What's news

Food and beverages

Tighter rule on infant formula imports

A move to tighten import controls on infant formula will likely curb market growth for some smaller, sub-par foreign suppliers and benefit major leading overseas producers, industry analysts said.

Only 41 foreign producers from 13 countries were approved to import their products to China, according to the Certification and Accreditation Administration. They constitute the first suppliers who registered in advance. The list will be updated based on the progress of suppliers' registration. A second cluster of suppliers and list of approved brands are expected to be announced this month, industry analyst Song Liang said.

Song said the new procedures aim to raise the bar for imported formula sold in China and to eliminate foreign brands of smaller-sized original equipment manufacturing.

Retail

Cosmetics sales paleon what they were

The growth of cosmetics sales in Chinese shopping malls is at its lowest in six years, partly due to the government's anti-corruption drive and partly due to the rise in direct overseas purchases, a market research report says.

Retail sales of cosmetics in shopping malls grew 10.1 percent last year, compared with 13.2 percent the year before, and the lowest growth since 2008, said the China National Commercial Information Center, an information service for commercial businesses.

Aviation

Xiamen Airlines buys Boeing system

Xiamen Airlines Co Ltd became the 65th global carrier to purchase Boeing Co's Airplane Health Management system, the US airplane manufacturer said on May 7. It collects and evaluates in-flight airplane operations, and signals in real time any potential maintenance issues to ground crews.

Policy

Sales tax extendedto telecom sector

China is to replace turnover tax with value-added tax in the telecom sector, following similar changes in transport and some service sectors.

The new rules become effective on June 1, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation said.

Basic telecom services such as voice calls and bandwidth leasing or sales will be subject to 11 percent value-added tax, and value-added services such as messaging, data transfer and Internet access will be subject to a 6 percent rate. Telecom services for overseas clients will be exempt.

Trade

Services a priority,ministry says

China pledged to step up support measures for trade in services as the world's second-largest economy tries to shift its economic growth model toward consumption and away from heavy reliance on investment and exports, senior officials said on May 5.

"The near future will be a very important period," said Zhou Liujun, director-general of the department of trade in services and commercial services at the Ministry of Commerce.

While foreign trade in goods refers to shipment of commodities, trade in services points to the export and import of intangible products, such as tourism, financial services and telecommunications services. China was the world's biggest goods trader and third-largest trader in services last year, with goods trade accounting for 11 percent of the world's total and that of services 6 percent of the world's total. Growth of trade in services has outstripped goods trade in recent years.

Property

China ranked as biggest London property investor

The Chinese were the biggest investors in London's new residential market last year, a report from international real estate agency Jones Lang LaSalle Inc showed on May 7. JLL's database reported that Chinese buyers accounted for 23 percent of total transactions in 2013. The figure includes 17 percent from Hong Kong. British purchasers accounted for 19 percent.

Society

Credit database plansent for review

A plan to establish the country's first personal credit database has been submitted to the State Council for review, the Economic Information Daily reported.

The database is to be completed by 2017, with credit information on finances, tax payments, social security payments and traffic violations pooled on a single platform, according to the plan seen by the newspaper, which is a subsidiary of Xinhua News Agency.

Individuals and companies will be given a code that contains all of their credit records, and their credit ratings will be reviewed based on information on the database.

Energy

New nuclear powerplant switched on

China has fired up its 19th nuclear reactor as the country pushes to more than double its expansion of atomic power generation capacity this year, which may boost demand for imported uranium. The Ningde No 2 reactor in the southern province of Fujian started commercial operations on May 4, the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said.

Development bank'sbig bond sale

China Development Bank Corp will raise as much as 6 billion yuan selling one-year bonds through Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd as part of a trial to expand its financing channels. The notes were to be offered on May 5 to individual and non-financial institutional investors, the Chinese government bond clearing house said.

Company

Facebook gains by aiding nation's exporters

United States-based Facebook Inc, operator of the world's largest social networking site, said its business aiding China's exporters to reach global markets is seeing fast growth even as its main Internet services remain blocked in the nation.

Facebook also has "thousands" of application developers in China, vice-president Vaughan Smith told the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing on May 6.

Smith didn't comment on the outlook for offering Facebook's social network in China, where it's accessible only through proxy services that sidestep government censors.

Honghua and GE sign agreement

Honghua Group Ltd, a Chinese drilling rig maker, said on May 7 that it signed an agreement with General Electric (China) Co Ltd. Honghua will install GE gas power products, including aero derivative gas turbines and gas engines, in its own developed and built oil and gas drilling equipment.

Metals

Gold bar demand dives in China

China's gold consumption in the first quarter of 2014 eased significantly from last year mainly because of reduced demand for giftrelated gold bars, experts said on May 6.

In the January-March period, gold consumption was 322.99 metric tons, rising 2.45 tons or 0.76 percent year-on-year. Gold jewelry purchases jumped 30.2 percent to 232.53 tons, while gold bar consumption slumped 43.56 percent to 67.95 tons, the China Gold Association said.

Albert Cheng, Far East managing director of the World Gold Council, told China Daily that the "slump of gold bar demand was caused by the decline of gifts" as the government tightened rules on giftgiving by officials.

He added that China's demand for gold will maintain a growth rate of 20 to 25 percent in the next four years.

Chalco hit by big loss in first quarter

Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) says its net first-quarter loss more than doubled compared with the same period a year earlier after severe oversupply pushed the metal's price down. In a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, China's largest producer of aluminum reported a net loss of 2.16 billion yuan ($350 million) for January-March, from a loss of 975 million yuan.

Finance

Monetary policy to remain steady

The central bank said on May 6 it would keep monetary policy steady with timely finetuning to help stabilize economic growth. The People's Bank of China will use a combination of policy tools to keep liquidity ample, it said in its firstquarter monetary policy implementation report. The PBOC also pledged to keep the yuan basically stable while pushing reforms to help introduce greater twoway flexibility in the currency.

Technology

Big mobile carriersin big games push

China's three state-run carriers will jointly launch as many as 100 mobile-phone games by the end of next year, a vice-president at China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd says. China Mobile Ltd, China Unicom and China Telecom Corp are aiming to achieve 1 million yuan ($160,000) in sales for each title, Liu Yang said at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing on May 5.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily European Weekly 05/09/2014 page18)