China Economy Forum

[Edison Chen]

Good policy, but it's still a long time to see massive use of electric cars. The battery is still a technical issue. We also need more electric charge stations.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

This is a very good idea, i think. What say you, @LeveragedBuyout , @Chinese-Dragon , @Edison Chen , @sahaliyan , @Okemos , @xunzi ?

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SHANGHAI—China announced new subsidies and other inducements Sunday to get government officials and agencies to buy energy-efficient vehicles in a renewed boost for a sector Beijing has had high hopes for.

Under the new rules, which will be phased in over the next two years, electric cars, hybrids that run on gasoline and electricity and other new energy vehicles will account for no less than 30% of all new cars bought for official use each year, according to a notice from the country's main economic planning agency, the Finance Ministry and three other government agencies.

The notice said subsidies will be offered to government and public agencies for purchases of vehicles that cost less than 180,000 yuan ($29,186), subsidies included. Local governments will be asked to build charging stations and other needed infrastructure, said the notice, which was posted on the government's website.

The Chinese government has been trying to promote use of new energy vehicles for the past five years, seeing them as a way to reduce pollution and as an emerging technology Chinese businesses might be able to conquer.

The government previously set a goal of having 500,000 plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on the road by next year and five million by 2020, though it is far from meeting the target. Sales of new energy vehicles reached 17,642 units last year, up around 38% year-over-year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. By contrast, around 18 million passenger cars were sold in China last year.

German auto maker BMW AG BMW.XE +0.71% expects China to become the world's largest market for electric vehicles in five years. Several local auto makers are active in developing new energy vehicles, including BYD Co. 002594.SZ +0.69% and SAIC Motor Corp. 600104.SH +0.26% , General Motors Co. GM +0.53% 's joint venture partner in China.

The new measures' target for official fleets is likely to give a bump to the sector. Purchases of official vehicles in China run between 70 billion yuan (around $8.3 billion) and 80 billion yuan a year, less than 5% of the country's overall annual passenger-car demand according to estimates from consultancy Automotive Foresight.

The new measures follow last week's announcement that car buyers will be exempt from a 10% vehicle tax when they purchase certain new energy vehicles and other fuel-efficient automobiles.

Last year, the Finance Ministry said buyers of electric cars will receive up to 60,000 yuan ($9,700) in subsidies while buyers of certain gasoline-electric hybrids may get as much as 35,000 yuan.

Cities, where the growth in car ownership is contributing to choking pollution, are also offering inducements. In late June, Beijing said it would add 10,000 public charging poles by 2017. Earlier this year, Shanghai announced plans to give 3,000 free license plates to buyers of imported electric cars, exempting them from a bidding system that drives up license plate prices to more than 70,000 yuan.


http://online.wsj.com/articles/chin...cials-to-buy-energy-efficient-cars-1405275633

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I fervently support any effort to break the oil weapon and thus deprive the bad actors of the world leverage over the civilized nations. I also see the merit in using whatever means are at hand to combat China's rapidly worsening pollution problem.

On the other hand, I oppose subsidies of any kind on principle. They distort the market, arbitrarily transfer wealth from the disfavored to the favored, and tend to have severely adverse effects on the government's coffers. India, Egypt, even the US: subsidies are killing the economy, and it shows. I would hate for this to lead China down the road of accomodating the most fanatical environmentalists who are willing to sacrifice the prosperity of the populace for protection of their beloved Gaia. It would be nice if these kinds of articles included cost projections.

Finally, these kinds of initiatives are often used as a form of non-tariff barrier, and I worry that this will result in stealth protectionism. I read last week (Beijing cuts Tesla out of charger-station plan - Caixin Online - MarketWatch) that the planned charging grid will not be compatible with Tesla, so one can imagine how this policy might be used as a weapon in the future against foreign manufacturers.

That said, this appears to be a small scale effort intended to jump-start the market. As long as it is limited to such an effort, and the subsidies are withdrawn quickly, I applaud the strategy.

 

[Aepsilons]

On the other hand, I oppose subsidies of any kind on principle. They distort the market, arbitrarily transfer wealth from the disfavored to the favored, and tend to have severely adverse effects on the government's coffers. India, Egypt, even the US: subsidies are killing the economy, and it shows. I would hate for this to lead China down the road of accomodating the most fanatical environmentalists who are willing to sacrifice the prosperity of the populace for protection of their beloved Gaia. It would be nice if these kinds of articles included cost projections.

Well said, sir, i was in the impression that they (CCP) were implementing this to help their domestic market , and perhaps use it as a testing ground before implementing it to the general public. Your point about the pollution is indeed true, that and it would make sense for the Chinese government to develop strategies to decrease reliance on oil imports. I do wonder if the United States would implement the same kind of policy, perhaps even in a smaller scale, for government offices . Do you think they will?

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Well said, sir, i was in the impression that they (CCP) were implementing this to help their domestic market , and perhaps use it as a testing ground before implementing it to the general public. Your point about the pollution is indeed true, that and it would make sense for the Chinese government to develop strategies to decrease reliance on oil imports. I do wonder if the United States would implement the same kind of policy, perhaps even in a smaller scale, for government offices . Do you think they will?

I doubt the US would implement something similar to China, at least in terms of creating a national standard for the charging grid. It already provides tax credits for electric vehicles, but even worse was the ethanol tariff and tax credit which had horrible repercussions, which is what always happens when the government interferes in the market. I know our Chinese colleagues believe that CCP direction of the economy (state capitalism) is a superior model, at least for China, but the US government has proven beyond all doubt that it is the worst possible venture capitalist.

The market will eventually solve this problem, and some taxes to account for externalities like pollution can help speed the process. I sincerely hope there are no wide-scale efforts to promote electric vehicle usage through government involvement in drafting standards or constructing charging grids, which is a recipe for crony capitalism and thievery from the taxpayers.

 

[TaiShang]

Baidu big winner in World Cup

China Daily

Baidu predictions. [File photo]

China's national soccer team failed to make the cut for the 2014 World Cup, but that hasn't shaken a Chinese tech company's credibility in predicting game results.

Baidu's World Cup prediction service has outscored its major competitors by accurately predicting winners 58.3 percent of the time, compared with runnerup Microsoft Bing's 56.2 percent.

The Beijing-based company not only correctly chose the four semifinalists, it also predicted that Germany would win its match with Brazil, though it didn't foresee the 7-1 score.

Baidu said that its World Cup prediction model is based on data from as many as 37,000 matches played by 987 teams over the past five years.

To improve the accuracy of the model, Zhang Tong, head of the Beijing Big Data Lab of Baidu, said that the company also took into consideration five factors: the teams' strength, home advantage, recent game performance, overall World Cup performance and bookmaker odds.

Tech companies such as Baidu, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, and investment banking firms such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, all took their chances predicting 2014 World Cup games.

Generally speaking, tech companies outperformed Wall Street investors. Baidu and Microsoft both correctly chose the four teams in the semifinals. Goldman Sachs erred in picking Spain to reach the final four, while Deutsche Bank even predicted that England would win the tournament.

Bryan Wang, principal analyst with Forrester Research, a multinational technology and market research firm, said that as a company that processes search requests every day, Baidu enjoys an edge in big data-based prediction.

He said accuracy is based on how much data companies use in building the models. "The more soccer-related data you put into the model, the more accuracy you get," he said, adding that accuracy isn't necessarily equal to a company's capability in big data technology.

Recent media reports said that a soccer-loving girl in Northeast China won more than 3.3 million yuan ($528,000) from betting on the 2014 World Cup and her secret weapon was Baidu's World Cup predictions.

But Bi Yajing, a soccer fan in Beijing who has spent 1,000 yuan on soccer lotteries during the World Cup, said he never uses such big-data prediction. "There is no fun if you can't vote for your favorite teams," he said.

 

[TaiShang]

Early Alibaba bets look golden

China Daily



Alibaba's headquarter in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. [Xinhua]



Some current and former employees of China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are expected to become millionaires as the e-commerce conglomerate heads into what is expected to be one of the largest initial public offerings in global history.

According to Alibaba's draft prospectus, employees hold 26.7 percent of existing shares, which could translate into roughly $44.8 billion worth of unlocked shares, according to estimates from a Bloomberg survey of analysts.

As the largest e-commerce company in the world and owner of the Taobao shopping site, Alibaba Group is valued at $168 billion. But employees, who built the company from scratch over some 15 years, are hardly the biggest winners of the Hangzhou-based company's upcoming IPO in the United States.

Foreign investors have emerged as some of the biggest winners in China's booming Internet market.

Masayoshi Son, chairman of Japan's SoftBank, a top telecommunications and Internet investor, is likely to regain his position among the world's richest people due to the welltimed bet he made on Alibaba Group in 2000. With the $80 million he invested, SoftBank became Alibaba's largest shareholder with a 34 percent stake worth $57.12 billion.

Yahoo! Inc, a US-based multinational Internet corporation, which invested $1 billion and holds 23 percent of Alibaba, could also score multiple billions of dollars from Alibaba's potential $20 billion listing.

"It is difficult to find TMT (technology, media and telecom) companies which have an annual growth of 50 percent in developed markets," says Annabelle Long, managing partner with Bertelsmann Asia Investments, a venture capital firm owned by Germany-based Bertelsmann AG.

"Growth rates even as low as 20 percent in Europe or the United States are difficult to find. But companies with such strong growth momentum can be found everywhere in China," she says.

"TMT is a high-growth sector in China compared with traditional industries," Long says. She describes TMT's deep and promising potential as "a blue ocean".

While developed Western countries are growing slowly, China's GDP growth is still more than 7 percent a year－amid lackluster performance by the world economy.

Bertelsmann Asia Investments has invested in more than 30 startups in China since 2009 and more than half of them are in the TMT sector, Long says.

Four of the companies that Bertelsmann has invested in have gone public, including the US-listed Bitauto Holdings Ltd, a leading provider of Internet content and marketing services for China's fast-growing automotive industry.

"We've made a lot from their IPOs. It would be amazing if we had invested more," she says, laughing.

 

[cirr]

It is Alibaba less Alipay.

Smart Ma span out the latter(the fatest growing and most valuable of the Alibaba group of companies) in 2011.

 

[TaiShang]

ROK to Become Largest Destination for Chinese Tourists
Xinhua

The Republic of Korea (ROK) will overtake Thailand to be the largest outbound destination for Chinese tourists in this year, said a report from China's leading online travel agency Ctrip.

Ctrip predicts the number of Chinese visitors to the ROK will jump 40 percent from a year ago in 2014, thanks to visa-free policy for Chinese visitors to Jeju Island, the most popular tourist attraction in the ROK.

In 2013, nearly 4 million trips to the ROK were made by Chinese tourists, the largest among foreign visitors, according to Ctrip.

Chinese airline companies have started to increase flights between the two nations to meet the growing demand. China Southern Airlines will operate three daily flights from south China's Guangzhou city to Seoul since July 15. Air China started non-stop flights between Beijing and Jeju Island on June 11.

 

[IsaacNewton]

South Korean pop culture conquers Chinese hearts
South Korean pop culture conquers Chinese hearts - Global Times

Hope North Korea doesn't get jealous and fires a missiles at a passenger plane.

 

[somsak]

Will u buy?

 

[halupridol]

guys is gambling big in China?

 

[xunzi]

We don't have a choice. It is all trial and error right now to combat pollution. We declare war on it.

 

[xunzi]

I will visit South Korea eventually because my soon to be mother-in law lives there. LOL

 

[xunzi]

I totally miss the opportunity to bet even though I hate betting and gambling. BUCK ME!! LOL

 

[xunzi]

Baidu, Alibaba, and Lenovo are my favorite company to buy stock.