Beijing-Guangzhou High Speed Rail Line Opens Next Week
International journalists were taken on a trail run of the new HSR line which will officially debut on December 26, Mao’s birthday. China’s HSR has moved on since the fatal crash of sub-HSR trains in the summer of 2011 having concluded that it was due to design flaws and mismanagement. Rail officials are confident that such accidents will not occur on HSR lines.
Here is a BBC video report. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20829930
Reuters video: http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/12/22/china-unveils-worlds-longest-high-speed?videoId=240088025&newsChannel=china
Reuters article: http://news.yahoo.com/china-open-worlds-longest-high-speed-rail-line-113235873–business.html;_ylt=A2KJNF97XtZQTAkAGoXQtDMD
World’s Largest Building Being Erected in Chengdu, Sichuan
Just one indicator of how inland Chinese development is booming. But the Chinese penchant for size is bewildering.
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Sebastien Blanc/AFP
A thousand kilometres from the nearest coast a towering glass wave rolls over the plains of Sichuan, the roof of what Chinese officials say will be the world’s largest standalone structure.
The 100-metre-high “New Century Global Centre” is a symbol of the spread of China’s boom, 500 metres long and 400 metres wide, with 1.7 million square metres of floor space, big enough to hold 20 Sydney Opera Houses according to local authorities.
By comparison the Pentagon in Washington — still one of the world’s largest office buildings — is barely a third of the size with a mere 600,000 square metres of floor space.
But it represents a different side of China, where lower costs and government subsidies are still fuelling double-digit growth in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.
Sebastien Blanc/AFP
Sebastien Blanc/AFP
The city of 14 million people plans to expand its subway from two lines to 10 by 2020, build a new airport and become a new Silicon Valley.
The Global Centre will house offices, conference rooms, a university complex, two commercial centres, two five star hotels, an IMAX cinema, a “Mediterranean village”, a skating rink and a pirate ship, among other attractions.
About 400,000 square metres will be devoted to shopping, most of the outlets high-end luxury brands. Despite Chengdu being around 1,000 kilometres from the sea the complex has a marine theme, with fountains, a huge water park and an artificial beach, accented by the undulating roof, meant to resemble a wave.
– AFP
China E-commerce World’s Biggest in 2013
I buy a lot of stuff and services online, often much cheaper than in retail stores.
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Cyberspace is the new frontier as China is poised to overtake Japan and the US as the biggest e-commerce market in the world next year.
Suning Appliance Co Ltd, China’s largest electrical appliances retailer, has its own online retail website for several years; Alibaba has continued to expand by consolidating taobao.com, etao.com, tmall.com, ju.taobao.com, Alibaba Small Business, Alibaba International Business and Alibaba Cloud Computing – all under its wings – into one huge marketplace.
Vancl, Yihaodian, 360buy.com and Suning have gone one step further with their applications for licences to set up their own express delivery companies.
Every now and then, new online retail companies will don advertisements at subway stations and on subway trains.
On Tuesday, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said at a press conference that in the first three quarters of the year retail sales from e-commerce transactions in China reached 806.2 billion yuan (C$128.3 bil), which was up by 44% from the corresponding period last year.
He said the bank card penetration rate was 46.3% while average spending by the use of bank cards grew by 24.3%.
The ministry’s e-commerce division head Li Jinqi was quoted by China Business News as saying that e-commerce grew by more than 30% between 2007 and 2010 and the number of online consumers in China reached 210 million by the second-half of the year.
China is expected to overtake Japan and the United States as the largest online retail market in the world next year.
The proportion of e-commerce sales against the total retail sales of consumer goods surpassed the 1% mark in 2008 and increased to 4.32% last year, he said.
– (Malaysian) star online
Canadian Food Companies Must Innovate for Export
The Canadian food industry is a complacent lot, focused on the massive US market and lagging behind in innovation. That’s the conclusion of the Conference Board of Canada’s (CBoC) most recent study Competing for the Bronze: Innovation Performance in the Canadian Food Industry. In this post, I’ll discuss the implications for Canadian food exports to China in light of the country’s explosive urbanization and growing demand for imported food products.
Most Canadian firms, in spite of strides made in recent years, do not put a high priority on innovation. Private research spending is much lower than other sectors of the economy and public spending in primary agriculture R & D has actually declined over the last two decades while private spending has failed to take up the slack.
Needless to say, those businesses that face competition are more innovative but supply managed segments of the industry are effectively sheltered from competition at home and from abroad. Moreover, the small, geographically dispersed, and complexly regulated Canadian market often makes it difficult for firms to achieve the economies of scale needed for innovation. The demands of large retailers also affect manufacturer behaviour.
The consequence, says CBoC, is Canada’s shrinking presence in the global food market, dropping a full percentage point from 4.2% in 2000 to 3.2% in 2010 (but recovering somewhat in 2011). Meanwhile, China’s global share almost doubled to 6.3% during that period and the US increased its food and beverage exports from 11.1% to 12.2%. Even tiny New Zealand has a 2.5% share.
Spoiled by proximity to the US, apart from raw agricultural commodity exporters, Canadian food processors rarely look to large emerging markets such as China for expansion and they’re even less inclined to innovate their products to suit foreign consumer tastes.
Ronald Doering, a past president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, wrote on www.foodincanada.com a couple years ago: “Because Canadians can’t eat much more food, growth in the food industry depends almost entirely on producing value-added products for export. If the Canadian food industry continues to miss the opportunities in China, they will have nobody to blame but themselves”.
Since then, Canadian manufacturers have upped their game in China, prodded by Foreign Affairs that this year designated food exports to China a top trade priority. Besides traditional exports like wheat, yellow peas, and canola, Canadian companies are increasingly targeting the upper middle class market for top quality beef and pork, lobster, raw and smoked salmon, sea cucumber, honey and berries, maple syrup, and even greenhouse vegetables. Overall Canadian exports to China grew a healthy 27% last year but the agri-food and seafood sectors performed sluggishly, rising only 3.9% to just over $3 billion. In terms of top Canadian food export destinations, China is fourth behind the US, Japan, and Europe.
As for innovation for the Chinese market, the substitution of mung beans with Canadian yellow peas is a case in point. Mung beans are used to make vermicelli noodles but since Canada doesn’t grow mung beans, Canadian researchers were able to develop a process to extract and use yellow pea starch to make the noodles. Using a flour mill, pasta presses, cooking extruders and other food processing equipment, Winnipeg-based Canadian International Grains Institute (CIGI) researchers “fractionate” field crops into their component parts to make them more food-ready. Mr Earl Geddes, executive director of CIGI told the press recently: “Our objective is to sell more Canadian field crops at higher prices. The more people use our technologies, the greater demand for Canadian crops”.
Canadian agri-food exports going forward hinges increasingly on the shift from commodities to high-quality, healthy and nutritiously enriched food ingredients and finished products. Justine Hendricks, vice-president for Resources at Export Development Canada commented: “Millions of citizens in emerging markets including Brazil, China, and India are entering the middle class each year. As they do, they want higher-quality foods too”.
SFU president: Greater China Universities Outpacing Canadians in Education/Research Investment
– Vancouver Sun
UBC Prof: Nexen Approval Will Boost Pipelines to Coast
Keith Head, a professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, said it may not matter to Nexen acquirer China National Offshore Oil Corporation whether it’s Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat or a twinned Kinder Morgan pipeline to Burnaby that delivers oil to tankers destined for Asia.
“I don’t think they’re wed to any particular pipeline,” Head told the Straight in a phone interview. “But my strong presumption is they are thinking that there’s going to be a way to get that oil to China. And the only feasible way is pipelines.”
According to the UBC academic, there’s already a “strong business proposition” for the export of oil to Asia. At present, much western Canadian oil goes to Cushing, Oklahoma, where it’s priced as Western Texas Intermediate. That oil goes for about $20 per barrel less than London’s Brent Crude price, the global standard.
“Obviously, I think the Chinese [government], through CNOOC, is very interested in having some of the oil flow towards it,” Head explained. “I don’t think CNOOC is buying Nexen because it’s interested in exporting oil to Cushing.”
A report released in June by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers notes that Canadian oil gets “discounted prices” in Oklahoma.
“New additional capacity to the west coast is key in order to link western Canadian crude oil production to the world market,” according to Crude Oil: Forecast, Markets & Pipelines. “Both Kinder Morgan and Enbridge have pipeline projects to increase access to the west coast.”
– straight.com
Poll: Majority of Canadians Reject Foreign Investment
Canadians should stop hiding behind the maple leaf. Canada needs foreign investment, wherever it comes from. But, it will be years before the distrust of foreign state corporations, notably Chinese, will begin to ease. A lot of it pins on how CNOOC behaves in the coming years.
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Most Canadians want the Harper government to stop the sale of Canadian companies to foreign investors, particularly if the buyer is a state-owned enterprise, a new poll has found.
The Ipsos Reid survey, conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global TV, found that 68 per cent of Canadians believe the Conservative government should block the sale of Canadian firms to “all foreign investors.”
Moreover, 74 per cent of Canadians say the governing Tories should stop such proposed acquisitions if they are made by state-owned enterprises owned by a foreign government.
The poll also cast a fresh light on public attitudes towards Canada’s international trade agenda. Most Canadians (61 per cent) support the idea of increasing trade with Asia — a key element of the federal government’s economic plan.
However, there is a note of caution among Canadians about doing business with China. Prime Minister Stephen Harper travelled to that country earlier this year and there has been preliminary discussion about launching talks for a free-trade deal.
But a majority of Canadians (59 per cent) say they oppose a free-trade agreement with China that would be similar to the one struck with the United States 25 years ago.
The nationwide survey comes after Harper announced earlier this month his government will allow the $15.1-billion takeover of Nexen by a Chinese state-owned enterprise, but that future sales of this type in the Canadian oil patch will only occur under “exceptional” circumstances.
Advocates of outside investment in Canada’s oil industry say the input of foreign capital is needed to pump billions of dollars into projects.
However, the new poll found that most Canadians (56 per cent) disagreed with the statement that “if Canada wants its oil and gas sector to grow, it needs to attract foreign investment from countries like China.”
While the poll found majority support (61 per cent) for enhanced trade to Asia, the support drops for specific countries: India (56 per cent) and China (51 per cent).
The results are from a poll conducted Dec. 7 to 12. For the survey, a sample of 1,021 Canadians from Ipsos’s Canadian online panel was interviewed online.
The margin of error is considered to be 3.5 percentage points.
– Vancouver Sun
The Campaign Against FIPA
Now that the approval of CNOOC’s Nexen takeover is history, China bashers and critics of the deal have banded together to lambaste the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA). In fact, the Leadnow.ca advocacy group in collaboration with SumOfUs.org has been active for months, trying to rally support against the impending ratification of the treaty which they declare would “allow foreign corporations to sue the Canadian government in secret tribunals (sic.), restricting Canadians from making democratic decisions about the economy, environment and energy”.
Let’s set aside simpleton letters to the editor juxtaposing FIPA versus Canadian democracy and the vitriol and antics of the rabidly anti-China leader of the Green Party, not to mention the hyperbolic remarks of the federal NDP leader. A couple anti-FIPA commentaries appearing in the Vancouver Sun attacked the agreement on several fronts including provincial rights, Canadian environmental protection laws, protection of the rights of Canadian businesses and investors in China, and ‘secret’ arbitration boards.
On neglecting provincial rights, one commentary asks: “is it morally right and politically wise for the federal government to impose an agreement on the provinces that affects their rights without consulting them?” In mid November, responding to criticism of FIPA in the Comox Valley Record, Tory MP John Duncan for Vancouver Island North notes that under the agreement, “Chinese investors in Canada must obey all of the laws and regulations of Canada”, which includes respecting the rights of the provinces under the Canadian system of federalism.
Another criticism is that Canadian businesses would be at the mercy of the Chinese legal system if and when their businesses are expropriated. Mr Duncan writes: “The main purpose of FIPA is to ensure Canadian investors in a foreign jurisdiction greater protection against discriminatory and wholly arbitrary practices…The agreement also ensures that all investment disputes are resolved under international arbitration, ensuring that adjudications are independent and fair. Canadian investors in China will no longer have to rely on the Chinese legal system to have their disputes resolved”.
In this connection, critics are particularly outraged that a secretive three-member arbitration panel would decide on matters of Canadian environmental and economic policy and thereby undermine Canadian democracy and sovereignty. Under FIFA rules, they say, Chinese companies with interests in the Canadian oil sands could sue the Canadian government on the grounds of profit loss if, for instance, the Northern Gateway pipeline is cancelled due to environmental and/or First-Nation concerns.
Bob Zimmer, Conservative MP for Prince George-Peace River, however, rejects such speculation outright. Quoted in the Prince George Free Press, Mr Zimmer responded, “The FIPA that we have with China is a framework, somewhat of a reciprocity…The FIPA helps us with a framework for companies and foreign investment that wasn’t there previously. It gives parameters the Chinese have to operate under with us.”
Attending a Ottawa briefing with foreign affairs officials last month, John Weston, another Conservative MP, adds that FIPA sets new standards for transparency that guarantees public access to relevant documents and awards and sets terms for public hearings when disputes occur.
Critics further accuse FIPA of emasculating existing Canadian environmental laws since they can be construed as being applied in arbitrary or unjustifiable ways or a disguised restriction on international trade and investment. Mr Duncan retorts: “What the agreement does NOT do is impair Canada’s ability to regulate and legislate in areas such as the environment, culture, safety, health and conservation. Furthermore, Canada’s ability to review foreign investments under the Invest Canada Act to ensure that they provide a net benefit to Canadians and that our national security is not compromised is preserved.”
Mr Duncan likened FIPA to the 24 investment treaties that Canada has signed with other countries. “We join countries such as New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Japan, which have all signed investment treaties with China on terms that are similar to or in most cases less favourable than the terms we have negotiated with China. Finally, in 2008, the Conservative Government introduced the unprecedented process of putting Canadian international treaties to the scrutiny of the House of Commons. Every single treaty is now tabled in the house for 21 days to give the opposition an opportunity to debate the treaty”.
While reasonable debate on the ramifications of FIPA is positive, unfounded fanatical opposition isn’t. Opponents should not expunge common sense or lose sight of the numerous benefits that FIPA would bring to the peoples of both countries.
Peak Teams Up With Raptors
Chinese sports apparel company Peak Sports announced its new partnership with the Canadian NBA team Raptors in Toronto on Saturday.
Rapidly gaining ground in the international sporting world, the Chinese company is the sponsor of a number of NBA teams. This four-season long partnership with the Toronto Raptors is all part of the company’s international marketing strategy, said Peak Sports’ chairman Xu Jingnan.
This partnership marks the first time a professional Canadian sports team has ever been sponsored by a Chinese company. Xu said they’re hoping to introduce and establish their brand in Canada with the help of the Toronto Raptors.
“Internationalization has always been the main focus in the development of Peak Sports,” he said. “This partnership with the Toronto Raptors will help accelerate Peak’s business here in Canada and bring our product to Canadian consumers.”
Listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2009, Peak Sports produces and manufactures goods in a variety of sports. But with basketball as their primary focus, the company has established strategic partnerships with a number of high profile NBA teams such as the Houston Rockets and the Miami Heat over the years.
With this deal, Peak will be exposed to Raptors fans who will see the company’s branding all over the Air Canada Centre where home games are held. Peak’s merchandise will also be available to Canadian consumers at the Raptors Team shop at the Air Canada Centre.
To mark the big announcement, Raptors guard Kyle Lowry, one of Peak’s featured endorsees, ran a basketball clinic and helped nearly 30 youth from local Chinese community get a head start in the sport.
Established in 1989, Peak Sports now has more than 6,000 stores in China.
– Xinhua
Domestic Consumption to Drive Chinese Growth
Expanding domestic consumption will drive China’s economic development next year, according to a statement issued at a key annual leadership meeting.
With export growth falling in November to 2.9 per cent year-on-year, down from 11.6 per cent in October, China’s new leaders are pinning their hopes for the world’s second-largest economy on fostering demand at home.
Sunday’s statement was issued at the two-day Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing.
But unlike after previous meetings, state media did not immediately report China’s much-anticipated target for gross domestic product.
China is expected to retain its 2012 growth target of 7.5 per cent for 2013.
Succeeding Hu Jintao last month, Communist Party leader Xi Jinping chose Shenzhen, the cradle of China’s economic reforms and opening-up policy, as the venue for his first official trip, in which he stressed the need for comprehensive and systemic economic reform.
The weekend meeting granted Xi his first official opportunity to make his mark on the mapping-out of key economic plans for 2013, including not just the target for economic growth, but also a range of measures involving the deficit, tax policy and urbanisation.
The Chinese economy relies on exports, government expenditure and investment, with leaders vowing to protect foreign investors’ rights, including intellectual property rights, according to the Xinhua news agency.
China also wants to encourage both private and public investment next year, including through increased investments in infrastructure projects.
China will also promote urbanisation, while retaining control of the property market, and will continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy.
Convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, the annual end-of-year conference usually takes three days to lay out the national agenda for the economy.
– The West Australian