Welcome to the China Daily News page. We hope you will find this page informational and a good resource for keeping abreast of life as we know it to be in the People's Republic of China. Here you will find the latest news on weather, politics, community and current events occurring in the rapidly changing country.
Please note that the following news reports are the research and opinion of the People's Daily Online news and not necessarily the thoughts and opinions of Great Wall China Adoption.
China's office workers are tightening their belts, cutting spending on everything from clothes to fast food, despite government efforts to boost consumption to stave off the worst effects of a global recession. Websites popular among young Chinese professionals are extolling the virtues of frugality as the global financial crisis bites China's economy. Wang Hao, a 24-year-old Beijing office worker, launched his campaign in June to curb weekly living expenses to 100 yuan. So far, he says, h ... - [read more]
China's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity remained resilient in 2008 despite the global financial meltdown, making it the best performer in the Asia region, according to information company Thomson Reuters. M&A activity in the country was at an all-time high of $159.6 billion worth of deals last year, 44 percent more than in 2007, compared with the year-on-year 11.1 percent fall in Asia, excluding Japan, Thomson Reuters said in a report. "China was the only country in the region to ... - [read more]
International investment banks may be preparing to sell their stakes in Chinese mainland banks after the government mandated lockup periods expire to shore up their depleted capital resources, said analysts. "Investment banks may be in immediate need of capital, forcing them to sell shares in Chinese mainland banks as soon as it is legally permitted. That would put mainland banks under short term selling pressure," said Dick Lee, corporate finance officer, Phillip Securities. Conita Hung, ... - [read more]
The prison network in Guangdong will be redeveloped in a bid to boost security and resolve logistical problems, an official said yesterday. Fan Xiliang, from the provincial prison administration, told China Daily that by the end of next year, Guangdong will have a total of 26 prisons: 13 in the Pearl River Delta region, six in the north, three in the east, and four in the west. "The majority of the province's existing prisons will be expanded, while those in remote areas will be relocated ... - [read more]
A month-long campaign has been launched against websites that "spread pornography and threaten the morals of young people", the government said yesterday. The campaign, whose targets include Google and Baidu, is being run by the Ministry of Public Security and six other central agencies, a statement posted on the government's website said. Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information Office of the State Council, said in the statement: "These websites violate public morality and harm ... - [read more]
Standing beside the flowing Minjiang River, Li Linxian made his New Year's wish: finishing his hardest-ever mission as soon as possible. As a construction worker with the Sichuan Road & Bridge Group (SRBG), Li and his 44 workmates have been working on the road between Dujiangyan and Wenchuan, the epicenter of the May earthquake, for nearly eight months. "We have never left the road since the third day after the massive quake destroyed it," Li said, noting this has been the most challenging ... - [read more]
A new location for the quake-ravaged county seat of Qingchuan, where aftershocks of the massive May 12 earthquake continue to occur, is yet to be approved, a top official of the county said. Even though experts have recommended that the new county center should be moved to Zhuyuan, about 70 km south of Qiaozhuang, the original seat, county head Chen Zhengyong said nothing was confirmed "until higher authorities approve the rebuilding plan". Zhuyuan is the only town in the county that is ... - [read more]
The two parties accused of sailing a barge into a bridge on the Xijiang River in Guangdong province and causing it to collapse appealed in court on Sunday for the case to be reinvestigated. Nine people were killed when the Jiujiang Bridge in Guangdong province collapsed after being hit by the sand barge on June 15, 2007. The defendants - the owner of the barge, Yang Xiong, and its operator, the Foshan South Sea Yuhang Shipping Co - argued that the 1,600-m bridge may have collapsed by its ... - [read more]
Japanese auto maker Subaru will recall 1,135 Tribeca sport utility vehicles (SUVs) it sold in China over control system flaws, said China's quality supervisor here Monday. A sensor defect in the dynamic control system may cause the vehicle to run unsteadily and even break away from its driver's control, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ). It remained unclear whether the problem had resulted in any crashes or injuries in Chin ... - [read more]
Fewer inbound tourists due to the world economic slowdown will not dent China's traditional tourist peak during the upcoming Spring Festival, an official said here Monday. Inbound tourism has shrunk by more than 30 percent as a result of the global financial crisis, said Wang Zhifa, deputy director of the China National Tourism Administration. That won't affect the whole tourist market during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which will last a week from Jan.25, as inbound touri ... - [read more]
Courts in Beijing will handle more economic cases this year, as the number of companies affected by the global financial crisis continues to grow, the city's top judge said yesterday. Speaking at an annual work conference in the capital, Chi Qiang, president of the Beijing Municipal High People's Court, said: "Cases related to finance, real estate, bankruptcy, company liquidations and foreign-related economic cases will increase significantly this year. "There will also be a rise in the ... - [read more]
China found 200 million yuan (29.4 million U.S. dollars) worth of substandard farming materials such as fertilizers and seeds last year, the country's quality watchdog said Monday. In 15,714 cases, officials helped farmers recover a total direct loss of 94.9 million yuan, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ). More than 210,000 quality supervisors checked 2,2631 companies in the campaign aimed to boost grain production and farm ... - [read more]
Chinese exporters face an increased risk of not being paid for their goods as foreign banks run out of cash and some overseas importers evade paying debts, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) warned Monday. "The cases of malicious debt evasion and breach of contracts by importers in certain countries or regions are on the rise," said the ministry in a notice. It attributed the phenomenon to the impact of the deepening global financial crisis. The MOC urged local governments, guild ... - [read more]
The fiscal income growth is projected to slow further this year, adding further pressure to the State exchequer, the finance minister said yesterday. "The slowing trend, which began in the second half of 2008, will continue this year," Xie Xuren told a working conference. "The conflict between unbalanced income and spending will be prominent this year." Last year's fiscal revenue might have crossed 6 trillion yuan ($878 billion), up 19 percent over 2007, Xie said. The growth rate was 33.3 ... - [read more]
Rebounding global oil prices drove China's commodities to rise on Monday, with copper, zinc and aluminium leading the futures market. All of the 19 futures categories on China's three commodity exchanges in Shanghai, Dalian and Zhengzhou opened substantially high in the morning of the first trading day of 2009. Five categories, namely copper, zinc, natural rubber, fuel oil and LLDPE (linear low density polyethylene), closed up by their daily limits. Copper and zinc price ... - [read more]
Initial public offerings (IPOs) in China are expected to rise 45 percent in value this year as a result of government stimulus policies, accountancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) said Monday. Companies will raise about 150 billion yuan (22 billion U.S. dollars) through IPOs in China in 2009, the PwC said in a report. Sectors such as infrastructure, finance, consumer goods manufacturing and retailing will benefit from a 4 trillion-yuan economic stimulus package announced in N ... - [read more]
Macao saw its gaming revenues for the whole of 2008 surged 31 percent year-on-year to record high of 108billion patacas (13.7 billion U.S. dollars), local television station TDM reported on Monday. According to the statistics from the Special Administrative Region's (SAR) Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, gaming revenues of the SAR, the only place in China where gambling is legal, stood at 83.8 billion patacas (10.6 billion dollars) in 2007, growing by 45.7 percent over the prev ... - [read more]
China on Monday unveiled a blacklist of 19 websites that provide and spread pornographic or obscene contents, including searching engines Google, Baidu and major portals such as Sina, Sohu, Netease. This marks a month-long nationwide campaign launched by the Information Office of the State Council, Ministry of Public Security and other four central government departments to clean up the online environment. Those websites were accused of either providing links to pornographic webs ... - [read more]
One fifth of a village in southwest China's Guizhou Province was destroyed in a fire Monday afternoon. It broke out at approximately 4 p.m. in the Dingdong Village, a Dong minority village in Congjiang County. In all, 92 houses burnt down. It took fire fighters an hour to extinguish the blaze. There were no casualties or injuries, a county government official said. Authorities are investigating the official cause, but some villagers attributed the fire to someone ... - [read more]
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday talked over phone about the flare-up of the Middle East crisis as well as the Sino-U.S. relations. Yang expressed China's deep concern about the latest escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the volatile situation in the Middle East, and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. "We hope that parties concerned could halt military operations and armed conflicts immediately, ease th ... - [read more]
More effort should be made to attract outstanding overseas talents to work in China, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. "High-level talents with overseas education and work experience will greatly strengthen China's all-round development, especially as the country is implementing its strategy of invigorating the nation through science, technology and education," Lu Yugang, director of the ministry's talent development office, told China Daily. The ministry, with the help of other ... - [read more]
The mainland stock market began the New Year with a broad rally yesterday, led by the policy-driven auto and steel sectors and a rebound on bourses across the world. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 3.29 percent, or 59.91 points, to end at 1880.72 on the first trading day of 2009 after eight straight days of losses. The rise in stocks was almost overall, with advancing stocks outnumbering losers 864:33. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index rose 2.3 percent to 6634.88 points. And ... - [read more]
China banned nearly 4,000 Party and government officials from joining more than 550 overseas group trips on public expense in the six months to the end of November, a top discipline official said here Monday. Ma Wen, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, said 830,000 official passport-holders went abroad in that period, down18.9 percent year on year. "Since the campaign was launched in last April, progress has been a ... - [read more]
The Legislative Assembly of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Monday approved the general outline of the government-drafted state security bill with the majority of the assembly members voting in favor of it. The Macao SAR government introduced to the public the draft bill on safeguarding the national security based upon the SAR's Basic Law Article 23 (BL23) on Oct. 22, 2008, and after the two-month long consultation period, the SAR government announced the revised version of the ... - [read more]
A Sierra Leone cargo ship with 32 Chinese onboard threw off the pursuit of four pirate boats in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center said on Monday. The ship was carrying more than 10,000 tons of silicate and oil equipment from Singapore to the Republic of Djibouti in northeastern Africa when it met with the pirates, the center said in a statement. Four pirate boats chased the vessel on the eastern water area of the gulf at 3:50 p.m. on Monday, ... - [read more]
Vietnamese top legislator Nguyen Phu Trong said here on Monday that the relations between Vietnam and China are in a phase of healthy development, and he expected the two sides could make concerted efforts to advance bilateral relations to a new high. Trong, who is the chairman of Vietnamese National Assembly, made the remarks when meeting with the newly-appointed Chinese ambassador to Vietnam Sun Guoxiang. Last year, exchanges of high-level delegations of China and Vietnam were ... - [read more]
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)on Monday kicked off its trading session with a special ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. In a symbolic move, Stephen A. Orlins, president of the U.S. National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR), rang the market's Opening Bell. He was accompanied by Dr. Henry Kissinger, a key trailblazer and eyewitness for the normalization of U.S.- China relations. The ... - [read more]
President Hu Jintao and his predecessor Jiang Zemin mourned the recent death of Chen Heqiao, former political commissar of the Second Artillery Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). Chen died of illness in Beijing on December 21, 2008, at the age of 94. Li Yuanchao, Xu Caihou, Liu Huaqing, and Liang Guanglie are also among mourners of the former political leader of the country's strategic army. According to official sources, Chen joined the Chinese Communis ... - [read more]
Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Li Changchun has underscored the importance of enhanced efforts to boost public confidence in a bid to promote stable and fairly rapid economic development. Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the call at a national conference on publicity which was held here from Jan. 4-5. He called for efforts to create an active and healthy environment to maintain social stability. ... - [read more]
China banned nearly 4,000 people from attending more than 550 overseas group trips on public expense in the six months to the end of November, a top disciplineofficial said here Monday. Ma Wen, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, said 830,000 official passport-holders went abroad in the same period, down 18.9 percent over the figure in the previous year. &$&$Source: Xinhua&$&$ ... - [read more]
Monks from Tibet's leading monasteries have gathered to prepare for an annual tryout in Lhasa, hoping to get the highest academic degree of Tibetan Buddhism. Three-hundred thirty-one monks from the Sera, Drepung and Ganden monasteries and the Jokhang Temple attended a 14-day sutra review session at a monastery about 30 kilometers from downtown Lhasa, where they discussed the precise interpretations of the Buddhist sutra and simulated oral exams. The session, which began Dec. 30, ... - [read more]
A new office building, built with Chinese aid for the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce and Trade (MNCCT), was completed and handed over to Mongolia at a ceremony held here on Monday. In an address delivered at the ceremony, Mongolian Minister of Finance Sangajav Bayartsogt said that the building will be a symbol of Mongolia-China cooperation and friendship. He expressed thanks to China, saying that the new office building of the MNCCT will create better conditions for the d ... - [read more]
China and Japan will hold their ninth strategic dialogue in Tokyo on Jan. 9, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang announced here on Monday. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya and Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka will head delegations to attend the dialogue, respectively, said Qin. The two sides will exchange views on bilateral ties and other international and regional issues, according to the spokesman. So far China and Japan have held eight ... - [read more]
The Yuanwang V ship returned to a China port after a 117-day mission of remotely tracking the Shenzhou VII space flight which blast off in late September. The return signaled the completion of the tracking mission by five ships for support of China's first space walk. The ships, Yuanwang I,II, III, V and VI, set sail Aug. 18 last year and traversed nearly 100,000 sea miles in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. China successfully launched the Shenzhou VII manned spacecraft o ... - [read more]
Hong Kong's housing market is recovering in December from the November gloom but was still far behind the boom in 2007, revealed the Land Registry's latest statistics here Monday. The Land Registry recorded 5,437 registration of flat sale and purchase agreements in December, up 43.6 percent from November but still down 65.1 percent from the same period in 2007. Using a 12-month moving average, the figure for December, however, represented an 8.2 percent drop on November and a 22. ... - [read more]
Profits at China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are expected to fall 30 percent in 2008 from a year earlier, the first annual decline since 2002, figures from the state assets watchdog showed Monday. Profits in the 142 SOE giants would total 700 billion yuan (about 103 billion U.S. dollars) last year, Huang Shuhe, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Management Commission (SASAC) told a conference here Monday. Natural disasters, gover ... - [read more]
China posted a substantial growth in grain exports in October and November 2008, after its soybean won more biddings in the Republic of Korea (ROK), the General Administration of Customs said on Monday. In October, China exported 228,000 tonnes of grain (including cereal and cereal powder, beans and tuber crops), up 32.7 percent from the previous month, and 270,000 tonnes in November, up 18.6 percent month-on-month. In November, soybean exports soared 78.6 percent year-on-year to ... - [read more]
As the impact of the global economic crisis begins to hit home, some Chinese white-collar workers see the upcoming Spring Festival celebrations and the lackof steady work as an opportunity to escape from the stress with fun on the road while others are racking their brains to limit daily expenses. Menaced by the crisis, many Chinese white-collars have discarded their travel plans during the Lunar New Year holiday to save money. However, Guan Yiwen and her friends thought otherwise. ... - [read more]
Hong Kong stocks surged 520.5 points, or 3.46 percent, to close at 15,563.31 on Monday, boosted by strong rally of companies registered in the Chinese mainland. The benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 306.52 points, or 2.04 percent, to open at 15,349.33 and was lifted by huge gains of energy and telecommunications companies to close at the day's highest 15,563.31 after touching the intra-day low 15,128.32 in the morning session. Turnover jumped to 49.42 billion HK dollars (6.38 billi ... - [read more]
Shrinking demand at home and abroad will drive China's import and export of motor vehicles further down as the impact from the financial crisis lingers, the General Administration of Customs said Monday. In the first 11 months of 2008, China bought 373,000 motor vehicles from abroad, a growth of 35.6 percent on the same period of 2007. The arrivals were valued at 13.87 billion U.S. dollars, up 45 percent, the customs administration said. But the auto arrivals were 33,000 units in ... - [read more]
China imported 240 million tonnes of major energy commodities (oil, refined products, natural gas and coal) in the first 11 months of 2008, up 3.7 percent year-on-year, according to a report released on Sunday by the General Administration of Customs. The growth rate was 9.7 percentage points below the year-earlier level. These imports were valued at 158.6 billion U.S. dollars, up 74 percent, and they accounted for 14.9 percent of total imports for the 11 months. High wor ... - [read more]
China's foreign trade probably reached 2.55 trillion U.S. dollars last year, up 18 percent from 2007, according to an analysis released on Sunday by the General Administration of Customs. The trade surplus was about 290 billion U.S. dollars, it said. In the first 11 months of 2008, external trade was 2.38 trillion U.S. dollars, up 20.9 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 2.6 percentage points below the year-earlier level. The 11-month trade surplus was 255.95 billio ... - [read more]
Chinese shares rose on new year's first trading day, raising people's expectations about the country's economy. Xinhua has collected experts' views on much-talked-about economic topics here Monday. The domestic stock market is expected to rebound in 2009 after Waterloo-like condition last year. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled to around 2,000 points by December from its peak at 6,124 in 2007. Jin Bosong, economist with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), said market per ... - [read more]
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China told Xinhua Sunday about three quarters of its cadres had been to college or postgraduate schools, 51 percent more than in 1995. "We have increased the recruitment of well-educated technicians and civil workers," an anonymous source with the General Political Department of the PLA said. Since China's economic and social transformation in 1978, the priority task of PLA has shifted from preparing for combat to raising the academic levels ... - [read more]
According to Xinhua News Agency, the Shennongjia Airport project in Hubei, which has already been approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, will begin construction in March 2009. Early preparations for the construction of Shennongjia Airport are now picking up pace and construction of the 13-kilometer-long airport highway has recently begun. The Shennongjia Airport is to be located on a large grass plain, about 16 kilometers from the northwest of Muyu Town. The construction o ... - [read more]
According to the Liaoning Provincial Commercial Department, as of December 31, 2008, the number of retail outlets, lawfully certified by above county-level commerce departments in Liaoning Province, to be included in the "home appliances to the countryside" program reached 1,127 stores. The closer and more convenient shopping outlets are provided to the rural residents. Chen Jian, Director of the Market Operation Division of the Liaoning Provincial Commercial Department pointed out that in ... - [read more]
Chinese shares soared more than 3 percent in the first trading day of the new year, upon rises on peripheral markets and expectations for positive effect of the government's macroeconomic control efforts. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 59.84 points, or 3.29 percent, to 1,880.72. The Shenzhen Component Index rose 149.37 points, or 2.30 percent, to 6,634.88. Combined turnover was 70.675 billion yuan (10.33 billion U.S. dollars), much higher than the 55 billion yuan f ... - [read more]
Unemployment driven by the global financial crisis could cause social unrest in China, although the economy looks set to reach its annual growth target of 8 percent, according to a survey of leading Chinese economists. Han Kang, vice-president of the National School of Administration in Beijing, warned that rising unemployment, particularly among university graduates and migrant rural workers could lead to unrest unless it was tackled urgently. Han was one of 13 leading economist ... - [read more]
Statistics shows that a total of 32 stock markets suffered over 50% in losses in 2008, 17 of which lost their accumulated growth from the previous five years. The Shanghai Composite Index ranked 13th amongst them with a fall of 65.39%. After a year-long adjusting period, the valuation indicators of A-shares reaches the standard of indicators in the global major stock markets. Data from cnyes.com on January 1, 2008 showed that only the Ghana and Tunisia stock markets rose in 2008 among th ... - [read more]
China UnionPay (CUP) recently formally introduced tax refund service for the goods purchased outside China by CUP standard cardholders. Today when CUP standard cardholders make purchases in over 250,000 shops around the world bearing the Global Refund Group's sign---"Tax Free Shopping", through a corresponding tax refund process, they will receive excises reimbursed to their CUP standard cards. This tax refund service is jointly launched by CUP and the Global Refund Group. &$&$By Peo ... - [read more]
In 2008, Xinjiang produced 27.4 million tons of crude oil, up one million tons from the previous year. It has already surpassed Shandong Province to become China's second largest province in producing crude oil. Xinjiang is rich in oil and gas resources, with an estimated oil reserve of 20.9 billion tons and a natural gas reserve of 10.8 trillion cubic meters. It has been termed China's strategic replacement area for the land petroleum industry. Xinjiang already has a proven oil geologica ... - [read more]
Recently, Citigroup China opened its first finance company geared to the needs of the countryside. This is the first time that a foreign-funded bank has started a new company in China in the form of a finance company. One after another, foreign-funded banks are going to the countryside, and are marching full of confidence into the rural finance market. Foreign-funded banks trying to grab their piece of the rural finance market has become a beautiful scene in China's financial market. On ... - [read more]
On New Year's Day of 2009, "Happy Niu Year," a sentence featuring Chinese and western elements, becomes the most popular new year greeting. "Niu" (Chinese for ox) in the Chinese zodiac happens to have a similar pronunciation to the English word "new," therefore "Happy New Year," a widely-used greeting was cleverly changed by some individuals to "Happy Niu Year"(Happy Year of the ox). The English language and traditional Chinese folklore culture are perfectly combined in this short and con ... - [read more]
Salaries in China's tier 1 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen were noticeably higher than tier 2 and tier 3 cities, and Shanghai still tops the list of salary rankings for 2008, data released by Zhaopin.com, a major recruitment website, shows. Salary gaps between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen grew smaller, with Shanghai still topping the list. Salary levels in Beijing and Shenzhen were very close, ranking second and third, respectively. Guangzhou was sligh ... - [read more]
At least 13 people were confirmed dead in a bus crash in southwest China's Guizhou Province Monday, the local government said. The long-distance sleeper bus carrying 44 passengers veered off a highway in Yanhe County, and crashed down a 80-meter slope at about 7 a.m., a spokesman with the provincial safety administration said. He said the number of injured was not immediately known. The bus, owned by a public transport company in Guizhou, was enroute from Guangzhou, capit ... - [read more]
A senior official in north China's Shanxi Province has been jailed for 6 years for causing the deaths of the top provincial political adviser and her secretary in a road accident. Li Yi was sentenced on Sunday at the People's Court of Yingze District, Taiyuan, after he was convicted of causing the accident that killed Jin Yinhuan, chairwoman of the Shanxi provincial committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and her secretary Wang Rong. The accident occu ... - [read more]
According to forecasts from relevant departments that were posted on the Ministry of Public Security website, passenger volume on highways in China will reach 2.08 billion during the Spring Festival travel season- an increase of 3% year-on-year. In 2009, China's road travel volume, highway mileage and the number of motor vehicles and drivers will further increase. As a result, pressure on road traffic accident prevention will be further heightened. New Year's Day and Spring Festival this ... - [read more]
A group of college students from the earthquake-stricken Sichuan province, 19 in all, sat as dinner guests in the home of Professor W. Hubert Keen, president of Farmingdale State University. Large maps of China and Sichuan province were on the wall. Keen asked one student to point out his home town. In 2009 these same students may be back in China, pointing to a map of Long Island, New York, as the place they consider their home away from home. The group of 19 is the largest conti ... - [read more]
Railway stations across the country have been encountering an early travel rush as thousands of migrant workers return home for Spring Festival holiday. The Ministry of Railways last month estimated that this year, the railways would carry a record 188 million passengers - 8 percent more than last year - across the country during Spring Festival season. Although the official holiday is 3 weeks away, millions are heading home early because many have lost their jobs as a result of the fina ... - [read more]
President of the Colombian Congress Hernan Andrade Serrano will visit China from Jan. 8 to 16 at the invitation of Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo. Andrade, also president of the Colombian senate, will lead a delegation of senators during the visit, according to a press release from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. &$&$Source: Xinhua&$&$ ... - [read more]
China's currency, the yuan, weakened slightly against the U.S. dollar on Monday, the first trading day of 2009, according to the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank. The central parity rate of the yuan was 6.8367 yuan to the U.S. dollar, down 0.0021 yuan from Dec. 31. Meanwhile, the yuan edged up to 9.5382 against the euro from 9.659 yuan. The central parity rate is allowed to fluctuate within a band of 0.5 percent on either side of the mid-point. &$< ... - [read more]
China's 2008 fiscal revenue was expected to exceed 6 trillion yuan (about 857 billion U.S. dollars), Finance Minister Xie Xuren said at a national conference on Monday. &$&$Source:Xinhua&$&$ ... - [read more]
Chinese shares opened higher on the first trading day of 2009, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which covers both A and B shares, gaining 1.55 percent to 1,849.02 at the opening. The smaller Shenzhen index was up 1.11 percent to open at 6,557.42 points. &$&$Source:Xinhua&$&$ ... - [read more]
Major Chinese lenders are expanding a preferential policy on house loan interests to cut the burden of the country's home buyers hit by the spreading financial crisis. For individuals who bought houses on mortgage lending before Oct. 27, 2008 and have not paid off the loans, their credit interest rates could be reduced to 70 percent of the benchmark rate from the previous 85 percent, customer service staff of several banks told Xinhua on Sunday. The discount will be available for ... - [read more]
British luxury saloon maker Jaguar will recall 87 sedans in China over warning system flaws, said China's quality supervisor here Sunday. The speakers on the Jaguar XF units may cease operation and fail to voice warnings like signals indicating turns and seat belt conditions, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) in a notice. The company is recalling a total of 3,754 XF units worldwide for the same problem. The recall in China ... - [read more]
One person died and two others were missing after an oil tanker exploded on Sunday in east China's Shandong Province. The accident happened at about 2:30 p.m. after the "Hai'ao No. 9" tanker exploded in Guangli Port, Dongying City, a municipal government official said. There were four sailors on board at the time, and three were replacing valves on the deck. Investigators speculated that the explosion was caused by the sailors cutting metal and replacing valves. &$ ... - [read more]
China on Sunday said its exploration of the Tianwaitian gas field in the East China Sea was an exercise of its inherent sovereign rights. "The Tianwaitian oil and gas field is under the administration of China's undisputed territorial water," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. The Sankei daily newspaper in Japan reported that China violated an agreement and developed the gas field unilaterally. Under a China-Japan consensus in principle on the East China Sea issue, ... - [read more]
Premier Wen Jiabao has urged Chinese companies to stress innovation to combat the impact of global economic turmoil. Wen made the remarks as he visited companies, markets, communities and rural areas in China's eastern Shandong Province over the first two days of 2009. He sought to reassure people that the economy would be able to regain steam. "Try to develop new types of candles to cater to different cultures, which would capture big market share," Wen said during avisit to Qin ... - [read more]
