14th June 2010

The Lion Awakes 

News at a Glance

今天的中国新闻

A compilation of Headlines + Brief Summary from Chinese & International Publications relating to China.

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China News Archive

From 2008

China Daily

Lijiang celebrates 5 th Cultural Heritage Day

China Daily

Exports unlikely to affect forex policy

BEIJING - Faster-than-expected export growth in May is unlikely to prompt the government to have a major rethink of its current policies on trade and the currency.

Yao Jian, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said the "stability" of China's cis "paramount", given the murky economic situation in Europe, which is China's biggest trade partner.

He said robust exports in May were mainly a result of orders booked before the deepening of Europe's debt crisis.

"In the next few months, the negative impact of Europe's debt crisis on Chinese exports may gradually show up," Yao said on Saturday.

SCO bloc to promote Afghan stability

China supports the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in playing a bigger role in promoting the peaceful reconstruction and long-lasting stability of Afghanistan, Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday said at the annual SCO summit in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan.

Hu said that SCO can play a unique role in solving the Afghanistan problem.

China is also willing to work with other SCO member states to continue to provide affordable help to the people of Kyrgyzstan, Hu said.

Hu added that China hopes with sincerity that Kyrgyzstan can bring back stability, social development and happiness as soon as possible.

Beijing vows to extend medicare coverage to all

BEIJING -- Beijing Saturday launched a medicare reform vowing to increase medical resources so as to cover the city's 17 million permanent residents into its medicare system.

Tackle local debt units, China tells banks, officials

BEIJING - Chinese officials and banks must clean up their financing of local government-backed investment units under rules unveiled on Sunday, marking Beijing's latest effort to tackle the mounting debt worries of these units.

The State Council, or cabinet, issued a directive warning that some of these quasi-independent financing vehicles, often used by local governments to fund infrastructure projects, were dangerously loaded with debt built up using implicit assurances to banks from local officials.

Chinese provinces, cities and towns have used the investment subsidiaries to circumvent restrictions on their own borrowing, and many of these units borrowed heavily in 2009 to fund an infrastructure spending spree.

Mainland, Taiwan start 3rd expert-level talks on economic pact

BEIJING -- Experts from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan Sunday started their third round of talks in Beijing to pave the way for a long-awaited pact to boost cross-Strait economic ties.

During the talks, the two sides will discuss the main content of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), and goods and services trade in the "early harvest program."

The ECFA is intended to normalize mainland-Taiwan economic ties and bring the two economies closer.

Foxconn units to leave Shenzhen after wage hikes

Foxconn Technology Group, which supplies Sony, Apple and Nokia with IT components, is moving part of its major plant away from costly Shenzhen after hefty wage increases at its factories in the southern city, affecting hundreds of thousands of workers, China Times reported Saturday.

The Longhua plant, which comprises 11 business groups and has 300,000 employees, will retain only two highly profitable groups and merge with the Guanlan plant, which employs 100,000 workers, a source who works at a research and development (R&D) department at the Longhua plant said.

Housing price falls likely as cooling measures bite

BEIJING - Measures to rein in China's soaring home prices are beginning to see results, and price declines are expected in later half of the year, say economists and market watchers.

The recent fall in trading volume and slower growth in prices was largely a result of the measures the government had rolled out since April, said Professor Chen Guoqiang, of China's Peking University.

Home prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities rose by 12.4 percent year-on-year in May, 0.4 percentage points lower than the rise in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

China expects big fall in trade surplus this year

BEIJING - China's trade surplus would likely fall noticeably this year as exports outlook would not be optimistic while imports would remain robust, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Yao Jian said at a briefing Saturday.

Exports growth would slow after July, Yao forecast, adding the surge in exports in May was due to a low comparison basis last year. China's exports in May surged 48.5 percent year-on-year, customs data released Thursday.

Floods cause 24b yuan losses in China this year

BEIJING - Floods have caused havoc in 21 provinces in China this year, resulting in 24 billion yuan ($3.5 billion) of direct economic losses as of Friday, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said Saturday.

Global Times  

New China bathed with luxury

The world's leading business consulting firm Bain & Company (Bain) released Saturday, a report saying that China will see a 15-percent rise of gross income on the luxury goods industry, which is seen as a driving force for global income increase (four percent).

The purchase of luxury goods in China topped other countries in the first quarter of 2010, and is likely to maintain the momentum, said Bain.

Rising China costs no shock for rest of world

Foxconn, Honda and other foreign companies in China are raising wages in response to worker unhappiness in their Chinese  factories. This has raised concerns about increased Chinese labor costs, and the price the rest of the world will pay for it. But this move is both inevitable and just, and foreign countries that have long profited from inexpensive Chinese goods have no grounds for complaint.

In fact, with the development of economic globalization, the rise of labor costs in emerging economies is unavoidable and wishes for permanently cheap labor infeasible. For a long time, Chinese workers were at the lowest end of value chains. With intellectual property rights owned by developed countries, workers only received 1 to 5 percent of the cost of products, while 30 or 50 percent was taken by developed countries.

Western nations have often criticized China's human rights issues. If these criticisms are sincere, they should pressure their corporations to pay some of their profits to cover the rising wages of Chinese laborers.

Kaixin - Absolutely right!!! Western nations have been content to enjoy the free economic ride on the back of low cost labour from China (and other nations in the world) while crowing like adolescent roosters about human rights. At no stage did they volunteer to pay more for goods and services so the wages of those workers could be increased.

.... and other nations in the world - This could be eliminated if the world paid a fair price for these goods and ensured that the increased cost was passed onto the workers.

Bangladeshi children work at a balloon factory in Dhaka Saturday. The United Nations labor agency noted in a report, released in May, a slowing down in the global pace of reduction in the number of child laborers worldwide - from 222 million to 215 million, a 3 percent drop, from 2004 to 2008 - and called for a "re-energized" global campaign to end the scourge. Photo: AFP - Global Times

International News

Caixin Online

More Tweaks for China's Private Equity Game

A key adjustment for private equity investment is paralleling start-up funds tied to Walmart and Goldman Sachs

China's top macroeconomic planning agency is reviewing a proposal that would tweak the rules for private equity funds just as two, new investment channels with international clout are opening for business.

The Wall Street Journal

Chinese Workers Challenge Beijing's Authority

Unrest at Honda Parts Plants in Southern China Poses Dilemma for Communist Party—Labor Rights or Central Control

BEIJING—Some workers at a Honda Motor Co. plant in southern China pressed ahead with a strike Sunday as part of a wave of labor unrest that poses a political challenge for the Communist Party, whose authority in the workplace is being undermined by independent labor activists.

China Regulates Local Government Financing Units

BEIJING -- China on Sunday issued rules regulating financing vehicles that have been responsible for a surge in local-government debt as a side effect of the nation's crisis-driven lending binge last year.

Taiwan, China Make Progress on Trade Pact, Taipei Body Says

TAIPEI -- Negotiators from Taiwan and China reached agreement Sunday on the content and the structure of a wide-ranging trade agreement that would tie the two economies even closer together, Taiwan's semiofficial Straits Exchange Foundation said in a statement after the two sides concluded the third round of talks on the pact in Beijing.

The New York Times

With Concessions, Honda Strike Fizzles in China

ZHONGSHAN, China — Striking workers at a Honda  auto parts factory here in southeastern China have won higher wages — but not necessarily for themselves.

The Australian

China cracks down on local government debt

CHINA yesterday issued rules regulating financing vehicles that have been responsible for a surge in local government debt as a side effect of the nation's crisis-driven lending binge last year.

The Age

China to probe data leak that jolted global markets

China's government said it would investigate a leak of economic data this week that triggered a surge in stocks around the world.

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