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Analysts say the central bank is the center of pro-reform sentiment in the government. But other policymakers still equate foreign reserves with national strength and may oppose any reform that would put the $3.3 trillion stockpile at risk.

To them, the FX reserves underpin confidence in the financial system, serving as a security blanket for both the government and financial markets.

Few believe China's banks are as healthy as they claim, while many local governments and state-owned enterprises are awash in debt.

But as long as investors and depositors believe Beijing could tap its foreign exchange reserves to fund a bailout, a run on banks or a credit crunch for local governments and state-owned enterprises is unlikely.

"Chinese households hold a huge amount of deposits," said Yu Yongding, a former member of the central bank's monetary policy committee. China has 84 trillion yuan ($13.45 trillion) in corporate and household bank deposits.

"If households want to diversify their holdings into foreign assets, say just 10 percent of their assets, capital outflow will become huge, which will lead to a fall of the (yuan) and then there will be panic and more outflows -- a herd effect," said Yu, who is now director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

Analysis: Spectre of capital flight slows China FX reform drive | Reuters
 
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China reiterates prudent monetary policy


Xinhuanet

2012-12-28

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank on Friday reiterated that the country will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy.

China will closely monitor international capital flows and try to maintain a balanced relationship between stabilizing economic growth, adjusting economic structure, curbing inflation and preventing risks, according to a statement posted on the website of the People's Bank of China.

"The central bank will employ various monetary policy tools to guide stable and appropriate growth in credit and money supply and maintain the reasonable scale of social financing aggregate," the statement said.

Growth in the world's second-largest economy slowed for a seventh quarter, rising 7.4 percent year on year during the July-September period.

The nation will move ahead with interest rate reforms and improve the exchange rate formation mechanism for the yuan while maintaining the basic stability of the currency, the statement said.

The central bank also vowed to enhance the role of finance in supporting the real economy and urged banks to beef up services to better satisfy the diverse demands for investment and financing, according to the statement.
 
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China has 3,589 museums nationwide

Xinhuanet

2012-12-26

BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- China is home to 3,589 museums, including 3,054 state-owned and 535 private museums, according to information released at a conference on cultural relics on Tuesday.

China will further promote free museum admission and improve the quality of displays and public services, Minister of Culture Cai Wu said at the conference.

Cai said cultural relics have gradually become a new focus for people's attention, and such relics can raise a city's appeal and greatly boost the development of the tourism industry.

In 2011, the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, received 14 million visitors, twice the amount of visitors in 2002. During national holidays it welcomed even more visitors, with a record-high 182,000 people visiting the museum on a single day in 2011.

Li Xiaojie, head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), said the SACH has issued relevant documents to strengthen supervision over auctions of cultural relics and enhance management over antique markets and cultural relics-verification TV programs

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China lists another 17 top museums

Xinhuanet

2012-12-07

BEIJING, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A list of 17 class-I museums has been published, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) said on Friday.

The National Museum of China, China National Silk Museum, Shanghai Science & Technology Museum and Chongqing Hongyan Revolutionary History Museum are on the list, which is a second batch of class-I museums to be released.

The 17 museums were selected as highest-level museums after an appraisal process organized by the SACH from July to November, the SACH said.

China specifies the museums at class-I, class-II and class-III in accordance with their comprehensive facilities, collections and visitors and capacities for holding exhibitions and providing social services.

China released the first batch of 79 class-I museums in 2008, and pledged to gradually open all its public museums for free.

According to SACH statistics, 1,804 of 3,415 museums and memorial sites were offering free admission at the end of 2011, receiving more than 1.3 billion visitors in three years, the equivalent to China's total population.

The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance also vowed last year to give people free access to public art galleries in two years.
 
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China spends 430 bln yuan on water conservation

Xinhuanet

2012-12-28

HEFEI, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- China spent 430.3 billion yuan (68.3 billion U.S. dollars) on improving water utilities in 2012, a record total, an official said Friday.

Investment in water conservation amounted to 775.5 billion yuan in 2011 and 2012, surpassing the amount invested during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), Chen Lei, minister of water resources, said at a work meeting in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui province.

"In 2012, China reinforced 5,400 small-sized reservoirs and harnessed critical stretches of 2,209 mid- and small-sized rivers, bringing the death toll from floods down by 50 percent," Chen said.

He called for more investment in water conservation projects while urging intensified efforts to improve water quality and build irrigated farms.

The government aims to harness more than 5,000 rivers by 2015 and speed up the construction of early warning systems for floods and storm tides, according to a central government statement issued in 2011.

The government plans to double its average annual spending on water conservation during the 2011-2020 period from its 200-billion-yuan investment in 2010.

Chen said that during the past two years, the central government has invested 48.2 billion yuan to improve the availability of safe drinking water for 148 million rural residents, teachers and students.

The country will continue to work to ensure safe drinking water, renovate key irrigation facilities and promote water conservation in 2013, according to Chen.

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China invests big in ecological progress

Xinhuanet

2012-12-19

BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- A viaduct built over a wetland in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province to make way for wildlife has been described as a "green bridge" by local residents.

Built with an investment of 430 million yuan (68.8 million U.S. dollars), the 5-km overpass opened to traffic in late 2010 and spans the largest inner city wetland in China -- the Longfeng Wetland Nature Reserve, located near the city of Daqing, known as China's first oil production base.

In the 1960s, roads were built directly on the wetland so people could reach the oil fields faster, which, however, threatened the local ecosystem.

Since the bridge has been constructed, birds have returned and plants are growing again. A total of 76 species of birds are currently living within the wetland area, including five species under first-level national protection.

Authorities highlighted the need to promote ecological progress and gave it a more prominent position by incorporating it into the country's overall development plan last month when the governing Communist Party of China (CPC) convened a national congress.

The country has pledged to support the development of energy-efficient and low-carbon industries, new energy sources and renewable energy sources, which requires huge investment.

Jin Lei, a partner at international accounting firm KPMG, said the Chinese market has great investment potential for green industries, as the country has included such industries in its Development Plan for National Strategic Emerging Industries during the 12th Five-year Plan period (2011-2015).

With a total investment of 2.1 billion yuan, Longhua New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park, the largest new energy vehicle project in Heilongjiang Province, was put into operation in July 2012 and has received a slew of orders from foreign companies so far.

According to a report issued by the Deutsche Bank Group in August, the annual production value output of China's electric vehicle industry could reach 159 billion yuan by 2020.

China has also vowed to launch major ecological restoration projects and prevent desertification, especially for the northwestern regions with fragile environments.

The government of Minqin County in northwest China's Gansu Province is battling desertification in the catchment of the Shiyang River, as overdevelopment has accelerated desert encroachment, leaving the basin among the country's worst ecologically-deteriorated regions.

In 2007, China put 4.79 billion yuan toward environmental conservation around the Shiyang River basin. Conservation efforts there have included capping water use and developing water-saving agricultural techniques.

"People are not only looking to increase their incomes, but have also demanded an improved environment and living standards," said Sun Wancang, a professor at Gansu Agricultural University.

Vice Premier Li Keqiang said last week China will invest 3.4 trillion yuan in environmental protection during the 12th Five-year Plan period.

Li vowed to expand domestic markets by encouraging the application of solar power generation technology and connecting more on-site solar power generation sites to the national power grid.

China has connected less than 10 percent of its annual solar cell output, indicating huge market potential, Li said, citing the solar sector as an example of how to tap local markets and explore ecological progress.

However, Chen Ying, secretary-general of the Research Center for Sustainable Development under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the promotion of ecological progress should come not only from the government, but also from enterprises and non-governmental organizations.

In east China's Jiangsu Province, the provincial government has allocated 2 billion yuan annually to control pollution near Taihu Lake over the past five years.

In addition to the government's investment, a total of 75 billion yuan has been raised by the public to support more than 3,000 related projects.

Private enterprises in Jiangsu, represented by Suntech Power, the world's largest producer of solar panels, and Trina Solar, a leading solar module company, have contributed to China's solar capacity in recent years.

According to a report released by the National Energy Association on Sept. 12, China will expand its installed solar power generation capacity to 21 gigawatts (GW) by 2015, which will require an investment of about 250 billion yuan.

In 2011, China's growth in renewable energy was 2.5 times that of Brazil and India combined. The country's asset financed investment of 44 billion U.S. dollars in the sector represented 30 percent of global renewable investment, compared to Brazil's 5 percent and India's 7 percent, according to another report published by the Deutsche Bank Group in July.

The report forecast that China is likely to install 340 GW of renewable power in order to meet national targets through 2020. The investment in incremental wind and solar power, plus grid investment, could total 527 billion U.S. dollars, it said.
 
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Foxconn to spread wings in Guangxi

Chinadaily

2012-12-29 01:32
By HE WEI in Shanghai ( China Daily)

Nanning plant to consolidate firm's 'moving inland' strategy

Foxconn Technology Group, a major manufacturer of Apple Inc's products, is expanding the production of smart devices in southern China, according to a report.

Experts said the latest investment, reportedly worth 5 billion yuan ($802 million), in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will enable Foxconn to consolidate its "moving inland" strategy. This is in line with the city's plan to boost electronics industries.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, Foxconn's parent, has signed an agreement with the local government to build a tablet and smartphone plant in the city, China Business News reported on Friday.

The investment aims to win Nanning a reputation as a modern manufacturing, commercial and logistics center in the region, it quoted Foxconn chief Terry Gou as saying.

Liu Kun, a Shenzhen-based spokesman for the company, declined to confirm the report, saying that all ongoing projects on the Chinese mainland will be announced through the Taiwan Stock Exchange, on which Hon Hai is listed.

But he told China Daily that Shenzhen, Zhengzhou and Chengdu remain the key hubs for Foxconn. The three cities serve the country's southern, central and western markets.

Nanning's economic planning body has said it wants to attract companies like Foxconn to the city.

"Electronics is definitely a prioritized industry in our economic outline," said Cao Xiaojun, an official with the city's development and reform commission, who oversees industrial planning.

Cao said companies like Foxconn will create a win-win situation by bringing in more capital and consolidating the industrial chain.

Cao said investors can make full use of Nanning's geographic advantage as a gateway to member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

"As a result, we are seeing a growing number of companies setting up their regional bases in Nanning," she said.

The government will provide incentives to encourage emerging industries to come to Nanning, Cao added.

China Business News said Foxconn has completed the first phase of the plant, and large-scale recruitment is on the agenda. The Nanning complex will mass-produce LCD screens for tablets and TVs, and communications equipment including routers.

Sun Lijian, senior economist at Fudan University in Shanghai, said: "Judging from previous investments, it is safe to say that preferential policies like tax incentives from local governments are the gravitational pull for Foxconn. That's usually where they see new market buoyancy."

The company has a large presence across China, with one of its latest ventures being a distribution center in Shanghai. Construction began in May.

Market watchers said Foxconn is also considering investment in the US and is assessing cities such as Detroit and Los Angeles as possible factory locations.

"That is, again, in line with a renewed focus on manufacturing in the US, as Washington struggles to stimulate the economy and create jobs," Sun said.

Contact the writer at hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
 
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1st subway across Yangtze River starts test run

Chinadaily

Updated: 2012-12-28 10:22
( Xinhua/chinadaily.com.cn)

China's first subway line to cross the Yangtze River, the country's longest waterway, starts test run on Dec 28 in the central city of Wuhan, Xinhua reported Thursday

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Wuhan subway Line 2, China's first subway line to cross the Yangtze River, starts test run on Dec 28 in the central city of Wuhan. [Photo/Xinhua]

Subway trains have run through the 27.73-km tunnel for Wuhan Line 2, which links Wuchang and Hankou - two major areas of the city - over the past three months. But passengers are only allowed to board the trains on Dec 28 when the test run starts.

As a key transportation route, the line is expected to handle half of the city's cross-Yangtze traffic flow, easing gridlock on bridges over the river. It only takes three minutes to cross the river.

The construction costs around 14.9 billion yuan ($2.37 billion), according to estimates by previous reports.

It will be Wuhan's first subway, which is estimated to transport at least 500,000 passengers daily.

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A train of Wuhan Subway Line No 2 moves in the tunnel in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, Dec 14, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]
 
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China to send women into the deep ocean

Chinadaily

Updated: 2012-12-21 14:57
( chinadaily.com.cn)

China will recruit six oceanauts, including two females, as the country continues its exploration of the deep sea, Beijing Daily reported on Friday.

Ye Cong, chief oceanaut and designer of Jiaolong – China's deep-sea research submersible – said two females will most likely be selected from biologists.

The new recruits will receive four-years training before conducting a deep sea dive, said Ye who added that female candidates will be required to have a higher mental capacity than their male counterparts and capable of coping with pressure.

From 2013, Jiaolong will increase its dives from the current several times a year to more than 50 deep-sea dives.
 
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4 new subway lines set to ease Beijing traffic
4 new subway lines set to ease Beijing traffic |Society |chinadaily.com.cn
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BEIJING - Beijing is scheduled to put four subway lines into operation on Sunday, part of the city's efforts to expand rail transit to ease severe traffic congestion.

The newly-opened lines include the new No. 6 Line, the southern section of the current No. 8 Line, the northern section of the current No. 9 Line and the southern and western stretches that complete a loop for the current No. 10 Line.

The new lines bring the number of subway lines in Beijing to 16, with a total length of 442 kilometers, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport said in a statement on Saturday.

The city has turned to public transport, especially rail transit lines, to tackle massive traffic jams on the city's vehicle-clogged roads.

The number of subway lines in Beijing will reach 19 by 2015, with a combined length of 561 km. By 2020, the total subway length is expected to increase to 1,000 km.

Beijing's public transportation system, including bus services, carried an average of 20.6 million people per day in 2012. About 44 percent of Beijing residents say they use public transport, the highest percentage of all cities nationwide.

Amid other measures to ease traffic, city authorities started limiting new vehicle registrations to 240,000 each year in 2011, slashing new car registrations by two-thirds from the 2010 level.

Vehicles are also banned from roads one day per week according to plate numbers.
 
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Chinese scientists find that gravity travels at the speed of light
Chinese scientists find that gravity travels at the speed of light | China's Great Science and Technology
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2012-12-29 – Chinese scientists revealed Wednesday that they have found evidence supporting the hypothesis that gravity travels at the speed of light based on data gleaned from observing Earth tides.

Scientists have been trying to measure the speed of gravity for years through experiments and observations, but few have found valid methods.

By conducting six observations of total and annular solar eclipses, as well as Earth tides, a team headed by Tang Keyun, a researcher with the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), found that the Newtonian Earth tide formula includes a factor related to the propagation of gravity.

“Earth tide” refers to a small change in the Earth’s surface caused by the gravity of the moon and sun.

Based on the data, the team, with the participation of the China Earthquake Administration and the University of the CAS, found that gravitational force released from the sun and gravitational force recorded at ground stations on Earth did not travel at the same speed, with the time difference exactly the same as the time it takes for light to travel from the sun to observation stations on Earth.

The scientists admitted that the observation stations are located near oceans, indicating that the influence of ocean tides might have been strong enough to interfere with the results.

Consequently, the team conducted separate observations of Earth tides from two stations in Tibet and Xinjiang, two inland regions that are far away from all four oceans, as well as took measures to filter out other potential disturbances.

By applying the new data to the propagation equation of gravity, the team found that the speed of gravity is about 0.93 to 1.05 times the speed of light with a relative error of about 5 percent, providing the first set of strong evidence showing that gravity travels at the speed of light.

Their findings have been published online in English by German science and technology publishing group Springer.

Printed articles in both Chinese and English will be carried in a January 2013 edition of the Chinese Science Bulletin, according to the CAS Institute of Geology and Geophysics.
 
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I am getting more sanguine about China's economic prospect in 2013 and would tentatively peg the GDP growth rate at 8.5%。As for 2012, an increase in the economic output of 7.8-7.9% is on the cards。Preliminary Data are due on 18.01.2013,so we won't have to wait for long。


Dec. 30, 2012, 8:59 p.m. EST

China manufacturing extends rebound

HSBC data

By Michael Kitchen

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Chinese manufacturing extended its rebound in December, according to HSBC data out Monday. The HSBC China manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose to a final reading of 51.5, an upward revision from the preliminary 50.9 result and an improvement from November's PMI of 50.5. The result was also the best for the data set since May 2011, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Both Hong Kong and Australian stock indexes came off their lows after the data release, though both remained in negative territory as concern about the U.S. fiscal cliff kept Asian shares under pressure.

China manufacturing extends rebound: HSBC data - MarketWatch
 
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Chinese growth will be closer to 9% in 2013. Domestic consumption is now the main driver of the Chinese economy.
 
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Bloomberg News

Beijing Opens Four New Subway Lines to Ease Congestion

By Bloomberg News on December 30, 2012

Beijing put four subway lines and extensions into operation yesterday as part of the Chinese capital’s efforts to expand its public urban transport network and ease traffic congestion.

The openings bring the number of lines in the Chinese capital to 16 with a total length of 442 kilometers (275 miles), according to a statement on the website of government-owned Beijing Subway Operation Co. which runs the system.


Beijing Opens Four New Subway Lines to Ease Congestion - Businessweek
 
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China exports account for 11.1% of world trade
English.news.cn 2012-12-26 18:59:03
BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- China's exports accounted for 11.1 percent of world trade during the first three quarters of 2012, up 0.6 percentage point from the same period last year, the Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.

Exports grew faster than those of other major economies during the first nine months despite global economic uncertainties, according to a ministry statement.

During the first ten months of 2012, exports of high-energy-consuming products and products which cause pollution during production, such as non-ferrous metals and steel, fell 7.3 percent year on year to 89.2 billion U.S. dollars, the statement said.

The export volume of energy-intensive and high-polluting products slid 5 percent from one year earlier to 96.03 million tonnes during the ten-month period.

Meanwhile, China's capital goods exports accounted for 30.2 percent of the total exports during the January-October period, up 1.1 percentage points from 2007, according to the statement.

The ministry also said general trade grew while the weighting of processing trade dropped.

General trade amounted to 1.83 trillion U.S. dollars during the first 11 months, accounting for 52.1 percent of the country's total imports and exports.

The processing trade accounted for 34.9 percent of the total imports and exports, down from 45.4 percent one year earlier, according to the statement.
 
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