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How to Do Business with China, through Hong Kong & Setting up Business in China? - last update Feb 8, 2003 Do you know our dues paying members attend events sponsored by our collaboration partners worldwide at their membership rates - go to our event page to find out more! After attended a China/Hong Kong Business/Trade Seminar in Hawaii...still unsure what to do next, contact us, our Officers, Directors and Founding Members are actively engaged in China/Hong Kong/Asia trade - we can help! China Projects Bidding Information - update daily Scholarship & Grants
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June 28 - 29, 2006
Attempts by Australia's Macquarie Bank to mount a renewed bid for PCCW's main telecom and media assets with the aid of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp could be designed to make the deal more palatable for Beijing, despite the Australian tycoon's checkered business record in the mainland, analysts said. Shimao Property, a Shanghai-based developer, has raised HK$3.72 billion by selling new shares at HK$6.25, the bottom end of the indicative range, because of poor market sentiment as well as deep concerns over the mainland's latest real estate cooling measures, market sources said. Hong Kong-listed China Life Insurance and its parent have paid a combined 4.65 billion yuan (HK$4.51 billion) to purchase 500,000 new shares in Shanghai-listed CITIC Securities, allowing the parties to form a strategic alliance as part of the central government's plans to permit more interaction among the country's banking, insurance and brokerage industries.
Mainland and SAR creative and digital industry operators should strengthen their cooperation in the light of favorable conditions brought about by the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, visiting Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference chairman Jia Qinglin said Wednesday.
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference chairman Jia Qinglin is expected to give Hong Kong a handover anniversary gift today by announcing plans to make it easier to conduct yuan-denominated business in the city.
Archaeologists have discovered remains of what may prove to be the country's first foreign worker, who labored on the mausoleum of China's first emperor. China's State Council, the cabinet, said in a circular that the country's insurers can invest their funds overseas to expand their investment horizons. China's fiscal revenue soared almost 20 percent in 2005 to hit a record 3.16 trillion yuan (395 billion U.S. dollars), Finance Minister Jin Renqing said on Tuesday. A leading Chinese central bank official said that countries around the world should gradually rely less on the U.S. dollar for trade and their foreign exchange reserves. The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors on Tuesday approved 218 million U.S. dollars in a loan for infrastructure projects in northeast China's medium-sized cities to enhance the performance and quality of their existing urban transport infrastructure. China has publicized plans to build Tianjin into a financial center in the north by introducing a range of reforms in the city's Binhai New Area.
China Southern Airlines, the mainland's largest carrier in terms of fleet size, has signed a agreement ultimately leading to membership of the SkyTeam alliance.
June 27, 2006
Hong Kong Economic Times, which publishes a local Chinese-language financial newspaper of the same name, reported its fiscal second half earnings rose 35.5 percent on higher advertising sales. Hong Kong-listed Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing, one of world's largest containerboard makers, has announced a 44 percent growth in net profit for the fiscal year ended March 31. The fact that fruit and vegetables containing high levels of chemicals are entering Hong Kong shows that the government's food-inspection system has failed to keep pace with growing abuse of pesticides in mainland agriculture, a green group warns. To launch Beijing's next major boost to Hong Kong's financial and professional services, the chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Jia Qinglin, will make the Monetary Authority his first stop when he arrives this morning before paying a visit to a middle-class family during his 55-hour whistle-stop visit to the SAR. Hong Kong Disneyland has introduced an unlimited-visit summer pass to stimulate business going into the last quarter of its first year. Hong Kong on Monday reported an 8.2 per cent growth in gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2006 over a year earlier, figures published on Monday showed The government would adopt a 'zero tolerance' approach to used clothes collection cages on streets, Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said on Monday. The bidding war that has emerged over PCCW has turned into a political hot potato for all parties involved - majority shareholder Richard Li Tzar-kai, the Chinese government and rival suitors Macquarie Group and TPG-Newbridge Capital. Shenzhen Bus Group, in which Kowloon Motor Bus Holdings owns a 35 per cent stake, plans to raise at least US$100 million in an initial public offering in Hong Kong early next year, sources said.
Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu has called on northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to unite all ethnic groups in the region for faster economic and social development. Australian PM John Howard's upcoming visit to China reflectsa readiness to accept Beijing's growing economic and political clout as an opportunity, not a threat. Australian Prime Minister John Howard will pay a two-day visit to China from today to promote gas exports and plans for a free-trade deal with the booming, energy-famished economy. China's economy will grow by 10.3 percent in the first half of 2006, then slow marginally for a full-year expansion of 10 percent, the central bank said in a new report. China's Ministry of Finance said on Monday it would issue the country's first ever savings bonds, worth up to 15 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion), offering Chinese citizens a new investment option. China Everbright International, a Beijing-backed investment company, said Monday it will pay 400 million yuan (HK$388.6 million) to acquire two waste water treatment plants from the Jinan municipal government to strengthen its presence in the mainland's burgeoning environmental protection industry. China Airlines, Taiwan's largest air carrier, said it plans to apply for permission to fly cargo to China, after the island's government eased restrictions on transport links to the mainland.
June 26, 2006
The Earth is running a slight fever from greenhouse gases, after enjoying relatively stable temperatures for 2,000 years, according to a research.
The government's HK$5.1 billion Tamar development project will go ahead following a landslide 40-10 victory in the Legislative Council's Finance Committee Friday - but the controversy continues as legislators still have a host of unanswered questions on how the government will proceed with the money. The administration has presented a thick bundle of amendments to its surveillance bill, hoping to appease jittery lawmakers as time winds down on the legislative year - potentially depriving Hong Kong of a vital law enforcement tool. Hong Kong’s low HIV infection rate owed much to the unstinting efforts of the Red Ribbon Centre of the Department of Health, Selina Tsang Pou Siu-mei said on Friday. The government on Friday proposed tougher penalties on forms of cruelty to animals such as beating, kicking and torturing them.
China's population will peak at 1.5 billion in the mid-2030s, but it will begin to gradually drop after reaching the peak.
The Chinese currency on Wednesday strengthened to below 8 against the US dollar at inquiry system for the first time since the reform of RMB exchange rate mechanism last July.
China is poised to issue new regulations which would allow insurers to invest in more stocks, asset-backed securities and property and take part in venture capital projects, the China Securities Journal said.
An Olympic construction official has been linked to an apparently deepening graft investigation that has already brought about the downfall of a former Beijing vice-mayor, but Beijing Games organisers were silent on the issue yesterday. United States-based data storage system company EMC on Friday said it planned to invest an additional US$500 million (HK$3.9 billion) in China by 2010, extending its push into Asia. June 23 - 25, 2006
A steering committee headed by Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui Si-yan will be formed to promote Hong Kong as a regional education hub. Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li Kwok-cheung made the announcement Wednesday as lawmakers passed a motion raised by Jasper Tsang Yok-sing in support of the move. Speaking at a Legislative Council debate on the motion, Li agreed with Tsang's motion, which is to develop Hong Kong into a regional education hub. "[Creating an education hub] can help Hong Kong attract talent, enhance its competitiveness and help broaden the horizons of local students," Li said during the motion debate. He said the ratio of admissions for non-local students in government-funded tertiary education has been rising in the past decade, from 2 percent in 1993 to 10 percent in 2005-06. Computer programming errors were not the sole cause of the two-hour breakdown of Lantau's Ngong Ping 360 cable cars last Saturday, according to a source who told The Standard about a combination of factors including underestimating how humidity at the site would affect sensors, disconnection of staff walkie-talkies and a lack of staff training. East-Asian countries had reformed their financial markets since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, but more needed to be done, Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong said on Thursday. Total employment in Hong Kong's private sector grew by 2.0 per cent, or 47,200 people, in March compared with a year earlier, latest figures released on Thursday showed.
The first exclusive BMW clothes store opened in Beijing Oriental Plaza, selling men and women formal clothes, sports and casual wears and clothes ornaments. China aims to increase the number of software export bases to up to 15 by 2010 to boost the fledgling software export and outsourcing industry.
Profits of China's iron and steel industry in the first five months dropped 37.4 percent over the corresponding period of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday. China will spend at least 34 billion yuan (4.3 billion U.S. dollars) to phase out persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in 10 years, a Chinese environmental official said on Wednesday. Average housing prices in Guangdong rose by 10 per cent year on year in the first five months of this year, with prices in Guangzhou increasing 15 per cent, the provincial Bureau of Statistics said. The Bank of China, the country's second-biggest lender, has set its share price for an initial public offering in Shanghai, raising 20 billion yuan (HK$19.5 billion) in the mainland's biggest IPO ever. Chinese flagship carrier Air China on Thursday said it had proposed buying the shares of unit China National Aviation Co that it did not already own in a deal worth up to $3.2 billion. June 22, 2006
The government has been liaising with the mainland to prevent its fishing vessels entering Hong Kong waters to fish, Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong said on Wednesday. Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong said on Wednesday Hong Kong had set up new measures to help SAR citizens who get into difficulty overseas.
Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend a meeting of dialogues between the Group of Eight (G8) and developing countries in St. Petersburg in July.
China's banking regulator is likely to complete a revised administrative rule soon that would allow foreign banks to deal with renminbi retail business across the country. China finally agreed to a 19 per cent iron ore price increase from the world's three big miners but lashed out on Wednesday over "flawed" negotiations which ignored the country's interests and simply forced it to fall into line and pay more. June 21, 2006
Retrofitting existing government offices to the highest standard would cost about HK$250 million, or less than 5 percent of the proposed price tag to build a new government headquarters at Tamar, according to a study. Hong Kong services companies are in line for more preferential access to the mainland under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (Cepa), the city's director-general of trade and industry says. A call by unionists yesterday for paternity leave to be made a legal right for working fathers was brushed aside by the government.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) on Monday ordered commercial banks to further cut back on lending, following last Friday's move that requires them to keep more reserves at the central bank.
China and India are the favoured markets of investors living outside their home countries, while fears about corporate governance standards in emerging markets have waned, according to a brokerage firm's survey on Monday. The Chinese government will firmly pursue its financial reform and continue to push forward opening-up in financial sector according to its WTO commitments so as to improve the ability of supervision and risk-prevention, Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju said on Monday.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the mainland's second-biggest oil company, has agreed to buy an oil- producing unit of a venture controlled by BP in Beijing's first significant energy asset in Russia. The resignation of US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a leading architect of Washington's China policy, is unlikely to affect bilateral ties, according to mainland analysts.
China Life Insurance, the mainland's largest insurer, plans to take a 16.77 per cent stake in Citic Securities, the second most profitable domestic brokerage last year, in a deal worth at least 4.18 billion yuan. Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the largest futures exchange in the United States, will launch the first yuan futures and options contracts this summer to capture growing investor demand to hedge against the Chinese currency. Liu Xiaoguang, the chairman of Beijing Capital Group, the parent firm of Hong Kong-listed Beijing Capital Land, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a corruption scandal involving former Beijing vice-mayor Liu Zhihua, sources said. Swiss investment bank UBS has obtained written preparatory approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for its 1.7 billion yuan plan to take management control of troubled Beijing Securities. June 20, 2006
A consortium thought to be led by Hong Kong investor Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings is considering joining a bid battle for Associated British Ports, London-based newspaper The Business said Sunday.
Disgruntled bus drivers will conduct a territory-wide "slow drive" today that could lead to a full-scale strike by Wednesday after pay negotiations with bus operators broke down Sunday. Hong Kong's unemployment rate fell to a 57-month low of 4.9 per cent between March and May, from 5.1 per cent in the three months to April due to a sustained economic revival, official figures showed on Monday. The mainland's largest lender, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), has delayed its planned US$12 billion (HK$94 billion) initial public offering in Hong Kong to October, a newspaper reported Monday.
Lenovo is still struggling to improve its profit performance. Lenovo is still a relatively unknown brand in US despite the extensive media coverage in recent years.
The bank plans to sell up to 10 billion yuan-denominated A-shares, or 3.886 percent of its share capital, on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, making it the number one heavyweight in China's stock market. China's Social Security Fund will invest more than 18 billion yuan (2.25 billion U.S. dollars) in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Worried that it may be selling industrial assets to foreigners too cheaply, China will tighten screening of deals and impose new curbs on foreign acquisitions in its heavy industry, a Beijing-funded newspaper said.
Many visitors to the Chinese capital - who often find themselves stranded in the daily traffic gridlock and choked by toxic smog - must ask themselves what it will be like in August 2008 when millions of officials, athletes and tourists from around the world congregate for the Beijing Olympics.
The path to global expansion is getting narrower for Chinese telecommunications equipment vendors as their multinational rivals merge and transform into more formidable industry suppliers. June 19, 2006
The government will soon propose an alternative site for the controversial central poultry slaughtering plant. Since proposing a site for the slaughterhouse in Sheung Shui in April, the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau has faced strong opposition to the project from local residents. A top international school in Beijing is locked in a tug of war with angry parents - mostly expatriates, Hong Kong residents, and mainlander returnees - after announcing a 700 per cent fee increase. Minority shareholders in China Resources Cement, whose profit slumped 85 percent last year, have voted overwhelmingly to accept a HK$428 million privatization offer by the Hong Kong-listed company's controlling shareholder.
Hong Kong-listed China COSCO Holdings, the mainland's biggest container shipping company, said it expects average freight rates, which dropped in this year's first quarter, to rebound in the second half due to strong cargo demand, particularly during the summer peak. Shares in Next Media, publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, rose 5.5 percent Thursday after the company reported a more-than-threefold increase in earnings in the fiscal year ended March 31, as its Taiwanese operations broke even for the first time.
Workplace discrimination in Hong Kong has increased markedly in the past five months, a sign that many employers are still unfamiliar with anti-discrimination legislation, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission. Sun Hung Kai Financial will pay more than $4 billion to buy out the entire 50 per cent stake of privately held United Asia Finance from its parent firm Allied Group as part of its strategy to enter the mainland securities market, sources familiar with the deal said.
Hopson Development Holdings, one of China's largest developers, said mainland property sales have almost doubled since the central government announced its latest round of real estate speculation curbs in late May.
Ping An Insurance, China's second-largest life insurer, has entered into exclusive talks to buy more than 60 per cent of Shenzhen Commercial Bank from the government, sources say. June 16 - 18, 2006
The government has no plans to change its seven-year residency qualification for welfare assistance, the health chief said Wednesday. Hong Kong Commercial Radio on Thursday was fined $140,000 and ordered to broadcast an apology for holding a controversial poll asking listeners to name an actress they would most like to sexually harass.
The number of reported drug abusers in Hong Kong in the first quarter of the year has fallen, figures released on Thursday show. Construction work in Hong Kong shrank in the first quarter of 2006 — following completion of some large projects, government figures released on Thursday showed. Ping An Insurance (Group) has approached undercapitalised Everbright Bank about taking a stake in the medium-sized lender, industry and regulatory sources say, as China's second-biggest life insurer seeks to remodel itself as a financial services firm.
JETRO Chairman Mr. Osamu Watanabe recently said that talks on the free trade zone between Japan and China were not likely to be launched until 2008.
China will further cut import taxes on some cars and auto parts as of July 1, the Ministry of Finance announced Thursday. The Foreign Exchange Trade Center announced by the authority of the People's Bank of China on June 15 that the parity rate of the Chinese currency on the inter-bank foreign exchange market is 7.9999 yuan against 1 US dollar. Germany's biggest lender Deutsche Bank AG has raised its stake in Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co Ltd, the Chinese partner of German engineering group MAN AG, to 5.21 per cent. Yutong said so yesterday. China reported Thursday a 30-percent- strong year-on-year growth of urban fixed asset investment in the first five months of 2006, following the State Council's warning to "firmly curb" the trend.
Disputes between China and Germany over money and opposition from the Ministry of Railways threatened a proposed 35 billion yuan high-speed maglev line between Shanghai and Hangzhou, industry sources said yesterday. China Mobile has cut prices for its international roaming calls in Sichuan and Zhejiang province in a move that is likely to bite deeply into the market share of China's fixed-line operators. June 15, 2006
Datang International Power Generation, the second-largest Hong Kong- listed mainland electricity producer, may lower its dividend payout ratio over the next two years as it seeks to cut reliance on coal by investing in renewable energy power projects, analysts said. David Li Kwok-po, a prominent business leader and legislator, has expressed concern over Hong Kong's diminishing attractiveness as a regional base for US- based companies, adding to worries that its competitive advantages may be undermined by growing pollution problems and decreasing financial incentives. Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that the soil at the Tamar site has been contaminated by dioxin, a highly toxic chemical..
China Life said the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ended a probe into its HK and US IPO in 2003, and no action was recommended. Air China, China's biggest air carrier, plans to get listed on the Chinese mainland later this year, a company official said on Wednesday. Contracts and credit agreements worth US$2 billion are expected to be signed at the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) summit that starts tomorrow, a senior official said yesterday. Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley, said in his latest economic review that although China is more influential than any other economy in the world in terms of pushing up global demand for bulk commodities, the new policy made by the Chinese leadership indicates a major shift of the country's growth model --- from high-resources consumption manner to low-resources consumption. He believes this strategy would not only facilitate China's sustainable development, but also well serve the global economy.
Aviation organizations of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have agreed to open chartered flights for more traditional festivals in addition to the Spring Festival.
The annual sales income of China's software industry will climb to 1.3 trillion yuan (162.5 billion U.S. dollars) by 2010, as against 390.1 billion yuan (18.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005, according to a prediction recently. A Chinese shoemakers' alliance says it will send a delegation to attend a hearing organized by the European Union Trade Commission on the levy of anti-dumping taxes on Chinese shoes.
New World China Land, a unit of New World Development, has secured three bank loans totaling more than 1.4 billion yuan (HK$1.36 billion) to partly fund its mainland property projects. Eight out of 10 mainlanders say they are satisfied with the way things are going in China, according to a survey, in a sign that robust economic growth is outweighing social tensions over the income gap between rich and poor.
China Petrochemical Corp, the parent company of listed China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec), is considering subscribing for shares in the mega initial public offering of Russia's second-largest oil and gas producer Rosneft. China Postal Savings Bank, the latest financial institution to be created by Beijing, is seeking to raise at least $2 billion in an initial public offering as early as next year, according to sources. June 14, 2006
Cathay Pacific Airways says cargo handling capabilities at Hong Kong International Airport will be stretched in three years despite a counter-claim by Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals, or HACTL, the world's leading air cargo terminal operator, that it is able to meet demand for at least the next 11 years. The initial public offering of Shui On Land drew a lackluster response from investors on its first day of retail subscriptions, signaling a break in the IPO fever that has gripped the market since the beginning of the year. Hong Kong-listed Kowloon Development plans to invest more than one billion yuan (HK$969 million) to build the first phase of a housing project in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province in northeastern China. Tom Online, controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, is to pay up to 600 million yuan (HK$581.4 million) for mainland mobile-phone content provider Infomax to offset a loss of income as the Chinese government tightens rules on methods of paying phone bills. Hong Kong is in danger of losing its competitiveness as a result of the mainland's continued economic growth, the Commission on Strategic Development has warned ahead of its executive committee meeting today to be chaired by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen.
The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) said on Tuesday it would begin implementing the government's five-day working week from July 1 This follows the lead of other leading government departments in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong-China construction industry delegation is visiting the Philippines and Cambodia to explore infrastructure development opportunities there, Permanent Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Lo Yiu-ching said on Tuesday. Henderson Land Development has shelved its $3.9 billion real estate investment trust as sentiment towards the property trusts has soured in the face of a more volatile global market, sources said.
Preferential taxes may have been a major attraction for foreign companies investing in China but that could all be about to change.
China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, have risen above $900 billion as a result of the nation's growing trade surplus. According to statistics released by customs yesterday, exports reached US$73.1 billion last month, up 25.1 per cent year-on-year, while imports reached US$60.1 billion, up 21.7 per cent. China will build five liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers in the next three years to cope with rising demand for the import, according to a ship maker here on Monday. The sacking of an allegedly corrupt Beijing vice mayor who was in charge of overseeing construction projects for the 2008 Olympics will not affect the Games, organizers said. The mainland economy showed no signs of cooling down last month despite an intensified clampdown by the central government, with official data released yesterday showing yet another record trade surplus and a pick up in inflation. June 13, 2006
Chronically ill welfare recipient Chow Chin-sun will start seeing his life savings of HK$60,000 evaporate from next month when he has to start paying monthly bills of HK$20,000 for medications that will no longer be subsidized for a disease public hospital doctors have been unable to diagnose.
A listed company chairman, his lover
and a veteran solicitor were convicted on Monday of conspiring to prevent a
potential witness from assisting the ICAC’s investigations into an alleged
market manipulation. Semtech International Holdings chairman Derek Wong Chong-kwong,
his lover Mandy Chui Man-si and his lawyer Andrew Lam Ping-cheung were found
guilty of a joint charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, local
radio reported. Higher courts in Hong Kong have ruled more often against the government in cases involving the Basic Law than lower ones, according to the first study on the subject by a central government think tank. The annual volume of initial public offerings in Hong Kong is unlikely to slow and could increase over the next two to three years, even though there are no more mega-sized deals by China's financial institutions in the offing. Shui On Land, the mainland developer seeking to float shares in Hong Kong, will spend up to four billion yuan to relocate existing residents at its project developments in Shanghai this year.
The Honolulu-based U.S. Coast Guard cutter Rush arrived in east China's coastal city of Qingdao on Sunday afternoon, kicking off a five-day visit at the invitation of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Rush is the first major Coast Guard vessel to visit China since World War II, according to Capt. Dana Ware, commanding officer of Rush. The 115-meter ship and its crew of 190 were warmly welcomed by Chinese counterparts and local people upon its arrival at the Qingdao Pier. Major General Chen Weiming of the MPS Border Control Department and Vice Admiral Charles D. Wurster of the U.S. Coast Guard addressed the welcoming ceremony. During Rush's stay in Qingdao, the two sides will conduct professional law enforcement exchanges, which will serve to enhance international cooperation in the area of law enforcement at sea. Both Chinese and U.S. law enforcement teams will also hold a forum to discuss and demonstrate techniques for boarding and searching suspected vessels, sharing information in combating at-sea crimes. Rush crew members will also participate in friendly events such as basketball and cultural tours with the Chinese counterparts to deepen mutual understanding. China's Consumer Price Index (CPI) in May rose 1.4 percent year on year, said sources with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. The growth rate was higher than the 1.2-percent rise in April. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said Sunday that a group of South Korean buyers would leave for China this week as an effort to reduce the country's increasing trade surplus with China. China is considering a change in energy policy to encourage the wider use of ethanol in a bid to allievate the nation's worsening air pollution.
China National Coal, a unit of the mainland's largest exporter of coal, is in talks with some of world's largest coal firms to take strategic stakes as it plans to file an initial public offering application in Hong Kong this month to raise US$1 billion, people familiar with the situation said. June 12, 2006
Hong Kong will soon allow Taiwanese to visit the territory for up to seven days without having to pay for an entry permit, the government said on Friday.
China's actual foreign direct investment(FDI) in 2005 amounted to 72.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 19.42 percent over that of 2004, the revised statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce showed here Thursday.
Bank of China's A-share offer price has been set at between three yuan and 3.10 yuan (HK$2.90-HK$3) after the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved its mainland listing Friday, sources said. CEC Telecom, the mobile-phone manufacturing subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed consumer electronics firm Qiao Xing Universal, plans to seek a listing on the same board to raise US$150 million by the fourth quarter of this year. June 9 - 11, 2006
Cathay Pacific Airways and Hong Kong Dragon Airlines would probably wrap up talks on Thursday about Cathay's bid to take over the smaller carrier that has highly coveted routes to the booming mainland market, a person familiar with the negotiations said. The Independent Commission Against Corruption has arrested four people, including a disc jockey and a deputy head of Radio Television Hong Kong, on corruption-related charges.
The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said on Thursday Macau may overtake the Las Vegas Strip as the biggest gaming market in the world in terms of revenue within the next few years.
China's national planning agency has approved Airbus' selection of Tianjin for the location of its A320 jets assembly line, the first outside the aircraft maker's European base. China has strengthened the enforcement of IPR protection laws and launched campaigns against violations, Bo said while meeting European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
The cabinet yesterday gave in principle approval to a draft anti-monopoly law which would provide a free and fair competitive environment to all enterprises. Multinationals will be allowed to invest in the Chinese currency-dominated A share market through their investment subsidiaries in China as of July 1. June 8, 2006
The Independent Police Complaints Council, comprising members appointed by the chief executive, has "attacked and interfered with the right to privacy" after it misused and negligently leaked on the Internet details of police complainants, according to a writ filed in the High Court.
Hong Kong helped raise about US$21 billion (HK$163 billion) last year through initial public offerings, acting-Chief Executive Rafael Hui Si-yan revealed on Wednesday.
Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang
Lee was in Taipei on Wednesday casting for his new project, the spy thriller
Lust, Caution, which will be filmed in Hong Kong later this year.
Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China says there is no plan to further increase the interest rate, because the results of last increase still needs to be observed. 9.5 Million sit for College Exam this year - today's college entrance exam is often likened to thousands of people and horses trying to cross a narrow footbridge
Citigroup Inc's property unit plans to increase its investment in Chinese mainland's real estate market tenfold to US$800 million in the next three years, a senior company official said.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu became the latest international audit firm to cite the mainland's shortage of accounting talent as its biggest obstacle to expansion in the country, where runaway economic growth and a thirst for capital is fueling demand for audit services.
The State Council has set the tone for the development of Tianjin's Binhai New Area, giving its backing to financial and land reform experiments along with promising a wealth of tax breaks to investors and subsidies to local authorities. June 7, 2006
Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and China Construction Bank have paid nearly HK$1.5 billion to become strategic investors in mainland developer Shimao Properties Holdings ahead of its HK$5.3 billion initial public offering, planned for early next month.
Government officials have told legislators the chief executive will not be subject to any criminal sanctions if he violates a new law set to be passed under a surveillance bill before the Legislative Council because the chief executive doesn't count as a "public officer."
Fresh from a share listing in Hong Kong that raised US$9.7 billion (HK$76 billion), the Bank of China on Tuesday said it planned to move ahead with a US$2.5 billion initial public offering in Shanghai.
Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), says today that there is no plan to further increase the interest rate at present, because the results of last increase still needs to be observed.
A new draft of a law unifying income tax rates for local and foreign companies will be tabled for a first reading by the National People's Congress Standing Committee in August and could be approved as early as March, according to finance and taxation officials. The mainland faces an uphill battle to control environmental damage caused by the overheated economy, with pollution costing an estimated 10 per cent of gross domestic product, according to a senior environmental official. Driven by surging domestic demand, China will overtake Australia as the largest market for professional information technology services in the Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, in the next four year. June 6, 2006
First Shanghai Investments, a Hong Kong-listed investment holding firm with interests in mainland property and hotels, said its 80 percent-owned subsidiary has agreed to pay 85 million yuan (HK$82.3 million) to acquire commercial and residential properties in Zhongshan in Guangdong province.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam- kuen says Hong Kong can perform a middleman role to assist investors and entrepreneurs from the Pan-Pearl River Delta region develop closer ties with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The Hong Kong Cyberport Management on Monday announced that Kowloon Motor Bus executive director Winnie Ng Wing-mui was appointed to its board of directors.
NagaCorp, a Cambodian casino operator owned by Malaysian tycoon Chen Lip Keong, plans to float its shares in Hong Kong this month, before the proposed share sale of Stanley Ho Hung-sun's giant casino operation Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM) in July.
Guangzhou R&F Properties, one of the largest developers on the mainland, plans to pour 10 billion yuan (HK$9.68 billion) into China projects this year, undeterred by government measures to cool the real estate market. June 5, 2006
The CAD has entered into similar arrangements with Singapore and Canada and is in active discussions with the regulators in other countries to establish similar arrangements. US nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, once a suspected spy for China, settled lawsuits against the US government and major news media for 1.64 million dollars. Embarking on a six-day trade and investment mission to the developing southwestern provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen appealed to Hong Kong investors to consider the region's huge business potential and to take part in its infrastructure development. Hong Kong Disneyland has reacted cautiously to news that Ocean Park has been ranked the world's seventh most popular amusement park in a survey by Forbes magazine, urging critics to wait and see before passing judgment on Disneyland.
The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing board yesterday caved in to pressure from brokers, backing down on a controversial plan to cut the trading spreads for all shares less than $20 next month. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Asia's largest stock exchange by market value, will cut the size of its stock's board lots to 500 shares from 2,000 shares on June 26, making it easier for retail investors to buy the shares. Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), a unit of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, has agreed to license the mobile internet platform i-mode from Japanese mobile-phone carrier NTT DoCoMo for use in Hong Kong and Macau.
CNOOC, China's largest offshore oil producer, has arranged a 12.8 billion yuan loan at cut-rate interest to fund the acquisition of a Nigerian oilfield stake, its parent firm said yesterday. June 1 - 4, 2006
Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong, a unit of tycoon Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Telecommunications International, has teamed up with shareholder NTT DoCoMo to launch i-mode services in Hong Kong before the end of the year in a bid to boost sales. The police force has announced a large- scale crackdown on illegal football gambling to coincide with the month of the World Cup - while at the same time asserting that illegal betting is "not serious."
A ban on land allotment for building villas will be strictly implemented, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) announced on Wednesday.
China Development Bank, a state-run policy bank that mainly funds government-backed infrastructure projects, plans to raise between US$300 million and US$500 million from the first sale of asset-backed securities to international investors by a mainland financial institution, bank sources said. May 31, 2006
HSBC Holdings said it is going to hire about 1,000 employees to support rising demand for financial services in China, the fastest growing major economy. A day after predicting that Bank of China H shares would rise up to 10 percent from the offer price of HK$2.95, analysts revised their forecast downward Tuesday, saying the shares are more likely to gain less than 5 percent in value on their trading debut tomorrow.
In light of the improving economy, a 2 percent wage hike for foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong will come into effect today. Hong Kong may be Asia's World City - but not when it comes to romance, it seems. Overworked, overstressed or perhaps just plain dull Hong Kongers are not only among the world's least frequent lovers, but some of its most miserable ones too, a global survey showed Tuesday.
The head of the beleaguered monitoring body that oversees complaints against police has been reappointed for a two-year term despite the recent controversial leaking of personal data on the internet. A state leader who chairs the nation's top political advisory body will visit Hong Kong at the end of next month for activities celebrating the ninth anniversary of the handover.
Zhu Jianjun, director of the system reform section under the China National Petroleum Corporation's development research department, revealed that based on three major changes facing the oil industry. US Treasury Secretary John Snow, the White House official credited with convincing Beijing to scrap its peg of the yuan to the dollar, resigned yesterday, with President George W. Bush nominating Goldman Sachs chairman Henry Paulson as his replacement. Beijing's new measures to cool the red-hot property market will go some way to slow growth in capital investment and help rein in economic growth in some cities, analysts said. But the effectiveness of the measures would depend on how the policy was implemented, they added. Asean and Beijing are expected to complete talks on the services component of a free-trade agreement this year, Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Rafidah Aziz said in Hong Kong yesterday. May 30, 2006
Galaxy Semi-Conductor Holdings - which supplies electronic diodes to mainland TV makers TCL, Konda, Hiense and Changhong - said it will use 95 percent of the proceeds in its initial public offering in Hong Kong to expand production capacity. Ocean Park has announced another record-breaking year at the ticket office after matching last year's figure of 4.03 million visitors in 10 months and 28 days. The government is in discussions with Hong Kong hotel and travel organizations to enhance transparency in information regarding hotel bookings, Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip Shu-kwan said. The Hong Kong Medical Association and the Consumer Council Sunday expressed concern over the loosely regulated cosmetic-treatment industry, saying the government should establish a standardized system to monitor the quality of beauty salons. The Home Affairs Bureau, responsible for district administration and community liaison, is poised for a top-level reshuffle soon, as the chief executive moves to strengthen his work in this area. Main features of the future Central harbor front would include an 18-storey hotel, two 14-storey office complexes, a 1.4km promenade and an arts precinct, under government plans unveiled yesterday. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the mainland's largest lender, has earmarked US$3 billion worth of shares in its Hong Kong initial public offering to about 10 Hong Kong tycoons and groups, sources have said.
The World Bank has promised in its new China strategy to lend up to 1.5 billion US dollars in loans to China annually during 2006 and 2010 through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the bank said in a statement.
The mainland's biggest airfreight company, Sinotrans, plans to invest 1 billion yuan in the next three to five years to expand its network of container yards and container freight stations, as well as boost the capacity of its coastal shipping services in the Pearl River Delta area. Vice-Premier Huang Ju, China's sixth-highest-ranking official, who was diagnosed with cancer, is planning to make a public appearance early next month to quell speculation about his health and reaffirm his political standing, mainland banking sources said. Mainland companies catering to the country's growing appetite for consumer goods - everything from refrigerators to spirits - are attracting a growing share of the inflow of private equity capital as investors bet the economy will become less reliant on exports and more dependent on domestic demand. May 29, 2006
France Telecom Beijing R&D Co., Ltd. recently joined the TD-SCDMA Forum to become the first foreign telecom in the China-developed 3G standard camp.
A total of 103 Chinese companies are listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), more than 14 percent of all companies listed in the country. The Shanghai municipal government has outlined plans to support the city's small, competitive high-tech companies to enhance the city's technological competitiveness. With property markets in leading mainland cities continuing their red-hot growth last month, a top banking regulator has urged commercial banks to tighten mortgage lending for buyers of luxury properties.
American International Group (AIG), Hong Kong's biggest insurer, has been granted official approval to tap into the mainland's burgeoning group insurance business. May 25 - 28, 2006
Shares of Melco International Development and Publishing & Broadcasting soared Wednesday, after a report said the two companies have reactivated plans to list their Macau gambling joint venture on the Nasdaq stock market. Shares in mainland port operator Tianjin Port Development, rose 26.33 percent on their Hong Kong debut Wednesday, less than the expected 30-40 percent rise due to weak market sentiment. Bank of China, the mainland's second- largest commercial lender, has priced its initial public offering near the top of its indicative range, raising a record HK$75.4 billion, said sources close to the deal. Economic losses as a result of air pollution has been estimated at HK$1.7 billion a year, Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung told the Legislative Council Wednesday.
A former Hong Kong official has dropped a legal challenge against a probe into a $125-million land scandal, judicial sources said Wednesday, ending a saga that had sparked accusations of government collusion with big business. Star actors Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman are to star in Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai’s first English-language film My Blueberry Nights, his production company said in Cannes on Wednesday. The film, which will start shooting later this year, will also star pop jazz singer Norah Jones making her acting debut, according to a statement by Jet Tone. Grammy award winner Jones plays a young woman who sets off to travel across the United States in a quest to uncover the true meaning of love in the sensual romance. Wong, who is currently heading the jury at the Cannes Film festival, is known for his films such as In The Mood For Love and Happy Together. He is to start filming once the festival is over. Briton Weisz won an Oscar in March for her supporting role in The Constant Gardener. Her compatriot Jude Law, who played in The Aviator and former child star Portman, who appeared in The Professional (aka Leon) and more recently V for Vendetta are also slated for the cast. The Hong Kong Chinese director is also preparing a thriller called Lady from Shanghai starring Nicole Kidman, which is to start production next year.
China Telecom Corp chairman Wang Xiaochu yesterday confirmed the mainland fixed-line telecommunications giant would spin off its network and engineering services unit for a Hong Kong listing.
China is scheduled to issue 30.56 billion yuan (3.82 billion US dollars) worth of treasury bonds as of Thursday, the Ministry of Finance announced Wednesday. China's Ministry of Commerce has issued guidelines to the country's farmers and farm produce exporters on how to meet new Japanese import standards and avoid having their goods rejected.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Alibaba Group teamed up yesterday to further promote the development of e-commerce and e-banking. Lenovo Group chairman Yang Yuanqing branded a United States government decision not to use his firm's computers over security concerns as unfair and deeply concerning, state press reported on Wednesday. May 24, 2006
Cathay Pacific Airways has been named "Airline of the Year 2006" by global travel and transport information company OAG (Official Airline Guide) at its prestigious 24th annual awards ceremony in London earlier this week.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam- kuen, top officials and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army's Hong Kong garrison have been invited to join pro-Beijing groups in celebrating the ninth anniversary of the handover on July 1. Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre's sister company has entered into a joint venture with China's Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition to run and manage a 270,000-square- meter facility in Zhengzhou near Shanghai. China Citic Bank, the mainland's seventh-largest commercial lender by assets, is close to appointing Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and HSBC to help arrange a US$1 billion Hong Kong initial public offering, sources said. Wharf (Holdings) and parent Wheelock and Co are seeking a loan of up to $5 billion to acquire properties for a real estate investment trust with a net asset value of more than $11 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.
Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) confirmed on Saturday it was in talks with China's Sinopec on a petrochemical plant deal worth more than $1 billion. A total of 1.27 million Chinese people entered for a two-day national accounting qualification examination which last from Saturday to Sunday, the Ministry of Finance said at its web site. China National Heavy Duty Truck, the third largest heavy truck manufacturer in the mainland, plans to raise up to HK$3.9 billion through an initial public offering in Hong Kong by the end of the year to boost production capacity, bankers familiar with the situation said. Using BitTorrent software to download Chinese-language films could be legal by year's end - the owner of the world's most popular file-sharing program plans to offer them for legitimate downloading. The central bank chief has proposed dismantling the Agricultural Bank of China, the weakest of the big four state banks, but the lender is fiercely opposed to the idea and wants to list in Hong Kong. Mainland locomotive parts supplier Zhuzhou Times Electric Group plans to raise US$200 million in a Hong Kong initial public offering by the third quarter of this year, according to sources. The mobile device display unit of Compal Electronics has received approval from the Taiwan government to invest US$21 million in the Shanghai arm of a subsidiary it recently acquired from Philips Electronics. May 23, 2006
Asia Satellite Telecommunications, in which state-owned CITIC Group holds a 34.5 percent stake, plans to invest HK$1.4 billion to launch a new satellite to cash in on the growing demand from the broadcasting industry during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The decision by a High Court judge to give the government six months in which to get its unconstitutional covert surveillance bill put right will now be scrutinized by Hong Kong's top judges. The troubled Hong Kong-Macau- Zhuhai bridge plan will be brought to the attention of Vice President Zeng Qinghong in the middle of next week by a leading pro-Beijing trade union as part of discussions on a variety of issues relating to cross-border cooperation between the governments of the SAR, Shenzhen and Guangdong province.
In a positive sign for Hong Kong’s economy, re-exports of goods increased more than 16 per cent year on year in March, government trade figures released on Friday showed.
The Chinese Catholic church issued a notice Friday to all its branches nationwide asking all followers to "firmly boycott" "The Da Vinci Code". China's newly-revised regulations on initial public offerings (IPO) came into effect on Thursday, another strong indication that China will soon allow IPO trading to resume. A long-term grassland development strategy has been drawn up by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, which aims to restrict grazing and restore pasture in the next five decades. China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the nation's biggest oil producer, has cut its exports by 62 percent so as to help ease domestic short supply. CNPC's domestic supply has been increased by 9.2 percent, said the statement. Currently, the output capacity of CNPC's refineries has reached 99 percent, the highest level in history, it read. The oil producer's refineries will continue operating at full steam in May, ordering its sales enterprises not to raise the price of oil for any reason. It has also decided to postpone the maintenance of part of its refineries that should have been finished in the second quarter of the year.
After months of discussion and planning, Beijing is finally set to raise taxi fares from 1.6 yuan (20 US cents) to 2 yuan (25 US cents) per kilometer from May 20, 2006.
China's first pilot able to fly the A380 super jumbo jet, built by Europe's Airbus, is likely to be trained in autumn next year. Airbus will meet the Chinese aviation authorities and China Southern Airlines, China's first A380 customer, in June to decide detailed training plans for Chinese pilots and maintenance engineers. China Southern will receive its first A380 at the end of next year. "Usually flight training starts two or three months before the aircraft arrives and we will ensure the smooth transfer of knowledge to China Southern," said Guillaume Mille, customer support director at Airbus China Ltd. Pilots will be trained at Airbus' headquarters in Toulouse, France, where the company's only A380 simulator is currently located. Airbus is holding a five-day A380 technical seminar in Guangzhou this week. It is the first time the European aircraft maker has given detailed technical briefings to the Chinese aviation industry. Four Airbus A380 engineers from Toulouse have shared their knowledge about the aircraft's systems and technology with 30 engineers and officials from China Southern, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China, and GAMECO (Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co Ltd). The State Department says 16,000 computers it bought from a United States-based company partially owned by the Chinese government should be used only for unclassified work after a legislator blasted the purchase as potentially dangerous to national security. Urban fixed-asset investment in the first four months of the year grew 29.6 per cent year on year, well above the government's projection - increasing the likelihood of more measures to rein in mainland economic growth. May 22, 2006
Hong Kong's unemployment rate dropped to 5.1 per cent in April - the lowest in more than four years, government statistics released on Thursday showed.
China's first independently developed modern steel production line was put into operation on Wednesday at the Anben Steel Group in Liaoning Province in China's northeast, expanding the producer's capacity to 15 million tons from 10 million tons. The base for the steel plates in west Anben Steel, as the program is called, is internationally advanced in terms of design, techniques, equipment and management by applying numerous state-of-art metallurgy technologies. The project is smart, efficient and environmental friendly. It has made many records nationally and internationally. There is China's largest 260-ton converter and the world's first double four-strand casting production line which makes it possible to have billets automatically conveyed and processed into a converter. It also has China's first 2-meter plus wide localized hot rolling and cool rolling production line, which is at the world's advanced level. China ended a yearlong ban on initial public offerings today, allowing companies to submit applications for share sales to the securities regulator. The China Securities Regulatory Commission issued new rules on initial share sales on its Web site today, after a government program to trade more than $200 billion of mostly state-owned stockholdings was implemented without causing a market slump. China halted share sales in May last year to prevent a flood of equity as companies converted non-tradable, mostly government holdings into common stock. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Air China Ltd. are among the nation's biggest companies that plan to sell domestic shares once the ban is lifted, tapping $1.9 trillion of household savings. "It's the natural next step," said Geoff Lewis, head of investment services at JF Asset Management Ltd. in Hong Kong, which holds about $73 billion in Asian assets. "It's a testimony to the success of their policy. That's what the A share market is there for, to raise money," he said before the announcement. Ending the ban may lure some of the $1.9 trillion of Chinese household savings out of banks and into equity markets as companies that are only listed overseas such as PetroChina Co. come back home to sell shares. China's pension fund - the National Social Security Fund - raked in HK$258.5 million last Friday by selling part of its stake in two newly listed state- owned enterprises amid the start of the Hong Kong stocks correction. May 19 - 21, 2006
Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (HTIL), the emerging markets arm of Hutchison Whampoa, said its first-quarter net loss narrowed to $24 million from "about $100 million" a year ago on the back of strong subscriber growth in its two biggest markets, India and Israel. The growth more than offset lower per customer spending.
China is expected to start negotiations for its entry into the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) and submit a list on the opening of the government procurement market before the end of next year.
Premier Wen Jiabao hosted a general meeting of the State Council Wednesday, discussing proposals aimed at helping the mainland property market develop in a healthy and balanced way. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the mainland's largest bank, said it sold 5.8 billion yuan (HK$5.62 billion) worth of insurance products for China Life Insurance in the first three months this year, benefiting from the launch of new products and an improving insurance product system. After weeks of hand-wringing over soaring property prices, the central government yesterday announced six measures to cool the overheating property market, with promises to build low-cost housing and punish developers who hoard land or drive up prices. Three months after launching a nationwide campaign against corruption, the top anti-graft body said yesterday that it has received leads in more than 9,000 cases of commercial bribery, nearly half of which were already being investigated.
Tianjin Port Development Holdings closed the retail portion of its initial public offering yesterday almost 1,700 times covered, setting a new record for Hong Kong and ensuring the stock will be priced at the top of its indicated range. NetEase.com, China's biggest online games provider, said first-quarter net profit and revenue were better than expected as a result of strong sales of its popular games such as Fantasy Westward Journey. May 18, 2006
Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd, a unit of tycoon Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa conglomerate, has no urgent plans to spin off its Indian telecom unit because it has strong capital reserves, chief executive Dennis Lui said. New World China Land, a subsidiary of conglomerate New World Development controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Cheng Yu-tung, has agreed to acquire controlling interest in housing projects in Chengdu and Changsha for a combined HK$1.1 billion. Phoenix Satellite Television has been granted a 12-year license to provide satellite broadcasting services from Hong Kong. The non-domestic TV program service license takes effect today until May 16, 2018.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges issued new trading rules yesterday, helping drive the country's stock market to a nearly two-year high.
Japan and China will hold talks aimed at solving their tow over gas and oil exploration rights in the East China Sea on Thursday in Tokyo. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced Monday its decision to approve the program by the Yantgze Hydroelectric Power Co. to issue warrants, the first financing project by a listed firm that has been given the green light by the regulator for a year. Microsoft launched a technology center in China's southern coastal city of Guangzhou on Monday which aims to promote the advance of information technology (IT) in China through cooperation with local software developers. The fact that the psychologically important level of 8 yuan per US dollar was breached yesterday justifies the Chinese monetary authorities' growing concern over excessive liquidity. Yesterday, constant appreciation pressure finally pushed the official central parity rate for the Chinese currency versus the US dollar up to 7.9982 yuan per US dollar - the highest level since a 2.1-per-cent revaluation last July.
May 17, 2006
Two applications from developers relating to a Cheung Chau residential site were received but rejected by the government in April, according to the Lands Department, after authorities entertained no auction applications from developers in the seven months to March.
Hong Kong's low mandatory retirement age - coupled with its rapidly aging population and one of the world's lowest birth rates - will lead to a "brain drain" unless the government and individuals plan for the future, a researcher on aging and a legislator said.
Hong Kong began preparing for its first typhoon of the storm season Monday as Chanchu began whirling toward the city after killing nearly 40 people and leaving thousands homeless in the Philippines.
Machinery and electronics products remain the major driving force of China's exports.In imports, China saw a slight increase in refined oil and soybean, but a sharp decrease in steel. Global auditing firm Ernst and Young has withdrawn a report saying China's non-performing loans (NPLs) totaled over 900 billion dollars, apologizing for what it called an "erroneous" publication. Diesel shortages have re-emerged in Guangdong with the provincial government urging gas stations to give priority to public transport and prevent hoarding, state press said. Chinese retail sales, the main indicator of consumer spending in Asia's second-largest economy, rose a brisk 13.6 per cent last month, state media said on Monday. May 16, 2006
The amount of construction waste disposed of at public landfills has decreased 40 per cent over the last four years, Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung said on Friday. HSI Services, the compiler of the Hang Seng Index, said 15 H shares are eligible for inclusion in the benchmark index in August. Meanwhile, changes to the index compilation methodology are being recommended to better fit prospective H shares in the blue-chip index. The index compiler said in February that H-share firms, whose businesses are registered in the mainland while their shares are traded in Hong Kong, will be eligible for inclusion in the 37-year-old Hang Seng Index for the first time. In February, only four H shares - China Construction Bank, Angang New Steel, China Shipping Development and ZTE Corp - satisfied the new guidelines for inclusion. Now with more H-share firms having completed their share reform plans, a total of 15 are eligible for inclusion, said HSI Services Friday, after the market closed. A mainland company eligible for HSI inclusion will be able to have H shares alone, or both H shares and mainland-listed A shares, but in neither case will it be allowed to have any nontradable state-owned shares. But for index compilation purposes, only the H-share portion is counted if a company has other forms of share capital such as A shares. HSI Services is proposing six alternative methods to compile the index in order to fit the inclusion of H shares and react to the increasing influence of H shares in the stock market. Asia Television, the smaller of Hong Kong's two terrestrial broadcasters, has agreed to sell a 22.2 percent stake to mainland cable-TV operator CITIC Guoan, a unit of state-owned CITIC Group.
Bank of China, the second largest lender in the mainland, received at least US$30 billion (HK$234 billion) worth of orders Friday, the first day of its international offering, market sources said. Hong Kong-listed Li Ning, the mainland sportswear retailer, plans to cash in on the enthusiasm for sports generated by the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing to boost the number of outlets to a total of 5,100, up from the current 3,500 stores, the company's chief financial officer Tan Wee Seng said Friday. CITIC Pacific, a Hong Kong-listed, Beijing-backed conglomerate run by billionaire Larry Yung Chi-kin, is negotiating to sell a 50 percent stake in its planned iron ore project in Australia to Chinese state-owned Wuhan Iron & Steel Group for about US$100 million (HK$780 million).
Though long and arduous the process might be, China will not make any discount on the principles and goals on its IPR Protection, said Yan Xiaohong, deputy chief of the National Copyright Administration of China at a seminar on encouraging self-innovation and advocating the use of authentic software. If we do not protect IPR, we could not realize the goal of building an innovation-oriented nation. China will continue to improve legislation and law enforcement in IPR protection to create a sound market environment for enterprises, said Yan. More than 40 representatives from foreign and domestic PC and software manufactures including Microsoft and Lenovo attended the seminar. Over the two years, Chinese government has done a lot of work in IPR protection. Generally speaking, China has achieved some progress, but meanwhile, it has to realize that IPR protection is a protracted and arduous task, it is impossible for China to establish a complete IPR protection mechanism in one day, we must make unswervingly efforts based on China's real situation, said Yan. China's central bank is considering plans to require bigger deposits for housing loans as a way to rein in soaring property prices. The average initial public offering in the Greater China area tended to be larger than in the United States and Europe even if the total value of the deals remain smaller, a report said on Friday. Global music broadcaster MTV said it wanted to expand its presence in China by venturing into internet and mobile value-added services, a press report said on Friday. May 12 - 15, 2006
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority on Thursday raised its key interest rate a quarter percentage point, matching the overnight interest rate increase by the United States Federal Reserve. Hong Kong's improving residential property market is expected to remain firm as leading banks did not follow the US Federal Reserve's quarter-point interest rate hike, and local lenders continue to offer mortgage incentives, industry observers said. Bank of China, the mainland's second- largest lender, plans to distribute 35 and 45 percent of its net profits as dividends in 2007 and 2008 to lure investors to its initial public offering, according to the bank's preliminary listing document. Tianjin Port Development Holdings, majority-owned by Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Tianjin Development Holdings, kicks off its public offering today, with plans to distribute 30 to 50 percent of its profit as shareholder dividends in order to attract investors. Conglomerate Swire Pacific will seek to raise at least another HK$5 billion in the second half this year for capital expenditure and refinancing, officials said after the company's annual general meeting.
The level of awareness about intellectual property rights among businesses in Hong Kong remained “very high”, a survey released on Thursday has found. The value of exports of electrical and electronic products and wearing apparel recorded significant year-on-year increases in the three months ended March, figures released on Thursday showed.
The competitiveness of the United States economy, still the highest in the world, was being undermined by the US government, allowing more efficient and smaller Asian and Nordic economies to catch up, a leading ranking of the most competitive nations showed on Thursday.
In IMD's World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings 2006, China and India have leapt up the rankings, China from 31 to 19 and India from 39 to 29. The U.S. said Wednesday that China was not a currency manipulator but pledged to "actively and frankly" push China toward faster exchange-rate flexibility.
The rally of Chinese shares is restoring confidence of investors. Experts attribute the rally to the reform of split shares and influx of capital into the market and forecast a bull.
The booming Zhejiang Province in east China recorded 28.05 billion U.S. dollars in foreign trade in the first quarter, rising 24.7 percent from the same period last year. According to the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China's statistics unveiled on May 10, Chinese airlines report 2.5 billion yuan (US$312.17 million) loss in the first quarter due to high oil cost, relatively excessive transport capacity and high operation cost.
Another mobile price war is on the way now that China Mobile has introduced lower tariff plans for domestic long-distance calls in Henan and Shanghai, its second tariff cut this week. China's biggest Internet search engine has launched an online encyclopedia modelled on the United States-based website Wikipedia, which is blocked by Beijing. May 11, 2006
With the Hang Seng Index soaring and hot initial public offerings coming one after another, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing nearly doubled its earnings in the first quarter. Hutchison Telecommunications Australia, the nation's fourth-largest mobile phone company, said its controlling shareholder, Li Ka-shing, may take it private. Shares in the Sydney-based company rose 6 percent Wednesday.
The government had increased measures to deal with badly behaved children who were under the age of 10 years, Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong said on Wednesday. The government was installing devices designed to segregate people from live poultry in wet market stalls - before a centralised slaughtering plant is built in 2009, Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow Yat-ngok said on Wednesday.
China's stronger-than-expected economic growth in the first quarter prompted the bank to revise its forecast of economic growth for this year from 9.2 percent to 9.5 percent.
China's biggest publicly traded brokerage plans to issue 500 million domestic shares in a private placement to institutional investors, becoming the first firm to announce a stock sale. China, as a newly-elected member of the UN Human Rights Council, pledged Wednesday to fulfill its obligations under the terms of international human rights accords.
Shenzhen is one of the biggest mainland gateways for the import and export of illicit drugs. The city accounted for more than a quarter of all drug-smuggling cases cracked nationwide in the first three months of the year, mainland customs authorities said yesterday.
One of China's leading Web portals, Sina Corp, on Wednesday reported that its first-quarter profit fell 32 per cent and announced that chief executive Yan Wang had been replaced. May 10, 2006
Hong Kong's movie industry won a court order demanding that four local internet service providers identify users who downloaded pirated copies of movies using the file-sharing software BitTorrent, a broadcaster reported on Tuesday.
AIG Private Bank, an arm of the mammoth US insurance company, American International Group, opened it regional headquarters in Hong Kong Tuesday, hoping to expand the business seven-fold in the next seven years.
Internationally acclaimed violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter would give a recital in Hong Kong in June, a spokesman for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department said on Tuesday.
China Rich Airways (CR Airways) and the Ho family-owned Hong Kong Express Airways are discussing a merger to create an airline that will focus on the growing demand for passenger services to China's secondary cities and some regional destinations, according to sources close to the talks.
Tianjin registered a gross domestic product (GDP) of 86.034 billion yuan (10.75 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter this year, a rise of 14.2 percent year on year, according to the latest statistics. A total of 39.5 billion yuan will be invested on 66 projects in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous region this year, said sources with Tibet's key project office. GE plastics, a global supplier of plastic resins and an arm of the General Electric Company, is expanding its production lines in China to achieve double digit growth for this year.
An affiliate of Macquarie Bank, Australia's largest investment bank, plans to launch a commercial mortgage-backed securitisation (CMBS) of about one billion yuan based on mainland properties in the first deal of its kind for a foreign fund in China, market sources said. May 9, 2006
Hong Kong residents were more optimistic about the city's economic outlook than they were six months ago, but they were less satisfied with their leader, a poll reported on Monday.
Dam of Three Gorges Project to be completed in late May - Construction for the giant dam of the Three Gorges hydropower project on the Yangtze River was expected to finish on May 20, an executive with the China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation said Sunday. "There are less than 3,000 cubic meters of concrete left to be placed before the dam will finally complete nine months ahead of the schedule," said Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of the corporation. The completion of the construction for the dam, 2,309 meters long and 185 meters high, marks the principal part of the project, which is often compared to the Great Wall in its scale, is done, said Cao. The dam is situated near the Xiling Gorge, the eastern most gorge of the Three Gorges on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.The construction of the dam was divided into two phases -- the right and the left banks.
Beijing posted 168.16 billion yuan (21 billion U.S. dollars) of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter this year, a year-on-year rise of 13.3 percent, according to Beijing Municipal Statistics Bureau. China exported 62,628 units of vehicles in the first three months of this year, up 139 percent from a year ago. Stocks rose early Monday after China ended a yearlong moratorium on new share sales by companies already traded on its exchanges.
Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco), the mainland's only alumina producer, is planning to sell up to HK$4.67 billion worth of shares to help fund its aggressive capital spending program, amid rising alumina prices, sources familiar with the situation said.
China's insurers have asked the regulator to let them invest a larger proportion of their capital in the domestic stock market, fuelling a mood of optimism for mainland exchanges, which reopen today after the May Day holiday. May 8, 2006
Startup carrier Viva Macau will attempt to beat Oasis Hong Kong Airlines in a race to be the first in the area to operate discount flights to Europe and other long-haul destinations. Hong Kong-listed Manulife Financial, Canada's largest insurer, said its first- quarter profits increased 19 percent, boosted by higher sales in insurance and wealth management in the United States and Canada. A global umbrella group for movie companies has announced the start of an aggressive anti-piracy operation in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region, while confirming the worst for the territory's film industry: Where there are pirates, local movies die first.
In the wake of Macau's largest demonstration since its handover in 1999, Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah has pledged to initiate an employer- worker communication mechanism to examine the severity of the illegal worker problem and its impact on the local labor force. Cathay Pacific Airways will offer early retirement to as many as 1,600 of its most experienced and highest paid cabin crew in an effort to offset rising fuel and operating costs.
Banking and securities regulators are set to tighten conditions for departing senior executives who join the private sector, to avoid possible conflict of interest.
From July 1 it will be mandatory for all organ transplant operations in China to be discussed with and approved by a medical science and ethics committee. In a nation that for thousands of years held diligence and hard work in the highest esteem, the Chinese have learned to relax, travel and loosen their wallets since their country began its thrice annual holidays seven years ago, known as Golden Weeks.
The United States is planning to scale back a proposal to toughen restrictions on technology exports to China after encountering opposition from US firms doing business in the mainland. Zhejiang could become the first mainland province to abolish the rural household classification system if the provincial government goes ahead with plans to scrap it by the end of next year. China Cosco Holdings, which operates the country's largest container shipping line, said sales from moving cargo dropped 4.79 per cent in the first quarter following a substantial drop in freight rates. Barred from exploring for oil at home, a consortium of private mainland companies had secured six fields abroad for the first time - four in Indonesia and two in the Middle East - for US$400 million, industry sources said yesterday. May 5 - 7, 2006
Kerry Properties, a Hong Kong-listed mid-sized property developer, is hoping to reap a one-off profit of about HK$1 billion from the listing of its partly owned Champion Real Estate Investment Trust. Minority shareholders of Asia Aluminum Holdings have accepted the HK$3.11 billion privatization offer by controlling shareholder and chairman Kwong Wui-chun after he sweetened his bid by 11.5 percent. The Hong Kong stock market's capitalization surpassed HK$10 trillion for the first time in history Wednesday, helped by a strong rally of HSBC and property stocks that pushed the blue-chip index over the 17,000 level.
Hong Kong Disneyland has offered free entry to more than 40,000 taxi drivers in a bid to promote the theme park, a spokeswoman for the park said on Wednesday.
China's four big state-owned banks are carrying US$358 billion (HK$2.79 trillion) in bad loans, almost triple the officially reported figure, according to audit firm Ernst & Young. CSRC Chairman Shang Fulin and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox signed terms of reference that establish the structure of the enhanced dialogue and discussion subjects for the agenda during 2006.
Data from the Ministry of Commerce showed on Monday that the average unit price of imported cars in China reached nearly 40,000 U.S. dollars in the first three months this year. May 4, 2006
Hong Kong Trade Development Council trade shows in April contributed HK$1.5 billion to the local economy, the quasi-governmental agency said. Three returning trade fairs and two new ones - the Autoparts Fair and the Printing and Packaging Fair - drew 9,252 exhibitors and 180,479 buyers. About half the buyers and exhibitors came from outside Hong Kong. The largest show of the month, the Hong Kong Gifts & Premium Fair, drew 10 percent more exhibitors than last year, though attendance was flat at 54,875. The new Autoparts Fair drew participants from 18 countries. "The fair will no doubt raise Hong Kong's profile on the global stage as a quality source of automotive parts and accessories," said assistant executive director Benjamin Chau Kai-leung. "Hong Kong must expand its exhibition facilities, stage more new shows and continue to upgrade its exhibition services in order to stay competitive," he added. "Competition is intensifying as neighboring cities such as Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Macau, Singapore and Seoul are expanding their facilities." Both of last month's new TDC shows were held at the AsiaWorld- Expo center, which opened in December at Hong Kong International Airport, while the returning ones were held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai.
Long before a May Day demonstration turned violent, Macau Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah had warned about a time bomb of social unrest ticking away due to economic transformations and contradictions that have turned the former Portuguese colony from a tiny fishing village with gambling dens into a well-established tourist spot with modern casinos. The central government's non- intervention in Hong Kong affairs has helped boost public trust in the SAR government and Beijing to post-handover highs. In a survey conducted by the Hong Kong University's Public Opinion Programme in the middle of last month, 68.8 percent of 1,015 respondents said they had full trust in the SAR government, representing a surge of 10.6 percentage points when compared with 58.2 percent in February. Those who expressed their trust in the Beijing government rose to 52.8 percent last month, an increase of 5.6 percentage points from February. Program director Robert Chung Ting-yiu said Tuesday that the people's trust in the local government was at a record high following the handover and very close to the historical high registered six months before July 1, 1997, when the figure stood at 69.7 percent. The people's trust in Beijing was its highest since the survey series began in 1992. "All the signs show that when the central government becomes more relaxed with Hong Kong's autonomy, it earns more trust from the people of Hong Kong," Chung said. Some 79.6 percent of the respondents said they are confident in Hong Kong's future, up by 3.3 percentage points. Respondents who are confident in the "one country, two systems" principle increased by 3.9 percentage points to 70.9 percent. The Hospital Authority has to shell out $110 million a year on patients who just won't go home. Now, doctors are calling for harsher measures to encourage hospitals' unwanted, overstaying guests to move on.
China is working on fiscal policies to encourage production of biological energy as substitutes for oil, a move experts say would help China reduce its reliance on oil and build an environmentally friendly society.
The mainland's increasing trade surplus and foreign exchange reserves are enabling policy-makers to take bolder steps in their long-standing plan to make the yuan convertible, according to the chief foreign exchange regulator.
Chinese Estates Holdings' plans for a $4 billion real estate investment trust have been rejected by the Securities and Futures Commission as the properties to be included are only partially owned by the company, sources have said. May 3, 2006
One of Hong Kong's top anti-corruption officials has called for more advanced professional training to "outsmart" increasingly sophisticated criminals, despite a decrease in the number of corruption cases last year. The Independent Commission Against Corruption said Monday that it received 820 corruption reports in the first quarter of 2006, which puts Hong Kong on pace for another decline in graft cases from previous years. The ICAC reported 3,685 cases in 2005, a decline of 2 percent from 2004. But Daniel Li Ming-chak, head of operations at the government anti-graft agency, warned Monday that public investigators needed to maintain an "edge" against criminals in more specialized areas such as financial transactions and computer forensics. "We will continue to combat vigorously corruption cases in the business and finance sectors to maintain Hong Kong's reputation as a clean city," Li said. Last year, the caseload in the ICAC's Computer Forensic Section tripled from six years ago to 538 computer data investigations. Li said it was "impossible to wipe out corruption completely" in an international financial center such as Hong Kong, but continuous training and new facilities at the ICAC's new headquarters in North Point will keep investigators up to date. The ICAC, which is also hosting a symposium of global law enforcement agencies in Hong Kong next week, said that there is still much for the agency to learn. Li said the ICAC had helped to clamp down on civil service corruption, declaring the government bureaucracy basically clean. "After three decades of hard work, Hong Kong has evolved from being a city plagued with rampant corruption to one of the world's cleanest places," Li said. He said cases involving civil servants were typically isolated incidents, rather than broad graft cases.
Baker & McKenzie, a US-based law firm, is joining forces with Chinese businesses and governments to build up an effective mechanism to fight against brand name infringement. May 2, 2006
Sales of new flats were brisk over the first two days of the May Day long weekend as prospective buyers sought special deals, some with expectations of interest rates peaking.
The unauthorized ordination of a new Catholic bishop in China will only delay the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between China and the Vatican, Hong Kong Catholic church head Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun said Sunday.
A decision to downgrade Hong Kong's representative in Beijing will not undermine relations with the central government, the head of the office said.
Russia launched the construction of its longest oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean on Friday, the builder said in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. Barcelona FC's super soccer star Ronaldo de Assis Moriera of Brazil has been named as the official representative of china's PC giant Lenovo. Microsoft Wednesday declared that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with National Development and Reform Commission of China during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the company. It is a further commitment on its China strategy which seems to be working better now. An article by China News Service (CNS) Friday gives analysis as the following. Microsoft has reasons to be particularly proud these days. It hosted the reception for Chinese President Hu Jintao during the latter's visit to the US and won big orders from four major Chinese PC makers. The giant company finally began to see its good days on horizon in China. The favorable environment in China helps Microsoft's success here. China has been increasingly integrated into and bound by the rules of the international community. The intellectual property rights protection is one of them.
Four major Chinese manufacturers of power equipment will sign a deal in August worth more than US$7 billion with Indonesia, in the industry's biggest overseas contract, offering a speed and price their competitors could not match, according to industry sources. May 1, 2006
Shares of Dalian Port soared 68 percent on their first day of trading, showing the continued appeal of new mainland stocks despite the slide of the wider market. The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (HKMC), a government-owned agency which buys home loans from banks, said it will offer up to 20 percent discounts on mortgage insurance premiums for first-time home buyers.
The government's bid to get the private sector involved in its land conservation policy in 12 sensitive areas is lagging behind schedule, Director of Environmental Protection Keith Kwok Ka- keung has admitted.
The newly elected chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Ronald Arculli, is prepared to resign as a director of eight listed companies after being challenged by fellow exchange board members and legislators over potential conflict of interest. China Construction Bank Corp (CCB) and Yue Yuen Industrial (Holdings) yesterday tapped the market for a combined $2.6 billion through share placements, following the mega deal by CNOOC.
TCL Corp, China's biggest publicly traded consumer-electronics maker, has said that its first-quarter loss narrowed to 130.3 million yuan, from 327.2 million yuan the previous year, as it emerged from an "earnings trough" caused by previous acquisitions. Procrastinators be warned - finish those degrees or hit the road. In a first for the school, Tianjin's prestigious Nankai University has expelled a group of doctoral students for failing to finish their degrees, even after nine years.
Mainland incomes continued to surge in the first quarter of the year, with both urban and rural earnings rising more than 10 per cent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Shanghai Prime Machinery extended the winning streak for companies making their debut on the stock exchange, soaring 42.85 per cent above its $2.10 offer price yesterday and setting the pace for today's newcomer Dalian Port.
*News information are obtained via various sources deemed reliable, but not guaranteed
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Hong Kong:
Mission Hills vice-chairman Ken Chu
says the new construction will be financed through property sales and internal
cash flow. Shenzhen's Mission Hills, the world's largest golf facility, plans to
add a $1 billion, 1.61 million square foot retail, entertainment and hotel
complex to its mix of apartments, villas, tennis courts and 10 golf links, says
group vice-chairman Ken Chu.
China:
Premier Wen and Australian PM Howard opened
the first ever Sino-Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in south
China's Guangdong on Wednesday.
Wen Jiabao and John Howard arrive
for a ceremony to mark the official opening of the liquefied natural gas
terminal in Dapeng, Shenzhen, under a US$25 billion contract. Premier Wen Jiabao
yesterday hailed Australia as a reliable energy partner for China as the two
countries officially launched a liquefied natural gas project in Guangdong.
An eel farmer goes about his business
in Xiantao, Hubei. Finance Minister Jin Renqing announced on Tuesday that 297. 5
billion yuan was allocated to boost rural development and increase farmers'
incomes last year, up 13.3 per cent from 2004.
Hawkers offer ice to thousands of
people packed into a stadium in sweltering heat to look for jobs at an
employment fair in Nanjing, Jiangsu province yesterday. Vast numbers of
graduates each year are finding it increasingly hard to find well-paying jobs.
Models dressed and painted in the
colours of various national teams ramp up World Cup fever at Park Central in
Tseung Kwan O as the competition heads into the nail-biting knock-out stage.
Many shopping malls are running similar events to cash in on the excitement.
HKMA chief executive Joseph Yam says even
if some funds had left Hong Kong, he was unconcerned about panic withdrawals.
Overseas institutions bought
property worth US$3.4 billion on the mainland last year. Beijing plans to
restrict purchases of real estate by foreign investors to reduce speculation and
prevent a property bubble, a government official said yesterday.
A blueprint for the old Kai Tak
airport runway, released by the administration Wednesday, met with mixed reviews
as a number of lawmakers and activists questioned the sustainability of the
largely commercially focused design. Under the preliminary outline development
plan, the site will provide 700,000 square meters of Grade-A office space - with
a plot ratio of up to 9.5 - more than that at Island East and almost four times
the area proposed in one of the original concept plans. The runway will also
house 17 large hotels, providing a total of 6,800 new hotel rooms - the
equivalent of half of the hotels in Tsim Sha Tsui. Hotel operators will be
responsible for building adjacent public facilities, such as a bus terminus, a
government source said. A two-berth cruise terminal, helipad and 50,000-capacity
sports stadium have all been retained from the three concept plans to ensure the
site becomes a tourism and sports hub. While the government will undertake
development of the controversial cruise terminal to "avoid allegations of
collusion with developers," the source said tenders will still be invited for
the operation of services at the terminal. About 90 hectares of road network,
comprising 25 percent of the site area, will be provided to link the site to the
surrounding districts of Kowloon City, Kowloon Bay and Ngau Tau Kok, and an
underwater trunk road will link the runway to Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O. The
site is expected to become one of the city's four new "icons" - including the
Tamar headquarters, the Convention and Exhibition Centre and the West Kowloon
cultural district - centered around Victoria Park. The government could reap
more than HK$200 billion from the expected sale of residential, office and hotel
sites, industry observers said.
Mike Roberts of McDonald's and
Sinopec president Wang Tianpu. Mr Roberts says half of his firm's new stores
will have drive-through.
Yuan Bin, director of marketing for the Beijing Olympics Organising Committee,
will address representatives of more than 500 leading brands in New York
tomorrow.
Secretary for Security
Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong officiates yesterday at the passing-out parade for 38
customs inspectors on completion of their 32-week training programme. The
ceremony was held at the Customs and Excise Training School in Tuen Mun.
Liu Yongqing (second right), wife of
President Hu Jintao, and spouses of representatives at the Shanghai Co-operation
Organisation summit view a paper-cut show. 
Workers tend a furnace at the Hebei
steelworks of Handan, an attractive takeover target as it is the most important
mill in the province. China's 11th-largest steel producer, Handan Iron & Steel,
is fighting a hostile takeover by the country's No 1 producer, Baoshan Iron &
Steel, in a Chinese version of the Mittal-Arcelor battle.
The number of bicycles on mainland
roads has dropped dramatically since the 500 million recorded in the late 1980s.
China cities must put cyclists back on the road by restoring bicycle lanes in a
bid to cope with worsening pollution, energy shortages and traffic chaos,
according to a top official.
Shenhua and Sasol have been in talks on
the stakes and the transfer of technology in the mainland company's coal-to-oil
projects. Shenhua Group Corp, the parent company of Hong Kong-listed China
Shenhua Energy, is close to signing an agreement to co-operate with South
African coal-to-oil producer Sasol on the construction of mainland coal
liquefaction projects, according to a senior official of the company.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen
(centre) takes his first ride on the Tung Chung cable car, describing the view
of Lantau as very impressive. The Ngong Ping 360 cable car runs from Tung Chung
to Ngong Ping village and the Big Buddha. Its trial run started last Thursday
and official services are scheduled to begin on June 24. 
Chinese President Hu Jintao makes a speech at a session of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation in Shanghai Thursday June 15, 2006. During the session
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited China, Russia and other Central
and South Asian nations to convene a special meeting to boost energy
cooperation.
Despite high oil prices, Air China reported profit growth of 1 per cent last
year while rival mainland carriers posted losses. 
A cheerleading team from a Korean
university gees up more than 2,000 Korean fans at Victoria Park last night
before the start of their nation's World Cup match against Togo. The fans were
also treated to an outdoor screen to watch the game live and demonstrations of
taekwondo and traditional percussion performances.
Folk craftsman Xu Zhiqiang displays one of
his works in Bozhou city, Anhui province. A large-scale clay sculpture entitled
Children Welcome The Olympic Games was shown in Bozhou on Monday. Xu
spent more than four years creating the more than 1,400 statues of children.
The main proposals by the Shanghai stock
exchange are to allow a 20 per cent daily trading limit on A shares and end a
ban on same-day buying and selling of stocks. 
Two dragon boat teams from Boston in
the United States slug it out on the city's Charles River in Boston in a
500-metre dash. Sunday's rowers were paddling for a place in the national finals
in New York in August. The national winners will go on to compete in the Hong
Kong International Dragon Boat Races next year.
Cathay's takeover
of Dragonair puts severe pressure on competitors, who must now consider their
own alliances. The takeover would make a combined Cathay and Dragonair dominant
as feeder to and from mainland China through Hong Kong, which currently accounts
for around 70 percent of arrivals in China. Dragonair serves 23 mainland cities
from Hong Kong, while Cathay - ranked 16th-largest in the world in terms of
revenue passenger kilometers and a member of the "oneworld alliance" - has been
limited to servicing directly only Beijing and Xiamen. "The link-up will attract
even more transit passengers on Cathay and Dragonair through Hong Kong," said
analyst Karen Chan of Credit Suisse First Boston (Hong Kong). And Chan says
that, currently, there is no real equivalent of the Cathay- Dragonair
combination.
Cathay Pacific Airways may gain air
rights from Dragon Airlines to Shanghai this year after it buys out the rival,
according to Air China's senior management. "We are cost sharing, profit sharing
and route sharing after the buyout deal," Air China chairman Li Jiaxiang said
right after a press conference. "It is not an important issue who flies the
Shanghai route," he added. Cathay, which resumed flights to the mainland in 2003
after a 13-year absence, has been slow in getting access to the world's most
populous nation. It flies only to Beijing and Xiamen in the southeast, and has
cargo flights to Shanghai. In the first round of talks with the mainland on
April 10, Cathay did not obtain approval to open its third mainland destination.
Dragonair and China Eastern Airlines are the only carriers that fly passengers
between Hong Kong, which is Asia's third busiest airport, and the mainland's
commercial center of Shanghai. "We badly wanted a significant presence in the
mainland," Cathay chairman Christopher Pratt said. Dragonair's network "fits
very, very well." Dragonair flies to 23 destinations in the mainland from Hong
Kong.
China Mobile Limited yesterday acquired
almost 20 percent of Phoenix Satellite TV Holdings Limited from News Corp, a
breakthrough in China's regulatory system on telecom and broadcasting networks.
A police officer flags down a bus during
a search for a robbery suspect who fled in handcuffs last night. About 6pm,
three South American women entered a jewellery and clothing shop near Southorn
Playground in Wan Chai. Suspecting they were thieves, the shopkeeper called
police, who arrived soon after the trio fled. With the shopkeeper's help, police
managed to arrest and handcuff one suspect. However, while she was being
searched, she bit an officer's arm and fled. Roadblocks were set up and buses
stopped to check for the woman. Late last night, she was still at large.
Miss Hong Kong 1998 second runner-up Natalie Ng Man-yan hams it up at the
Festival Walk premiere of The Omen yesterday. The show started at 6.06pm
to correspond with the "666" mark of the anti-Christ.
Carlson Tong thinks the listing
committee should adjust the profitability criteria according to the nature of
the companies.
Financier Francis Yuen Tin-fan is to quit
Richard Li Tzar-kai's flagship Pacific Century Group after 10 years with the
company, allowing him to focus full-time on Pacific Century Insurance, a Hong
Kong-listed insurance company founded by Yuen in 1994.
US Consul-General James Cunningham tries
his hand at cooking with San Francisco-based celebrity chef Martin Yan at the
launch of United Tastes of America, a month-long promotion of American food and
agricultural products in Hong Kong.
Red rainstorm, black sky: A pedestrian runs for cover on Pedder Street at 1pm
yesterday, when nighttime darkness came to daytime Central. Parts of Hong Kong
recorded up to 150mm of rainfall after the Observatory upgraded its rainstorm
warning from amber to red at 11am. Floods also hit the New Territories and
Kowloon.
A couple sample Cuban cigars at a
Shanghai luxury goods fair. Soaring property prices have put home ownership out
of the reach of all people except the wealthy. On Monday, the State Council
unveiled new measures to control property prices, including requiring higher
minimum deposits.
A
toast at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange marks the market debut of the Bank of
China, whose shares surged by an impressive 15.25 per cent. From left: bank
chairman Xiao Gang, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing chairman Ronald Arculli,
Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Joseph Yam Chi-kwong and deputy
director of the central government liaison office Zheng Kunsheng.
Eastern District racers practise at
the Chai Wan typhoon shelter for today's events.
China has released Shanghai property
tycoon Zhou Zhengyi on Friday after he completed a three-year sentence for stock
market fraud and falsifying documents.
Chairman Xiao Gang says the departure of Bank of China's first chief credit
officer would have no impact on its risk management.
Secretary for Environment, Transport
and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung recommends the novel Wolf Totem, written by
Jiang Rong, at a ceremony to launch the "My Favourite Ten Books" poll yesterday.
Forty-four local personalities have selected 42 books (some pictured left) for a
list of recommended reading. Readers of all ages can vote for their 10 favourite
books until June 25 through the website of RTHK, which organised the competition
with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.
"HSBC will go forward under the existing team and new leadership, and will
continue to thrive and go from strength to strength," Sir John Bond said
yesterday at his final informal annual general meeting with HSBC.
Pupils shout "no more smoking" at
Olympian City 2 in West Kowloon yesterday as part of the Hong Kong Council on
Smoking and Health campaign "Speak for All - Back Smoking Ban". The council will
also launch a TV commercial and radio programme to promote awareness of
second-hand smoke exposure and the coming smoking-ban legislation.
Bank of China Limited
(BOC) started its Hong Kong public offering Thursday, and Hong Kong citizens
lined in queues in a number banks in Hong Kong for getting application forms in
the morning. 
Model brides parade after receiving a
makeover from hairstyling and makeup artists taking part in a regional
competition in Wan Chai yesterday. More than 300 participants from the mainland,
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau showcased their grooming skills in the event,
organised by the Hong Kong Hairdressing and Makeup Trade Workers General Union.
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank
says its new credit card will lead to a "revolution" in the mainland's payment
card industry.
The Trade
Development Council has opened a consultant office in India, an economic and
trade partner of increasing importance to Hong Kong. Located in the business
capital of Mumbai, the office was formally inaugurated on Monday (8 May) at the
start of a high-level TDC mission to India. "It will serve as a first contact
point for all Indian companies interested in doing business with Hong Kong or in
using Hong Kong's platform to do business with China," said Deputy Executive
Director Alan Wong. "India is becoming more important as a market for Hong Kong
products and a consumer of Hong Kong's business services by Indian companies
reaching out to the Asia Pacific, especially China," he added. "TDC will provide
practical advice as well as sourcing information and contacts in Hong Kong, so
as to bring them closer to this region." The formal office opening coincided
with TDC's largest-yet event in India: a business seminar entitled 'Hong Kong -
India: partners for a new era of opportunity'. It attracted capacity attendance
of more than 500 Indian business executives. The keynote speaker was TDC Council
Member Dr David Wong who outlined the advantages of working with Hong Kong both
for China business and expansion by Indian companies into other parts of Asia.
Also on the mission, which continued to New Delhi, were leaders of 10 Hong Kong
companies from various industries and sectors including garments and jewellery,
finance, logistics and retail. All were looking for new opportunities in India.
India is a priority emerging market in TDC's 2006/07 promotional programme. More
large-scale promotions are planned for the months ahead.
Buyers browse through the wares
on offer at the International Museum Day carnival in Tsim Sha Tsui yesterday.
About 7,200 old museum publications, some of which had gathered dust after being
left unsold since being published 16 years ago, were snapped up during the
two-day carnival, aimed at arousing young people's interest in museums.
Stephen Weaver says the Venetian casino
resort is being developed on a mega scale and will dwarf the Venetian in Las
Vegas. US gaming company Las Vegas Sands expects to generate US$130 million
annual operating income from the 1.2 million square foot shopping mall at its
flagship Venetian casino resort in Macau, company executives said.
Star Ferry says the
outlook remains bleak for its new ferry terminal in Central, scheduled to open
mid-July, as the company faces the prospect of losing more than a third of its
passengers. "We are under huge financial stress right now, so we're looking for
all possible alternatives," said Frankie Yick Chi-ming, Star Ferry managing
director. Speaking Friday at the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, Yick
said the relocation of the pier to the area behind the International Finance
Center 2 means commuters will have to walk an additional 200 meters each way.
According to a survey commissioned by the company last year, the extra distance
could dissuade as many as 13 percent of regular passengers. In addition, the
government has proposed relocating the bus terminal at Tsim Sha Tsui ferry
terminal and turning the area into a public plaza, taking away the pier's most
important transport link.
The US has
sounded a blunt warning against Taiwan seeking independence, saying such a move
would only mean war. In a hearing before a congressional committee on Wednesday,
Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said that if Taiwan declared
independence, the United States would be drawn into a war that it did not want
between Taiwan and the mainland. During a hearing in which he highlighted the
mainland's "near-term military build-up", Mr Zoellick said Washington had to be
"very careful" in its balancing act between Taiwan and Beijing. "The balance is
that we want to be supportive of Taiwan while we're not encouraging those that
try to move toward independence," he said. "Because, let me be very clear:
independence means war. And that means American soldiers, sailors, airmen and
marines." 
KCRC's chief says the rail operator will shoulder the $115 million cost of
fixing fractures in rolling stock and of replacing bad tracks.
MotoGP riders, Casey Stoner, left,
of Australia, Makoto Tamada, centre, of Japan, and 250cc rider Andrea Dovizioso
of Italy, perform Kung Fu exercises during a photo session on Shanghai's Bund,
with the skyline of the Pudong New Area behind on Thursday. The three riders are
in Shanghai in preparation for the motorcycle Grand Prix of China, which will be
held on Sunday.
General Cao Gangchuan, with Admiral
William Fallon (centre), measures up an unidentified officer during their
meeting in Beijing. Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan called for expanded contacts
with the US armed forces yesterday, at the start of a visit by the commander of
US Pacific forces aimed at rebuilding military ties. 
Chairman and chief executive Zhang
Wenzhong expects retailer Xinhua, 27.7 per cent owned by Wumart, to open more
stores in northwestern China to gain market share.
The Hong Kong Shaolin Wushu Culture Centre in Tai O is to be promoted
internationally as a tourist attraction to lure martial arts fans to the city.
But the courses on offer at the centre, which will open in July, are to be made
easier for local students. The centre will offer martial arts training to locals
and visitors, and showcase the history of Tai O, the historic fishing village on
Lantau Island. Master Yan Kang, who helped design the training courses, said he
understood the constitution of local students after spending several training
sessions in Hong Kong.
Tianjin's economy will grow by more
than 12 per cent a year over the next five years, its mayor said yesterday, as
the northeastern port city moves towards becoming the third-largest economic hub
in the country. Mayor Dai Xianglong said in Hong Kong that the city's gross
domestic product had already grown by an average 13.9 per cent a year over the
past five years. Riding on that momentum and the central government's approval
of development of the Binhai New Area, the city's economic growth rate would
continue at a fast pace, he said. "I predict that the rate of growth will
greatly exceed the forecast," Mr Dai said. The mayor was in Hong Kong to launch
Hong Kong-Tianjin Week 2006, which opens today at the Convention and Exhibition
Centre in Wan Chai. From here, he will fly to London and Paris to meet
government officials and business executives and brief them about investment
opportunities in Tianjin. 
Steve Forbes, president and chief
executive of Forbes, tries out an exercise bike after officiating at the grand
opening of Club Bel-Air Peak Wing in Cyberport. "This luxury market is the gold
standard of luxury markets," the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine said
of the exclusive residential development, built by Pacific Century Premium
Development. The 60,000 square foot Club Bel-Air Peak Wing is in phase three of
the development. Phases one and two share an 80,000 sq ft facility, with both
costing more than $200 million to construct.
About 10,000 youngsters staged a colorful parade in Victoria Park yesterday to
commemorate the May Fourth Movement of 1919, when Chinese scholars advocated the
use of science and democracy to modernize China. Organizers also used the
occasion to promote patriotism and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Horsemen in a Shenyang park show their
off skills during the depiction of an ancient battle during the "golden week"
holiday.
Hundreds of students attend a
flag-raising ceremony at Golden Bauhinia Square, Wan Chai, to mark the 87th
anniversary of the foundation of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Students in
kindergartens, primary and secondary schools across the city also held
flag-raising ceremonies to mark the occasion. The May Fourth Movement grew out
of the contempt for traditional Chinese culture felt by many intellectuals, who
blamed it for the nation's decline in international importance.
A passerby walks past a display
showing the movements of the Hang Seng Index on an electronic board of the Hong
Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Hong Kong shares rose to their
highest level in more than 5 1/2 years on buying in banking giant HSBC, but
traders said there is limited upside for the benchmark index.
Reforms aim to give all migrant
children schooling, like these at Fusheng Migrant School in Shanghai. 
Gome executive director Du Juan says the mainland's rate rises have not eroded
the spending ability of mainland consumers.
On a typical day, the
trail through the Hoi Ha Wan marine reserve is littered with soda cans, tissues,
hats and pipes. A sign on the trail coming into Hoi Ha Wan village reminds
visitors to respect the villagers, but there is no sign for travelers heading
toward the beach urging them to take care of the marine environment, one of the
unique water spots in the New Territories. It is the kind of thing that
sustainable tourism advocates say is emblematic of the planning and
infrastructure missing from Hong Kong's country parks, a potential gold mine for
low-impact green tourism. More than 12 million visitors trekked into Hong Kong's
country parks last year, two million more than in the early 1990s. And with
projections that tourist numbers to Hong Kong will rise to between 50 million
and 70 million by 2020, conservationists and nature- lovers wonder if the
territory is overlooking a new way to create revenue in a city saturated with
mass tourism offerings, such as shopping and Disneyland. 
A young pilgrim washes a miniature of
Buddha during ceremonies at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island to mark the
2,550th anniversary of Buddha's birth, which falls on Friday. Yesterday's event,
which drew hundreds of people, was part of several days of celebrations to mark
the occasion.
Young monks at Po Lin Monastery
demonstrate Shaolin-style martial arts. Buddhist monks at the monastery are
bargaining for a 50 per cent discount on charges for a piece of land that they
intend to build a multimillion-dollar exhibition hall to draw in more tourists.
Buddhist monks at the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island have been bargaining
with the government in the hope of obtaining a 50 per cent discount on charges
required for the development rights to a piece of land inside the monastery.
Tang Wanxin (centre), who founded
D'Long with his brother, was found guilty of illegal banking and stock
manipulation by a court in Wuhan. A mainland tycoon whose investment
conglomerate once was the nation's biggest stockholder has been sentenced to
eight years in jail after being found guilty of illegal banking and stock price
manipulation, according to state media.
Democratic Party chairman Lee Wing-tat
(right) and legislator Yeung Sum (left) accompany fellow member Nelson Wong Kin-shing
(centre) to submit his nomination as a candidate for the Central and Western
District Council by-election on June 11. Mr Wong is vying to fill a vacancy left
by late Democrat councillor Henry Leung Yiu-cho, who died six months after a car
accident in October. Mr Wong has been vice-chairman of the party's Hong Kong
Island branch for the past eight years.
Clara Lau, a senior vice-president at Moody's, says the debt levels of major
property firms in Hong Kong have been on the increase over the past three years.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki agreed Friday to
make joint efforts to further promote bilateral long-term, stable and reciprocal
cooperation in various fields. To enhance bilateral cooperation in various
fields, President Hu made a four-point proposal.
A Xiaolong 04 fighter plane is seen
during its test flight at Wenjiang Airport in Chengdu, capital of southwest
China's Sichuan Province, April 28, 2006. Xiaolong 04 is an improved home-built
multi-purpose light fighter of a new generation. It succeeded in its first
flight April 28.
A crowd looks on as Xiang Xiang, a
4-year-old male panda raised at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Centre, is
released into the wild at Dengshenggou in Wolong, in Sichuan Province on Friday.
It is the first time a panda raised in captivity has been released into the wild
in China.
