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Sun Art profit climbs 75% in first half on new stores

Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, a Chinese hypermarket operator, reported its profit in the first half of 2012 rose 75 percent and attributed the increase to its opening new stores in the country.

Its net income in the six months that ended in June increased to 1.37 billion yuan ($215 million) from 784 million yuan, according to a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday, and its sales rose by 14 percent.

The Shanghai-based retailer, backed by the France-based retail group Groupe Auchan SA, said in March that it would open at least 50 stores in China in 2012. Sun Art said it plans to "press ahead" with openings in the second half of the year even as consumer sentiment remains unstable, the company said on Tuesday.

Sun Art said it opened 10 hypermarkets in China in the first half of the year and has a total of 240 in the country.

4,000 new firms established in Zhongguancun area

More than 4,000 new companies were established in Beijing's Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone last year, the newspaper Beijing Business Today reported on Tuesday.

Zhongguancun-based companies that are listed on stock exchanges had a combined market capitalization of more than 1.3 trillion yuan ($205 billion) by 2011 and owned more than 280 billion yuan worth of monetary assets, the paper said.

The Zhongguancun zone, which has been called China's Silicon Valley, is the cradle of many renowned Chinese companies, including Lenovo Group and Baidu Inc.

Beijing Business Today reported 223 companies in the Zhongguancun area are listed on stock exchanges and 79 of them are listed overseas.

SOEs' tax payments increase by 13.5 percent

China's State-owned enterprises administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, paid 1.8 trillion yuan ($285.7 billion) in taxes and fees in the first seven months of the year.

The figure represents a year-on-year growth rate of 13.5 percent, 4.5 percentage points higher than the growth of national tax revenues during the same period, SASAC said in a statement on Tuesday. SASAC did not give a reason for the increase in taxes and fees paid.

Central government-owned companies turned over 1.3 trillion yuan in taxes and fees in the first seven months, up 13.8 percent from a year earlier, said the statement.

From January to July, the nation's tax revenues rose 9 percent to 6.4 trillion yuan, according to the statement.

Xiamen builds regional financial service center

A regional financial services center is under construction in Xiamen, Fujian province.

The 21-square-kilometer center, involving a total investment of 30 billion yuan ($4.8 billion), will be a platform for experiments and reforms and will form a crucial part of national strategy.

In 2010, the State Council officially approved the establishment of a financial services center in the city.

"It's an important mission for the city to become a financial hub in the western region of the Taiwan Straits, deepening cooperation in the financial sector between the mainland and Taiwan," said Yu Weiguo, Xiamen Party secretary.

1 million tons of cotton from stockpiles to be sold

China, the world's biggest cotton user, may sell about 1 million metric tons from stockpiles and release 400,000 tons of import quota to help textile companies cope with increased raw material costs and weak export demand, said Dong Shuangwei, an analyst at Beijing Capital Futures Co.

The government would sell the inventories at a discount to the price it paid farmers last year, Dong said. That price was 19,800 yuan ($3,115) a ton, according to the China Cotton Association's website. The country spent about 60 billion yuan buying 3.13 million tons of local cotton in 2011, about 40 percent of its crop, to boost farmers' incomes.

Cotton traded in New York has declined 28 percent in the past year while local cotton on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange declined 10 percent.

Textile companies in China, the biggest maker, suffered because they have to compete with producers in other countries where prices are lower, according to Weiqiao Textile Co, the largest manufacturer.

Ford to bring luxury brand Lincoln to China

Ford Motor Co, lagging behind General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG in China, will add the Lincoln luxury brand to its lineup of vehicles in the country as part of the company's biggest expansion push in half a century.

The luxury vehicles will be available in China in the second half of 2014, the Dearborn, Michigan-based carmaker said in a statement on Tuesday. The company will begin recruiting dealers for the brand in the fourth quarter of this year.

Ford follows GM in stepping up efforts to compete in China's luxury vehicle market, a segment that researcher IHS Automotive forecasts will more than double and surpass the United States by the end of the decade.

Volkswagen's Audi, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz currently dominate, accounting for more than three-quarters of high-end cars sold in the country.

Italian yachtmaker Ferretti plans China plant

Ferretti Group, whose Riva unit made boats for celebrities including Sean Connery, intends to open an assembly plant in China as its new Chinese parent seeks to drive up sales in the world's most-populous country.

Tan Xuguang, chairman of the company and of its majority-owner Shandong Heavy Industry Group-Weichai Group, told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that the Italian yachtmaker is considering plans for the facility in Qingdao, Shandong province. The plant will customize vessels for the local market, he said.

Tan said Ferretti plans to boost sales in emerging markets led by China, Brazil and Russia, as the eurozone debt crisis saps demand in Europe. Shandong Heavy, China's biggest maker of bulldozers, agreed to buy 75 percent of the yachtmaker from creditors in January for 178 million euros ($222 million).

The boat builder, which also makes Ferretti, Pershing and Bertram brand yachts, will retain its existing management as well as its headquarters and production facilities in Italy, the two companies said in January.

Ferretti yachts can cost more than $100 million.

Medtronic opens Shanghai innovation center

International medical device producer Medtronic Inc announced on Tuesday the official opening of its innovation center in Shanghai, the company's first research and development facility outside the United States and Europe.

To serve the fast-growing Chinese healthcare sector, Medtronic will hire and train an additional 1,000 skilled staff over the next five years, hundreds of which will work toward the development of new medical technologies at the Shanghai innovation center, the company said.

The new innovation center will work closely with the company's global R&D teams, as well as local universities and research institutes and, more importantly, partner with Chinese physicians to create innovative solutions for patients, according to Omar Ishrak, Medtronic chairman and CEO.

"It allows us a unique opportunity to leverage local talent and expertise to increase our growth in China and link it to our larger global capabilities," he said.

Information security conference open in Chengdu

The third annual RSA Conference China, an information security conference and exposition, started on Tuesday in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

Hundreds of senior security professionals are attending the two-day event and will share their views on such issues as applications security and cryptography, security business management, cloud security, mobile and network security, threats and trusted computing.

The RSA Conference China, which was held in Beijing in the past two years, has become an important exchange platform for security expertise from China and the rest of the world.

Taikang Life eyes retirement community project

Taikang Life Insurance Company is making a multimillion yuan bid for a piece of land in Guangzhou International Biotech Island, in preparation for establishing the first retirement community in southern China, the local media reported on Tuesday.

Taikang has also been holding talks with some major medical institutions in Guangdong and is now negotiating with the provincial government to complete the deal.

The report added the retirement community will be the third established by Taikang, after others in Beijing and Chengdu. The planned island is surrounded by the Pearl River in southeast Guangdong, a province believed to have China's highest insurance premium revenue.

Mobile Internet industry to boom in Shanghai

Shanghai's mobile Internet industry's sales revenue is expected to exceed 80 billion yuan ($12.6 billion) and it is expected to employ more than 60,000 people by 2015, according to the latest plan for the industry in the city.

The Shanghai Mobile Internet Industry Development Plan (2012-15) from Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information revealed that the city will take steps to cultivate innovative companies, attract industry leaders, and establish production and innovation bases in Shanghai in the next few years to make the city a new business hotspot for the mobile Internet industry.

The plan said Shanghai would pay more attention to developing processing chips used in intelligent mobile terminals. Meanwhile, the city will increase its investment in Internet infrastructure construction and Wi-Fi coverage to provide solid foundations for the industry.

Shanghai will introduce a number of measures to attract leading and influential companies, including providing financial support and improving the protection of intellectual property rights.

Warrior tires return to the market after two years

Warrior, a domestic tire brand, has returned to the local market after a two-year absence.

The Shanghai Huayi Group, its affiliated company Double Coin Holdings Ltd and French tire maker Michelin launched new Warrior tires in Shanghai on Tuesday.

The tires are made at a new 3.2 billion yuan ($504.80 million) plant at the Anhui Industrial Park.

Three series of Warrior passenger car tires with 26 specifications will be supplied to the local market to meet the growing demand from medium- and high-end consumers, said Jiang Bin, deputy general manager of Double Coin.

Jiang, also general manager of Double Coin (Anhui) Warrior Tire Co Ltd, said Huayi had to give up the rights to the traditional Chinese brand in 2001 when it set up a joint venture with Michelin, which controlled 70 percent of the JV.

The JV company made Warrior tires, but the brand lost market share as it only produced about 6 million tires in 10 years.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily 08/29/2012 page14)