IN BRIEF (Page 10)

Dalian Port, PetroChina JV

Dalian Port Co, operator of China's biggest crude oil terminal, has announced that it set up a joint venture with PetroChina to develop, construct and operate an oil terminal at Xingang Port in Dalian, a city of northeast China's Liaoning province.

The terminal will have a designed berthing capacity of 300,000 tons of crude oil and registered capital of 250 million yuan.

Furthermore, Dalian Port Co also announced that it made a profit of 534 million yuan in the first half of this year, up 69.6 percent year-on-year.

New IKEA in Nanjing

IKEA has opened a new store in Nanjing, with total investment of $54 million. The new store covers 60,000 square meters.

The store is the Swedish furniture maker's sixth in China, and features 65 sample rooms, three complete homes, 6,000 products and a restaurant.

IKEA said it has invested $54 million in the new site and expects a yearly revenue of 440 million yuan.

The company has also announced it will open new stores in Dalian and Shenyang, and a second outlet in Shanghai in the near future.

Solar plant for Beijing

Yingli Green Energy Holding Co Ltd, one of China's leading integrated photovoltaic product manufacturers, has entered into a framework agreement with Beijing municipal government to construct a project of 10 mW solar power plant.

Under the framework agreement, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yingli Green Energy and an entity controlled by local government would cooperate to establish a new company to construct the new plant. And the project is expected to begin in the second half of 2009.

"We are excited about this opportunity to construct an on-grid solar power plant in Beijing, which would be the first solar power plant we construct and operate," according to Miao Liansheng, chairman and CEO of Yingli Green Energy.

Montupet site in Jiangsu

France-based Montupet Auto Parts Co Ltd has started construction of its facility in the Changzhou National High-tech District in Jiangsu province recently.

As the first Montupet subsidiary in China, Changzhou Montupet Auto Parts Co will develop and produce cylinder heads, precision castings and other auto parts in Changzhou.

The French casting maker will invest a total $29.98 million in the first phase of the project. When completed, it will be expected to manufacture 700,000 sets of aluminum cylinder heads annually.

According to the company's statement, it aims to build its Chinese plant as a core company with an annual output of 1.4 million aluminum cylinder heads for auto use in the coming years.

Electric auto R&D

An electric automobile production research and development (R&D) base, which is designed to have annual capacity of 20,000 units, has started production in Tianjin municipality, a coastal city in northern China, said industry sources.

The electric automobile production base, which is located in the west of Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Area (TEDA), covers an area of 60,000 square meters. According to local experts, the city owns more than 18 leading automobile R&D organizations, which cover auto parts' making and whole-vehicle works, and form the whole chain for electric automobile manufacturing and R&D works.

Wine up in Zhongshan

More imported wines are entering markets, franchised stores and pubs in Zhongshan, a city in Southeast China's Guangdong province.

Statistics from Zhongshan Customs showed that Zhongshan's imports of wines were 300,000 liters from January to July, increasing 25.3 percent year-on-year and amounting to $1.17 million, up 151 percent over the same period in last year.

And imported wines packed in below 2-liter vessels increased dramatically. From January to July, imports reached 173 thousand liters, up 45.2 percent and amounted to $1.095 million, up 171.1 percent year-on-year.

(China Daily 09/08/2008 page10)