May 8 - As Myanmar struggles to respond to a disaster of epic proportions, the ruling military junta is coming under increasingly strident calls by the world community to open the nation’s doors to international aid organizations. This has put the reclusive government in a position it extremely dislikes, having to ask the outside world for help.

“The devastation of Saturday’s cyclone, which took more than 22,000 lives, has forced the junta to soften its pose of self-sufficiency and ask for help from a world it fears and resents,” says the New York Times’ Seth Mydans in a recent analysis for the newspaper. “The government is showing its reluctance now by accepting the aid it requested only slowly, complicating visa procedures for international donors and apparently seeking to limit the access of foreign relief workers.” (more…)

May 7 - China’s policy group, the State Information Center, predicts that inflation rates could ease to 7.5 percent from 8 percent come the second quarter of the year. It cautions that inflationary pressures will remain due to high grain prices and continued investment.

“Seasonal changes and government measures to boost agricultural supplies may cause consumer prices to slide in the second quarter,” reported the State Information Center. “But inflationary pressure is still mounting because of domestic and international factors.”

In February, the consumer price index (CPI) gained 8.7 percent - the highest gain in 12 years. Fluctuations in food prices account for an estimated one-third of China’s consumer price index. The CPI indicates the average price of consumer goods and services purchased by households and is used as a measure of inflation. Last year, rising food prices accounted for 70 percent of inflation.

(more…)

By Jean-Charles Briand, Noemie Lanes and Anna Sellger

SHANGHAI, April 30 - To understand how China’s economy is evolving, just look at the Yangtze River Delta. With 30 percent of the country’s private sector, this populous and wealthy region including Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces has relied heavily on its secondary market for growth. But that’s changing as more and more foreign direct investment pours into tertiary businesses focused on finance, wholesale and retail, information technology and real estate. The result is a rising service sector that many believe is China’s next step toward developing a modern economy.

Industrial strengths
With China’s most developed private sector, the delta now accounts for roughly 20 percent of the national GDP, its own total reaching some RMB4,775.4 billion two years ago. Jiangsu contributed most to the region’s GDP, about 45 percent, while Zhejiang and Shanghai represented about 33 percent and 22 percent, respectively. After Shanghai the most economically vibrant cities were, in descending order by economic size, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Ningbo and Nanjing. (more…)

Foreign chief representatives and staff may be asked to sign personal guarantees

April 21 - Beijing has instigated massive security clampdowns across China ahead of the Olympics, including closing some of its borders.

This follows on from recent difficulties in obtaining visas to travel to Mainland China from Hong Kong, as the public security network begins a six month policy of complete or partial closure of its borders.

Many of China’s northern and western borders with Russia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Mongolia have been effectively sealed on the Chinese side, and trips between these locations are now becoming increasingly difficult to “non-essential” travelers, thus ruling out traditional summer adventure holidays touring of the Southern Silk Road and Karakoram Highway. (more…)

By Jean-Charles Briand and Anna Sellger 

April 18 - Perhaps no other region has played so vital a role in China’s growth as the Yangtze River Delta. Home to Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejian provinces, the delta has become the country’s commercial core, accounting for roughly 20 percent of GDP and nearly half of all foreign direct investment, according to Xinhua News Agency. As part of our series focusing on China’s hotspots, we look closely at the YRD and the infrastructure that keeps its economy humming, from the harbors and airports that provide gateways to the outside world to the roads and railways crisscrossing its interior. What emerges is a picture of mixed development that has created benefits—and challenges—for the region.

Harbors and airports
Among the toughest challenges has been implementing a unified plan for the region’s harbors. While Shanghai is still the delta’s major destination point for cargo ships, its rapid growth has brought about opportunities for neighboring cities looking to support their own ports. As a result, some cities now compete almost as much as they cooperate with the region’s megalopolis. Ningbo, for example, is expanding berths at its harbor – considered the nation’s best natural deepwater port – even as Shanghai finishes work on a new deepwater port of its own at Yangshan Island. (more…)

April 17 - At the ongoing Canton Fair, China’s largest trade event, it remains to be seen just how far-reaching the U.S. mortgage crisis will affect the Chinese market. Already some Chinese exporters say that orders have either been lowered or slower to increase compared to previous years.

“The growth of export orders in the first quarter of this year fell sharply to 20 percent from 140 percent in the same period of last year,” Cao Xiaojian, vice chairman of the Jiangsu Shuntian Co., Ltd. told the People’s Daily at the fair.

According to Ministry of Commerce, China’s trade surplus dipped to 10.2 percent to around US$ 41.6 billion for the first time in more than three years. Exports were up by 21.4 percent compared to last year’s 27.8 percent for the same period.

In 2007, the United States was China’s leading export market at 19.1 percent. It was also the year that Chinese exports finished at an estimated US$1.2 trillion and imports at US$956 billion with a whopping US$261 billion trade surplus. This is bound to change as the United States sorts out its domestic issues. (more…)

April 16- China’s gross domestic product for the first three months of the year till March 31 grew by 10.6 percent. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the figure is lower than last year’s 11.7 percent during the same period.

The slight slowdown has been attributed to the prolonged winter season that led to factories being shut, damaged crops and disrupted exports. The mortgage crisis that has placed the United States into recession is also another factor to blame. Although sources say that the figure bodes well for the Chinese economy’s stability as this is the ninth straight quarter that it grew by more than 10 percent. (more…)

PBOC and CBRC both “optimistic” inflation is being curbed

BEIJING, April 15 - The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has claimed some initial success in cooling the economy with slowdowns occurring for the first time in recent months in new money supply and bank loans. With inflation at a 12 year high, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Liu Mingkang, has stated that the current growth in loans was acceptable and that he was optimistic that China would be able to turn around the galloping inflation rate.

Credit development had dropped by close to one full percentage point from 17.1 to 16.2 during March compared to that of 2007. However, mainland banks had lent an unprecedented RMB804 billion during January this year, a record high, spurred both by the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, the rise in edible staple foods such as grains, and the severe weather, with many farmers needing bailing out of trouble from ruined feeds and crops. (more…)

April 3 - After years of delays and unsatisfactory results, China finally rolled out its home-grown 3G or third generation mobile phone network on Tuesday.

Technically tagged TD-SCDMA (Time-Division-Synchronous Division Multiple Access), the network was released in eight major cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin, and Xiamen by State-owned China Mobile to a few select customers.

Third generation mobile phone networks are said to be to the telecom industry what broadband was to the internet; revolutionary. They will offer faster download speeds, instant e-mail, web browsing and real time gaming. (more…)

HONG KONG, April 2 - China’s economy is expected to slow to 10 percent in 2008 according to a report released by the Asian Development Bank on Wednesday.

ADB’s annual Asian Development Outlook 2008 forecasts developing Asian economies to expand at 7.6 percent in 2008 and 7.8 percent in 2009.

“Asia will not be immune to the global slowdown,” said ADB Chief Economist Ifzal Ali. “Neither will it be hostage to it. It remains tied to global activity through traditional trade channels, and increasingly, through its closer integration in international markets.” (more…)