IN BRIEF (Page 10)

Shanghai pollution curbs

Shanghai will tighten pollution restrictions in the next three years in an attempt to reach its target to be a national model city for environmental protection before the World Expo 2010.

The major tasks for the Three-Year Environmental Protection Action Plan, which will run from next year through 2011, were released recently.

The new national IV emission standards are expected to be adopted. Citywide inspections will be enforced to take high-polluting vehicles off the roads.

Highways, fly-overs and busy downtown streets will also be the first areas targeted in a noise pollution anti-horn crackdown. The ban on horn honking will be expanded from downtown to the entire city area from next year.

Shenzhen house sales

Housing sales perked up in Shenzhen in May as prices continued to slide.

The average housing price in Shenzhen's six districts dropped to 11,143 yuan per sq m in May, down 23 percent from a year ago and 7 percent from April, according to a report released by Centaline (China) Shenzhen-Hong Kong Property Research Center.

Of the six districts, Bao'an recorded the biggest fall in May, with the average housing price reaching 10,418 yuan per sq m, down 7.3 percent from a month ago. The average housing price in Longgang district didn't slide as much as it did in April and fell only 2 percent from a month earlier to 8,910 yuan per sq m.

The report showed sales of new apartments rose quickly as more houses become affordable. In May, 4,732 houses were sold with a total floor area of 460,000 sq m, up 51 percent and 56 percent respectively from a month ago.

Beijing-Tianjin railway

Test runs on the Beijing-Tianjin express railway have ended, with the line scheduled to be in use by Aug 1, ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Trains ran at a maximum of 380 km per hour in the test, the fastest such service in the country. The 115-km trip from the Beijing South Railway Station to the Tianjin Station took 27 minutes, including a one-minute stop respectively at Yizhuang and Wuqing stations.

Travel between the two cities is currently affected by road congestion and slow rail service. At present, the train takes more than an hour to make the trip, and buses take two hours.

Express trains will run at three-minute intervals and carry a maximum of 18,000 passengers per hour.

Hunan business expo

The Hunan provincial government hosted a business-promotion week in Shanghai last week, looking for foreign and domestic investors for more than 800 business projects with a total investment of more than $40 billion.

The hundreds of projects open to foreign investment involve industries such as port construction, farming, garbage and wastewater treatment, as well as TV and cartoon production.

"Shanghai and Hunan have a long history of close business ties, while investment from the city in Hunan has been rising by 10 percent in recent years," said Gan Lin, vice-governor of Hunan.

(China Daily 06/23/2008 page10)