Quotable

The Chinese have managed to accumulate very large amounts of wealth, and the opportunities to deploy that capital in their own market are somewhat restricted. China has more than a billion people. Personally, I think we have just seen a trickle."

Richard Barkham, London-based chief global economist at CBRE Group Inc, the world's largest commercial property brokerage.

"As a shipping services cluster, Shanghai today is mainly focused on supporting Chinese ship owners and those who charter vessels. It has a successful mix of homegrown businesses and a growing number of international firms that have regional offices in the city."

Jeremy Penn, CEO of the London-based Baltic Exchange. The central government in 2009 set a target of developing Shanghai as an international shipping center by 2020. The development of digitalized shipping services, economic initiatives and Pilot Free Trade Zone will push Shanghai to the target status, Penn said.

"The projects Jia invested in, including in China, seem very difficult for him personally to realize. If you look at Leshi (LeEco's listed arm) it has roughly $6 billion in revenue, but it's netting about $50 million. That profit margin is less than 1 percent."

Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz, commenting on the financial strength of LeEco and the ability of Jia Yueting, its CEO and founder to succeed. The US state official was expressing concerns about the fate of Faraday Future, the electric carmaker that is building a $1 billion plant in North Las Vegas, backed by LeEco.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/25/2016 page24)