China Economy - News & Updates

[aimarraul]

Govt car purchases drive ire on Internet
By Wang Huazhong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-03 08:58

Allegations that a Chongqing district government spent 60 million yuan ($8.7 million) on cars over three years has provoked outrage online.

The budget of the unnamed district government was recently leaked on the Internet.

The data shows that 16.9 million yuan was spent on cars and maintenance in 2006, 20.9 million yuan in 2007 and 22.8 million yuan in 2008.

The budget said it would cut spending on vehicle purchases and maintenance, official's reception cost, utility and gas bills and overseas trips by 4.7 million yuan in 2009.

Netizens said the plan to reduce spending was "too little, too late".

"This is just the tip of the iceberg. The real figure might be even bigger," said a Netizen who emphasized that it was just one of the municipalities' 19 districts.

A spokesman for Chongqing's finance bureau surnamed Wang told China Daily that the city's Party discipline authority in Chongqing is conducting an audit in response to Beijing's call to spend less and be more prudent.

The directive from February this year requires local governments to trim 15 percent off spending on vehicle purchases and upkeep.

An unnamed senior official from the city's Party discipline authority said authenticity of the "leaked" information was yet to be verified, but that the public might have been misled by the chart, which provides incomplete information.

"Twenty million yuan sounds big if were spent by a single district people's government. It might actually be an aggregate number of spending by all government bodies and agencies in the district," he said.

He added that the district was unnamed and its geographic size was unspecified, so it did not give a true account of the spending. More than 32 million people in the municipality generated 412 billion yuan of GDP in 2007.

China National Radio recently reported that the Chinese government spent 80 billion yuan to buy vehicles last year.

"Thoughts of tax evasion come to my mind, just looking at the figure," said one Netizen from Henan province in an online forum.

Meanwhile, the Hangzhou city government in Zhejiang province made officials give up their cars in an effort to encourage car sharing. Officials were compensated with a travel allowance between 300 and 2,600 yuan per month.

 

[aimarraul]

China hikes 2011 solar power target
By Zhang Qi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-03 09:09


China is aiming for an installed solar power capacity of 2 gW by 2011, nearly a 15-fold jump from the 140 mW capacity it had at the end of last year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The National Energy Administration has decided to expand the country's solar power capacity to 2 gW in the next two years, with a subsidized price for solar power of 1.09 yuan per kWh, the source said.

China is trying to catch up in a global race to find alternatives to fossil fuels. The country, which revised its 2020 target for solar power capacity from 1.8 gW to 20 gW in its new energy stimulus plan, added 40 mW in new capacity last year.

Six regions and provinces in Northwest China are the most suited for installing solar PV stations in terms of sunshine days. These are Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Shaanxi, said Shen Yanbo, an expert from the National Climate Center.

China hikes 2011 solar power target

The government's new policy would come as a boost for solar energy in the domestic market and create greater opportunities for companies involved in the entire solar supply chain, said Zhang Shuai, a new energy analyst with Sinolink Securities.

Top panel-makers, including Suntech, Yingli Green Energy and LDK Solar, are expected to benefit from the revised goal.

The solar industry has been hit hard since the end of last year due to freezing credit resulting from the financial crisis and an oversupply of solar panels that have cut prices sharply.

China is considering enhancing incentives at a time when European countries such as Germany and Spain, the largest solar markets, are pulling back on incentives, thereby slowing the market.

Although China has been the largest solar panels supplier in the last two years, it played an insignificant role in the domestic solar photovoltaic (PV) market. But new policies are spurring a change this year.

The government in March approved a subsidy of 20 yuan per watt for solar PV systems larger than 50 kW fixed on building roofs.

The subsidy, which could cover half the cost of installing the system, was popular among developers, attracting applications equivalent to the building of 1 gW of solar power, Reuters reported earlier.

For ground-mounted projects, the government is paying a feed-in tariff for the electricity generated, instead of a subsidy based on the projects' capacity.


It has set a price of 1.09 yuan per kWh for a 10-mW solar PV power plant in Dunhuang, nearly three times the rate paid by coal-fired power plants.

"The subsidized price of 1.09 yuan is not ideal for solar panel players to make money from these projects," said Li Junfeng, deputy director of the Energy Research institute under the National Development and Reform Commission. "The profitable price would be between 1.3 yuan per kWh and 1.5 yuan per kWh, depending on different producers."

He said the government still needed to adjust the feed-in tariff if the domestic PV market had to develop faster.

Besides the subsidy component, some Chinese solar panel makers would be able to make money when the production cost comes down to 1 yuan per kWh within the next two years, company insiders said.

 

[aimarraul]

Central banker warns of risks in stimulus push
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-04 19:39

BEIJING: China's massive economic stimulus plan has launched some projects that are wasteful, possibly making it hard for investors involved to repay bank loans, China's central bank chief said on Saturday.

"Some projects may be too wasteful, and some projects in local areas may endanger (investors') ability to pay back loans," Zhou Xiaochuan, the People's Bank of China governor, told a forum at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, without elaborating.

Zhou's comments underscored government worry about risks from the torrent of spending helping to shore up economic growth.

He said China should formally allow local governments to issue bonds to replace the current irregular practices.

"As the front gate is still closed, many local governments had to launch fund-raising platforms, which makes it harder to control, and there may be big problems in future," he warned.

Beijing announced a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package at the end of 2008 to help the economy to weather the global slowdown, and banks have rushed to lend money to government-backed projects across the country.

Zhou said many local governments were jostling for the money via their investment arms or other fund-raising vehicles and a significant amount of China's newly offered loans has been used to fund municipal projects.

Last week, the People's Daily warned that banks see loans to government projects as sure bets, and have sometimes become lax in assessing risks and likely returns.

Local Chinese governments are not allowed to issue bonds according to law. But a part of China's stimulus plan and as an ad hoc practice, Beijing had issued 200 billion yuan bonds on behalf of provincial-level governments.

Many governments, however, have also been borrowing through controlled vehicles or by giving hidden guarantees for projects.

"You can see a lot of government financing activities, and you can see lots of municipal debts, it is clear that the demand (to issue municipal bonds) is there," Zhou said.

"It is better to open the front door than to drive people to walk through backdoor or to jump through the window." he added.

 

[oct605032048]

Auto sales edge past 6m in H1
By Li Fangfang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-10 09:03
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Auto sales edge past 6m in H1

Auto sales edge past 6m in H1
A truck transports a load of cars in Jiangsu province. [CFP]

China's booming automobile industry is expected to sprint to the 12-million-unit threshold on the back of a sales surge during the first half of the year.

China sold 6.1 million vehicles in total in the first six months, a 17.69-percent increase over the previous year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement yesterday.

Full year sales are now likely to comfortably breach the 10-million-unit barrier. China last year sold 9.38 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 6.7 percent over 2007 sales.

More impressive, the country has for four consecutive months sold more than a million vehicles in a single month, breaking the monthly sales record each month since March.

US auto sales plunged 35 percent in the first half to 4.8 million units, the slowest since 1982, according to Autodata Corp, a US marketing research firm. Average automobile sales in the US between 1999 and 2007 were 16.8 million units annually.

"China's passenger car segment, which got a stimulus due to the government's positive policies, has been the major power driving the whole vehicle market," said CAAM in the statement.

CAAM data showed that the passenger car segment contributed to the sales increase by 62.89 percent, as the government's tax reduction and subsidies spurred small car sales.

The strong market performance in the first half has made industry analysts double their growth rate forecast for 2009, from a pervious prediction of no more than 10 percent made during the beginning of the year.

"If the market demand won't drop clearly in July and August, which have always been the slack season for the auto market in China and which would be hit by the recent fuel price hikes, the whole year sales may reach 12 million units," said Li Suping, director of auto research at Ipsos, a global market research firm.

Li told China Daily that if July sales plunged no more than 10 percent from June's, China would see a 20 to 30 percent increase in vehicle sales for the whole year. "The quarter-four sales are always hot and there will likely be a delivery peak at the end of the year," she said.

A recent survey by Ipsos showed robust future demand in China's auto market, with 76 percent of the interviewees saying they planned to buy a car in the next two years; among them, 32 percent planned to do so in the next one year itself.

Hui Yumei, an auto market researcher with Sinotrust Co, said China's 2009 vehicle sales would be between 11 and 12 million units if the oil price did not scare away many potential consumers. "The rapid growth, robust market performance and natural demand are strong evidence," Hui said.

Li Chunbo, an auto analyst with CITIC Securities, said that the auto market would see 18 percent growth this year, and a growth rate of between 10 and 15 percent over the next three years.

 

[quriosity]

hello friends... i just found this video... xinjiang development... at the end the kazakh girls are really exotic & beautiful...

 

[oct605032048]

China's fiscal revenue up 19.6% in June
English_Xinhua 2009-07-13 23:05:18 Print
·China's fiscal revenue in June rose 19.6 percent year on year to 686.75 billion.
·But in the first half of this year, fiscal revenue fell 2.4 percent to 3.398 trillion yuan.
·The revenue rise is attributed to the stabilization of overall economic performance.

BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Finance announced Monday that the country's fiscal revenue in June rose 19.6 percent year on year to 686.75 billion yuan (100.5 billion U.S. dollars).

However, in the first half of this year, fiscal revenue fell 2.4 percent to 3.398 trillion yuan, said the ministry in a statement on its website.

The growth rate last month was 14.8 percentage points higher than the growth rate in May. Fiscal revenue fell 9.9 percent in the first four months this year from a year earlier to 2.05 trillion yuan due to shrinking business profits hit by the global economic slowdown and active fiscal policies including tax cuts to buoy domestic economic growth.

The ministry attributed the revenue rise in June to the stabilization of overall economic performance, growing business profits and the increase in the cigarette tax.

The government announced on June 20 the tax on cigarette cartons costing 70 yuan or more would rise to 56 percent from 45 percent, and the tax on cigarette cartons costing less than 70 yuan would rise from 30 to 36 percent.

Sales tax revenues rose 63.1 percent year on year in June, with business tax revenues edging up 6.4 percent, but the ministry did not specify the figures.

In June, China's fiscal expenditure increased 21.5 percent to 640.56 billion yuan from a year earlier. From January to June, the figure stood at 2.89 trillion yuan, up 26.3 percent from the same period last year.

The government unveiled a 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package in November last year to be spent over the next two years to shore up the world's third largest economy, with 1.18 trillion yuan from the central government.

Fiscal revenue includes taxes as well as administrative fees and other government income, such as fines and income from state-owned assets.

 

[oct605032048]

Chinese shares hit 13-month high, boosted by financial, real estate, steel shares
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index on Tuesday closed at 3,145.16 points, up 64.6 points, or 2.1 percent to hit a new 13-month high led by banking shares. (Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan)

 

[aimarraul]

China's foreign reserves top $2.13t by June
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-15 10:52

BEIJING: China's foreign exchange reserves topped $2.13 trillion by the end of June, up 17.84 percent year on year, the People's Bank of China said Wednesday.

About $185.6 billion were added to the world's largest official foreign exchange reserves in the first half of the year, but that figure is about $95 billion less than the same period a year ago, said the central bank.

investments remain profitable
China's foreign exchange reserves topped $2.13 trillion by the end of June, up 17.84 percent year on year, the People's Bank of China said Wednesday.

About $185.6 billion were added to the world's largest official foreign exchange reserves in the first half of the year, but that figure is about $95 billion less than the same period a year ago, said the central bank.

The stockpile was increased by $42.1 billion in June, $30.2 billion more than the same time a year earlier.

Chinese exports plummeted 21.8 percent through the January-June period in the sharpest decrease in a decade after the global financial crisis sapped demand for Chinese goods.

Declining exports drove down the trade surplus to $96.94 billion in the first half, down 1.3 percent year on year.

A decline of the greenback also helped depress the reserves value as a big share of the holdings were US treasury bills.

The central bank also said 7.37 trillion yuan of new bank loans were extended in the first half of the year, 4.92 trillion yuan more than in the same period a year ago, to echo the moderately ease monetary policy to support the economic revival.

Credits to nonfinancial businesses were 6.31 trillion yuan in the first half, up 4.32 trillion yuan year on year. Of the total, 1.32 trillion yuan were short-term loans, and 3.18 trillion yuan were mid-and-long-term loans. Bill financing was 1.71 trillion yuan.

In June, 1.53 trillion yuan of loans were issued, the second highest monthly figure this year.

The broad measure of money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 28.46 percent year on year to 56.89 trillion yuan by the end of June.

The narrow measure of money supply, M1 (cash in circulation plus corporate current deposits), was up 24.79 percent to 19.32 trillion yuan.

 

[oct605032048]

First made-in-China regional jet makes longest trial flight

China's first domestically-developed regional ARJ21 jet takes off in east China's Shanghai on July 15, 2009. The jet on Wednesday made its longest trial flight of 1,300 kilometers in about two hours from Shanghai to Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)

 

[aimarraul]

China GDP grows 7.1% in first half '09
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-16 10:31


The gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.1 percent from the same period a year ago to 13.99 trillion yuan (US$2.06 trillion) in the first half, as massive government spending and record lending helped the economy rebound from the worst growth in a decade.

Chinese economy expanded 7.9 percent year on year in the second quarter, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The government's growth target for this year is 8 percent.

Many analysts expect China to be the first major country to emerge from the worst global economic slump since the 1930s.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, declined 1.7 percent in June from a year earlier.

This marks the fifth consecutive month of decline since the index dropped 1.6 percent in February, the first fall since October 2002.

PPI falls 7.8% in June

China's producer price index (PPI), a major measurement of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 7.8 percent year on year in June. The decline compared with a 7.2-percent drop in May from the same period last year.

Urban fixed-asset investment up 33.5% in H1

China's urban fixed-asset investment in the first half year rose 33.5 percent from a year earlier. The figure is 7.2 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

Industrial output up 10.7% in June

China's industrial output expanded 10.7 percent in June from a year earlier, faster than the 8.9 percent rate in May.

It makes the industrial output growth rise to 7 percent for the first half.

Retail sales up 15.0% in H1

China's retail sales in the first half year rose 15.0 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics announced Thursday.

FDI falls 17.9% in first half

China's used foreign direct investment (FDI) dropped by 17.9 percent to US$43 billion in the first half of this year from a year ago, said Yao Jian, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, Wednesday.

Foreign reserves top $2.13t by June

China's foreign exchange reserves topped $2.13 trillion by the end of June, up 17.84 percent year on year, the People's Bank of China said Wednesday.

 

[Neo]

China forex reserves hit record $2.13 trillion: central bank ​

* Says reserves, already the world’s largest, grew by $185.6bn in first 6 months of 2009, a rise of 17.8% year-on-year​

BEIJING: China’s foreign exchange reserves surged to a record $2.13 trillion at the end of June, the central bank said Wednesday, as money poured into the country while the economy strengthened.

The reserves, already the world’s largest, grew by $185.6 billion in the first six months of 2009, a rise of 17.8 percent year-on-year, the bank said in a statement. The figure was the highest reported by the bank. Foreign exchange reserves were $1.95 trillion at the end of the first quarter of 2009.

The nation’s forex reserves have ballooned in recent years, fuelled by robust foreign investment, a hefty trade surplus and inflows of “hot money” or short-term speculative funds in search of quick profits. The inflow eased as the economic crisis hit late last year, but the latest figures showed the trend was resuming.

“Overall, with China’s economy recovering and asset prices rising, China is becoming more attractive to foreign investors, which leads to capital inflows,” said Su Chang, an economist with Beijing-based consultancy the CEBM Group. “China’s real estate market has rebounded, also attracting overseas investors who are allocating capital (for such investments).” The nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose by $42.1 billion in June alone compared to May’s figures.

The month-on-month rise was $30.2 billion more than the increase in June last year, according to the central bank. Ting Lu, a Hong Kong-based economist with Merrill Lynch, said the sharp rise was chiefly attributed to the Chinese economy recovering more quickly and maintaining higher growth rates than many in the developed world.

“The return of foreign capital is understandable because asset prices, stocks and properties in China have been outperforming most other markets,” Ting said. But Su said the spike in capital inflows was not all good news for the government. “One of the concerns is that real estate prices may be rising too fast, if the prices rise too fast, it will become a political issue and the central government will face more pressure,” Su said.

Other economists also warned of risks. “China’s forex headache has returned,” Standard Chartered China economist Stephen Green said in a research note. “Hot money... may be back, encouraged by super loose credit and numerous signs of bubbles forming.” China’s trade surplus was down 1.3 percent to $96.9 billion during the first six months of 2009, according to previous government data. And foreign direct investment dropped 17.9 percent to $43 billion over the same period, the commerce ministry said Wednesday.

With the trade surplus and foreign direct investment far lower than the growth in forex reserves, hot money is clearly flowing in to the country. Analysts said this may prompt the government to respond with some form of monetary tightening. China has invested a large part of its vast reserves in US dollar assets, such as safe but low-yielding US Treasury bonds, but amid the financial crisis Beijing has tried to diversify its investments to improve its returns. With the United States and the world economy still reeling from the crisis, China has also called for the creation of a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar. China’s forex reserves stood at $1.946 trillion at the end of 2008. afp

 

[applesauce]

the govenment really need to stop buying so much us debt and start spending that money internally, cant support the us forever

 

[quriosity]

Shanghai Expo is ahead... i will attend for sure...

 

[Neo]

China’s economy grows 7.9% in stunning rebound​

* GDP grew by 7.1% in the first half of 2009 compared with same period a year earlier
* Industrial output increased by 10.7%, and by 7% for the first half of 2009
* Consumer price index fell 1.7% in June compared with same month a year earlier​

BEIJING: China’s economy grew 7.9 percent in the second quarter of 2009, the government said Thursday, in a stunning turnaround for the Asian powerhouse that offered some hope for the rest of the world.

With help from $580 billion in government pump priming, the world’s third biggest economy picked up pace again after the global economic crisis dragged growth down to 6.1 percent in the first quarter. “The economy is rebounding and the strength of the recovery is increasing,” National Bureau Spokesman Li Xiaochao said at a media briefing to release the data.

China’s gross domestic product grew by 7.1 percent in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the bureau. This put China back on track to achieve its goal of eight percent growth for the year, despite the financial crisis hitting its crucial export sector particularly hard. Analysts said the rebound in China would offer a boost of confidence for the global economy as it struggles out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. “China is the first big country to have made a strong comeback, so its rebound will definitely offer a stabilising signal for the world economy,” said He Jun, a Beijing-based analyst with the Anbound Consulting research group.

However, He and other analysts cautioned that immediate and direct benefits would be limited to countries that import heavily into China, chiefly resource-rich exporters and neighbouring nations in Asia. Before the global economic crisis struck, China experienced double-digit annual growth from 2003 to 2007, and again for the first two quarters of last year. To fight the downturn, the government began implementing a four-trillion-yuan ($580 billion) stimulus package from November last year. Li described the impact of the package as ‘remarkable’, but he also warned pitfalls lay ahead amid concerns of bubbles in real estate and other key sectors.

“There are many difficulties and challenges existing in the current national economic performance. The base for recovery is still weak. The momentum for picking up is unstable,” he said. Li’s cautious attitude appeared to infect China’s stock market as shares closed down 0.15 percent on Thursday amid concerns over the economy in the second half year, dealers said. Economists also warned that China’s rebound was unbalanced, with the export sector still struggling while massive bank lending had fuelled the potential for asset price bubbles and inflation.

“Although private sector investment has picked up, growth still relies heavily on the central government?s expansionary policies,” said Lu Zhengwei, a Shanghai-based economist with the Industrial Bank. Nevertheless, Lu and other analysts said China’s economy would likely grow by around 8.0 percent in 2009, in line with the government’s target.

The figure is generally seen as the minimum growth needed to create enough jobs and prevent major social unrest in the nation of 1.3 billion people.

Industrial output: China’s exports dropped 21.4 percent year-on-year in June, the government said last week, the eighth straight monthly decline. However, industrial output, which illustrates activity in the nation’s millions of factories and workshops, expanded by 9.1 percent in the second quarter of 2009 from a year earlier, the bureau said. In June, industrial output increased by 10.7 percent, and by seven percent for the first half of 2009. China’s urban fixed asset investments, a measure of government spending on infrastructure, rose 33.6 percent in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier, the statistics bureau said. Investments in urban fixed assets increased by 35.3 percent in June year-on-year, according to the bureau.

Consumer price index: The consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, fell 1.7 percent in June compared with the same month a year earlier, a further decline from May’s drop of 1.4 percent, the bureau said. afp

 

[oct605032048]

China's Internet users top 338 mln by June

China's power generation in July continues to rise


BEIJING, July. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's power generation in the first 10-day period of July rose by 3 percent year on year, continuing the rebound in June, according to the power dispatch center of State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).

Power consumption and generation resumed growth in June, putting an end to eight consecutive months of decline since last October.

Power consumption in June rose by 4.3 percent year on year, compared with a 2.57-percent fall in May, said China Electricity Council (CEC).

China's major export base sees signs of recovery

GUANGZHOU, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Exports by southern China's Guangdong Province, an economic powerhouse and a major export base of the nation, had seen signs of recovery, expecting a year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter, said a local trade official on Tuesday.
...
Guangdong's external trade amounted to 257.87 billion U.S. dollars from January to June, a decline of 20.7 percent from the same period of last year. The total included 153.42 billion dollars in export, down 18.6 percent, and 104.45 billion dollars in import, down 23.7 percent.

But he said the province's foreign trade was recovering quarter on quarter, and predicted that in the fourth quarter, the province was expected to post a year-on-year growth in exports.