Month: December 2020

(Peoples Daily Online)11:13, August 21, 2020

With ocean shipping and air transportation greatly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, China-Europe freight trains have become the main bridge connecting the Eurasian continent, using Chinas strength to contribute to the global fight against the epidemic, with its unique advantages of high efficiency and sectional transportation.

Chinese and French representatives pose for a photo in front aChina-Europe freight train loaded with anti-pandemic supplies in Paris, June 23, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)

With the epidemic situation at home stabilizing, China is quickly organizing its transport resources and sending all kinds of epidemic prevention materials to other countries through the China-Europe freight trains.

The first China-EU train carrying epidemic prevention materials was dispatched from Yiwu in east Chinas Zhejiang province on March 21. By the end of July, a total of 4.97 million pieces – or 39,000 tons – of epidemic prevention materials had been delivered, proving greatly effective in supporting prevention and control efforts against the international epidemic.

The China-Europe freight trains have played an increasingly prominent role in stabilizing the central European and global industrial supply chains. The automobile industry is a typical example: since July, five special trains for Audi have arrived in Changchun, northeast Chinas Jilin province, from Bremen, Germany.

Correspondingly, Chinese auto parts such as glass, tires, wheels and seats can be shipped to Germany in just two weeks through the China-Europe freight trains, supplying Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other auto companies.

Some of the goods that were originally supposed to be transported by sea are now being transferred to the railway, said Dong Wanxu, general manager of Germanys DBO Bahnoperator GmbH Company, adding that in April this year, the company was responsible for the operation of 80 China-European trains, more than double that of the same period last year. The central European train station in Duisburg, Germany, even became so congested that the company had to send some of the trains to surrounding city stations.

In the first seven months of 2020, freight services between Chinese cities and destinations along the Eurasia trade routes came to 6,354 trips, an increase of 41 percent from a year earlier.

(Xinhua)11:57, August 21, 2020

PARIS, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) — Several major U.S. multinational companies have expressed concern over Washingtons ban on Chinese tech companies, according to a report by French newspaper Le Monde.

During a telephone conference held last week, more than a dozen U.S. tech giants, including Apple, told the White House that Chinese companies such as Huawei, TikTok owner Bytedance and WeChat owner Tencent are important partners, and that the ban could have a severe impact on U.S. companies, the report said.

Apple said it could have a lot to lose as a result of such a ban, as Chinese customers are unlikely to buy iPhones if the hugely popular app WeChat cannot be installed on them, Le Monde reported.

A total of 15-20 percent of Apples sales are from China, it reported, adding that according to Research Gate analyst Ming-Chih Kuo, the ban could reduce the companys sales in China by 25-30 percent.

Other U.S. tech giants, such as Intel and Nvidia, 25-30 percent of whose revenues comes from China, as well as Geneva-headquartered electronics and semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics, have said the sanctions will negatively affect their activities, it reported.

Meanwhile, Ford, Walmart, the NBA and other U.S. companies and associations, whose games are broadcast in China by Tencent, as well as Warner Music Group and video game studios Riot Games, Supercell and Epic Games, who have Tencent in their capital, have also raised similar concerns.

Citing a poll published on Aug. 11 by the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce, the media report said 86 percent of all the 100 members of the chamber believe the tensions between Washington and Beijing have already affected their activities.

Washington announced on Monday its decision to take further restrictive measures against Huawei, adding the Chinese tech giants affiliates to the U.S. Commerce Departments economic blacklist and cutting off its access to advanced U.S. chips.

The unilateral decision marks the latest episode in the current U.S. administrations reckless pursuit of a digital gunboat policy under the guise of so-called national security concerns. Steps are also being taken to crack down on a slew of other Chinese tech companies, including Bytedance and Tencent.

(Xinhua)13:44, August 21, 2020

NEW YORK, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) — The number of flights between China and the United States will double this month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC).

An order from the DOT announced on Tuesday said that it will allow the four Chinese airlines currently performing scheduled passenger services to the United States to increase their services to eight weekly round-trip flights.

On Monday, CAAC said that the U.S. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are able to double their weekly China services to two round-trip flights.

The Trump administration had threatened to ban Chinese passenger airlines flying to and from the United States in early June, allowing only limited services between the two countries.

(Peoples Daily Online)16:26, August 21, 2020

China’s daily power generation has hit new highs in July. As urbanization continues to improve and financial enterprises keep supporting the real economy, the national economy recovered steadily in July.

(Photo/Xinhua)

Social electricity consumption is regarded as an economic barometer. From the recent data released, social electricity generation and electricity consumption are both growing positively.

In terms of power generation, industrial power generation at and above the national scale increased by 1.9 percent in July compared with the same period last year. Among them, hydropower, nuclear power and wind power generations increased by 6.1 percent, 6.7 percent and 23.2 percent respectively over the same period last year.

Referring to electricity consumption, in July the electricity consumption of the whole society increased by 2.3 percent compared with the same period last year. Among them, the electricity consumption of the primary, tertiary and residential industries increased by 11.6 percent, 5.3 percent and 13.8 percent respectively compared with the same period last year.

The electricity consumption of the secondary industry decreased by 0.7 percent compared with the same period last year, mainly due to a decline in the growth rate of electricity consumption in high energy-consuming industries such as electricity, building materials, iron and steel.

In the manufacturing industry, the electricity consumption of the automobile manufacturing industry increased by 20.3 percent compared with the same period last year, and electricity consumption of the furniture manufacturing industry, computer communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing industry, general equipment manufacturing industry, electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry, and food manufacturing industry all grew by more than double digits.

From a regional point of view, electricity consumption is growing in 20 provinces across the country, including Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guangdong, Tibet, Fujian, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan, with a growth rate of more than 10 percent.

Preliminary analysis shows that daily power generation across the country is reaching new highs, which is not only a result from the continuous high temperatures and the need for air conditioning, but also reflects the continued steady recovery of the national economy, Meng Wei, spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission said.

(Xinhua)09:30, August 08, 2020

A staff member helps a citizen deal with affairs at the government affairs service center of Daxing District in Beijing, capital of China, May 22, 2020. (Xinhua)

Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, new headquarters, factories and industrial projects of various international giants as well as local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have been mushrooming across China.

The worlds second-largest economy is unswervingly improving its business environment, nurturing fertile ground for the growth of various companies and injecting vitality into the domestic and global economy.

WIDER OPENING-UP COMMITMENT

U.S. agribusiness giant Cargill on Wednesday announced the opening of the Asia Pacific headquarters of its agricultural supply chain in Shanghai, further demonstrating the companys continued commitment to Chinas market.

We are grateful for the strong support from the Shanghai municipal government with this strategic location, said Robert Aspell, president of Asia Pacific for Cargill. He added that Shanghai would play a crucial role in the companys efforts to better serve customers in both China and other parts of the Asia Pacific region.

We will unswervingly welcome international enterprises and investors to invest and run business in Shanghai. We will create a world-class business environment and expand development space for all enterprises, said Gong Zheng, mayor of Shanghai, during a video call with Cargill.

Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, foreign investors have increased their investment in Shanghai in a bid to cash in on the business opportunities in China. The city received 10.28 billion U.S. dollars in foreign investment in the first half of 2020, up 5.4 percent year on year.

While foreign businesses beef up presence in the Chinese market, domestic firms have accelerated business resumption as the epidemic waned.

Tianjin Golden Wheel Bicycle Group Co., Ltd saw its exports in the first half of 2020 recover to the level in the same period last year.

China continues to create an open, fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment, offering more opportunities to the world, thus helping stabilize the unsettled global economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a key factor for global companies to find the Chinese market attractive, said Quan Heng, secretary of the leading Party members group at Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations.

COMPREHENSIVE AND TARGETED REFORMS

According to the World Banks Doing Business 2020 report, China made significant progress in the 2005-2020 period, compared to any other large economy in terms of facilitating the ease of doing business.

We were happy to see measures including trimming the negative list, optimizing business environment and strengthening intellectual property protection, said Ker Gibbs, president of the American Chamber of Commerce Shanghai.

Since 2018, Shanghai has taken 286 targeted measures to improve the business environment, unveiling more than 70 reform policies and launching over 20 new public service systems, according to the municipal government.

Reforms have also been adopted in other parts of the country.

Since Tianjin implemented the shipside delivery reform to reduce customs clearance time, a container of imported goods can be picked up within three hours, saving some 300 yuan (about 43 U.S. dollars) per day, said You Tingguang, manager with a Tianjin-based trading company.

Local authorities have also taken a slew of measures to help businesses tide over the uncertainties caused by the epidemic. According to the Tianjin Golden Wheel Bicycle Group Co., Ltd, as 10 customs authorities have piloted cross-border B2B e-commerce exports nationwide, the company received approval for doing business within a day, thereby buying it more time to seize business opportunities during the epidemic.

We have also received subsidies for water, electricity consumption and employment stabilization, as well as low-interest loans to help ease operation costs, said the groups general manager Yang Yufeng.

TECHNOLOGY DRIVER

According to the World Bank report, the proliferation of e-government services is one of the key factors driving Chinas success in improving the business environment.

Wang Qingyuan, 30, who owns a hair parlor, found it far more convenient than before when she recently applied to cancel the license of her shops old address.

Upon reaching the government service center at Beijings Daxing District, she logged into a mobile app through Alipay. The app ran facial recognition using her cellphone camera, enabling the staff to check all her information instantly.

A woman shops at Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trade Center in Shanghai, east China, April 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

Corporate information and certificates can now be checked online as they are digitally stored. Besides, with the application of blockchain technology, one cannot tamper with the data, thus assuring authenticity.

In Beijing, some 140 e-government service centers have adopted blockchain technology, which can reduce paper use by an average of 40 percent.

Shanghai officially launched a comprehensive portal for administrative services in October 2018, which applied technologies such as blockchain, AI and big data.

Since its launch, the service has registered more than 29 million individual users and 2 million legal person users. The portal has handled over 60 million cases.

China leads the world in the application of blockchain technology, said Huang Zhen, a professor with the Central University of Finance and Economics. The technology is widely used not only in the financial sector but also in government services, which has become a key driving force for improving the business environment.

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(Xinhua)12:02, August 13, 2020

Car sales in China accelerated in July, which provided support to the worlds auto giants, Bloomberg said in a recent report.

Retail sales of sedans, SUVs, minivans and multipurpose vehicles increased 7.9 percent in July year-on-year to 1.63 million units.

Volkswagen, a world leading car maker, rose more than 40 percent from a mid-March low in the Chinese market. General Motors Co was up more than 60 percent over that span, while Tesla sold 11,014 autos in July in China, as the best seller of pure electric vehicles.

Steve Man, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong, expected that German and Japanese brands will benefit the most from the auto market improvement, but GM and Ford Motor Co. may get hit because of the escalating China-U.S. tensions.

(Xinhua)10:17, August 13, 2020

The 2020 China International Fair for Investment Trade (CIFIT) and the Belt and Road Investment Congress will kick off on Sept. 8, as scheduled, in Xiamen, east Chinas Fujian Province, local authorities said Wednesday.

The pavilions featuring investment and industry promotion will cover an exhibition area of around 110,000 square meters, with 16 specialized display zones, the Fujian provincial government said at a press conference.

The scale of offline activities, however, will be controlled due to epidemic prevention and control requirement.

Currently, a total of 209 merchant groups have planned to attend the exhibition, with exhibitors from 35 countries and regions, including Britain, Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea, making clear their intention to participate in the event.

This years fair will focus on themes including new infrastructure, digital economy, and scientific and technological innovation, said Lin Jian, deputy mayor of Xiamen.

There will be an industrial internet innovation and development conference, as well as high-tech, smart-city and fintech exhibitions to display new technologies and products, Lin said.

Meanwhile, the fair will hold a series of forums on the latest global economic development trends within the context of epidemic prevention and control.

In addition, this years CIFIT has cooperated with Alibaba Group to set up an online platform to provide services including online display, project docking, investment negotiation, forum discussion and cloud signing. The platform will be available to more than 40 countries and regions that take part in the fair.

The CIFIT, approved by the State Council, takes place every September in Xiamen. It aims at promoting bilateral and multilateral economic and trade exchanges and partnerships.

(Xinhua)12:04, August 13, 2020

China is expected to play the role of a locomotive for powering global recovery in the post-pandemic era, a Swiss economist has said.

The Chinese market has become an important growth driver because of its size and its continuing expansion, Rudolf Minsch, chief economist at Swiss national business federation Economiesuisse, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Moreover, it is absolutely crucial that China is opposing any tendency to reverse globalization, Minsch said, adding China has been keeping up the effort to establish a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment.

The most important part of Chinese economic policy today, in my view, is the commitment of the government to widening the door to the world, despite the difficulty arising from the coronavirus crisis, Minsch said.

Open markets are key to the long-term growth of China and are so to the rest of the world, he added.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Switzerland and China. Since 2010, China has been Switzerlands biggest trading partner in Asia and its third largest globally after the European Union and the United States. A free trade agreement between the two countries was signed in 2013 and entered into force on July 1, 2014.

There are so many Swiss companies in China, collaborating with Chinese firms as customers, as suppliers or as research and development partners, Minsch noted.

While those companies face tough competition in the Chinese market, they also have huge opportunities to benefit from the very efficient and speedy way of Chinese enterprises to develop new products and services, he said.

In most cases, the products and services of the two countries are complementary. In parallel with the higher income of the Chinese population, the demand for Swiss products and services will rise, he added.

(Xinhua)12:06, August 13, 2020

Chinas central bank Thursday pumped cash into the banking system via reverse repos to maintain liquidity.

The Peoples Bank of China injected 150 billion yuan (about 21.6 billion U.S. dollars) into the market through seven-day reverse repos at an interest rate of 2.2 percent, according to a statement on the website of the central bank.

As no reverse repos matured on Thursday, the central bank injected a net 150 billion yuan into the banking system, a new high since July 17.

A reverse repo is a process in which the central bank purchases securities from commercial banks through bidding, with an agreement to sell them back in the future.

China pursues a prudent monetary policy in a more flexible and appropriate way, according to this years government work report.