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In China, solar farm could be a real FARM
English.news.cn | 2015-11-01 12:48:51 | Editor: huaxia
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A Xinhua photo on June 30, 2015 shows a farmer rowing his boat at a solar/fish farm in east China's Zhejiang Province.​

BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- In a place like this, you can see rows of solar panels like in a regular solar farm. But you may be surprised to find it is a farm that actually produces food: underneath the solar panels there are vegetables growing, or hairy crabs crawling.

This perfect marriage of renewable energy and agriculture is an innovation by Chinese solar power operators looking for ways to circumvent the country's tight restrictions on the conversion of agricultural land.

Solar farms take up a big area and one of the hardest challenges the sector face is to obtain land near major population centers. "Integrating food production helps us to convince the farmers to lease the land at a reasonable price and get local government support," Roger Yang, head of new energy business in China for Hong Kong-listed utility company CLP, was cited by Financial times as saying.

Solar industry has witnessed gigantic development in China over the past few years. Solar power capacity in China will reach 150 GW in five years, up from 35.8 GW at the end of June, Dong Xiufen, director of new energy for China's National Energy Administration, told Xinhua earlier . The government' s goal is to boost photovoltaic-power capacity by 20 GW annually from 2016 to 2020, she said.

Innovation and creativity. Make money, China!
 
Ever growing economic cooperation and integration is indeed the best and only way forward for both sides of the Strait。

Yes, and Taiwan is not just important, but critical to China's hi-tech industrial development especially in electronics/ICT sectors. I need to emphasize such paramount importance for a seamlessly integrated Greater China when competing against Japan, South Korea & Germany in the coming decades. May I take the liberty to quote from a very comprehensive post by @Martian2 :

1. Taiwan has a cumulative 137,867 USPTO patents (which makes Taiwan the third-highest foreign USPTO patent holder after Japan and Germany). Taiwan is a technological powerhouse. In comparison, Hong Kong is merely a financial center.

Citation: Patents By Country, State, and Year - All Patent Types (December 2013)

2. Taiwan is responsible for 60% of Chin'a high-tech exports. This was still true in 2012.

2005 Citation: MAS

(Page ii, first paragraph under Executive Summary): "Taiwanese electronics companies now carry out roughly a third of their production in China, and collectively account for around 60% of China's total information technology exports."

2012 Citation: Why Taiwan Is Asia’s Hidden Tech Mecca | Uncommon Wisdom Daily

"More than 60% of Chinese technology exports are made by Taiwanese companies. What that means is that most of the technology profits coming from anything stamped with 'Made in China' are probably going to Taiwan."

----------

Many of Taiwan's technologies have migrated to China. Notebook computers are now produced exclusively on the mainland. Another example is that China's SMIC is comprised of ex-TSMC employees. It is common for mainland Chinese companies to hire Taiwanese experts. If someone asks, I will use cutting-edge LED technology or specialty chemicals (citation from New York Times) as an example.

Taiwan is the third country in the world to build a sub-micron machine tool (after Japan and Germany). The last citation that I have from 2012 shows China can build a 3-micron machine tool. Taiwan built its first machine tool in 1954. It is reasonable to believe that Taiwanese machine-tool technology has migrated to China. Outside of the West, only Taiwan and China build CNC five-axis machine tools. Taiwan got there first. The West most certainly would not help China to build advanced CNC five-axis machine tools. Given the rapid rise of Chinese CNC five-axis machine tool manufacturers, a reasonable inference is Taiwanese help. Russia still can't build its own indigenous CNC five-axis machine tools. China leapt past Russia with Taiwanese technology transfer.

Taiwan's cumulative USPTO patents are clearly massive in terms of quantity. However, we have to examine the quality of the Taiwanese patents. This can be done indirectly and easily by mentioning ten large leading Taiwanese companies in diverse industries.

1. TSMC (or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is the world leader in the foundry business with 50% worldwide market share. TSMC logic chip technology is currently being mass produced at a leading-edge 20nm.

2. Mediatek is a leading multi-billion dollar designer of systems-on-chip (SOC) for smartphones and tablets.

3. Quanta and Compal produce 80-90% of the world's notebook computers with Taiwanese patents.

4. AU Optronics is a leading LCD manufacturer. AU Optronics won a monstrous patent lawsuit against South Korea's LG where a U.S. Federal District Court ruled that LG infringed on four key AU Optronics patents.

5. Epistar is a leading LED manufacturer with 1,000 LED patents.

6. Formosa Plastics is a leading manufacturer of specialty chemicals.

7. Taiwan is the world's fourth-largest machine tool exporter and has built a sub-micron CNC machine tool.

8. "Delta Electronics, Inc. (Chinese: 台達電子工業股份有限公司), founded in 1971, is the world's largest provider of switching power supplies and DC brushless fans,[1] as well as a major source for power management solutions, components, visual displays, industrial automation, networking products, and renewable energy solutions. Delta Group has sales offices worldwide and manufacturing plants in Taiwan, China, Thailand, Mexico, India and Europe."

9. "In Taiwan, which has the second-largest chip-design industry after the U.S., Novatek is a standout. Chairman Ho Tai-shung has turned it from a little spinoff of United Microelectronics (the Taiwanese chipmaker that is the world's second-largest foundry, behind only neighbor and rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing) into a chip-design powerhouse. Novatek, based in Taiwan's premier high-tech zone, the Hsinchu science park, is the island's dominant provider of TFT-LCD driver and controller chips, key components in the liquid crystal displays used in PC monitors and TV screens." (from BusinessWeek)

10. "Largan is the world’s biggest designer and manufacturer of imaging lens products used in mobile devices." (from Bloomberg News)

Source: Three Waves of Industrialization | Page 2
 
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Woah the figure for the first three quarters are way bigger than vietnam's whole economy, great news for China :tup:

After quite a few posts, my observation is while exports remain strong, apparently China is speeding up on imports of say oil, iron ore, gold, and other materials of similar nature i.e. energy, natural resources for industrial use, non-dollar financial reserves. In other words, that's brings a question here: Is China stockpiling strategic materials? If you have any opinion please share, thanks.
 
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In pics: biggest photovoltaic project in agriculture in Changxing
English.news.cn | 2015-10-22 19:58:03 | Editor: Song Miou

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Aerial photo taken on Oct. 22, 2015 shows the biggest photovoltaic project in agriculture in Changxing County, east China's Zhejiang Province. With an area of 1,460 mu (97 hectares), the 30 megawatts project ran its trial operation in late October. While the photovoltaic panels are used for generating electricity, the land beneath them are used for growing cash crops. It is estimated that some 10,000 tons of standard coal and 28,000 tons of carbon dioxide emission will be reduced in Changxing County every year. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)
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China’s Solar PV Sector Achieves Rapid Growth Amid Global Economic Downturn
October 30, 2015
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Despite the softening in the performance of the global economy, China’s solar photovoltaic (PV) sector achieved rapid growthduring the first three quarters that ended Sept. 30, 2015, mainly driven by favorable policies put in place by the Chinese government.

According to the latest statistics from China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), installed capacity for the country’s PV power generation reached 37.95 GW as of the end of September, with 31.70 GW provided by PV power stations and 6.25 GW coming from distributed PV power projects. For the nine months, the country added 9.9 GW of PV power generation capacity, an increase of 161 percent when compared with the same period of a year earlier. The amount includes 8.32 GW from PV power stations and 1.58 GW from distributed PV power projects.

In addition, the country saw total PV power generation reach 30.6 billion kWh for the first three quarters, with about 3 billion kWh abandoned and PV abandoning rate reaching 10 percent nationwide during the period. The PV abandoning phenomenon was mainly confined to Gansu province and Xinjiang. Of the total, 1.76 billion kWh was abandoned in Gansu province, while 1.04 billion kWh was abandoned in Xinjiang, reflecting an abandon rate for the two regions of 28 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

The development of China’s PV sector started to accelerate during 2015. Total production value for the manufacturing side of the sector exceeded 200 billion yuan (approx. US$31.5 billion) for the first three quarters. Despite the slowdown in growth for the Chinese economy overall, the sector experienced a growth rate of 30 percent. Polysilicon production grew 20 percent year on year to about 105,000 tons, while module production grew 26.4 percent to about 29 GW. In addition, production for silicon chips and cells reached 6.8 billion units and 28 GW, respectively.

China Photovoltaic Industry Association chairman Gao Jifan explained that, throughout the whole industry chain, the internal rate of return for development projects at China’s PV power stations has been ranging between 8 percent and 10 percent, significantly higher than the average level for the manufacturing sector overall.

Last year, almost all of the top 20 module manufacturers across China became involved in development projects for downstream power stations. In the first eight months of this year, investment in the country’s PV-related sector reached 68.5 billion yuan (approx. US$10.8 billion), up 39.4 percent year on year. The growth is 0.6 percentage points lower than for the first seven months, but an impressive 33.4 percentage points higher than the same period of 2014.

Looking forward into the fourth quarter, China’s PV sector is expected to achieve significant growth due to the favorable effects arising from newly-added PV installed capacity by the NEA. The accumulated installed capacity for the full year of 2015 is expected to reach 43 GW, exceeding Germany’s installed capacity to become the world’s largest PV application country.

Gao further added that both the price for PV modules and profit margin for the module manufacturers is expected to grow slightly, while the adoption rate by power generation firms is expected to further accelerate.

China’s Solar PV Sector Achieves Rapid Growth Amid Global Economic Downturn - Renewable Energy World
 
oil reserve is costly, u simply don't have enough space to keep those huge oil reserve, unless we can inject billions of tons of crude oil into empty oil wells in the places like Daqing oil field.

other stuff, gold? the only gold traded on market is paper gold that u don't want, so forget about it.

Building up oil reserves might be costly but it is also a must for the purpose of security in times of crisis. China's medium-term goal is to achieve 90-day SPR. I guess he long-term aim is 120-day.

I believe it is a required investment. Especially at a time when oil is considerably cheap, it is advisable to stockpile foreign oil and save national reserves. Also makes environmental sense.
 
Markets | Mon Nov 2, 2015 1:39am EST

Taiwan's MediaTek says open to cooperation with China in chip sector

TAIPEI

Nov 2 Taiwan and China should cooperate in the semiconductor sector, Taiwan chip designer MediaTek Inc said on Monday, in response to media reports that said China's state-backed tech conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd was interested in the firm.

Taiwan's government heavily regulates investments related to China and the island's semiconductor industry, which is a mainstay for the economy and one of the world's largest.

China is trying to develop its own fledgling chip industry and on Friday, Tsinghua Unigroup said it was buying a 25 percent stake in Powertech Technology Inc for $600 million.

Taiwan's Commercial Times newspaper quoted Tsinghua Unigroup's Chairman Zhao Weiguo as saying on Sunday his firm would be willing to merge its units Spreadtrum and RDA Microelectronics with MediaTek in order to overtake Qualcomm Inc.

Asked about the media report, MediaTek said in a statement that as long as government policies allowed, it was open to "join hands and raise the status and competitiveness of the Chinese and Taiwanese enterprises in the global chip industry".

Unigroup became a force to be reckoned with in the semiconductor industry after it bought Chinese chipmakers RDA Microelectronics and Spreadtrum in deals totalling $1.6 billion last year.

In October, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Tsinghua Unigroup had hired as its global executive vice president a Taiwanese chip industry veteran who was instrumental in building up Taiwan's memory chip sector.

(Reporting by J.R. Wu; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Taiwan's MediaTek says open to cooperation with China in chip sector| Reuters
 
Taiwan to review rules on investment by Chinese chip firms

2015/11/02 17:13:15

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John Deng (鄧振中)

Taipei, Nov. 2 (CNA) Taiwanese investment and financial regulators said Monday they will review the regulations related to investment by Chinese chip companies, amid reports of a merger between Tsinghua Unigroup (紫光) of China and Taiwanese chip designer MediaTek Inc. (聯發科).

In reviewing the regulations, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) will strive to meet the needs of individual companies while protecting Taiwan's interests, Economics Minister John Deng (鄧振中) told the press on the sidelines of a hearing of the Legislature's Economics Committee.

He however did not indicate whether his ministry would give approval for Chinese investment in the domestic integrated circuit (IC) design sector, saying only that the MOEA would consider industry demand as well as the impact of such a move on employment and technological development in Taiwan.

Deng also said he "highly disagrees" with Tsinghua Unigroup's recent statement that the Chinese government should take action to force the removal of Taiwan's regulations on Chinese investment in the IC design sector.

The Chinese government is wise enough to make the right move and not hurt the relationship between Taiwan and China, he said.

Taiwan permits Chinese investment in several semiconductor businesses, but retains a ban on such investments in the IC design sector.

Meanwhile, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is reviewing its regulations on acquisitions and hostile takeovers, and may modify them, if necessary, FSC Chairman Tseng Ming-chung (曾銘宗) said Monday.

The issue was highlighted earlier in day in the Taiwanese media, which cited Tsinghua Unigroup Chairman Zhao Weiguo (趙偉國) as saying that two of the group's chip-making subsidiaries, Spreadtrum Communications Inc. and RDA Microelectronics Inc., would be interested in merging with MediaTek, if Taiwan's regulations permitted.

Zhao also said the Chinese government should ban the sale of chips manufactured and branded by Taiwanese companies, as part of the effort to achieve further opening of Taiwan's IC design sector to Chinese investment, according to the reports.

On Oct. 30, Taiwan's Powertech Technology Inc. (力成) said it had agreed to sell a 25 percent stake to Tsinghua Unigroup, pending approval by the Taiwan government.

If the deal is approved, it will be first investment by a Chinese company in Taiwan's chip testing and packaging industry.

Tsinghua Unigroup, a business arm of China's prominent Tsinghua University, has been working to build its presence in the global semiconductor industry.

(By Huang Chao-wen, Chen Chun-hua, Jackson Chang and Jeffrey Wu)
ENDITEM/pc

Taiwan to review rules on investment by Chinese chip firms | Economics | FOCUS TAIWAN - CNA ENGLISH NEWS
 
China-built cars have less defects than US-built | JD Power

Made-in-China Quality Is Not Good Enough, Lexus Says - Bloomberg Business (November 3, 2015)

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:partay:
Another funny article. Thanks for making my day Martian

“There’s too much quality risk in China to produce there,” Takashi Yamamoto, executive vice president of Lexus International and an engineer who’s worked at Toyota for 33 years. The company also still has to improve the brand’s awareness and standing among consumers. “When that difficulty is gone, maybe local production is likely to be launched in China, maybe several decades later,” he said.

--->several decades later, China will be using electric cars. Lexus? Why would people buy a Lexus when BMW and Mercedes is more high end for a lower price?

"The 5 Series cars produced at BMW’s plant in Shenyang in northeastern China have won top ranking in J.D. Power & Associates’ quality award for the past four years"

---->ok so good so far,

"New-vehicle owners reported 105 problems per 100 vehicles in J.D. Power’s China initial quality study, released last week. The number of problems reported has fallen from 168 in 2010, and was lower than the 112 industry average for the U.S. market this year."

---->Then this

'“It doesn’t necessarily mean that China vehicles have better quality,..Geoff Broderick, an automotive analyst for J.D. Power, wrote in an e-mail."

--->:disagree: He forgot to mention the US car industries have 100 years of producing cars but still can't get the Mustang right even after 60 years of production
 
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