin

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A police building burning Saturday in Weng’an County in Guizhou Province, China. Other government buildings were also burned by rioters.

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By JIM YARDLEY
Published: June 30, 2008

BEIJING — Thousands of people have rioted in a county in southwest China, setting fire to government buildings and overturning cars in angry protests over the official handling of the death of a local teenage girl, according to a human rights group, state news media and videotapes of the events.

The protests in the county of Weng’an in Guizhou Province are another reminder of how quickly public anger can ignite in China over cases of perceived official corruption and malfeasance. For the past few years, public discontent has erupted into small demonstrations and violence across the country.

The protests in Weng’an on Saturday appear to have been larger, reportedly involving thousands of residents, including children. News agencies reported that protesters clashed with paramilitary police officers sent to the county.

In March, thousands of paramilitary police were sent to quell violent anti-Chinese demonstrations in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Videos from Weng’an posted on YouTube showed groups of protesters standing and watching as fires engulfed a local government building.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a Hong Kong-based human rights group, reported that the riot was incited by the case of a teenage girl who was reportedly raped and murdered.

Relatives of the 16-year-old girl blamed the local police for a shoddy investigation and also claimed possible corruption, the group reported. The family said the teenager disappeared after being seen with two young men with family ties to the local public security bureau, the report said.

By Saturday, the human rights group reported, about 500 middle school students had gone to protest at the public security bureau. But the students were turned away and beaten, a move that immediately roused an angry mob of thousands of people who began setting fire to buildings and overturning cars.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported that one person died, 150 were injured and 200 were detained. Officials in the province could not be reached to confirm these figures.

By Sunday morning, a local resident told The Associated Press that the police were using megaphones to urge the crowds to leave while local television channels were calling on people involved in the protests to surrender to the authorities.

“Thick black smoke billowed everywhere,” one resident told The Associated Press. “The incident shows that the social order around here is not stable.”

The state-run news agency Xinhua confirmed the violence in a brief article and said the situation had stabilized. Referring to the investigation into the girl’s death, the news agency reported, “Some people who did not know about the exact context of what had happened were instigated to mob the police station and the office buildings of the county government and Communist Party committee.”

The demonstrations were less than six weeks before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, and security officials are deeply worried about potential outbreaks of unrest across China.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by wrdos »

Capital inflows to China
Hot and bothered

http://www.economist.com/finance/displa ... d=11639442
Image

Jun 26th 2008 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
Despite strict capital controls, China is being flooded by the biggest wave of speculative capital ever to hit an emerging economy

Illustration by Satoshi Kambayashi

A POPULAR game this summer among watchers of the Chinese economy is to guess the size of speculative capital or “hot money” flowing into the country. One clue is that although China’s trade surplus has started to shrink this year, its foreign-exchange reserves are growing at an ever faster pace. The bulk of its net foreign-currency receipts now comes from capital inflows, not the current-account surplus.

According to leaked official figures, China’s foreign-exchange reserves jumped by $115 billion during April and May, to $1.8 trillion. In the five months to May, reported reserves swelled by $269 billion, 20% more than in the same period of last year. But even this understates the true rate at which the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has been piling up foreign exchange.

Logan Wright, a Beijing-based analyst at Stone & McCarthy, an economic-research firm, has done some statistical detective work to make sense of the figures. The first problem is that reported reserves exclude the transfer of foreign exchange from the PBOC to the China Investment Corporation, the country’s sovereign-wealth fund. The reserve figures have also been reduced in book-keeping terms this year by the PBOC “asking” banks to use dollars to pay for the extra reserves that they are now required to hold at the central bank. Adding these two items to reported reserves, Mr Wright reckons that total foreign-exchange assets rose by an astonishing $393 billion in the first five months of 2008 (see chart), more than double the increase in the same period last year.

China’s trade surplus and foreign direct investment (FDI) explain only 30% of this. Deducting investment income and the increase in the value of non-dollar reserves as the dollar has fallen still leaves an unexplained residual of $214 billion, equivalent to over $500 billion at an annual rate. Some economists use this as a proxy for hot-money inflows. But some of it may reflect non-speculative transactions, such as foreign borrowing by Chinese firms. Mr Wright therefore estimates that China received up to $170 billion in hot money in the first five months of 2008. This far exceeds anything previously experienced by any emerging economy.

Michael Pettis, an economist at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, reckons that speculative inflows during that period were perhaps well over $200 billion, because hot money also comes into China through companies overstating FDI and over-invoicing exports. Foreign firms are bringing in more capital than they need for investment: the net inflow of FDI is 60% higher than a year ago, yet the actual use of this money for fixed investment has fallen by 6%. Some of it has been diverted elsewhere.

It is one thing to deduce how much money is coming in. It is another to work out where it is going and how it gets past China’s strict capital controls. The stockmarket, which continues to plunge (see article), is no home for hot money. Some has gone into property. The lion’s share is in bog-standard bank deposits. An interest rate of just over 4% on yuan deposits compared with 2% on dollars, combined with an expected appreciation in the yuan, offers a seemingly risk-free profit for those who can get money into China.

It comes in via various circuitous routes. Big Western investment funds which care about liquidity would find it hard to move money into China, although rumours abound of hedge funds that are investing money through Chinese partners. Trade and investment offers a big loophole for Chinese and foreign firms. Resident individuals can use the $50,000 annual limit for bringing money into China from abroad—many also use their friends’ and relatives’ quotas. Another big loophole lets Hong Kong residents transfer 80,000 yuan ($11,600) a day into mainland bank deposits.

The government is trying to crack down, but that risks shifting the activity towards underground money exchangers. And if the government were to increase its monitoring of FDI and trade flows, the extra bureaucracy could harm the real economy. China needs to reduce the incentive for destabilising capital inflows, rather than block the channels.

Massive hot-money inflows present two dangers to China’s economy. One is that capital could suddenly flow out, as it did from other East Asian countries during the financial crisis a decade ago and Vietnam this year. China’s economy is protected by its current-account surplus and vast reserves, but its banking system would be hurt by an abrupt withdrawal.

A more immediate concern is that capital inflows will fuel inflation. The more foreign capital that flows in, the more dollars the central bank must buy to hold down the yuan, which, in effect, means printing money. It then mops up this excess liquidity by issuing bills (as “sterilisation”) or by lifting banks’ reserve requirements. But all this complicates monetary policy. China’s interest rates are below the inflation rate, but the PBOC fears that higher rates would attract yet more hot money and so end up adding to inflationary pressures. The central bank has instead tried to curb inflation by allowing the yuan to rise at a faster pace against the dollar—by an annual rate of 18% in the first quarter of this year. But this encouraged investors to bet on future appreciation, exacerbating capital inflows. Since April the pace of appreciation has been much reduced, in a vain effort to discourage speculators.
Mass sterilisation

Some economists argue that the problems caused by hot money have been exaggerated. After all, the PBOC has so far succeeded in sterilising most of the increase in reserves. Inflation, at an annual rate of 7.7% in May, has also started to decline, and the impact of last week’s rise in fuel prices is likely to be offset over the next couple of months by falling food-price inflation.

The snag is that money-supply growth would explode without sterilisation, which is now close to its limit. It is becoming very costly for the central bank to mop up liquidity by selling bills, so it is now relying more heavily on raising banks’ reserve requirements (the PBOC pays banks only 1.9% on their reserves, against over 4% on bills). Since January 2007 the minimum reserve ratio has been raised 16 times, from 9% to 17.5%. But it cannot climb much higher without hurting banks’ profits. To curb future inflation, China therefore needs to stem the flood of capital.

One solution would be a large one-off appreciation of the yuan so that investors no longer see it as a one-way bet. This, in turn, would give the PBOC room to raise interest rates. The snag is that the yuan would probably have to be wrenched perhaps 20% higher to alter investors’ expectations, and this is unacceptable to Chinese leaders, especially when global demand has slowed and some exporters are already being squeezed.

This implies that monetary policy will remain too loose. The longer that the torrent of hot money continues and interest rates remain too low, the bigger the risk that underlying inflation will creep up.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

NYT

Algae Threatens Olympic Sailing

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: July 1, 2008

BEIJING — With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algal bloom choking the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.

Volunteers helped to clean up a huge algae bloom in Qingdao on Monday.

Local officials have launched an intense effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports estimate as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The country’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently covers a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic competition.

Water quality has been a concern for the Olympic sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

But officials in Qingdao this week said pollution and poor water quality did not have a “substantial link” to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the bloom on increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea. Algae blooms now affect more than 5,000 square miles of sea water, according to Xinhua.

“We will make all our efforts to finish this job,” said a propaganda official in Qingdao. “Now, forces from the entire province have become involved.” He said ships and boats have been dispatched from two other coastal cities, Rizhao and Yantai, to help haul away the algae.

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympics Sailing Committee, told reporters on Sunday that the government would attempt to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing area by installing a fenced perimeter in the sea that is more than 30 miles long.

“I believe we will make sure the Olympics sailing area is clean by July 15 through our efforts, and make sure the Olympics sailing goes smoothing,” Mr. Yuan said, according to the Shandong News website.

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Residents of Qingdao have been anticipating the city’s Olympic moment for several years. One local newspaper reported that 11,000 college students had volunteered for clean up duty over the weekend. Several companies had organized teams of employees to help.

The massive outbreak comes as some sailing teams are already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics. Photographs in the Australian press showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a training run. A British windsurfer, Bryony Shaw, who has been training in Qingdao, told the English media that the algae would pose significant problems to the competition if it is not cleaned up.

“There’s no way you can sail through it,” Ms. Shaw said. “If it’s still here in August, it could be a real problem.”

Qingdao’s situation represents another challenge for Beijing’s Olympic organizers, who have committed to delivering a clean and healthy environment for the Olympics. Air quality remains a serious concern in Beijing. On Tuesday, the city will begin removing 300,000 high-polluting vehicles, mostly trucks, from local roads. Later in July, the city will institute temporary restrictions to remove half of all vehicles from the streets.

But air quality remains such a problem that officials also are preparing contingency plans that could force temporary factory shutdowns across much of northern China if conditions warrant.


Huang Yuanxi contributed research.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by ManishC »

abhischekcc wrote:
wrdos wrote: Image
Beijing, shrouded in smog on Friday, has heavy air pollution, as does much of the rest of China.
Delhi did not look so bad even before the Supreme Court ordered the polluting industires outof the city. After that, the city only imroved.
Not to nitpick, but Nehru Place in ND at any end of week in 1996-97 looked almost as bad. Come back Monday and you could actually see the traffic below and went steadily downhill thereafter. Anecdotal onlee.
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The Big Crash 0f 2009

Post by Sanjay M »

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Re: The Big Crash 0f 2009

Post by RamaY »

somone was talking about PRC's infra and descipline...

Image

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7483160.stm
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by wrdos »

China's Export Machine Threatened By Rising Costs

wsj.com

As a sign over its main boulevard proclaims, Honghe is 'China's Famous Town for Sweaters.' But the economy of sweater town is unraveling, providing an early sign that China's manufacturing sector may be entering middle age.

Over the past two decades, this city about 90 minutes' drive from Shanghai built a comfortable niche in the global economy. At the industry's height in recent years, more than half of Honghe's 100,000 residents worked in 100 factories and 8,000 shops that knitted, dyed, packaged and shipped some 200 million sweaters a year. The local government says the enterprises brought in $650 million a year in revenue.

Now many exporters and workshops here have shut their doors. Others, their work floors partly idle, are cutting costs. Some of the migrant workers who came here for jobs are returning home.

Manufacturers say their profits have dwindled as they pay out more for raw materials and energy. China's strengthening currency has made Honghe's products more expensive for important markets such as the U.S., where the price of Chinese goods surged a record 4.6% in May from the previous year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Foreign buyers, used to inexpensive Chinese products and nervous about economic weakness at home, are often refusing to pay more.

Beijing, too, has contributed to the squeeze: Companies say the government's tougher protection for workers and the environment has made it more expensive to do business. Foreign buyers say tighter visa policies have made it harder for them to visit Chinese factories or attend trade shows.

These pressures are felt by enterprises across China. But none have been hit harder than the companies that feed the vast global appetite for inexpensive goods such as toys, household goods, shoes and clothes. Manufacturers of low-cost products have been a key engine of China's economic miracle, helping to turn the country into the world's No. 2 exporter after Germany. For years, these companies continued to grow by expanding their volumes and trimming margins to undercut the competition. As material and labor costs rise and China's currency strengthens, these manufacturers are among the least able to absorb the costs.

The transformation is most apparent in the boomtowns that tied their fortunes to making one product cheaply, from Guangdong province in the south to Honghe's environs in the Yangtze River Delta. Many of these manufacturing centers have seen hundreds if not thousands of factories and workshops close in recent months, industry executives say. In Shengzhou, a city near Shanghai that claims to make one-third of the world's neckties, manufacturers are trying to hold a united front to boost prices. Dongguan, in Guangdong, is seeing makers of toys, shoes and brushes close shop.

'This is the year when things finally changed,' says Peter Shay, a fashion-industry consultant in Hong Kong at Marketing Management Group Inc. 'For the first time in memory, prices are going up.'

The shift in fortunes has been swift for entrepreneurs such as Yao Herong, chairman of Jiaxing Yishangmei Fashion Co., one of Honghe's biggest exporters. The family-owned company was booming in 2005, when Mr. Yao landed the biggest customer of them all, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The U.S. market soon accounted for 20% of his business, he says.

But big orders from Wal-Mart and other U.S. customers are drying up, he says. In the workshop floor below his office on a recent day, dozens of knitting machines stood idle. A Wal-Mart spokesman said in an email that the company currently doesn't source at Honghe factories but declined to offer additional comment.

'We are very worried in this business,' Mr. Yao says.

While painful, such difficulties could usher in a more mature phase of China's economic development. The country's sweater industry, like many others, is arguably overbuilt: Honghe is one of at least six Chinese cities claiming to produce more than 100 million sweaters annually. In such low-cost sectors, analysts predict a coming wave of consolidation that could boost efficiency. They say companies will also be forced to innovate so they can compete on factors other than price.

Many Chinese economists and officials think the country has relied too much on cost-cutting and simple production models to boost exports. 'Such a high dependence on foreign trade is not good for China,' says Yu Yongding, a Beijing-based researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank. For the U.S. and Japan, he says, trade is equivalent to around 20% the value of gross domestic product. For China, it is about 75%.

China, of course, is sure to remain an export powerhouse for many years. Export figures from China remain strong because the country also supplies industrial machinery and other higher-value products that are less vulnerable to factors such as rising wages. Plus, the country's roads and ports, and its spectrum of suppliers and businesses that support manufacturers, are a draw that few other developing countries can match.

And China's domestic market of 1.3 billion people is attractive for companies that want to both export and sell within China. In a survey late last year by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, 83% of the responding companies said they planned to keep their production in China. But with rising costs weakening China's appeal as a manufacturing location, some 17% said they would shift at least some operations to other low-cost countries, like India and Vietnam.

For centuries, people in the Yangtze River Delta have been spinning silk into garments. In the 1970s, on the eve of China's jump from central planning to market-oriented reforms, the government opened two big sweater factories in Honghe, a section of Jiaxing City, a flat expanse of factory towns 70 miles southwest of Shanghai.

As the reforms took off in the 1980s, those operations upgraded by importing spinning equipment from Japan and Germany. They placed sales representatives in Beijing to trade with dealers from border nations like Russia and Kazakhstan. By the late 1990s, industry veterans like Mr. Yao began leaving Honghe's state-run enterprises to set up their own companies. In 1999, Mr. Yao and two brothers started making sweaters with 20 employees. Two years later, China joined the World Trade Organization, a step that gave foreign buyers new confidence in Chinese suppliers. By 2002, Mr. Yao says he was receiving orders from Italy and elsewhere in Western Europe.

Four years ago, the Yao brothers expanded, outfitting new factories with imported machines that could make tight, intricate knits. They formed a joint venture with an Australian company and boosted annual production capacity to three million sweaters. With 400 employees of his own, Mr. Yao says he also farmed out work to more than 100 businesses specializing in everything from dyeing wool to packing sweaters into shipping containers.

Honghe's storefronts were stuffed with rolls of yarn and strips of elastic. Couriers peddled tricycles piled high with knitted cotton, acrylic and wool through narrow alleyways. Massive steam-powered machines in central Honghe cooked pigment into yarn. The town's success attracted migrants from poorer, inland provinces, who could earn better money doing piecework than farming fields back home. They rented houses in the villages near town and often brought their children.

The high point for Mr. Yao came three years ago when Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart ordered 160,000 sweaters. The U.S. buyers kept coming back, he said, pushing him to find efficiencies. 'The orders are big and the price is cheap and it's hard,' says Mr. Yao.

Yet just as business in Honghe was heating up, policymakers in Beijing were setting new hurdles. In July 2005, China bowed to pressure from global trading partners to ease its rigid grip on the yuan's exchange rate. The currency had been effectively pegged to the dollar for a decade, despite China's bulging trade surplus. That had created stability for exporters and their foreign buyers, but also angered Western critics who felt it gave Chinese factories an unfair advantage by keeping their prices low in dollar terms.

The yuan's appreciation was slow at first. But last year, it accelerated. The currency has now risen 20% in value against the dollar. The yuan has been losing value against the euro, on the other hand, making Chinese goods more affordable in Europe. But the advantage hasn't been enough for many manufacturers to offset other difficulties.

Like many exporters world-wide, those in Honghe executed their contracts in dollars. As the U.S. currency has fallen, exporters here say they no longer know how much they might earn -- or lose -- when it comes time to deliver sweaters three or four months after they ink a contract. 'We want to be very careful with U.S. dollar orders,' Mr. Yao says.

Beijing, meanwhile, began implementing policies that supported economic growth that was sustainable and modern, not merely fast. This year, the government implemented a labor law that capped factory overtime, limited temporary employment and raised the minimum working age two years, to 18. The new rules were a blow to small operations like those in Honghe that traditionally hired and fired with each production cycle. China has also tightened its environmental oversight, which means Honghe's dyeing companies must now pay to dispose of the chemicals they use, instead of dumping them into the creeks that run through town.

Mr. Yao declined to provide details about how new costs have affected his business. But a buyer for a large U.S. apparel company says that on items like wool cardigans, profit margins for Chinese manufacturers have collapsed to about 30 cents, from $2 a few years ago.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

June 30, 2008 00:00 ET (04:00 GMT)

WSJ(6/30) China's Export Machine Threatened By -2-

Mr. Yao, 50 years old, says he is now looking to other export markets -- often smaller and less lucrative -- and trying to shift sales to the domestic market he once ignored. On a recent day, packers in his main warehouse put 'Mr. Price' brand sweaters in plastic bags destined for South Africa. They were already marked with a retail price of 49.99 rand each, or about $6.25.

This should have been a banner year for Honghe. The $1.68 billion, 22-mile Hangzhou Bay Bridge opened last month, halving travel time to the booming container port at Ningbo. Minutes from downtown Honghe, Wal-Mart is building a large distribution center. And in December, a complex system of textile quotas will expire, unshackling China from annual limits on exports of clothing to countries like the U.S.

The Honghe Township government, responding to questions, says it remains hopeful for the local industry. Job losses have come mainly in less technologically advanced workshops, it says. Sales at some of the town's biggest sweater companies grew about 25% in the first five months of 2008 from a year earlier, it says, though with significant erosion to profit margins.

Locals point out numerous workshops that never reopened after February's Chinese New Year holiday. Companies that remain in business are cutting costs, including dyeing companies whose skeleton staffs now work exclusively at night when electricity isn't as expensive. In a hotel that once catered to buying delegations, the manager scowls at a question about occupancy rates and returns to mopping the floor himself.

Enrollment at Honghe Town Central Primary School, once soaring with sons and daughters of migrant laborers, is off 5% from a 2006 peak, to about 2,200 students, according to Principal Zhang Guopei. A mock-up for an expansion that would have about doubled the number of classrooms now collects dust on an air conditioner in Mr. Zhang's office.

Migrant workers have started going back home. Cao Jiulin, a 20-year-old native of Anhui province, had in recent years persuaded her sister, brother and both parents to join her in Honghe. They rented a small farmhouse, bought five circular knitting machines and a motorized tricycle for deliveries, and hired farmers to till their land back home.

Operating one of Honghe's thousands of small workshops, the Cao family is an example of the fragmentation in many of China's export-oriented industries. Each morning, a family member rides to the town's main market and, if there is work, returns with the tricycle loaded with sweater parts. Working in a room with a bed on one side and electric knitting machines on the other, they would attach the sleeves to torsos and return them, collecting about 23 cents per finished piece. Recent jobs have paid about half as much, family members say, as orders dwindle and competition stays tight.

Ms. Cao's father and mother returned this spring to Anhui, laid off the farmers they'd hired earlier and completed their own harvest for the first time in years. 'There is not much business' in Honghe, her father, Cao Mingfu, says by telephone from Anhui. 'We can hardly make any money every month.'

Sweater-factory boss Mr. Yao, over a lunch of steamed fish and generous sips of yellow wine, says he has gotten hypertension -- 'the boss disease,' he calls it -- trying to figure out how to redirect his output away from weakening markets like the U.S.

Mr. Yao says one idea is to sell more sweaters in China. But he lacks contacts among Chinese retailers. 'We've always been an export company,' he says.

James T. Areddy
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Post by wrdos »

China's Rebuilding Effort Takes On Breakneck Pace

by wsj.com

Image

Time is running short. It has been nearly two months since a massive earthquake in China's Sichuan province leveled towns and left millions homeless.

Government officials have decided that by August they have to come up with a plan for rebuilding a disaster zone covering about 50,000 square miles, an area larger than Indiana. Dozens of towns and cities need to be rebuilt, some nearly from scratch. One of the biggest projects will be Dujiangyan, a scenic and historic city that was heavily damaged.

The rapid rebuilding program plays to the strengths of China's centralized, authoritarian government: its ability to mobilize physical and financial resources across a large nation, and to rouse popular enthusiasm with broad social campaigns.

City governments across China have 'adopted' areas of Sichuan, sending in their own people to jump-start reconstruction. The central government, flush with cash from a booming economy, set aside $10 billion for rebuilding in this year alone, with more to come. There has been little of the dickering over budgets and lines of responsibility that delayed the U.S. effort to rebuild New Orleans after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Yet the breakneck pace set by the government -- three months to plan, three years to rebuild -- is no small challenge. Dujiangyan, as home to a unique 2,000-year-old irrigation project designated a Unesco World Heritage Site, is under particular pressure to do reconstruction right.

The people charged with rebuilding the city themselves need places to stay. With government offices rendered unsafe by the earthquake, planners set up temporary shop in a damaged building with cracks running up and down the walls and gaps in corners because one wall leans outward. Qu Jun, director of the Dujiangyan City Planning Bureau, keeps a cot in his office. Meals of instant noodles and fruit are taken on folding tables in the parking lot.

Mr. Qu unrolls a map of the city and lays out the problem. 'If we don't do it right now we've lost our chance,' he says. 'Over 100,000 people are basically homeless in Dujiangyan . . . . It's inhumane if they stay [in temporary housing] for a long time. Half a year is already too much.'

Few refugees will be lucky enough to spend only half a year in the barracks-like temporary housing now going up around Sichuan. About 7.8 million houses were destroyed by the earthquake, and three times that number were damaged. Even if the planning effort can be finished in August, officials say they won't be able to start building in earnest until winter.

Finding the space is the trick. The old city center is basically unusable: Mr. Qu estimates it will take two years just to clear out the rubble. The temporary housing also will occupy big swaths of land, further reducing the area available for permanent housing. So he thinks Dujiangyan will have to be rebuilt around a new city center, probably one of the small villages on the outskirts of the current town.

To supplement its own resources, the city government has asked architects and planners from France, Malaysia and Japan to contribute to the rebuilding plan. 'Everyone realizes there will be a huge amount of real-estate activity going on in Dujiangyan,' says Harry Lu, head of the Shanghai office of WWCOT, a Los Angeles-based architecture and design firm that is also participating.

But the urgent pace of disaster recovery means throwing standard working procedures out the window. 'Usually, in order to do a master plan like this, we need to live on the site for at least three or four months, in order to understand what kind of weather they have, what kind of population, what kind of industry, what kind of flowers grow there,' says Mr. Lu. Instead, he has a month to do everything. 'The challenges are really huge. The more I think about this project, the more problems occur to me.'

Big decisions will have to be rushed: Does Dujiangyan now need an airport? What kind of buildings could best survive another quake? The planners know they can't aim for perfection.

'We can't guarantee there will be no mistakes in the plan, but we just want to make sure there are no big mistakes,' says Mr. Qu, the head of the city planning bureau. 'Maybe after this urgent drive for reconstruction we can focus on improving the old town. Then we may have more time to focus on that. Now what we want to do is settle the people as soon as possible, and help tourism and the supporting industries recover.'

The old city center was, however, one of the centers of Dujiangyan's busy tourism industry. The city has received more than five million tourists annually in recent years. The city's main park is still closed to the public, and it is easy to see why.

Liu Xianjie, head of the Sichuan Institute of Urban Planning and Design, stops at the base of a pile of rubble. 'Before the earthquake, thousands of people came here every day,' he says, gesturing upwards to an antique temple half-buried in stone and earth. 'I'm afraid it will be very difficult for tourism to recover quickly.' To properly restore the Erwang temple -- dedicated to the builders of the ancient waterworks -- likely will take months of painstaking effort to ensure new work fits with original materials and design.

Nonetheless, tourism seems to be central to how the quake-stricken areas will revitalize themselves. Even away from major destinations like Dujiangyan, many mountain villages in the area have long had some small-scale tourism, offering local sights and rustic hotels. Those sources of income look to become much more important as sharpened safety and environmental concerns restrict industry in the quake-stricken counties.

A county official says two-thirds of the factories in Beichuan -- producing things like cement and lumber -- are so damaged that they won't be able to restart operations in their original locations.There aren't many obvious options to replace the jobs and incomes lost from industry. Tourism sounds good, but in the absence of established draws local officials are getting creative. The earthquake itself has provided some ideas.

Mr. Song says he is looking into preserving the Tangjiashan 'quake lake' as a tourist attraction. The body of water, formed when landslides blocked a river's flow, was the subject of national and international news coverage for weeks as soldiers worked to prevent it from collapsing and flooding the homes of millions of people downhill.

'Now the whole world knows Tangjiashan. It's a brand, and that's something very valuable,' says Mr. Song, sitting outside at a tent at a resettlement camp in his county. A museum commemorating the earthquake is slated to be built in the old county seat of Beichuan, most of which was leveled by the earthquake.

For the locals, emotions are still raw, and such plans seem distant. 'It's a place of tragedy and sad memories. My family and my house are all gone,' says Yan Chun, a 29-year-old mother from Beichuan who lost her husband and her six-year-old son in the earthquake. 'The only comfort for me now is my daughter,' she says, shielding the 4-month-old's head from the Sichuan summer sun.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by wrdos »

China in clampdown on ‘hot’ money

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2348a726-4872 ... 07658.html

By Geoff Dyer in Beijing

Published: July 2 2008 22:47 | Last updated: July 2 2008 22:47

China announced a major strengthening of capital controls on Wednesday in an attempt to limit the amount of speculative “hot money” entering the economy, which is frustrating its efforts to contain inflationary pressures.

In an announcement on its website, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe), the country’s foreign exchange regulator, said that exporters would be required to park revenues in special accounts while the authorities verified the funds were the result of genuine trade.

The new system risks becoming a cumbersome burden for exporters, such as suppliers of cheap goods to western retailers.

Exporters will now be required to provide documentary evidence that their invoices are based on genuine transactions if they wish to change dollars into renminbi. The regulator said the new computer system for checking invoices would be introduced in August 4. A trial period begins on July 14.

Recent leaked figures showed record inflows of capital entering China over the past two months. Officials believe some money came in illegally after companies exaggerated export revenues.

China has become an attractive country for investors and companies because interest rates are now above US levels and the renminbi is expected to appreciate.

According to Reuters, China’s foreign exchange reserves increased by a record $114.8bn in April and May to $1,800bn. Although it is impossible to calculate how much of that inflow is short-term, speculative capital, the figures were substantially higher than the combined numbers for the trade surplus and foreign direct investment.

The capital inflows have made economic management more difficult because, even though domestic inflation has been high in recent months, the Chinese central bank has been reluctant to raise interest rates for fear of attracting more hot money.

Authorities have so far prevented the inflows from causing money supply to grow too sharply by issuing bonds and lifting bank reserve requirements.

However, the bond issues are expensive and some economists believe that the reserve requirements cannot go much higher before smaller banks start to suffer. The authorities are also worried about the impact on the financial system if many investors ever decided to withdraw large amount of funds from the country at the same time.

Although the Chinese authorities have long experience of managing capital controls, the risk is that the new system will be a burden that will damage business.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

Suspected central China revenge blast injures 12, five seriously
www.chinaview.cn 2008-07-02 18:09:20 Print

BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A suspected revenge blast on Wednesday injured 12 people,
including five seriously, in central China's Hunan Province, the local authority confirmed.

The incident occurred around 8:40 a.m. in Zhangjiajie City when a man surnamed Tian drove
an agricultural vehicle with two gas cylinders aboard into a sub-district office, police said.

Before crashing into the office he set the cylinders alight.

All the injured were rushed to a local hospital immediately.

Tian, a Pengjiaxiang Community local, was quickly overpowered.

According to an initial investigation, he had deliberately caused the blast as revenge against
the local government for tearing down an illegal structure owned by him.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Singha »

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/scienc ... index.html

quite funny..worthy of a read ... esp of the officials sleeping in the
show trial. photoshop skills run fairly deep there.... 8)
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by bart »

The glow didn't last. China's online community almost immediately suspected a fake. The tiger was too shiny, they said. And no matter where it was snapped among the trees, its position never changed.
DUH !!! :mrgreen:
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by ArmenT »

Beijing 'failing pollution test'
Just a month to go before the start of the Beijing Olympics, the city is still failing to meet international air quality standards, the BBC has found.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Sanjay M »

China takes the lead in architecture:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/12/arts/13build.php
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Suraj »

Very interesting story about the dynamics between Beijing and Shanghai. Indian readers will be reminded of the Delhi vs Bombay debates - the echoes are similar:
Shanghai, a Star in Eclipse
...
In this chapter of the long rivalry between China's two most influential cities, Beijing is the clear winner. For two weeks in August, it will fill the world's TV screens and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors, while Shanghai languishes with the consolation prizes of a few Olympic soccer games and the prospect of hosting the World Expo in 2010.

For all their bravado, Shanghai's 20 million people know it's true: They have missed out. Nevertheless, they cling to the belief that, compared with their own polished and cosmopolitan selves, Beijingers are like country cousins -- warmhearted, perhaps, but bumptious, ill-mannered and prone to drinking too much rice wine in their dusty hutongs.

"Shanghai has always been a more cultured city than Beijing," said Wang Huijiu, 41, who runs a small antiques shop just off the Bund, the avenue running alongside the Huangpu River where European banks built their elegant Asian headquarters before World War II. "The British came here. The French came here. They all left their imprints. And so Shanghai is more open than Beijing. Beijing people are a little crude."

Like everything else in China, the competition for primacy between Shanghai and Beijing has been going on for a long time. More than folklore, it is a product of China's history, its political system and the regional personalities of its 1.3 billion inhabitants. In the rivalry lies a struggle that, despite the reforms of the past three decades, is still undecided.
...
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by ArmenT »

Suraj wrote:Very interesting story about the dynamics between Beijing and Shanghai. Indian readers will be reminded of the Delhi vs Bombay debates - the echoes are similar:
Southern Chinese (esp. the Hong Kong crowd) have always considered the Northern Chinese as crude barbarians, at least per all my Southern Chinese ancestry friends.

From Wikipedia
The stereotypical Northerner:

* Is taller and bigger
* Has lighter skin (some have purely white skin)

* Has small, slit-like, and/or slanty eyes with single eyelids (i.e. an epicanthal fold)[1]
* Has a longer rugged face (possibly with considerably more facial hair than southerners)
* Speaks a northern Mandarin dialect
* Eats wheat-based food rather than rice-based food
* Is loud, loyal, boisterous, warm-hearted, open, and prone to drunkenness and "thunderbolt" displays of emotion, such as anger


The stereotypical Southerner:

* Is shorter and smaller
* Has darker skin

* Has large, almond-shaped eyes with double eyelids[3]
* Has a smooth, round face
* Speaks a southern dialect such as Wu, Hakka, Yue (Cantonese), or Min
* Eats rice-based food rather than wheat-based food
* Is clever, calculating, wealthy, hardworking, and prone to "mincemeat" displays of emotion, such as brooding melancholy
Now why does this sound so familiar :D.
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Post by wrdos »

In Changing Face of Beijing, a Look at the New China

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/arts/ ... ref=slogin

Article Tools Sponsored By
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: July 13, 2008
BEIJING — If Westerners feel dazed and confused upon exiting the plane at the new international airport terminal here, it’s understandable. It’s not just the grandeur of the space. It’s the inescapable feeling that you’re passing through a portal to another world, one whose fierce embrace of change has left Western nations in the dust.
......
Image
Image
Image
Image
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by Katare »

Chinese do have taste for grandeur! beautiful pictures, I am sure the buildings would be equally beautiful too :mrgreen:
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by sanjaykumar »

The stereotypical Northerner:

* Is taller and bigger
* Has lighter skin (some have purely white skin)
* Has small, slit-like, and/or slanty eyes with single eyelids (i.e. an epicanthal fold)[1]
* Has a longer rugged face (possibly with considerably more facial hair than southerners)
* Speaks a northern Mandarin dialect
* Eats wheat-based food rather than rice-based food
* Is loud, loyal, boisterous, warm-hearted, open, and prone to drunkenness and "thunderbolt" displays of emotion, such as anger


The stereotypical Southerner:

* Is shorter and smaller
* Has darker skin
* Has large, almond-shaped eyes with double eyelids[3]
* Has a smooth, round face
* Speaks a southern dialect such as Wu, Hakka, Yue (Cantonese), or Min
* Eats rice-based food rather than wheat-based food
* Is clever, calculating, wealthy, hardworking, and prone to "mincemeat" displays of emotion, such as brooding melancholy









Now why does this sound so familiar .

:rotfl:


BTW those pics are interesting esp. the blue, prsumably aquatics centre. But I must say why does China hire foreign architects? They are essentially little better than the Gulf states. Dubai is not so interesting when you know that Westernersdesigned those buildings and Indians built them. I am sure the Chinese can do better than just hand out contracts to Westerners.
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Post by wrdos »

China's economy grows 10.4 percent in first half of 2008: govt

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080717/bs ... 0717035158

Wed Jul 16, 11:51 PM ET

BEIJING (AFP) - China's economic juggernaut slowed but still maintained double-digit growth in the first half of the year as it battled domestic inflation and problems globally, official data showed on Thursday.
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China's economy expanded by 10.4 percent in the half of the year and 10.1 percent in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said, down from growth of 11.9 percent recorded for all of 2007.

Bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao said domestic inflation, problems with food supplies and the global economic woes were among the chief concerns for China.

"Pressure for rapid price increases remains high, there are factors constraining steady agricultural production," Li said.

"The international financial situation is severe and there are uncertainties in world economic development."

Nevertheless, he said China's economy remained strong.

"The national economy maintains the momentum of steady and fast growth," he said.

China's consumer price index -- the main gauge of inflation -- rose 7.9 percent in the first half of 2008, with food prices soaring 20.4 percent, according to the bureau.

However inflation has come off its 12-year highs seen earlier in the year, when inflation peaked at 8.7 percent in February.

For June alone, inflation was 7.1 percent, the bureau said.

China had already released data last week showing the nation's trade surplus had fallen nearly 12 percent in the first half, as exporters struggled with the global economic slowdown and particularly problems in the United States.

China's fixed asset investments, the main indicator of state-funded spending on new productive capacity, rose 26.3 percent in the first half of 2008 from a year earlier, the bureau said.

Industrial output, a key measure of activities in the nation's factories, expanded by 16.3 percent in the first half and 16.0 percent for June alone, according to the bureau.

Retails sales were up 21.4 percent in the first six months, and 23.0 percent in June.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by amol.p »

China's New Vehicle Stockpile Reaches Four-Year High

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- China's stockpile of unsold new vehicles rose about 50 percent in the six months ended June, hitting a four-year high, as automakers expanded production and sales growth slowed.

The backlog reached 170,000 vehicles from about 110,000 at the end of last year, Cheng Xiaodong, head of vehicle-price monitoring at the National Development and Reform Commission, said by phone today. Sales prices also fell about 3 percent in the first half from a year earlier, he added.

Sales growth in Asia's biggest auto market weakened in the first half as natural disasters, rising food costs and slower economic expansion tempered demand. The growing stockpile and falling prices will hinder General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. as they seek higher profits in China to offset slumping demand in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

``Automakers were too optimistic when planning their capacity expansion and didn't expect the slowdown,'' said Tang Jun, an analyst at Guangfa Securities Co. in Guangzhou. ``Dealers are hit the most by rising inventory and may have to slash prices further to help with liquidity.''

Shares Slide

Concerns about shrinking profit margins have helped cause Chinese automaking stocks to plunge this year. SAIC Motor Corp., a partner of GM and Volkswagen AG, has fallen 71 percent in Shanghai. It rose 1.3 percent to 7.78 yuan at 1:36 p.m.

Dongfeng Motor Group Co., a partner of Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co., has dropped 36 percent in Hong Kong. It climbed 4.5 percent to HK$3.50 at the 12:30 p.m. break.

Automakers are boosting investments in China as economic growth has caused domestic vehicle sales to rise about fivefold in the past decade. Drivers bought 5.18 million vehicles in the first half, an increase of 19 percent. The market expanded 23 percent a year earlier.

China's economy expanded 10.1 percent in the three months ended June. That was the fourth straight quarter of cooler growth. The country's growth is still the fastest among the world's 20 biggest economies.

Carmakers have ramped up production, slashed prices and debuted new vehicles in a bid to win market share. About 80 new and revamped models were added in the first half, Cheng said. The figure will likely fall to 40 in the second half, he added.

Capacity Expansion

``Automakers were competing in capacity expansion,'' Cheng said. ``The situation may improve in the second half with fewer new models entering the market and rising demand.''

China's vehicle stockpile peaked at about 200,000 at the end of June 2004, Cheng said.

China's auto production capacity may increase 17 percent this year, according to an estimate by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker by value, is spending 3.6 billion yuan ($524 million) to more than double the capacity of a factory in Chengdu to 30,000 vehicles, it said on July 5. The work, which also includes moving the plant, will be completed by the first half of 2010.

Volkswagen, the largest overseas carmaker in China, plans to boost its capacity in the country from 1.08 million vehicles a year through efficiency improvements, it said earlier this month. The company took over a former Fiat SpA plant in Nanjing in April.

First-half sales of light trucks and cars plunged 10 percent to 7.4 million in the U.S., the world's largest auto market, as higher gasoline prices and rising job insecurity crimped demand. New car registrations in the European Union fell 2.7 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by amol.p »

China's Economic Fortunes Swing Toward Recession

Those few last souls clinging to the idea that Asia separated its fortunes from the U.S. have to be sobered by China's latest growth figures. Gross domestic product grew 10.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, down from 11.9 percent for all of 2007.

That's still the kind of growth that economies such as the U.S.'s can only dream about. Yet global developments may prove dangerous for a nation that needs to create millions of jobs to keep people from protesting on Tiananmen Square. The breakdown of China's GDP data may be a harbinger of a difficult year ahead.

Observers are generally offering a balanced take on things.

``The global slowdown has dented external demand, while faster yuan appreciation, higher wages and rising raw material costs have eroded China's export competitiveness,'' says Jing Ulrich, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s chairwoman of China equities in Hong Kong.

Adds Glenn Maguire, Hong Kong-based chief Asia-Pacific economist at Societe Generale SA: ``Slowing economic growth, not rampant inflation, is emerging as the major concern for China's political leaders.''

A more serious scenario comes to mind as one connects the dots a bit. Given the overheating risks in Asia's second-biggest economy, more moderate growth is exactly what China wants. Only, the forces chipping away at GDP aren't internal -- like higher interest rates and administrative steps -- but external.

Heightening Alarm

News that consumer prices rose 7.1 percent in June, down from 7.7 percent in May and a 12-year high of 8.7 percent in February, will be welcomed by officials in Beijing. The relief may be brief, though, when you consider what might unfold in the export markets that drive Chinese growth over the next 12 months.

Trade will provide a smaller contribution to growth, leaving China's expansion to rely heavily on domestic consumption and fixed investment. The latter may cushion things a bit; the former explains why the Chinese government should be watching events in the U.S. with heightening alarm.

U.S. consumers remain a more potent force in Asia than the region's central banks. That can be seen in how Asia has amassed trillions of dollars of foreign-exchange reverses. The buildup keeps currencies from rising versus the U.S. dollar, making export industries more competitive. Demand from U.S. households still means virtually everything in this region.

Bad Way

Trouble is, U.S. consumers are in a pretty bad way. The worst housing recession in 25 years will have an exponentially negative effect on the biggest economy. The perilous state of finances at U.S. government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shows that the subprime-loan crisis is spreading far and wide.

There's relief that U.S. officials are coming to the rescue. Many also are heartened that the U.S. has avoided a statistical recession, or two consecutive quarters of contraction. Yet the economic gloom in the U.S. is hard to ignore.

An adjustment in perceptions seems necessary. In a largely service-based economy, anything in the vicinity of 1 percent growth is arguably recessionary. The idea is that service- industry employees, many of whom aren't unionized, may lose their jobs faster today than manufacturing workers did years ago.

China also requires a different set of goals. For a 1.3 billion-person, labor-intensive, developing economy, growth near 7 percent would be a recession. If financial and housing woes drag down U.S. consumption, as some analysts expect, Chinese officials will be hard-pressed to maintain acceptable growth.

Price Increases

Inflation complicates things. While Chinese consumer prices are heading in the right direction, real interest rates are close to negative. With its annual inflation near the central bank's benchmark lending rate, China will need to be highly creative to stabilize growth without fueling price increases.

The concern for economists such as Stephen Green, head of China research with Standard Chartered Plc in Shanghai, is that the central bank will be under increasing pressure to add liquidity to the economy, boosting credit growth.

``We would likely see an explosion of loan growth and a rapid reflation of asset markets, including housing,'' Green says.

Concerns about exports are almost certain to slow the yuan's gains against the dollar. While good news for China's exporters, that would leave the economy more vulnerable to the rising costs of energy and food shipped from overseas. Producer-price trends suggest that even if China's economic risks are waning, inflation remains a threat.

Serious Obstacles

Also, China can't nimbly shift from relying on exports to domestic demand. The millionaires created in recent years as Chinese stocks rallied garnered considerable press attention. Far less focus went to the hundreds of millions living on a few dollars a day. Chinese consumers have great potential, but they are far from ready to replace their U.S. counterparts.

That goes for much of Asia. The region has done less than it should have over the last decade to boost domestic demand.

China's GDP trajectory isn't a reason to panic. It is, however, a sign that the fastest-growing major economy is encountering serious obstacles.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home
amol.p
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by amol.p »

Bank of China may hold huge US debt

Bank of China Ltd may own about $20 billion of debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, representing two-thirds of total holdings among the six largest Chinese banks, according to CLSA Ltd.

The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae investments would amount to about 2.6 percent of total assets at Bank of China, the nation's third-biggest, CLSA analysts said yesterday in a note to clients. That compares with 0.09 percent at larger Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), they said.

ICBC may have $1 billion of securities linked to the two beleaguered US home loan companies, while China Construction Bank Corp, the second largest, may have $7 billion of such holdings, according to the report. China CITIC Bank Co may own $1.4 billion of agency debt, CLSA said.

The government-sponsored companies tumbled on Tuesday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading as investors lost confidence in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to shore up their finances. Moody's Investors Service reduced the lenders' financial strength ratings, saying credit losses may jeopardize dividend payments on preferred shares.

As most Chinese banks classify the holdings as available-for-sale or held-to-maturity, they are unlikely to book a loss on their income statements, and declines in bond prices in July won't affect first-half earnings, CLSA said.
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Re: PRC Economy News and Discussions-II

Post by wrdos »

China Begins Pulling Soldiers Out of Quake Zone

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/world ... ina&st=cse

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Children waved to departing soldiers on Monday in Deyang, China.


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By EDWARD WONG
Published: July 22, 2008

MIANZHU, China — Packed into trucks and buses, tens of thousands of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army began leaving southwestern China’s earthquake zone on Monday, signaling a shift here from short-term recovery efforts to long-term reconstruction work.
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The first stage of the troop departure, involving about 40,000 soldiers, came on the orders of President Hu Jintao, just over two months after the earthquake struck, according to Xinhua, the official state news agency.

In the afternoon, a long stretch of six-lane highway south of this city, in northern Sichuan Province, was lined with more than 100 green army trucks and civilian minibuses waiting to depart. Soldiers in fatigues loitered by the vehicles or slept inside. Many had the same tired, bored or far-off look of the soldiers who were bused into the chaotic quake-stricken cities in the hours after the earthquake hit on May 12.

“They did a good job and they’re very young, 18 or 19 years old, just like our children,” said Yu Tingyun, 42, a driver from north of Mianzhu who lost his only child, an 18-year-old daughter, in a school collapse during the earthquake.

The 7.9-magnitude tremor razed entire towns and villages in this mountainous swath of China, leaving nearly 70,000 people dead and 18,000 missing. China mobilized 130,000 military service members and police officers in the broadest deployment of the nation’s armed forces since a border war with Vietnam in 1979.

Soldiers were quickly deployed into the ravaged areas, many hiking into the mountains and across landslide-blocked roads. Most were untrained in rescue work, prompting criticism from some Western analysts of the People’s Liberation Army.

But many Chinese have praised the army’s work. Xinhua reported that as of Friday, the armed forces had repaired more than 9,200 miles of road, built 220,000 shelters and relocated more than 1.4 million people.

Xinhua also highlighted the martyrdom of Wu Wenbin, 26, a soldier who died on June 18 from “massive blood loss in the lungs due to overwork in quake-relief missions.”

A television documentary about the army’s rescue work has the English words “Super Warriors” in a corner of the screen. Sweeping movie theme music accompanies the footage.

At an intersection north of Mianzhu, a large billboard shows soldiers in heroic action: fording a river to reach quake survivors, carrying two babies in their arms and cradling the head of a woman drinking from a canteen.

The unit is one posted in Yunnan Province. Its nickname is Iron Army.

“The local military troops aren’t as good as the soldiers from outside,” said Huang Lianfen, 33, whose teenage nephew was killed in the same school collapse as Mr. Yu’s daughter. “The ones from outside have better machinery. After they arrived, the rescue work went very quickly. They arrived three days afterward.”

Ms. Huang said the soldiers from Beijing and Shenzhen, a booming city north of Hong Kong, seemed especially well equipped. But she had kind words for all the troops.

“The soldiers were tired,” she said. “We offered our food to them, and they didn’t even take it.”

Ms. Huang’s words echo the legends surrounding the Communist Army that Mao led to victory in the Chinese civil war. It was said that those soldiers were so well behaved they did not even take thread from the homes of villagers to mend their clothes.

“We sent a red banner to some soldiers to thank them,” Mr. Yu said of the present-day warriors. “But they refused it, saying this was their job.”
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