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 16 – China announced that value-added tax on gasoline and diesel imported by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) between April 1 and June 30 will qualify for a 17 percent tax refund in the second quarter. The move aims to relieve CNPC and Sinopec’s refining loses and ensures that the local market is supplied with adequate refined oil products.

“The tax rebate will reduce the refining losses of CNPC and Sinopec to some extent,” Zheng Zhiguo, an energy analyst with Shenyin Wanguo Securities told China Daily, “But the amount is small and cannot fully cover the losses.”

The Ministry of Finance detailed that CNPC tax imports on 500,000 tons of gasoline and one million tons of diesel will be refunded as well as Sinopec’s imports of 500,000 tons of gasoline and 1.5 million tons of diesel. (more…)

SHANGHAI, April 14 - Don St. Pierre Jr., named the 37th most influential wine person globally, was recently released in Shanghai following a month-long detention and a major investigation of his firm’s wine importation business.

St. Pierre was being held as part of an extensive investigation of wine importers by the Chinese authorities looking for evidence that importers had been understating the value of wines they bring into the country in order to evade high customs duties in the growing Chinese wine market.

St. Pierre Jr., the company’s managing partner, and ASC vice president Carrie Xuan had been held in a customs department building, though neither was officially under arrest.

“The way the system works here is that they detain you while figuring out what to do,” said his father Don St. Pierre Sr. to the industry publication Wine Spectator. St. Pierre Sr., who has been doing business in China for 20 years, founded the company a decade ago with his son and currently serves as chairman. “There are 27 boxes of documents that have to be matched up with other pieces of paper to show that customs duty has been paid,” he said last week, prior to his son’s release. ”They have been going through them for three weeks now and found there is nothing wrong.” (more…)

HONG KONG, April 11 - The escalating price of jet fuel has been pinpointed as the main culprit for the collapse of long-haul budget airline Oasis Hong Kong. Another factor that contributed to strained company finances was the decision to buy instead of leasing the aircrafts. According to the International Air Transport Association, in the past year alone, fuel prices have surged more than 60 percent.

In an open letter Oasis founders Raymond and Priscilla Lee explained, “As oil prices sharply increased, the fuel costs took up the majority of our budget.” (more…)

SHANGHAI, April 10 – The second terminal at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport opened on March 26, more than doubling capacity for the airport to 60 million passengers and year.

Built at a cost of RMB20 billion, the new terminal and third runway, designed to handle the world’s largest aircraft, opens just in time to handle the expected surge of passenger volume from the upcoming Olympic Games and 2010 World Expo.

Current passenger traffic however, remains distinctly low. Arriving at the new terminal, one finds nothing more than vast emptiness. Even with passengers pouring out of two 747s, the anticipated chaos is nowhere to be found, with staff efficiently clearing immigration queues in the shortest amount of time. (more…)

BEIJING, April 9 - Beijing Capital Airport’s new Terminal Three opened to passenger traffic on March 26. Designed by Sir Norman Foster’s architectural practice Foster & Partners, the Dutch airport planners NACO and engineered by Arup, the new terminal is expected to handle the massive increase in passengers expected for the 2008 Olympics and China’s increased role in global economy from its entry to the WTO.

The new terminal will allow Beijing Capital airport to increase capacity from 27 to 60 million passengers annually by 2015. The same team of planners, architects and engineers were responsible for the Chep Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong.

We sent our intrepid staff to find out how the new terminal was stacking up. (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…)

Mar. 31 - China processed more crude oil in the first two months of 2008 to ease supply shortages throughout the country.

China processed 55.81 million tons of crude oil in January and February, a 7.4 percent increase from the same period last year the National Development and Reform Commission said on Friday.

Output of gasoline and diesel surged 4.1 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively. Natural gas production expanded by 20.3 percent.

According to the NDRC, the country’s crude oil output hit 30.78 million tons in January and February, up 1.2 percent year on year, while imports shot up 9.5 percent to 28.23 million tons. (Xinhua)

Mar. 31 - China’s logistics sector realized RMB1.7 trillion in added value last year, a growth of 20.3 percent on the previous year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The growth rate was 5.2 percentage points higher than the year-earlier level.

The added value accounted for 17.6 percent of the total added value for the service industry at large, up 0.5 percentage points year-on-year. It made up 6.9 percent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), up 0.2 percentage points.

Last year saw the sector’s gross business volume amount to RMB75.2trillion, up 26.2 percent. The growth rate was 2.2 percentage points higher than the year-earlier level. (more…)

Mar. 28 - Land prices in China will rise more slowly this year than in 2007 according to a report from the China Land Surveying and Planning Institute.

The institute, a division of the Ministry of Land and Resources forecasts that measures to curb property prices will begin to take effect, slowing growth in the market.

According to Xinhua, land prices in major cities averaged RMB1,751 per square meter last year, up 13.37 percent from 2006. That year-on-year growth rate was more than double that recorded in 2006.

The State Council issued a circular on land conservation at the beginning of this year that aimed to improve the efficiency of land use and curb speculation. The government also vowed to increase the supply of affordable housing which will help stabilize prices the report stated. (more…)