U.S Commercial Service - American Embassy, Beijing
Vol. 2 No. 177
The China Commercial Brief is a biweekly publication featuring summaries about developments in China's various commercial sectors, tips on doing business in China, and U.S. Embassy news. This publication is free of charge; please forward it to your colleagues and friends who are interested in China.
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Editor: Matt Gettman
Contributors: CS Chengdu, Michael Mei, Yan Shen, Qiu Jing, Xianmin Xi, Yue Cao
News Briefs
In addition to the article summaries provided by CS Beijing, our four China branch offices - Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang - submit summaries of commercial articles from their local press to the CCB on a rotating schedule. This week we are pleased to feature a contribution from our Chengdu post.
1. Largest Deep-water Wharf in Southwest China is Under Construction / City on Way to Popularizing Digitized Hospitals
2. China to set up Competitive Wind Power Industry
3. Beijing Hotel Prices On The Rise
4. China has 692 million Phone Subscribers
5. China in Need of High-End Mobile Phone Components
1. Largest Deep-water Wharf in Southwest China is Under Construction / City on Way to Popularizing Digitized Hospitals
The largest comprehensive deep-water wharf in Southwest China broke ground on June 5 in Zhujiaba, Changshou County, Chongqing. With an estimated investment of USD 60.5 billion (RMB 500 billion), the project aims at building an important logistics distribution center integrating waterway, roadway, and railway at the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Having an annual throughput capacity of 300 tons, the newly constructed pier will allow giant tonnage-level fleets to drive directly into Changshou County by 2007.
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The Sichuan People’s Hospital recently became the first to realize digitized service in the province. Prescription models are stored in computers so that doctors need just revise the content of the model to save time and guarantee accuracy. Computers are also widely used in fee transactions for patients and even for chatting online inside hospital wards. The Sichuan People’s Hospital has spent seven years and over USD 1 million (10 million RMB) on its digitization project, and it is expected that the practice will be widely adopted in hospitals throughout the city. In another development, the province recently mapped out ten measures to facilitate the medical treatment, including: setting up more hospitals and local medical treatment centers; lowering prices of medicine; publishing fee standards for medical treatment; educating medical practitioners on work ethics; and, sending medical teams to poor villages and towns.
(Source: Chengdu Weekly News,06/05/ 2005, - Translated by CS Guangzhou)
2. China to set up Competitive Wind Power Industry
The Energy Bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission has decided to set up a complete wind power generating industrial system by 2010 with wind power technology levels, reaching international levels by that time.
China has installed 1300 sets of wind power generators and built 43 wind farms with a total installed capacity of 760 MW. However, China’s wind power construction is still at the primary stage. The low level of wind generator manufacturing, shortages of technical personnel and Chinese Government policies have previously restricted rapid expansion efforts.
In China’s mid and long term energy strategy, the installed capacity of wind power is planned to reach 4GW by 2010, and local-made equipment should have a majority share of the large wind farms. The tariffs on wind power will be further cut to compete with that of normal power generation. Meanwhile, China’s rules and policies on power development will be made and a renewable energy quota guarantee system will be implemented. By 2020, the installed capacity of wind power is planned to reach 20GW and several GW level wind power bases will be set up in regions with rich wind resources.
(Source: China Electric Power News, 05/24/ 2005 - Translated by Michael Mei)
3. Beijing Hotel Prices On The Rise
Guests at Beijing’s top hotels will soon pay more for their rooms as the city’s hotel prices catch up with their counterparts in New York, London and Tokyo.
Guest room prices in Beijing will continue to rise 6 per cent each year until the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Currently, Beijing’s average hotel room price is only USD 50 (RMB 413) a night. However, hopefully by the end of the June, the Beijing Tourism Administration will release a guideline on Beijing hotel rates, in a bid to keep Beijing’s hotel rates growth at 6 per cent annually until 2008. This is in line with the commitment Beijing made with the International Olympic Committee.
(Source: Beijing Daily, 06/15/2005, - Translated by Shen Yan)
4. China has 692 million Phone Subscribers
According to the latest figures released by the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) on June 21, the number of phone subscribers in China reached a record of 692 million at the end of May.
This is a net rise of 44.778 million subscribers in the first five months of this year over the end of last year, said MII in its press release.
The number of mobile phone subscribers rose 23.724 million in the first five months, making the cell phone users 358 millions at the end of May, said the MII.
Though facing heated competition brought by mobile communications, the number of fixed-line subscribers rose 21.05 million over the end of last year to 333 million at the end of May.
MII said that in the first five months of the year, China's total revenue of post and telecommunications reached USD 30.98 billion (RMB 256.11 billion), up 10.5 percent over the same period last year. Postal revenue was USD 2.82 billion (RMB 23.29 billion), a rise of 6.3 percent year-on-year, and the telecom revenue hit USD 28.17 billion (RMB 232.81 billion), up 10.9 percent year-on-year.
(Source: CEIS, 06/21/2005, - Translated by Qiu Jing)
5. China in Need of High-End Mobile Phone Components
China's export of mobile phones and import of mobile phone components continued to increase in the first quarter of 2005. According to CCID (China Center for Information Industry Development), China exported 38.32 million mobile phones units, valued at USD 3.7 billion (RMB 30.58 billion), up 36% over the same period last year. Since China has become a big manufacturer of mobile phones, mobile phone imports decreased by 15.23% in the first quarter of this year. China imported 3.19 million mobile phones units, valued at USD 329.96 million (RMB 2.7 trillion) in the first quarter of 2005, according to CCID.
High-end components, however, are dominating the mobile components market, as single function mobile phones are giving way to mobile multi-media terminals. The emergence of intelligent mobile phones with new features such as improved audio quality, color screen, camera or video camera, PDA and computing functions is creating demand for innovative technology-intensive chips, displays, PCBs and batteries that provide or support these new features and functions.
China still relies on imported critical technology and components for its mobile phone industry. CCID research indicates that China imports much higher priced mobile phone components while exporting significantly lower priced components during the first quarter of 2005.
According to CCID, China's total import and export value of ICT products recorded USD 97.6 billion (RMB 806.66 bilion) in the first quarter of 2005, up 23.6% over the same period last year. Imports reached USD 44.53 billion (RMB 368 billion ), up 16.9%; exports reached USD 53.12 billion (RMB 439.04 billion), an increase of 29.9%.
(Source: China Electronics Daily, 06/3/2005, - Translated by Xianmin Xi)
6. Opportunities for Chemical Equipment Industry in Next Five Years
A sustained rapid growth of China’s petroleum and chemical industry in the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010) will provide a gratifying development opportunity for the chemical equipment industry in the coming five years, predicts the China Association of Chemical Equipment Industry (CACEI).
In the next five years, oil refining and ethylene will develop as the leading and core sector of China’s petroleum and chemical industry; farm use chemical sector will be further developed; the demand for fine chemical products and new-type materials will grow rapidly; and, the rising automobile industry will continue driving the tire industry. Moreover, China’s access to the WTO also provides a fine opportunity for its export of chemical equipment.
CACEI predicted that China’s chemical equipment industry would present seven development trends. They are:
- Traditional brand and advantage products such as high-pressure container of large synthetic ammonia and urea equipment, will still take up a big market share.
- Equipments needed for renovation of energy-saving technology and readjustment of product mix of petrochemical enterprises will have a big development space. They include slurry gasification oven, radial ply tire equipment, large-scaled internal mixer, cold feeder rubber machine, cutter and section-shaped vulcanizer.
- High-efficiency and energy-saving equipment will usher in a big market as energy-saving has been a basic state policy concerning the future economic development.
- Development and innovation of environmental protection equipment will become a new point of growth of the chemical equipment sector.
- Larger scaled petrochemical devices bring about more demands for large equipment. For instance, polymerization autoclave for polyethylene device use will be 85-110 cubic meters in size
- Export products and import substitute products will have big development potentials. Specifically, the export of tire sectioned-shaped vulcanizer faces a bright prospect, radial ply tire equipment is of obvious price advantage as compared with imported ones, and the future demand for ion-exchange membrane electrolyzer is optimistic.
- Oil and chemical products storage and transportation equipment will obtain a certain market share. The variety of rail and road tank cars will be increased.
(Source: China Economic Information, 06/23/2005 -Edited by Yue Cao)
Consulate News: Chengdu
In keeping with our goal of making the CCB a more integrated publication, our four China branch offices - Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang - submit consulate news to the CCB on a rotating schedule. This week, we are pleased to feature a contribution from CS Chengdu.
A Sino-U.S. Trade Seminar was held on May 26, organized by the Sichuan Provincial Government and Sichuan CCPIT as part of the Western Trade Fair. CG Moon and his staff from Econ/Pol and CS Chengdu gave PowerPoint presentations on the U.S. Consulate Chengdu’s main functions and services. About 70 representatives from U.S. and Chinese companies participated in this trade seminar. The Sichuan Provincial Government expressed their sincere thanks to the U.S. Consulate and welcome more U.S. products into Sichuan.
For more information on CS Chengdu and the Chengdu consular region, visit our website at http://www.buyusa.gov/china/en/chengdu.html
DISCLAIMER: CS China does not guarantee the veracity of the original sources of our news summaries. While we do our best to report accurate and timely articles and news sources, you should always check the source for further information.
The China Commercial Brief is a free newsletter published by the U.S. Embassy - Beijing.