IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Eye on opportunities in Germany and Italy

More than 20 Chinese business leaders of the China Entrepreneur Club set out recently on an eight-day visit to Germany and Italy.

Seeking business collaboration in the two countries, they left Beijing on Oct 13. The delegation planned to meet senior government officials, visit companies and attend meetings hosted by business associations.

The businesses they were to visit included the software company SAP, the carmaker BMW, the football club FC Bayern Munich and the winemaker Marchesi Antinori.

The China Entrepreneur Club was established by 31 of the country's most influential entrepreneurs, economists and diplomats in 2006, its members representing the first generation of modern Chinese entrepreneurs.

New fighter jet set for export market

Aviation Industry Corp of China, the country's leading aircraft manufacturer, is on the verge of exporting its fifth-generation fighter jet, according to industry sources.

The company disclosed the technical specifications for the J-31 Gyrfalcon at the four-day Aviation Expo China 2015, a biennial event held in Beijing in mid-September, although the plane is still being tested, the sources said.

Specifications for Chinese military aircraft have previously been released only after they had entered mass production and were ready for export.

Forbidden City opens more areas

Four areas of Beijing's Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, were opened to the public for the first time on Oct 10.

The areas were Cining Palace, built mainly for emperors' mothers and concubines; Baoyun Building, a warehouse built in 1914 to store thousands of treasures; and wings of the Meridian Gate and East Prosperity Gate.

This move means 65 percent of the museum, founded 90 years ago, is now open to the public. Of the 1.8 million items contained within, less than 1 percent is on public display, said curator Shan Jixiang. He added: "We hope to open more areas to allow visitors to see more treasures."

Help offered to ease Syria crisis, says FM

Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called for greater efforts in tackling the humanitarian crisis in Syria and said China will continue to offer help.

He made the comment on Oct 12 after meeting with Bouthania Shaaban, political and media adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who explained his government's stance.

Wang said the flow of refugees in the Middle East has seriously endangered the stability of the region and its surrounding areas, which need more efforts from all parties, including China, to lessen the impact. He reiterated China's stance on solving the Syrian crisis via political settlement led by the United Nations, referring to it as the "fundamental way out".

VW told to update China on vehicle recall

China's environmental and quality watchdogs have called on Volkswagen to release timely updates on the recall of imported diesel vehicles in the wake of the emissions scandal.

The recall by Volkswagen applies to 1,946 imported Tiguan SUVs and four Passat B6 sedans, according to a company statement on Oct 12. Other vehicles sold by FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai Volkswagen, as well as other imported vehicles, are not affected, it said.

Technical solutions have been developed to correct the engine software that the automaker admitted was designed to cheat emissions testing, but they have yet to be submitted to Chinese authorities for approval, the statement said.

Efforts promised to lift 70m out of poverty

China will work hard to lift about 70 million people in rural areas out of poverty by the end of 2020, according to Hong Tianyun, deputy director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

Although the task faces challenges from the economic slowdown and employment pressures, he said on Oct 12 that the government would take all necessary steps to achieve its goals, including lifting 10 million people out of poverty by the end of this year.

He said the government will continue to subsidize banks to provide loans to help families in poverty-stricken areas to start businesses. In addition, governments at all levels will improve the social security network, especially healthcare.

Capital to provide Wi-Fi in public toilets

Beijing Environment Sanitation Engineering Group has said the city will provide Wi-Fi, ATMs and e-vehicle charging facilities in 14,000 public toilets.

By the end of November, selected toilets in suburban Fangshan district will be renovated to include these services. Users will be able to surf the Internet, buy train and flight tickets and even borrow books from a library.

Tech hub to shift focus to startups

Zhongguancun, a technology hub in Beijing, will transform its development model from an electronics-dominated to an innovation-oriented economy by focusing on serving startups amid a recession in the electronics trade, local authorities said.

According to an official statement, Zhongguancun Haidian Park, the core area, will bid farewell to traditional electronics stores, which currently cover about 150,000 square meters, and nurture innovation-based business and enterprise startups. The area will focus its efforts on utilizing limited space for innovation incubators, smart hardware, Internet-plus business and other new businesses, it said.

Nation nears affordable housing target

China has almost realized the annual target for its affordable housing program, data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development showed.

Construction on 6.85 million units of affordable housing has already begun this year, accounting for around 92 percent of the 7.4 million units planned for the whole year, the ministry said.

First draft of auto sector guidelines expected

The first draft of an antitrust guideline for the automobile sector could be completed at the end of October, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

In addition to policy guidelines on monopoly violations, the draft will also cover price-fixing violations by automakers selling online.

10,000 companiesset up every day

More than 10,000 companies are established in China every day amid government support for entrepreneurship, a vice-minister said on Oct 10. Most are small enterprises. Data was collected from March last year until the end of August this year, when about 6 million companies were registered, said Xin Guobin, vice-minister of Industry and Information Technology.

City has more than 3 million volunteers

Beijing has more than 3 million registered volunteers, Teng Shengping, deputy director of the Beijing Volunteers' Association, said at an international volunteer conference on Oct 12. The number of volunteer organizations exceeds 50,000, and their members offer help to the disabled and elderly, and migrant workers, as well as services in environmental protection and poverty relief, she said.

Nanjing Massacredatabase to open

China will set up a special database and upgrade the protection of documents regarding the Nanjing Massacre after files relating to the atrocities were listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

A number of domestic archives will jointly establish the database, which will be open to the public at home and abroad, a source with the Second Historical Archives of China, who asked not to be named, said on Oct 11.

The database can help people learn more about the historical calamity caused by the war, the source said.

On Oct 9, 11 sets of Nanjing Massacre files, including film, photographs and text created between 1937 and 1948, were listed in the UNESCO register despite Japan's protests.

Work begins onwater pipeline

Construction of a water pipeline connecting the coastal mainland province of Fujian with Kinmen, a Taiwan islet, started on Oct 12 when excavators began operations at Longhu Reservoir on the Jinjiang River, the source for the water-diversion project.

Water will be stored at the reservoir before being pumped into the pipeline and sent to Kinmen, only a dozen kilometers away.

Tsai Chi-chao, director of the Kinmen water plant, said the water supply has been a constant headache for the 153-square-kilometer island, especially with the increasing number of tourists.

"Most of the rain during typhoon season flows into the sea, and the underground water is far from enough for our residents," he said.

Demand for Chineselanguage soars

A shortage of Chinese language teachers has become an increasingly urgent problem worldwide, as more and more countries and regions have established frequent and close trade and personnel exchanges with China, participants at the Eighth Global Fujian Fellow Convention said.

The convention, held in Xiamen, Fujian province, on Oct 9 attracted about 640 businesspeople, along with scholars and professionals from 54 countries and regions whose ancestral home is Fujian.

Didi Dawis, president of the Indonesia Fujian Association, said Indonesia has only about 1,000 Chinese teachers, far too few to meet demand. He said he hopes China would take Indonesia's language needs into consideration and send more Chinese teachers.

Xi congratulates Kimon party anniversary

President Xi Jinping sent a message to DPRK top leader Kim Jong-un on Oct 9 as a senior Chinese official arrived in Pyongyang to attend the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, extended warm congratulations to Kim, the first secretary of the WPK, and through him to the WPK Central Committee, all of its members and all of the people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

China and India hold'deep and candid' talks

China and India have agreed to enhance trust to maintain peace and stability along the border region after "deep and candid" communications at a meeting, a Chinese spokeswoman said.

Officials from both countries' foreign affairs and military authorities met in Beijing under the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

"The two sides have agreed to implement the agreement reached by the leaders of the two countries," Hua said.

Program aims to helpcities soak it all up

China's sponge city program will enable 80 percent of its urban areas to collect and recycle rainwater in the near future as the country spends a total of 86.5 billion yuan ($13.6 billion; 12 billion euros) over the next three years.

The campaign, which aims to turn urban areas into sponges to absorb and recycle 70 percent of rainwater, will cover 20 percent of China's urban areas by 2020 and 80 percent by 2030, Lu Kehua, vice-minister of housing and urban-rural development, said at a news conference on Oct 9.

"The campaign is to maximize our efforts to reduce the impact of urbanization on ecology and the environment."

The central government hasselected 16 cities nationwide as a testing ground involving more than 450 square kilometers. More than 130 cities nationwide have formulated plans to push forward the sponge city campaign, he said.

China Daily - Xinhua

(China Daily European Weekly 10/16/2015 page2)