IN BRIEF (Page 5)

FUJIAN

New economic zone

The State Council, China's cabinet, recently passed a plan to support the development of an economic zone on the western side of the Taiwan Straits. The plan is aimed at boosting development in a region led by Fujian province and promoting cooperation between the region and Taiwan.

Fujian will act as the hub of the economic zone, which will face Taiwan across the Straits and connect with the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, two economic powerhouses on the mainland.

LIAONING

Iron mine discovered

Liaoning recently discovered an enormous iron deposit in the city of Benxi with an estimated reserve of over 2 billion tons. This makes Liaoning the most iron-rich province in China.

The enormous iron deposit is located around 1,100 meters underground and the confirmed reserve of ore is situated over 900 meters underground, according to Liaoning province's bureau of geology and mineral resources exploration. The grade of the iron ore is fairly high at around 34 percent, the bureau said.

GUANGDONG

Output growth down

First-quarter industrial output growth slowed to a crawl in Guangdong province as the global downturn took its toll on the export hub.

The provincial economic and trade commission said recently that the output of major industrial enterprises rose just 0.9 percent from a year earlier to 303.788 billion yuan.

The growth rate was 12.7 percentage points lower than the previous year's rate and 4.2 percentage points below the national average.

But the rate was 0.1 percentage point above the level in the first two months.

BEIJING

New financial street

Beijing plans to develop a second financial street, costing some 60 billion yuan. The street will be located in Lize area, which is between the second and third ring roads in the southwestern part of the city.

The existing financial street near the west second ring road was designed to attract the headquarters of financial institutions and companies, while the second one will target new financial organizations, according to the city's development and reform commission.

MACAO

Tobacco tax hike

The government of the Macao special administrative region (SAR) recently announced that it has drawn up a bill proposing to increase the duty on cigarettes from 0.05 pataca ($0.006) to 0.2 pataca ($0.025) per cigarette, which is an increment of 300 percent.

It was also proposed in the bill that duty on tobacco and cigars be raised respectively from 20 patacas ($2.5) to 80 patacas ($10) per kilogram and from 70 patacas ($8.9) to 280 patacas ($35.4).

The bill has been discussed by the SAR's executive council, and will be submitted to the legislative assembly for review and a vote on it through emergency procedure.

Xinhua-CBW

(China Daily 05/11/2009 page5)