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learn mandarin – Chinese patients promised lower medicine costs this year

learnchineseonline — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:31:18 +0000

Lower medicine prices are the top priority of China’s health authorities this year, the Health Ministry announced Monday.

A national essential medicine system would cover most government-sponsored grass-roots health institutions where drugs would be sold with zero mark-up by the end of the year, said ministry spokesman Deng Haihua at a regular press conference.

China began implementing the essential medicine system in 2009 in a bid to reduce costs for patients.

Due to longstanding low government funding for State-run hospitals, which in many places only covers 10 percent of operating costs, doctors have often aggressively prescribed expensive, and sometimes unnecessary, medicines and treatment in order to generate income for the hospitals.

The implementation of the essential medicines system has reduced the prices of certain prescription drugs.

Deng said the ministry would focus on streamlining the centralized procurement and distribution of essential medicines and making sure they were sold at no more than cost price.

Centralized procurement of drugs at government-run institutions was introduced to bring down drug prices from the supply end and to lower prices of medicines for patients.

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learn Chinese online – PetroChina,INEOS announce new JV in Europe

learnchineseonline — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 03:29:22 +0000

PetroChina Company Limited, China’s largest oil producer, announced on Monday that its subsidiary has entered into a framework agreement with subsidiaries of INEOS Group Holdings plc for a new trading and refining joint venture in Europe.

The agreement was signed between PetroChina International Company Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PetroChina, and INEOS European Holdings Limited and INEOS Investments International Limited, each a wholly-owned subsidiary of INEOS.

The framework agreement sets out the main principles in which the parties will work towards forming joint ventures related to trading and refining activities at the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland and the Lavera refinery in France.

All companies will work towards the formation of the proposed joint ventures by the end of June 2011, according to PetroChina in a statement released on Monday.

PetroChina’s parent company, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and INEOS, also signed a strategic cooperation agreement on Monday to share refining and petrochemical technologies and expertise between their respective businesses.

If the deals are completed, they will be of great importance for PetroChina’s global allocation of resources and market portfolio, exploring the high-end European market, as well as establishing PetroChina’s European oil and gas operation center, said PetroChina.

According to the statement, both sides will improve the long-term sustainability of the INEOS refineries, enhance security of supply for customers and secure jobs and skills in both the UK and France.

After the completion, both sites will remain integrated into INEOS’s downstream petrochemical production, said PetroChina officials.

The Grangemouth refinery is located on the Firth of Forth with direct access to crude oil and gas from the North Sea. The Grangemouth refinery processes some 210,000 barrels of crude oil per day and provides fuel to Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland.

Further, the Lavera refinery processes 210,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It is located on the coast of the Mediterranean crude oil trading basin, next to the port of Marseille and adjacent to a crude oil terminal. The refinery supplies fuel by pipelines into France, Switzerland and Southern Germany.

Both sites are integrated into INEOS’s downstream petrochemical production and remain strategic to its long-term business.

Subsequent to the signing of the framework agreement which defines the principles under which PetroChina International and INEOS will work towards forming the joint ventures related to refining and trading, there will be a period of consultation prior to signing a binding agreement subject to the approval of related regulatory bodies, according to PetroChina.

learn Chinese – 2010 auto sales driven to a record

learnchineseonline — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 03:25:50 +0000

China’s automobile market registered the highest annual sales in the history of the global automobile industry in 2010, far surpassing those of the United States for a second consecutive year.

That came as successful stimulus measures from local governments, and a strong economy, boosted the nation’s vehicle sales by more than 30 percent.

Domestic auto sales jumped 32.37 percent to 18.06 million vehicles in 2010, said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers on Monday. The figure far outstripped the expected 11.5 million units of sales in the US last year.

Moreover, the nation sold 13.76 million passenger vehicles, including cars, sports-utility vehicles (SUVs), multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) and minivans in 2010, surging 33.2 percent year-on-year, said the association.

China’s December auto sales hit a monthly record high of 1.3 million units in 2010, as buyers flocked to catch the last opportunity for tax incentives for small cars and subsidies for trade-ins, as well to take advantage of Beijing’s quota policy on car purchases.

“The change in policies makes us lower our anticipation for this year’s automobile market from the previous 10 to 15 percent year-on-year growth to no more than 8 percent,” said Cui Dongshu, vice-secretary-general of the National Passenger Car Information Exchange Association. “And the serious excessive consumption in 2010 even may lead to zero or negative growth this year.”

The association’s Secretary-General Rao Da said he believes that in 2011 China will probably record the first negative year-on-year auto sales growth for 20 years.

“However, short-term negative growth is good for the industry restructuring and mergers which the government is calling for. Meanwhile, the fierce competition will help improve the quality and technology of the vehicles, as well as the management and operation of the automakers,” said Rao. “It should be a good opportunity for China to strengthen the automobile industry.”

According to Rao, the withdrawal of the tax and subsidy policies will have a heavy impact on the sales of small cars, with an engine capacity of 1.6 liters or lower. That category accounted for 60 percent of last year’s passenger car market.

“The luxury car, SUV and MPV segments will grow faster than the total industry as people’s requirements for cars change, and they look for more functional transportation tools,” said Rao.

Analysts expect that the domestic automobile market will grow at 10 to 15 percent annually on average during the next five to 10 years, saying that’s a reasonable rate for healthy development.

Chinese School – China halts downloads of unlicensed foreign music

learnchineseonline — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 03:24:17 +0000

China’s Ministry of Culture has ordered the country’s music websites to stop providing playback and download services of songs that have not been approved by the authorities.

In a statement released Monday, the ministry gave no details of how many or which websites were subject to the order, but named 100 songs that had not been officially approved for the mainland market, including “Cold Wind Blows” by Eminem, “Push That Knot Away” by KT Tunstall and “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.

According to the statement, Chinese search engines and entertainment websites were urged to check and “immediately cancel” all services related to the songs by Feb 28.

“Websites providing playback and download services of these songs might have committed copyright infringement and they severely disturbed the order of the country’s online music market,” said the statement.

The ministry said that groups must be licensed by the government before offering online music services, and imported music products must be approved by the ministry before entering themarket

Chinese language – Shell wants to join in CNOOC refinery plan

learnchineseonline — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:23:06 +0000

Royal Dutch Shell Plc is negotiating with China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) to participate in the latter’s Huizhou refinery’s second-phase project, which will require more than 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) in investment and become operational in 2014, CNOOC officials said.

Shell, which holds 50 percent of CNOOC and Shell Petrochemical Co Ltd (CSPC), based in Daya Bay in the city of Huizhou, Guangdong province, has shown strong interest in becoming involved in CNOOC’s refinery sector by participating in the planned second-phase plant, said Zhu Mingcai, the CSPC’s deputy chief executive officer. He added that several other international petrochemical companies have shown similar interest.

CSPC was founded in November 2005 with a registered capital of 12.1 billion yuan and is one of the largest Sino-foreign joint ventures in China. It was the first move in CNOOC’s expansion into mid- and downstream businesses. But the refining business is excluded from the joint venture, a decision agreed on by the two cooperators after more than a decade of negotiation.

“Until now, the idea has been that CNOOC will shoulder the whole investment and be the sole operator of the second phase, and it has yet to decide on whether to introduce a new foreign investor,” said Zhu, formerly the general manager of CNOOC International Ltd.

“The second phase, which is expected to get a green light from the government in the first half of 2011, is to have a refining capacity of 10 million tons and ethylene production of 1 million tons annually. It will cover an area of 4.4 square kilometers,” said Dong Xiaoli, general manager of the CNOOC Huizhou refinery, currently the major investor in the plant.

Shell is offering to relinquish about 20 percent of its stake in CSPC to gain about a 30 percent stake in the planned refining plant, several CNOOC officials said without elaborating.

“Even if CNOOC agrees to let Shell participate, it won’t get as high a stake as the 50 percent it has in CSPC because CNOOC is not short on the capital or the technologies needed to build the new plant,” said Diao Guotao, secretary of the Communist Party of China Committee of CNOOC Huizhou district.

Li Lusha, a spokeswoman for Shell (China) Ltd, told China Daily the company would not comment on market speculation.

“The cooperation with Shell has brought state-of-the-art technologies and management experience to CNOOC,” Zhu said.

CNOOC’s Huizhou refinery, which is adjacent to CSPC’s, went into operation in 2009. In 2010, it processed 11.28 million tons of crude oil and realized 57.4 billion yuan in sales and a profit of 2.7 billion yuan.

Most of its products are sold in Southern China, which includes Guangdong province, the country’s major consumer of petrochemical products.

Under the local government’s 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), the province’s petrochemical output value was to increase an average of 20 percent annually.

The refining capacity would reach 73 million tons in 2010, compared with 20.45 million tons in 2003, and the ethylene output would increase by 2010 to approximately seven times the 4.4 million tons in 2003.

The second-phase plant is intended to put CNOOC’s refining capacity on a larger scale. However, during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), Guangdong’s refining capacity is expected to surpass 100 million tons, outstripping the expected consumption of 26 million tons of finished oil products, Dong said.

The Huizhou refinery plans to tap into the Hong Kong market to sell aviation oil through China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation this year, according to Dong. He added that the company is also looking at Southeast Asia for further development to comply with CNOOC’s strategy to allow its downstream industry to go abroad.

China Travel – Embraer to sell 10 jets to China’s CDB Leasing

learnchineseonline — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:22:03 +0000

Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer agreed on Monday to sell 10 of its best-selling commercial aircraft to the leasing unit of China Development Bank, in a deal worth about $400 million at current market prices.

Deliveries are expected to begin in the second half of the year, the Brazilian company said in an e-mailed statement. CDB Leasing will lease the ERJ-190 jets to China Southern, China’s biggest airline and the world’s third-biggest, the statement said.

“The deal ratifies the trust and recognition of the Chinese company in our range of products and the prospects for growth in the nation’s regional aviation market,” the statement quoted Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, Embraer’s executive vice-president for commercial aviation, as saying.

The deal follows a letter of intent signed between Embraer and CDB Leasing in December 2009, and signals that orders for commercial jets were slowly recovering after the global financial crisis. An ERJ-190, which seats up to 122 passengers, costs about $40 million.

Embraer’s pipeline of firm orders plunged 23.5 percent to $15.3 billion in the third quarter of 2010 from $20 billion a year earlier and edged up only slightly from $15.2 billion in the second quarter of last year as airlines remained hesitant about global economic recovery.

Embraer has been beset by rising sales of aircraft by newcomers, including China’s Comac. A large portion of Embraer’s biggest Chinese order was canceled last year, and at the time analysts linked that to the rise of Comac.

Voting shares of Embraer, based in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, gained 0.5 percent on Monday to 12.20 reais. Embraer’s American depositary receipts fell 0.2 percent to $29.30. ($1=1.69 reais)

China Business – Investment in media to present true picture of China

learnchineseonline — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:49:00 +0000

China will invest more in mainstream media organizations, especially those targeting overseas readers, in the following 10 years to better present a true picture of China to the world, a top official has said.

A range of plans, such as encouraging mainstream media organizations to set up more overseas stations, have received financial support from the central government, Liu Binjie, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), told China Daily.

“As China is enjoying higher international status, our mainstream media organizations are having greater influence worldwide too,” he said.

Last month, China Daily, the national English daily paper, launched a weekly European edition that hit British newsstands and a fresh new Asian edition that covers a group of Asian countries.

At the same time, State broadcaster China Central Television launched its Middle East Regional Center in the United Arab Emirates with the opening of its office in Dubai.

Apart from Chinese media organizations, more Chinese publications are also seeking to broaden their overseas readership.

By the end of last year, Chinese books and periodicals had entered national libraries in 193 countries, according to GAPP figures.

Unlike years ago, when foreigners showed particular interests in traditional Chinese culture such as Chinese kungfu and Chinese medicine, China’s modernization and economy are now attracting more attention in the international community, according to Liu.

“An increasing number of Western countries are expanding trade with us,” he said, adding that in the future, China will publish more biographies and literary works to cater to the overseas market.

The domestic publication market has also thrived in the past five years, Liu said. GAPP figures show that China published 34 billion books from 2005 to 2010.

In 2010, book sales increased by 15 percent year-on-year with a 30 percent rise in profit, and newspaper circulation is expected to surpass 50 billion copies, according to the GAPP.

Liu said asset value, annual revenue and profit in China’s publication industry have all doubled the levels of five years ago, with sales revenue exceeding 1 trillion yuan ($152 billion) in 2010.

He said the GAPP has also simplified the procedures for publishers to apply for license numbers for new books or periodicals in the past five years.

Meanwhile, the restructuring of government-owned publication houses has also been progressing smoothly. From 2005 to 2010, all of the 148 publication houses owned by central government departments had finished their restructuring and become companies.

For example, more than 3,000 previously State-owned Xinhua Bookstores across the country have become companies to face fierce market competition, according to the GAPP.

HSK – CCC to issue A shares to fund acquisition of CRBC International

learnchineseonline — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:43:46 +0000

China Communications Construction plans to issue up to 3.5 billion A shares in Shanghai, with part of the proceeds used to fund a 1.94 billion yuan ($293.9 million) takeover of an infrastructure company, CRBC International.

Shares of both companies advanced on the news.

China Communications already holds a 61.4 percent stake in CRBC, a builder of roads and bridges, which is valued at 4.88 billion yuan.

CRBC’s stock surged 10 percent on its first day of trading since Aug 13th, when its shares were suspended due to restructuring plans.

“The merger will enlarge the net asset value of the Hong Kong-listed firm which is also seen as a positive for the group as a whole,” said William Lo, analyst at Ample Capital.

Analysts said investors had been banking on China’s infrastructure boom, with the government spending billions of dollars on the construction of expressways, expanding a network of roads and upgrading ports.

“China Communications’ plan to issue A shares will also allow it to raise capital to fund its projects,” said Conita Hung, head of equity research at Delta Asia Financial. “Our main concern is still costs, since their margins are generally very low and cement prices are rising quickly.”

The agreed merger will be based on a cash-or-stocks offer. CRBC shareholders will be able to receive 12.31 yuan per share under the cash option or the equivalent of 14.53 yuan under the share alternative, China Communications said in a statement on Friday.

The cash offer represents a 2.93 percent premium to CRBC’s last traded price on Aug 13, according to Reuters calculations.

Meanwhile China Communications said the stock offer represents a premium of about 23 percent over the average 20-day trading price of CRBC prior to its last day of trading.

learn mandarin – Measures aimed at copyright pirates

learnchineseonline — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:42:31 +0000

China will make it easier to collect proof in copyright infringement cases as it takes another step to better protect intellectual property rights (IPR), a senior official has said.

Yan Xiaohong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), said a judicial interpretation that will be implemented by China’s top court and top procuratorate this year will drop the requirement for a certificate to be produced bearing the signature of the copyright holder before a suspect can be accused of copyright infringement.

He said the complicated and difficult procedures connected to evidence collection – especially the requirement to produce the certificate and signature – had been a barrier to punishing copyright violators. Yan said many authors of original IPR material could not be found, and that meant some criminals went unpunished.

“The simplification of the procedure on evidence collection will effectively curb piracy,” Yan told China Daily in an exclusive interview on Friday.

China launched a nationwide campaign in December to crack down on piracy. The initiative will continue until March.

Beijing will also issue national guidelines to strengthen law enforcement in copyright infringement cases in the new year, he said.

Before the end of February, 55 key copyright infringement cases will be finished under the supervision of GAPP, the top court, the top procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security, he said.

One of the cases involves 50,000 pirated DVDs that were allegedly sold by He Zhenyu in Tianjin. Some 1,076 of them were said to have infringed upon the copyright of 59 movies owned by members of the American Film Institute, according to data from GAPP.

All such pirated products seized by police will be burned in late April. The incineration is likely to include DVDs, books, software and CDs, Yan said.

“In IPR protection, China hasn’t done enough, but it is strengthening its efforts to create a healthy IPR protection market,” Yan said. “It will need time. But some developed countries are also exaggerating the role of IPR protection, monopolizing the market to some extent.”

IPR protection experts said IPR protection should not be used as an excuse to set a barrier for the transfer of technology and culture.

Copyright terms in most countries – including China – last for 50 years. But if the period of IPR protection is longer than that, a barrier is formed, the experts said.

“We will gradually raise people’s awareness of the legal issues and at the same time improve the IPR protection mechanism by strengthening cross-country communications,” Yan said.

He added that the establishment of the IPR protection mechanism was done to balance the benefits of the creators of intellectual property and the public, realizing a win-win situation.

learn Chinese online – Govt reveals new-year pledge on housing prices

learnchineseonline — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 07:39:02 +0000

China’s central government will strengthen its campaign to control soaring housing prices in 2011, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Jiang Weixin told a national work conference that the government will increase the regulation of the country’s property market while also strengthening the implementation of tightening measures introduced in 2010.

Jiang said the central government will provide more favorable policies to help people who buy houses to live in but, in a bid to stop housing prices soaring, it will restrict house purchases intended for investment and speculation.

Jiang said that the ministry would assess local governments’ performances in stabilizing property prices to ensure central government measures are properly implemented.

In 2011 China will also continue to increase the supply of land for residential properties and strengthen the management of the Public Housing Fund.

According to Jiang, in the next five years China will increase the supply of affordable housing, renovate more shantytowns and develop public rental housing to solve the accommodation problems of middle- and low-income earners, the newly employed and migrant workers.

The country built 5.9 million units of affordable housing and renovated 1.36 million dangerous rural dwellings in 2010, compared with the annual target of 5.8 million units and 1.2 million units, respectively.

In 2010 the government introduced a string of tightening measures to cool the real estate market, including suspending mortgages for purchases of third homes in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities, speeding up trials of possible new property taxes and raising down payment requirements for first-home buyers.

“These measures have helped contain speculative demand to some extent,” Jiang said, “And this year we will continue to limit mortgage loans for buyers of second and third homes in major cities.”

However, the latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that property prices in 70 major Chinese cities still rose 7.7 percent on average year-on-year in November.

In his recent radio and online communications with the public, Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged that the policies, which were designed to curb skyrocketing housing prices, had not achieved satisfactory results.

“I made a promise to the Chinese people last year that I would try to keep housing prices at a reasonable level during my tenure, and I won’t shrink from that goal,” Wen said on Dec 26.

“I believe that, through our consistent efforts, housing prices will drop to a reasonable level.”