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Shanghai to benefit from new bank's HQ

The newly established BRICS development bank, to be headquartered in Shanghai, will help the city realize the aspiration of becoming a global financial center, experts said.

"It's the first time a major international institution will be headquartered in Shanghai. It signals that the city's financial services are of a global standard," said Chen Bo, an economist at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, or BRICS, announced the founding of the New Development Bank on July 15 during a summit in Brazil.

The new bank reflects the growing influence of BRICS, which accounts for almost half the world's population and about one-fifth of global economic output.

It will have an initial subscribed capital of $50 billion equally shared among the founding members, and will support infrastructure and sustainable projects in developing countries.

Xi, Obama vow to keep ties on path

President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to move forward a "new type of major country relationship" during a phone conversation on the night of July 14.

The two presidents spoke while Xi was in Fortaleza, during the Brazilian leg of his four-country visit to Latin America.

The two leaders have maintained close contact with each other since they met at the Annenberg Retreat in California in June of last year, and they have since exchanged views about the recently concluded sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue and fifth US-China People-to-People Exchange in Beijing.

Xi said the dialogue has injected vitality into the China-US relationship, and that he appreciated Obama's greetings to the dialogue, in which the US president said the United States welcomed China's peaceful rise.

Xi told Obama that China has always regarded US-China relations from a strategic view and that China is willing to work with the United States to keep the two nations on the path toward building their new type of relationship.

Private firms able to play bigger role

Premier Li Keqiang vowed on July 14 to broaden private firms' market access and cut redundant administrative approvals amid "persistent downward pressure".

"We will further open the door for private capital. We will give private firms more investment options and a bigger stage on which the creativity of all 1.3 billion Chinese people can be fully unleashed," Li told a group of executives from state-owned and private firms.

The seminar was an opportunity for China's corporate leaders to present their challenges and demands, and for top leaders to get a better understanding of how the economy runs at a micro-level prior to the release of key economic data.

Leaders of companies, including China General Technology (Group) Holding, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Bank of Communications, Gree Electric Appliances, East Hope Group and Sohu.com, discussed current challenges including weak economic growth and rising costs.

Expat pair indicted in GSK case

Prosecutors indicted a foreign couple on July 13 on allegations of illegally obtaining Chinese citizens' personal information, the first foreigners charged for gathering personal information after it became a criminal offense in 2009.

British citizen Peter William Humphrey, 58, and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, 61, a US citizen, were arrested in Shanghai last July during investigating into people believed to be informing authorities about allegations of commercial bribery at pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-SmithKline.

According to prosecutors, the couple collected information about companies and individuals through their company, ChinaWhys, and sold that information to customers, mostly foreign firms in manufacturing and financial industries, and foreign law offices.

The personal information they provided in their reports included household registration information, family background, housing and automobile information, cross-border movement records, call records and information registered with business and commerce authorities.

Govt puts the brakes on car spending

The central government has set a timetable for the reform of government spending on vehicles, aiming to scrap the supply of vehicles for regular government affairs.

According to a guideline unveiled on July 16, central government departments are required to complete the vehicle reform by the end of this year, while the reform for local governments will be finished next year. Other public sector bodies, including state-owned enterprises and institutes, have to complete the reform within two to three years.

According to the guideline, officials from central departments could receive monthly traffic subsidies of 1,300 yuan ($209, 155 euros), 800 yuan or 500 yuan depending on their ranking.

Oil rig finishes exploratory drilling

Beijing has announced the successful conclusion of an oil rig's exploratory drilling at a site in the South China Sea that has witnessed more than 1,500 incidents of Vietnam sending ships to harass operations.

Experts said China should continue with its lawful maritime oil and gas development as planned and not be intimidated by moves taken and orchestrated by Hanoi and Washington.

Oil drilling platform HYSY981, operated and managed by China Oilfield Services Limited, completed the exploration and drilling operation in the sea near Zhongjian Island, part of China's Xisha Islands, on July 15, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei confirmed on July 16.

The company said in a news release that the rig will be "mobilized as scheduled" to the Lingshui blocks, off Hainan, for further operations.

Luxury car sales still accelerating

The ultra luxury vehicle sector in China continued to grow in the first half of the year despite worries of a drop in sales due to the government's frugality campaign.

Stable economic growth and, more importantly, local consumers becoming more mature, helped support first-half sales and provide confidence for future growth, industry players said.

German sports car maker Porsche reported 19,800 vehicles delivered in China in the first half, an annual rise of 8 percent.

Britain's Rolls-Royce Motor Cars enjoyed a record half-year in 2014, with sales in the Asia-Pacific region increasing nearly 40 percent. Though there was no country-by-country breakdown, the region's boom was led by the company's largest single country market, China.

Universities stress admission fairness

Top Chinese universities are taking new steps to improve transparency and fairness in admissions.

Renmin University of China has launched a series of new initiatives to welcome supervision from outside the university, such as opening a publicity platform on the university's recruitment website and renewing and tightening undergraduate student recruitment policies.

The school has stressed increased transparency in this year's independent recruitment, during which students enroll on the basis of a comprehensive assessment that includes sports achievements and artistic talent as well as performance in standard college entrance exams, said university spokesman Wang Hongwei. It is doing this by publicizing these students' exam scores and the preferential policies to which they are entitled, Wang said.

Li Xiangqian, director of the university's admissions office, said 10 to 15 percent of the first-year student will be re-examined randomly in the new semester in an effort to guarantee recruitment transparency and fairness.

More Chinese set to travel to Brazil

Charmed by the recently ended World Cup and the Olympic Games in 2016, more Chinese tourists are interested in visiting Brazil.

According to the Brazilian embassy in Beijing, more than 5,000 Chinese tourists traveled to Brazil during the World Cup.

"The real total is probably even bigger," said Guiherme Belli, the World Cup affairs specialist from the embassy. "The World Cup was a perfect chance for Chinese tourists to get to know Brazil. The tournament will attract more tourists to Brazil in the future."

He said the pull and popularity of the tournament would boost the number of Chinese tourists to Brazil to 100,000 a year soon. In 2012, 65,000 Chinese visited the country.

Latin American mining projects to pay off

Output from China's mining projects in Latin America will boom over the next several years, but the country's investment in the region's resources industry will slow, analysts said.

Chang Xingguo, project director of international minerals and the finance department of the China Mining Association, said China has invested in many copper and iron ore projects in Latin America since 2005, when commodity prices were high.

Most of the investments in the region are copper mines in countries such as Peru, a major copper producer, and Brazil.

China has about 23 overseas copper projects with a total reserve of about 59 million metric tons, according to data from the China Mining Association.

UN body: China boosts IP protection

The head of the World Intellectual Property Organization spoke highly of China's achievements in intellectual property protection on July 11, a day after the United Nations agency opened an office in Beijing.

In a meeting with Premier Li Keqiang, Francis Gurry, the organization's director-general, said China's "remarkable" progress in IP protection has helped transform and advance the country's economy and has been a boon to global economic growth.

"The organization welcomes China to play a bigger constructive role in setting up relevant international regulations," Gurry said in a news release in Chinese from China's central government.

Li told Gurry the Chinese government is trying to help scientists and high-tech talent by boosting their rights to benefit from their research.

He said China expects to work more closely with the organization to further develop international intellectual property rules.

China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 07/18/2014 page2)