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"Air Cube", the Christmas Gift from China That is an Innovation In Air Quality for the Home

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"Air Cube", the Christmas Gift from China That is an Innovation In Air Quality for the Home


QINGDAO, China, Dec. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- As Christmas draws near, are you still racking your brains about what to send as a gift?

A Christmas gift is arriving from China, which will give you an opportunity to get away from the tried and true and be a true and welcome surprise for the lucky recipient. Just like the Tesla name when it comes to electric cars or Apple when talking about smartphones, to own one will put oneself at the forefront of a new fad. Treating yourself to one would be an unparalleled reward.

The gift is the innovative air appliance that Haier is soon to launch into the market -- the Air Cube.

Haier has long been known for innovation. The Air Cube is certain to be quite a sensation and head turner both in design and performance. It is a pioneering thrust in the application of modularization in household appliances, turning your impression of traditional air conditioning and purification appliances on its head.

This new gadget looks like a Roman pillar which you can assemble as you please, just like playing with Lego blocks. The four modules - dehumidification, humidification, purification and aromatherapy, can be assembled into eight different combinations - a single device that gives you total control over all aspects of the air quality in your home, something that until now was unimaginable.

At your Christmas party, as you spend time together with family and friends, sitting by the fireside, enjoying wonderful Yuletide food and drinks and the happy moments of being together, the Air Cube will be quietly working in the background, assuring you and your guests of a continuous flow of fresh and healthy air. The Air Cube can easily be assembled by you and your family members in your spare time, giving you the opportunity to enjoy that feeling of tacit cooperation with your loved ones, while recollecting the innocent obsession with toys in childhood.

This new product comes with such an array of attractive features, all of which you can have a chance to experience during the Air Cube's debut at 2015 CES. One last warning: keep an eye on it while sleeping on Christmas Eve, or Santa just might grab the Air Cube and take it back to the North Pole on his sleigh for his own use.

'Air Cube', the Christmas Gift from China That is an Innovation In... -- QINGDAO, China, Dec. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
 
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Cutting edge innovation to come from China

2014-12-15 13:15 China Daily Web Editor: Qin Dexing
Peter Williamson, professor of international management at Cambridge University's Judge Business School, believes new management ideas are emerging out of China. NICK J. B. MOORE / FOR CHINA DAILY

Innovation helps firms keep pace with changing market trends

Peter Williamson believes the Chinese are emerging at the cutting edge of global management practices.

One of the world's leading management experts, he argues managers in China are now taking a lead in the way the Japanese did in the 1980s with their ideas of "Just in Time" and "Total Quality Control" that revolutionized manufacturing and customer care.

He argues China's contribution is in building management systems that can deliver "accelerated innovation" that can keep pace with a fast-changing domestic consumer market.

"What we are seeing in China is a lot of this accelerated innovation and different ways of speeding things up as well as reducing costs that has not yet quite coalesced into something recognizable like what came from Japan such as "Just In Time" but it is heading in that direction.

"It is building toward a Chinese management style and a Chinese way of doing things."

Williamson, 57, who is professor of international management at Cambridge University's Judge Business School and travels to China six times a year, was the co-author with his colleague Eden Yin of an article, Accelerated Innovation: the New Challenge from China, which appeared in the influential MIT Sloan Management Review.

The article has prompted a debate in the business media and among management academic institutions globally as to whether management practices in China will soon become a template for Europe and the United States.

"I think that is a very interesting question and something I debate a lot with Western companies. I believe the answer will be "yes" because it actually fits in with the demands of modern society to reduce lead times and have faster product development cycles.

"What the Chinese are able to do is to take a new technology and rather than it taking 10 or 15 years to produce a mass market product, as is currently the case, to actually come up with one in one to two years. I believe this will become more common and that in order to compete, established Western companies and, indeed, Japanese ones will need to learn it."

Williamson and Yin's recent research was the result of interviewing 50 representatives of some 23 companies over a period of three years.

What they found was Chinese companies taking advantage of a vast supply of engineers that enables them to industrialize the innovation process, much in the same way as they did producing cheap goods, which enabled the country to become the manufacturing workshop of the world.

"What China has is a lot of mid-level engineers who are relatively low cost in terms of salaries. They also have a lot of people trained in technical colleges.

"Such people are very useful in industries such as in making PCs or in pharmaceuticals where the process is very well-defined. There is a lot of work that is basically routine and what the Chinese are doing is speeding up the innovation process dramatically, often cutting the time needed in half and reducing the cost."

One of the companies that Williamson interviewed was WuXi AppTec, a pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device research and development outsourcing company with operations in both China and the United States.

It recently came up with a new drug for chronic hepatitis C. Instead of having a small team of top PhD scientists working in a laboratory as in the West, the innovation process was split into eight teams of about a dozen people each and while some had top degrees, others were just technicians.

"People think pharma companies are super high-tech and that they are coming up with potential new molecules but that is only one aspect of it. A lot of the work is fairly routine and therefore mass industrial techniques can be used."

Williamson also argues the Chinese are now combining the vertical management structures that are common in many of their companies, where a big boss sends his edicts down the line, with a flexible horizontal management team underneath.

This horizontal structure is not compartmentalized as in the West between, for example, marketing, product development and sales, but has an interdisciplinary approach and is simply charged with carrying out the tasks given from above.

"People at the top and even in companies like Huawei Technologies Co this might only be 12 or 14 people determining the direction of the company and then the people underneath are put under enormous pressure to deliver the projects quickly, whether it is a new product, factory or marketing campaign.

"They will, however, come together as a team, discuss things over meals and really break down the boundaries between functions within the company so they can move ahead much quicker. In a Western company, there would be a lot of circulating of reports between various departments, which really slows things down. The weakness with the Chinese system is that nobody questions what those at the top say and so they have to be right for any of this to work."

Williamson, the son of a British entrepreneur, was raised in Australia, where he took a first class degree in economics from Macquarie University in New South Wales.

"It was the somewhat grim 1970s in the United Kingdom and not a very exciting prospect so I decided to stay in Australia," he says.

He then went on to work for Merrill Lynch in London, New York and Singapore before winning a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard.

After Harvard, he embarked on a career in management consultancy with the Boston Consulting Group in the 1980s when he went to China for the first time assisting a UK textile company expand its operations in Tianjin.

"I remember taking the train from Beijing, which used to take about two hours then and the cleaners coming in to wash the floors while you were sitting on board. You had to move your feet. Your own comfort was secondary," he says.

He decided to return to academia in 1987, taking up a lectureship at London Business School. He kept close links with business, holding a directorship among others with Glenmorangie whisky.

"I felt that if I was to return to academia it had to be then because it is not something you can enter later if you haven't published things," he says.

After London, he moved back to Harvard in 1993 to be visiting professor of global management.

Two years later he moved to INSEAD in Fontainebleau, where eventually became involved in setting up a campus in Singapore.

He also further cemented his links with China being visiting professor of strategy at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing between 2003 and 2007, after which he joined Cambridge University's Judge Business School, where he has been for the past seven years.

He has written no fewer than nine books, including Dragons at Your Door: How Chinese Cost Innovation is Disrupting the Rules of Global Competition with Ming Zeng, chief strategy officer of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

One of the big debates in management circles is whether Chinese management practices will become recognized in the same way as JIT or TQM.

One of the barriers is that Western scientists and research and development teams are paid well and do not want to do mundane tasks so they would find it hard to adapt to a Chinese management approach.

"If you went to them and said that you wanted them to do a whole series of changes to something very quickly or re-engineer this technology so that it comes down in price, they would kind of yawn and say it is not interesting."

Williamson predicts what many Western companies will do is form partnerships with Chinese companies so they can take advantage of these new management techniques, particularly in the innovation field.

"I think a number of UK companies are already doing this. What used to happen was that a UK company would come up with an innovation and sell it to the United States where they would be turned into mass market products.

"Now they are going to China, finding a Chinese company that has got this product design engine and the ability to build a big plant fast and I think we are going to get these interesting new alliances emerging."

Williamson thinks there should be nothing surprising about new management ideas emerging out of China because of the sheer speed of the development of its economy.

"I think it is important to say that we are not saying that Chinese organizations have sat down in a room and come up with a new strategy called accelerated innovation. You have an environment, however, where things are moving fast, people are willing to try new things and where there is hypercompetition."
 
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The Chinese government is building affordable housing in Brooklyn

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China's latest overseas investment project.(Getty/Spencer Platt)
December 16, 2014

Executives from one of China’s largest state-owned property developers broke ground this week on a mixed-income housing project in a somewhat unlikely locale: the hipster haven of brownstone Brooklyn. “We are committed to doing everything we can to keep this neighborhood diverse, affordable and accessible for all New Yorkers,” said I-Fei Chang, head of Greenland Holdings Group’s US expansion. Chang has said in the past that a range of incomes of residents is “what makes a city successful.”

Greenland’s affordable housing venture in Brooklyn, 298 apartments in an 18-story building in Prospect Heights, is part of a larger 15-tower apartment project in Atlantic Yards, (now rebranded “Pacific Park) adjacent to the Barclays Center, which will cost an estimated $4.9 billion to build. Half of the 298 units are supposed to be for families that make as low as 40% of the median income for the area—that’s about $33,560 for a family of four. Here’s where the development sits within the neighborhood:

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(pacificparkbrooklyn.com)

And how it’s supposed to look:
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An artistic rendering of Greenland’s affording housing complex in Atlantic Yards.(pacificparkbrooklyn.com)
Not surprisingly, the deal is likely less about neighborhood altruism and more about Chinese property developers’ drive to expand overseas. Greenland has invested about $20 billion in 13 cities outside of China since last year, and is just one of many mainland developers taking advantage of China’s loosening restrictions on overseas direct investments to get into US real estate. The Atlantic Yards project marks the largest overseas investment by a Chinese property developer to date.

New York City is just one locale on Greenland’s list. The company is also building a $1 billion complex for hotels, apartments and luxury condos in downtown Los Angeles, and its chairman Zhang Yuliang said this week that it is looking to expand in its existing markets.
 
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Not only SCO countries but every single country which want to secure its currency against dirty Western games need to start using for trading their own currency asap.Look what West via western controlled financial institutions and help of local traitors is doing right now to Russian ruble.Or check what they did with Argentinian peso or Turkish lira or Venezuelan bolivar or Indian rupee.Currency attack is simple direct act of sabotage and economical war by the West against any country not obeying to their demands.
 
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Chinese-built Bridge to Improve Serbian Transportation

Chinese-built Bridge to Improve Serbian Transportation
2014-12-18 04:56:40 CRIENGLISH.com Web Editor: Wang

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The Zemun-Borca Bridge over the Danube in the Serbian capital has been built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation. Construction began in November 2011. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Serbian Prime Minster Aleksandar Vucic will attend a completion ceremony for a Chinese-built bridge in Belgrade later today.

The Zemun-Borca Bridge over the Danube has been built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation. Construction began in November 2011.

It is the first European bridge built by a Chinese company.

Zhang Xiaoyuan is the general director of the Serbian branch of China Road and Bridge Corporation. He says the success of this project will encourage more Chinese companies to explore the European market.

"With this new bridge, we have shown Serbia and its neighboring countries that we have the strength and technology to complete such a project. It helps us set a good example and promotes our development in neighboring markets. Chinese companies pay close attention to markets in Central and Eastern Europe. These markets have great potential, because transportation facilities are lagging behind in these countries."

Once put in use, the new six-lane bridge will significantly ease the traffic burden in the Serbian capital by reducing the road distance between the municipalities of Zemun and Borca by 70 percent.
 
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China FDI up 22.2% in November
December 16, 2014, BRICS Post



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Delegates attend the closing ceremony of the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Nov. 21, 2014 [Xinhua]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland, a gauge of external confidence, jumped 22.2 per cent in November from a year earlier, settling at $10.36 billion, China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday.

The growth quickened from a 1.3-per cent rise in October and 1.9 per cent in September, as investments to the country’s service industry continue rising steadily.

Investments from South Korea and Britain rose, up 22.9 percent and 28 percent respectively.

In contrast, investment from Japan plunged 39.7 per cent partly an effect of the chill in political ties between the two neighbours.

Investment into China from the ASEAN nations also witnessed a 23.6 per cent drop and that from the US also went down by 22.2-per cent.


For the first 11 months, the FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, stood at $106.24 billion, up 0.7 per cent from the same period last year, the ministry said.

Around 55.1 per cent of the FDI went into the country’s service sector during the Jan.-Nov. period. FDI into the manufacturing sector moved down 13.3 per cent to $35.93 billion, accounting for 33.8 per cent of the total.

Tuesday’s data also showed China’s outbound direct investment by non-financial firms moved down 26.1 per cent to $7.92 billion in November.
 
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China, Serbia vow to upgrade strategic partnership to new level

China and Serbia on Wednesday agreed to continue to support each other on issues of core interests, further bilateral practical cooperation, realize common development, and upgrade strategic partnership to a new level.

The consensus was reached when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic.

China attaches great importance to the ties with Serbia, Li said, adding that friendship, mutual trust and cooperation have become the main theme of bilateral relations.

Li called on both sides to reinforce infrastructure cooperation, promote major cooperation projects, and start the construction of the Hungary-Serbia railway as soon as possible.

China and Serbia, he said, should encourage information sharing and project docking between enterprises and financial institutions from the two countries.

Referring to expanding agricultural trade and research collaboration, Li called for an early establishment of a network for promoting agricultural technological cooperation and turn the scientific results into productivity.

On lifting the level of bilateral trade and investment, the two sides should hold the 11th China-Serbia joint economic and trade committee meeting as soon as possible, the premier said.

Pledging to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and expand cooperation in education, culture and tourism, Li expected that the Serbian side will facilitate visa issuance for Chinese tourists.

Meanwhile, the Chinese premier expressed appreciation for Serbia's efforts in hosting the third leaders' meeting of China-CEE countries.

Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries is in line with interests of both sides, conforms to the common wish of the region and the peoples, and brings benefit to the comprehensive and balanced development of China-Europe relations, Li added.

Beijing stands ready to work with other CEE countries to promote the China-CEE cooperation and advance the China-Europe ties as well, he said, adding that they would continue to invite the European Union observers to attend the leaders' meeting, so as to maintain the openness and inclusiveness of the China-CEE cooperation.

Vucic, for his part, said Serbia will always be a reliable friend and partner of China.

He also thanked China for its long-term assistance and support to Serbia.

Serbia is willing to enhance interaction with China both on bilateral level and within the framework of the China-CEE cooperation and to implement consensus and agreements reached by both sides, he said.

Serbia will work with China and Hungary to speed up the construction of the Hungary-Serbia railway project, he said, welcoming more investments from the Chinese business.

After the talks, Li and Vucic witnessed the signing of a number of cooperative agreements in the areas of economic and technical cooperation, energy, finance, aviation and culture.

Li arrived here Monday for the third China-CEE leaders' meeting, and an official visit to Serbia.

He flew to Serbia after wrapping up a visit to Kazakhstan in his three-nation trip, which will also take him to Thailand.
 
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China starts work on first Latin American railway project
17 December 2014 | By David Rogers


Rejuvenation of Argentina’s near-derelict freight network

Work on China’s first railway venture in Latin America got under way in Argentina this week, according to the China Machinery Engineering Corp (CMEC).

The $2.5bn Belgrano Cargas project, which will upgrade a near-derelict 11,000km freight network in the north and centre of the country, will take two years to complete. CMEC will renovate about 1,500km of track.

The network is in dire condition. After carrying 3.3 million tonnes of cargo in 1998, it carried only 500,000 tonnes in 2006. Attempts to tender reconstruction work to the private sector failed, and the government renationalised the line in 2013.

The turning point in Belgrano Cargas’ fortunes came during President Xi Jinping’s tour of Latin American countries in July.

During his stop-over in Buenos Aires, President Xi concluded a number of infrastructure deals with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

One was a turnkey contract for CMEC to modernise the network, while another was a $2.1bn loan – an essential part of the deal given Argentina’s bad credit record.

The Argentine government is contributing $370m towards the work, bringing the total value of the scheme to about $2.5bn.

China will supply new trains as well. Chinese train maker CSR confirmed on 15 December that it had been awarded a contract worth around $270m to supply 100 diesel locomotives and 3,500 wagons to the network.

The scheme benefits China because it helps the export of Argentine soya beans: the country is the third-largest exporter and China is its main buyer. China’s appetite for soya is such that it has become Argentina second largest trading partner, after Brazil.

Other construction deals in the offing include a fourth nuclear power plant and two dams.
 
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This is the first step Mongolia need to take to fall back to Sinosphere. Dump Russia broad guage and adopt China's Standard gauge.

Right now, Russia can just watch and do nothing. USA and West encroaching of Ukraine is best timing for China to wrestle back Mongolia.


Mongolia finds China can be too close for comfort - Businessweek

After years of testy debate, Mongolia broke ground this spring for a railroad that will haul coal across the pebbled Gobi desert to China, but with one costly condition.

Citing national security, the government ordered the rails be laid 1,520 millimeters apart, Mongolia's standard gauge inherited from the Soviets. The width ensures that the rails cannot connect to China's, which are 85 millimeters (about 3 1/2 inches) closer together. So at the border, either the train undercarriages will need to be changed or the coal transferred to trucks, adding costs in delivering the fuel to Mongolia's biggest customer.

When it comes to China, Mongolia will only go so far and no further.
 
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China's Fine Wine That's Fit For The Queen

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent, in Liaoning Province

Sky News – 54 minutes ago

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Sky News - China's Fine Wine That's Fit For The Queen

A 10-hour drive northeast of Beijing, China's Liaoning Province is frigid and bleak at this time of year.

It is -15C outside and hardly the place you would expect to find a multimillion pound wine industry.

And yet this remote corner of China is now producing wine so good it has connoisseurs around the world quaffing with excitement.

We pass through downtrodden villages, stunning snowy scenery and row upon row of vines. This is China's "ice wine" country.

On the horizon we spot what looks like a European-style chateau. It turns out to be just that; the Chinese have thrown everything into what has become a serious business which is transforming the local economy.

Among the vines we meet Ji Hongyan. She once worked in a local farm machinery factory until she realised her future was all around her.

The soil, the temperature fluctuations and the humidity in this part of China are perfect for producing ice wine, a particular type of wine made by crushing frozen grapes.

Mrs Ji said: "Every year at January, we pick the grapes. We leave them hanging on the vine late into the winter so that the water evaporates and sugar accumulates making the perfect ice wine."

Mrs Ji is part of a form of co-operative. She supplies her grapes to the vineyard.

She added: "The Changyu Golden Valley vineyard pays us a good price for our grapes so the lives of the ordinary people here has improved."

Six thousand miles away in London's St James Street, the Queen's wine merchant now stocks a range of Chinese wine including bottles full of juice squeezed from Mrs Ji's grapes.

The Master of Wine at Berry Bros & Rudd - Jasper Morris - says Chinese wine has transformed in quality in recent years.

He told Sky News: "The weather conditions in Liaoning prove to be just right to make this type of wine consistently. When we tasted them, it was an easy decision to make.

"Interestingly, we have sold out of the really expensive black label version, which is £65 per half bottle. The gold label at £19 is both excellent and in fact very competitive at that price."

Back at the vineyard in China, Mrs Ji offers a few grapes from the frozen vine to taste. They are crunchy, sweet and delicious.

She said: "What a privilege for me as a farmer to produce such a nice ice wine which is even sold in UK.

"I heard that British Queen may have tasted our wine. I feel so proud!" :lol::wave:

Down the valley in Changyu's bottling plant we discover it is not just ice wine they are producing.

We watch thousands of bottles jingling along the production line; red and white, dry and sweet, all of it grown, bottled and boxed in China.

Manager Qu Jian boasts that seven million bottles were produced here this year. Next year, he says, it will be nine million.

We sip the three ice wine varieties now on offer in London.

Mr Qu said: "When the grape is frozen we take it for pressing and we get the juice and we ferment it and we get ice wine.

"It would go well with cake, chocolate, ice cream, even cheese."

And what about those too snooty to try a wine made in China?

"Our wine is the best, just try it," he says, roaring with laughter.

China's Fine Wine That's Fit For The Queen - Yahoo News UK
 
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Wanda eyes competing with Disneyland
Xinhua, December 21, 2014

Chinese real estate tycoon Wang Jianlin said on Saturday that his Dalian Wanda Group will compete with Disneyland and probably open theme parks in the United States in the future.

Wang, founder and president of the group, one of China's top property developers, revealed his ambition at the opening ceremony of a movie park in Wuhan City, capital of Hubei Province in central China.



Although real estate contributed the bulk of Wanda's revenue, Wang told Xinhua that the group is seeking more growth engines as rapid expansion in China's property sector is coming to an end.

Wang said Wanda will unveil a transformation plan in January and turn to businesses in culture, tourism, finance and e-commerce for further growth.

In a move toward the transformation, Wanda launched the "cultural tourism city" program to construct building complexes for tourism, entertainment, shopping, dining and other purposes in a number of Chinese cities.

"Our cultural tourism cities will try to rival Disneyland parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai in terms of visitors and revenue. If we do well, Wanda will probably build theme parks in the U.S.," said Wang.

Wanda is confident in promoting Chinese culture to the world, according to the 60-year-old businessman.

The group is actively exploring overseas markets with investment in the U.S., Australia, Britain and Spain.

Wanda aims to raise its business revenue to 600 billion yuan (97 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, with 30 percent hopefully coming from overseas businesses.
 
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China and Belarus sign agreement for Silk Road economic zone construction China Market News

China and Belarus sign agreement for Silk Road economic zone construction

2014/12/24 08:44

Ministry of Commerce announced that China and Belarus had signed an agreement in Beijing on 22 December, pursuant to which the two sides will jointly promote the Silk Road economic zone construction by enhancing the connectivity in the trading, investment, economic technology and infrastructure aspects.
 
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