Shanghai will open three new metro lines by the end of the year, extending the total distance of the network to 230 kilometers authorities at the city subway’s construction headquarters announced.
Metro Line 6 will run south to north in Pudong, Metro Line 8 links Yangpu District with many downtown stops, and Metro Line 9 links Xuhui District with Songjiang, in Shanghai’s outskirts. There was no word on Metro Line 7.
China has been pushing to upgrade both Shanghai and Beijing’s extensive subway systems ahead of the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 World Expo, both seen as the country’s “coming out” to the world. This has come at a price as both cities’ systems have been marred by construction accidents. Read the rest of this entry »
Chief representatives of ROs and the legal representatives for FICEs are now required to go in person to register for a foreign exchange certificate if they want to have an account that can accept foreign currencies in Hangzhou. This new regulation differs from that of Shanghai where an agent applies for the Electronic Foreign Exchange Certificate - which is needed if an RO or FICE wants to use or save foreign currency in the PRC. The chief representative or legal representative must now go to the Hangzhou Bureau of Foreign Exchange in person to apply for the certificate.
This means that an agent can no longer apply for an Electronic Foreign Exchange Certificate in Hangzhou. This follows steps taken in other second tier cities requiring chief representatives to go above and beyond what they normally have to do in the bigger cities like Shanghai and Beijing. Another example of this would be the new labor law training program recently instituted in Dongguan, which we reported on in the March issue of China Briefing.
Dezan Shira & Associates maintain an office in Hangzhou, advising foreign investors on legal administration, corporate establishment, due diligence and tax policy in the city. Please contact Helen Ye for more information.
Didn’t we just talk about pork? The maglev train that was to connect Shanghai and Hangzhou appears headed to the dustbin of history. The project has been officially put on hold due to radiation concerns according to Xinhua.
“The project has been suspended in line with the arrangements of the municipal government,” said a spokesman with the government of Minhang District in Shanghai’s southern suburbs.
An official with the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress confirmed a major reason for suspending the project was the magnetic radiation concerns raised by residents living along the proposed route. “The government is working on the issue,” said the official on condition of anonymity.
Approved by the central government in March 2006, the US$4.5 billion maglev train track was to be 175 km long with trains reaching speeds of 450 km per hour. Read the rest of this entry »
Pudong International Airport (PVG) ranked as the sixth largest in the world for freight in 2006, handling some 2.16 million ton of cargo according to the Airports Council International.
Pudong jumped two spots from last year on a rapid increase, 22.3 percent, of freight flights in 2006. In 2006, the airport handled 35,587 freight flights, accounting for 15.3 percent of the total flights. Eighty-five percent of the freight flights were from overseas.
The airport is accelerating its expansion project, having already added ten more freight storage units in 2006, and is now building another freight area - set to become one of the four logistics parks in Shanghai. The public goods store station is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
Currently the five leading airports for cargo are Memphis International Airport (MEM) in the US, Hong Kong International (HKG), Anchorage International (ANC) in the US, Incheon International Airport (ICN) in Seoul, South Korea, and Narita International Airport (NRT) in Tokyo, Japan.
HANGZHOU, Jan. 29 - At 7:15 p.m. on January 28, 2007, the first CRH (China Railway Highspeed) train left Hangzhou with nearly 700 passengers, arriving in Shanghai 90 minutes later.
The new bullet trains, or dong he du in Chinese, use multiple engine-powered carriages alongside non-powered units in order to raise travel speeds. Theoretically, the trains are capable of traveling at speeds up to 250 km/h, although they are restricted to a maximum speed of 160 km/h until after April 18, when national rail network will upgrade its speed limits.
A comprehensive rapid rail transportation network connecting Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang – indeed the whole Yangtze River Delta - is taking shape. The new trains will travel between Shanghai and Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, as well as Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province. The cities are already well connected, but the bullet trains - and their increased speed – will bring these cities even closer to their regional hub. Surprisingly, the ticket prices for the bullet train and the traditional variety are identical - RMB44 for a soft seat class ticket for a distance of 200 km is a price which would startle users of the Japanese, French or German highspeed trains. Read the rest of this entry »
SHANGHAI, Jan. 1 - On October 1, 2006, the Shanghai Municipal Government issued a notice delegating authority for approving certain categories of Foreign Invested Commercial Enterprises (FICE) to the district level, in other words, to the level of administration below Shanghai Municipality (there are 18 districts and one county in Shanghai).
According to this notice, should the business scope of a proposed FICE be “wholesale,” it can be approved by the district level office of State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), rather than the municipal level. Meanwhile, FICEs in the retail business; those offering services in a fixed location or through television, telephone, mail order, internet, and automated means; and special types involved in grain, cotton, vegetable oil, edible sugar, medicines, cigarettes, automobiles, crude oil and other agricultural material manufacturing must still submit applications to the municipal SAIC in Shanghai. Read the rest of this entry »
Zhangjiagang is a city of some 900,000 people on the Yangtze, around 90 minutes by road northwest of Shanghai. The city’s GDP in 2005 was RMB70.5 billion (about US$10,000 per capita), and it now host to some 1,300 foreign invested enterprises. It is notable for having the only inland free trade zone in China, the only FTZ fully integrated with a port, and the only FTZ focusing on chemical logistics. The city also has one of the new bonded logistic zones. Its port capacity is now 84m tons, and it is a major distributing point for timber, steel and chemicals, as well as containers, and also a key trans-shipment port for cargo going west, up the Yangtze in smaller vessels and barges.
The local government is keen to build on its existing strengths, notably by attracting more foreign investment into its logistics capabilities. And according to free trade zone officials, the city is in the process of applying to the central authorities for free port status, similar to that already available at Shanghai’s Yangshan port. However, the timescale for potential approval is not yet known. In addition, the FTZ and port are keen to pursue a long term aim of “connection” with Shanghai’s Yangshan port. Officials suggested this might in due course, for example, allow an export consignment to clear customs at Zhangjiagang and then travel by bonded transport to Yangshan for shipping. Although these ambitious plans have still to come to fruition, Zhangjiagang seems to be somewhere to watch. Read the rest of this entry »
On the islands of Xiao Yangshan and Da Yangshan, some 30km south of Shanghai, Phase 1 of this major new facility opened in December 2005, with five containership berths. The port lies at end of the 32.5km Dong Hai oversea bridge. It is expected to have a throughput of 3m TEUs by the end of this year, primarily from Europe-China lines transferred from Waigaoqiao port. Phase 2 with a further four berths will be complete by the end of 2006, at which time lines to North and South America will transfer. Major construction work was visible during our visit. By 2010, there will be 15 berths, with a total annual capacity of 10m TEU – by 2020, the facility will have 53 berths.
The port is also now a state-level free port, China’s first, and covers an area of 7.2 sq km in three parts – 1.2 sq km in the port, the 32.5km Dong Hai Bridge itself, and a 6 sq km area at the north end of the bridge in Lingang New Area. This free port is the most open area yet created in China and within these areas existing policies applied to bonded zones, export processing zones and bonded logistics parks will be implemented import duty and taxes are suspended until the goods are removed from the free port into the domestic market domestic goods shipped into the free port are considered exports and entitled to tax refunds goods transactions within the free port are not subject to VAT and consumption tax. Read the rest of this entry »
for Dezan Shira & Associates, the foreign direct investment legal and tax practice responsible for China Briefing 
