Industrial and Commercial Bank of China | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

18/02/2016

Apple Pay takes on China’s internet kings in mobile payments | Reuters

Apple Inc launched its mobile payment system in China on Thursday in a bid to convince the hundreds of millions of users of the country’s entrenched, dominant services to switch.

“We think China could be our largest Apple Pay market,” Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, told Reuters in an interview in Beijing.

In an early boost, China’s biggest lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), was among the banks that said earlier this week that customers would be able to use Apple Pay from Thursday.

However, Apple Pay has not had an easy ride so far in China, the fifth country to get the service. Even in its U.S. home market, Apple has faced skeptical retailers in its effort to develop a new revenue stream.

China is not likely to prove any easier to crack.

“People switch applications for significantly better experiences, it (Apple) has to deliver not just a little bit more secure, or a little bit easier to use,” said Mark Natkin, founder of Marbridge Consulting.

Greater China is Apple’s second-largest market by revenue, and the world’s biggest smartphone market. By the end of 2015, 358 million people, more than the U.S. population, had already taken to buying goods and services by mobile phone, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

The vast majority are using payment services from China’s two biggest Internet companies that have existed for years.

Social networking and gaming firm Tencent Holdings Ltd operates WeChat Payment, and e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, through its Internet finance affiliate Ant Financial Services Group, runs Alipay.

“With 100 percent saturation of local payment systems, no one in China is clamoring for Apple Pay,” said one retailer who declined to be named for fear of harming business prospects. “Today, everyone has a local payment option on their phone, so Apple Pay is a solution in need of a problem.”

Source: Apple Pay takes on China’s internet kings in mobile payments | Reuters

Posted in China alert, Economics, electronic payment, Technology | 1 Comment »

Tags: Apple Bank for Savings, Apple Inc., China, China Construction Bank, China Guangfa Bank, China UnionPay, Chinese language, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Mobile payment

01/11/2015

China Abandons the One-Child Policy – China Real Time Report – WSJ

China on Thursday said it would formally end its notorious one-child policy, which was intended to curb a surging population but has since been blamed for looming demographic problems in the world’s No. 2 economy.

As WSJ’s Carlos Tejada reports: In a brief statement on Thursday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said all Chinese would be allowed to have two children. It didn’t provide a time frame or any other details. China effectively hobbled the one-child policy two years ago, when it allowed couples to have two children if one parent came from a household without other siblings. It has also long allowed exceptions in some parts of the country. Advertisement

Still, Thursday’s move marked a symbolic shift as well as an acknowledgment that China now faces a looming worker-shortage in coming decades. China’s fertility rate, or the number of births per woman, was below the replacement level at 1.17 in 2013, according to the most recent data from the World Bank. Demographers have been urging Beijing to do more to thwart a predicted labor shortage, arguing that they should lift birth restrictions entirely. Read the full story on WSJ.com. Sign up for CRT’s daily newsletter to get the latest headlines by email.

Source: China Abandons the One-Child Policy – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Economics, One-child policy, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Beijing, Boeing, China, China Development Bank, Gansu, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, List of companies of China, middle school

20/04/2015

Chinese president to launch economic corridor link in Pakistan | Reuters

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pakistan on Monday to launch $46 billion in projects linking the allies, a figure that would far exceed U.S. spending in Pakistan and underscores China’s economic ambitions in Asia and beyond.

The infrastructure and energy projects are aimed at establishing a Pakistan-China Economic Corridor between Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea and China’s western Xinjiang region.

The plan is part of China’s aim to forge “Silk Road” land and sea ties to markets in the Middle East and Europe and reflects a shift of economic power in the region to China, said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the Pakistani parliament‘s defense committee.

“Pakistan, for China, is now of pivotal importance. This has to succeed and be seen to succeed,” he said.

The corridor, a network of roads, railways and pipelines, will pass through Pakistan’s poor Baluchistan province where a long-running separatist insurgency, which the army has again vowed to crush, will raise doubts about the feasibility of the plan.

The security of Chinese workers will be a prime concern for Xi. In his talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and military leaders, Xi is also likely to raise China’s fears that Muslim separatists from Xinjiang are teaming up with Pakistani militants.

Xi has linked economic cooperation with security.

“Our cooperation in the security and economic fields reinforce each other, and they must be advanced simultaneously,” he said in a statement to media on the eve of his two-day visit.

Xi is expected to call for greater efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, where Pakistan is keen to restrict the influence of is rival India.

via Chinese president to launch economic corridor link in Pakistan | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Ahsan Iqbal, China, China Development Bank, China Power International Development, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Mushahid Hussain Syed, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan, Parliament of Pakistan, Xi JinPing, Xinjiang

06/03/2012

* China’s debt-to-GDP ratio hits 43%

China Daily: “China‘s government debt amounts to about 17.5 trillion yuan ($2.78 trillion), about 43 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, Yang Kaisheng, president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said Tuesday.

The debt is composed of 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) of local government debt and 6.8 trillion yuan ($1.07 trillion) of central government debt, Yang said at a press conference on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary session.”.

via China’s debt-to-GDP ratio hits 43%|Economy|chinadaily.com.cn.

This is shocking news as a year ago (2010) the ratio was only 17.5%! Of course, earlier we blogged about the parlous state of local government debt rising astronomically. This is the result. ;-(

See: http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/774/economics/list-of-national-debt-by-country/

Some of us are so riveted by China’s trade surplus of some $3 trillion, that we forget about its debt ratio. In other words, China is behaving only slightly more frugally than many Western nations. The only difference *and it is an important one) uis that the trade surplus does (just about) cover the debt. 😉

Posted in China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, China, Debt, Debt-to-GDP ratio, Financial Planning, Financial Services, Gross domestic product, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

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Apple Pay takes on China’s internet kings in mobile payments | Reuters

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* China’s debt-to-GDP ratio hits 43%

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