Posts tagged ‘Los Angeles’

16/10/2015

China aims for 30 million annual auto production capacity by 2020: industry association | Reuters

China will aim to have the capacity to make 30 million autos a year by 2020, according to an industry association, a figure that is lower than analysts’ estimates of its current annual production capacity.

Drivers stand next to brand new Geely Englon TX4 taxis, which were created based on the ''London cab'', during an inauguration ceremony in Shanghai, October 11, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

The capacity target was in an advance copy of a speech that Vice-Secretary Shi Jianhua of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) is due to make on Friday, predicting what targets the Communist Party will set out for the auto industry when it meets later this month to decide the country’s economic blueprint for 2016 to 2020.

The speech does not specify whether the 30 million refers to passenger cars or the overall auto market, but consultancy IHS estimates China will produce 23.5 million passenger and light commercial vehicles this year and already has capacity to make 36 million annually.

Shi predicts that the country’s next five-year plan will aim for an annual production capacity of 2 million units for plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles by 2020, and to have already produced 5 million vehicles, the speech says.

It also aims to lift the market share of Chinese brand vehicles to more than 60 percent, from roughly 41 percent of the passenger car market so far this year, to create five globally competitive automakers.

China’s government will also target to boost auto exports to 3 million compared to this year’s goal of 860,000.

Source: China aims for 30 million annual auto production capacity by 2020: industry association | Reuters

17/09/2015

Leaving Las Vegas: Chinese state railway companies to build US high-speed link from ‘Sin City’ to LA | South China Morning Post

Work on joint venture for 370km high-speed line linking Las Vegas to Los Angeles could start in 2016 and is part of mainland’s pursuit of overseas high-speed rail deals

A consortium of Chinese state rail companies has teamed up with an American company to build a high-speed rail line in the United States, with work possibly starting as early as September 2016.

It is the latest push by Beijing to export its high-speed rail technology and tap lucrative offshore markets.

China Railway International USA and the private rail venture, XpressWest, said in a joint statement on Thursday that they would form a joint venture to accelerate the launch of a high-speed rail linking the western cities of Las Vegas with Los Angeles.

The deal marks the latest attempt in China’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of overseas high-speed rail deals after the country built the world’s longest network in less than a decade.

Beijing recently clinched contracts in Russia, although it has faced hurdles in Mexico and Indonesia because of bureaucratic reversals of decisions in those countries.

XpressWest, a private venture of a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino developer, was given approval in 2011 to build and run the 370km high-speed line, according to its website.

The project has US$100 million in initial capital, the companies said in the statement, released at a government-organised forum before President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the US. China Railway International USA is owned by a consortium made up of subsidiaries from the mainland state companies China Railway Group, CRRC Corp, China State Construction Engineering Corp and China Railway Signal & Communication Corp.

Gary Wong, an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities, estimated that the XpressWest project was worth US$5 billion, which he said would likely offer the many Chinese companies involved little financial benefit.

However, it was significant as a deal because it would help open the undeveloped US high-speed rail market, Wong added.

“If this opens up the United States market for them, opportunities for future expansion will increase,” Wong said. “And if [their technology] is used in the United States, it will be easier for them to sell to other countries.”

 

19/10/2014

Chinese Home-Buying Binge Transforms California Suburb Arcadia – Businessweek

“Oh, hey! How ya’ doin’?” Raleigh Ornelas hollers, leaning out the window of his spotless white pickup truck. He’s recognized the man across the street, a developer standing in front of a Tuscan-style mansion under construction. “Where have you been hiding at? I call you, you don’t call me.”

Why Are Chinese Millionaires Buying Mansions in an L.A. Suburb?

Ornelas is an informal broker in Arcadia, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. He’s been keeping an eye out for the builder, an Asian man with a slight comb-over who goes by Mark. Ornelas has found two older homeowners who’ve finally agreed to sell their properties, and he knows that Mark, like all developers here, needs land on which to build mansions for an influx of rich clients from mainland China.

Ornelas rattles off addresses on a nearby street. “Three-eleven, that guy, he’s wack,” he says, shaking his head. “He wants 2.8.” He means million dollars. “And then 354, they want $2 million.”

The lot is 17,000 square feet. “Seventeen for 2 mil?” Mark asks, incredulous.

“I know,” Ornelas says. “They’re going crazy.”

A year ago the property would have gone for $1.3 million, but Arcadia is booming. Residents have become used to postcards offering immediate, all-cash deals for their property and watching as 8,000-square-foot homes go up next door to their modest split levels. For buyers from mainland China, Arcadia offers excellent schools, large lots with lenient building codes, and a place to park their money beyond the reach of the Chinese government.

The city, population 57,600, projects that about 150 older homes—53 percent more than normal—will be torn down this year and replaced with mansions. The deals happen fast and are rarely listed publicly. Often, the first indication that a megahouse is coming next door is when the lawn turns brown. That means the neighbor has stopped watering and green construction netting is about to go up.

via Chinese Home-Buying Binge Transforms California Suburb Arcadia – Businessweek.

19/04/2014

Sustainable Design Is a Given in India – India Real Time – WSJ

“Architecture should be ethical and show empathy toward the human condition,” said Bijoy Jain, whose firm Studio Mumbai received the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture from L’Institut Francais D’Architecture in 2009. The Indian modernist—known for blurring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, and creating oases of peace from local stone and wood—studied in the U.S. and worked on the Getty Center in Los Angeles. He established his practice in 1996, building a compound that houses dozens of the craftsmen he employs near his own handsome but humble residence in the countryside of Alibag, not far from central Mumbai.

Mr. Jain’s home was recently part of “Where Architects Live,” an installation at the global design fair Salone del Mobile in Milan that re-created the residences of world-renowned talents including Zaha Hadid, Daniel Liebeskind and Shigeru Ban. Mr. Jain said he sees his live-work complex as a laboratory for new ideas and a standard-bearer for old traditions. “There’s a lineage of carpentry and masonry, building with high skill and great efficiency that’s specific to India, and I am transferring that ideology to projects around the world,” said the globe-trotting architect, 49, who is working on projects in Switzerland, Spain and Japan and will teach a semester at Yale this fall. Mr. Jain spoke to us about sustainable design, how he’d blow $20,000 and the most beautiful restaurant in the world.

via Sustainable Design Is a Given in India – India Real Time – WSJ.

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09/01/2014

* Chinese Investment in U.S. Doubles to $14 Billion in 2013 – Businessweek

Chinese companies are on a North American buying spree, investing $14 billion in the U.S. last year, a record high, says a new report by New York’s Rhodium Group.

Chinese investment in the United States doubled in 2013, driven by large-scale acquisitions in food, energy and real estate,” write analysts Thilo Hanemann and Cassie Gao in “Chinese FDI in the U.S.: 2013 Recap and 2014 Outlook,” released on Jan. 7.

“We expect Chinese interest in U.S. assets to remain strong in 2014 because of aggressive economic reforms in China, a more liberal policy environment for Chinese outbound investors, and a positive outlook for the U.S. economy.”

Whereas state-owned companies have dominated in total deal value in the past, that is no longer true. In 2013, more than 70 percent of investment came from private enterprises, responsible for more than 80 percent of a total of 87 deals (of which 44 were acquisitions and another 38 were greenfield projects).

Where is the money going? Unconventional oil and gas was a top draw, with $3.2 billion invested in deals that include CNOOC’s (CEO) purchase of Calgary, Alberta-based Nexen Energy’s U.S. operations, Sinopec’s (SHI) joint venture with Chesapeake Energy (CHK) of Oklahoma City, and a Sinochem International (600500:CH) stake in West Texas’s Wolfcamp Shale. Commercial real estate was also a big draw, with 18 investments in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit totaling $1.8 billion. And the single biggest deal: Shuanghui’s (000895:CH) $7.1 billion takeover of pork processor Smithfield.

Chinese companies are also becoming big employers of Americans, says Rhodium, providing more than 70,000 full-time jobs as of the end of last year. That’s an eightfold increase since 2007. Huawei Technologies (002502:CH) and Lenovo (992:HK) are big employers, but just one company—Smithfield—accounted for 37,000 of the total workers at Chinese companies.

A separate report released in early December by private equity fund A Capital found that Chinese investors put $24.7 billion into mergers and acquisitions in all of North America in the just first three-quarters of last year.

via Chinese Investment in U.S. Doubles to $14 Billion in 2013 – Businessweek.

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