IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Media

Shanghai media firm teams up with Baidu

The two main press groups in Shanghai are merging and will cooperate with online search engine Baidu to launch the Shanghai channel of Baidu News.

"The Shanghai channel of Baidu News will integrate the superiority of the rich news resources from Shanghai United Media Group and the powerful technologies and platform of Baidu to create a watchtower for Internet users to look into this international metropolis," said Zhu Guang, deputy president of Baidu.

Shanghai United Media Group, unveiled on Oct 28, was formed with the merger of Jiefang Daily Group and Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group.

Qiu Xin, president of the new group, said it would work with Baidu to build the channel into "the first choice for searching in Shanghai".

"It can be a win-win relationship between old and new media instead of a competing one," he said.

The channel will include employees from both new and traditional media, and will open soon.

Crime

Five detained over Tian'anmen attack

Chinese police have identified Monday's deadly crash at downtown Beijing's Tian'anman Square as a terrorist attack and five suspects have been detained.

The attack was "carefully planned, organized and premeditated," police said.

With the cooperation of police authorities including those in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Beijing police have captured five suspects who had been at large, a spokesman with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said on Oct 30.

Usmen Hasan, his mother, Kuwanhan Reyim, and his wife, Gulkiz Gini, drove a jeep with a Xinjiang plate to crash into a crowd of people at noon on Monday, killing two people and injuring another 40, the spokesman said.

The jeep crashed into a guardrail of Jinshui Bridge across the moat of the Forbidden City. The three people in the jeep died after they set gasoline inside the vehicle on fire, according to the spokesman.

Internet

Online credit record search grows in China

People in nine provinces can now search online for their credit information as of Oct 28 thanks to a pilot program from the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.

Providing the online service is important to guarantee that the public has access to their credit records, the central bank's Credit Reference Center said on its website.

Chinese people searching their credit records must go through a five-step verification procedure, according to a statement by the center.

Registered website users are able to search for a variety of information within the past five years, including whether they have been tardy in paying their credit card or mortgage loans, the Public Security Bureau of Shenzhen in Guangdong province said on its micro blog on Oct 28.

People must register at the center's website (https:/ipcrs.pbccrc.org.cn/) before beginning a search. They have to answer five questions that verify their identities, such as their private credit limit, within 10 minutes.

If they fail the verification procedure, they can register by verifying their ID through U-shield digital certificate recorded on USB flash drives commonly issued by banks.

Trade

Taiwan asked to cooperate with FTZ

The mainland and Taiwan adopted 19 joint proposals at the Ninth Cross-Straits Economic, Trade and Culture Forum, one of which encourages the island to cooperate with the new Shanghai Free Trade Zone.

The proposal, announced by John Chiang, vice-chairman of the Kuomintang, calls for cooperation between a pilot free economic area in Taiwan and the Shanghai Free Trade Zone as well as with three other pilot economic areas in eastern Fujian and Jiangsu provinces. The free economic zones established by the two sides should cooperate and learn from each other to achieve common development, according to the proposal.

The Shanghai Free Trade Zone, which began operating in late September, is a 28.78-square-kilometer district billed as a test site for deepening market-oriented reforms. Wu Poh-hsiung, KMT honorary chairman, said he was delighted that both Taiwan and Shanghai have planned or established free trade zones and pilot free economic areas. The forum, a key platform for communication between the mainland and Taiwan, was held in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Policy

Think tank drafts financial reform plan

Analysts and industry insiders in China have urged the government to consider more financial reform to guarantee healthy and stable economic growth. Reforms are the main plank of the new development plan released on Oct 27 by the Development Research Center of the State Council, a think tank of the central government.

In the plan submitted to the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee, scheduled for Nov 9-12, the think tank lays out a three-phase roadmap for China's reforms. Financial reform includes building a diversified financial system with supportive private financial institutions, internationalization of the renminbi in a decade, and establishing a deposit insurance system, Xinhua reported on Oct 27.

"China is on the course of readjusting its economic structure and transforming growth patterns. We need to strengthen financial reform to fuel the real economy, and we need prudent monetary policy to support the reform, and give out reform dividends," Ma Delun, vice-governor of the People's Bank of China, said at the 10th China International Finance Forum in Shanghai on Oct 27.

Pharam

Pharmacies start selling baby formula

Five pharmacies in Beijing started using vending machines equipped with tracking systems to sell baby formula on Oct 26, but sales on the first day did not go as well as expected.

Zhang Dawei, who is in charge of business operations at Yong'antang, said the store sold just six cans of infant formula on Oct 26.

Five pharmacies from four medicine chain retailers Jinxiang, Yong'antang, Cachet and Quanxin became the first in the country to participate in the baby formula trial system.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/01/2013 page2)