IN BRIEF (Page 24)

Foreign trade rises 19.6% in January

China's exports to markets along the Belt and Road Initiative, including Russia, Malaysia and India, surged in January, indicating that their ongoing industrialization and infrastructure development continued to stimulate economic exchanges with China, experts said on Feb 15. Exports to the three countries grew 39.1 percent, 22.8 percent and 18.1 percent, respectively, on a year-on-year basis, according to the Ministry of Commerce. Zhang Yunling, director of the academic division of international studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says from a global perspective, upgraded consumption, manufacturing capacity and infrastructure cooperation have become the biggest highlights of projects related to the trade route initiative.

Apple ponders Beijing tech group as supplier

Apple Inc is in discussions with Beijing-based BOE Technology Group Co to supply next-generation displays for future iPhones, a key component that is being provided by a Samsung Electronics Co unit, sources familiar with the talks say. Apple has been testing BOE's active-matrix organic light-emitting diode screens for months but hasn't decided if it will add the Chinese company to its roster of suppliers, one of the sources says. BOE, one of the country's biggest screen makers, is spending close to 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion; 13.65 billion euros; 11.63 billion) building two next-generation screen plants in the southwestern province of Sichuan in anticipation of future business. Talks are at an early stage and it's unlikely to supply the next iPhone, but BOE is banking on outfitting the one in 2018 or later, the source says.

Timber group teams upwith Russia on resources

Manzhouli Lianzhong Group, China's largest timber and frame-house building company, is leading a project with Russia to develop forest resources. The project, worth more than 1.5 billion yuan ($218 million; 205.3 million euros; 174.8 million), will seek to construct comprehensive bases in both countries for wood processing, storage and trade, according to Lu Baodong, vice-mayor of Manzhouli city in northern China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Next to Russia, which is rich in forest resources, Manzhouli has been China's biggest land port for wood imports for 16 consecutive years. In the first half of last year, China imported 46.08 million square meters of wood, 33 percent of which was from Russia - the largest source country for China's wood, statistics provided by Zhonglian Group show.

Huawei supports French city's surveillance effort

Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, and the French city of Valenciennes have signed an agreement to renovate the city's video surveillance system for public security. It could help Valenciennes, a city of 400,000 people about 200 km to the north of Paris, in the Hauts-de-France region, better manage public security issues and speed up its digital transformation. The cooperation on video surveillance equipment and technology is a result of Valenciennes's ambition to become a technological showcase of the region, and Huawei's willingness to provide its technological expertise to support the city's digital transformation toward a "smart city." The installation of the whole system would take about one year. The project aims to equip the city with 217 Huawei's HD Network cameras of the latest generation and a fully renewed monitoring center.

GCL unit to make solar power push overseas

Chinese mainland clean-power producer GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Golden Concord Holdings Limited, is looking to boost its overseas sales revenue to 30 percent of the total by 2020 through increasing solar energy project exports, its company executive says. The Suzhou-based company will focus on expanding markets in developed countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia, and plans to set up new branches, says GCL New Energy President Sun Xingping. Sun says overseas business will grow faster in the foreseeable future, with the percentage of installed capacity of solar power in foreign markets amounting to 30 percent of the total. The company's press office says the current proportion is less than 5 percent. It has installed several rooftop-distributed power plants in the US and Japan, and two ground-based plants in South Africa.

Film and TV group to link with UK's ITV

One of China's leading film and TV production companies has unveiled plans to work closely with UK broadcaster ITV Studios Global Entertainment. Huace Film and TV had previously collaborated with ITV on a Chinese version of the UK's Dancing on Ice. The first season of Star on Ice aired on several Chinese satellite stations in January. The show was both a critical and commercial success. Du Fang, vice-president of Huace group, says: "Based on the popularity of Star on Ice, Huace and ITV have agreed to put in place a long-term strategy cooperation that would bring lots of creative work from Huace's film and television strategy."

(China Daily European Weekly 02/17/2017 page24)