Posts tagged ‘Tianjin’

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10/02/2013

* China’s Focus on Aerospace Raises Security Questions

NY Times: “When Airbus executives arrived here seven years ago scouting for a location to assemble passenger jets, the broad, flat expanse next to Tianjin Binhai International Airport was a grassy field.

A worker in an Airbus facility in Tianjin, China, that completes four planes a month, mostly for state-run carriers.

Now, Airbus, the European aerospace giant, has 20 large buildings and is churning out four A320 jetliners a month for mostly Chinese state-controlled carriers. The company also has two new neighbors — a sprawling rocket factory and a helicopter manufacturing complex — both producing for the Chinese military.

The rapid expansion of civilian and military aerospace manufacturing in Tianjin reflects China’s broader ambitions.

As Beijing’s leaders try to find new ways to invest $3 trillion of foreign reserves, the country has been aggressively expanding in industries with strong economic potential. The Chinese government and state-owned companies have already made a major push into financial services and natural resources, acquiring stakes in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone and buying oil and gas fields around the world.

Aerospace represents the latest frontier for China, which is eyeing parts manufacturers, materials producers, leasing businesses, cargo airlines and airport operators. The country now rivals the United States as a market for civilian airliners, which China hopes to start supplying from domestic production. And the new leadership named at the Party Congress in November has publicly emphasized long-range missiles and other aerospace programs in its push for military modernization.

If Boeing’s difficulties with its recently grounded aircraft, the Dreamliner, weigh on the industry, it could create opportunity. Chinese companies, which have plenty of capital, have been welcomed by some American companies as a way to create jobs. Wall Street has been eager, too, at a time when other merger activity has been weak.”

via China’s Focus on Aerospace Raises Security Questions – NYTimes.com.

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31/01/2013

* Less is more at annual meets

China Daily: “Fewer staff, shorter speeches, modest dinners and less printing ― meetings of local legislators and political advisers across China are getting slimmer, simpler and greener.

Less is more at annual meets

Having cut down on the number of staff members involved in the Shanghai People’s Congress by 20 percent from last year’s meeting, the organizer also reduced spending on food and accessories.

“The budget for the first meeting of the 14th Shanghai People’s Congress was nearly 18 percent lower than last year,” said Ni Yinliang, a senior officer of the organizing office of the congress.

The suggested length of speeches is eight minutes in most regions of the country.

“I’ve noticed that the majority of deputies gave shorter speeches in discussions with better quality advice, which enables us to finish the meetings on time and leaves more time to submit our written comments and proposals,” said Zhuang Shaoqin, a Shanghai lawmaker and head of the city’s Fengxian district.

Similarly in Shanxi province, the number of attendees for this year’s two sessions decreased by 144 and the number of staff members was cut by 295, and the length of the congress was reduced from eight days to six and half days, said Ma Wei, director of the organization department of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference‘s Shanxi committee.

Decorations for meetings across the country have been simplified.

Fewer fresh flowers were seen, and red carpets were not rolled out to welcome meeting participants in many regions including Shanghai and Guizhou province.

Shanghai and Shanxi suggested participants use public transport and arranged 15 direct shuttles to travel between subway stations and meeting venues.

No police cars were deployed to escort vehicles carrying meeting participants, and traffic was not suspended to make way for them.

“I’ve taken the subway since the first day of the congress, and I’ve found a great many of deputies have done the same thing in the past four days,” said Wu Jiang, a Shanghai lawmaker.

Many provinces and cities are using online systems to reduce printing.

Shanghai continued its operation of the online submitting system and sent out e-copies of documents to the deputies instead of printing them out.

Wu added that he is very satisfied with the online submitting system of written comments and proposals, which is convenient and saves energy and resources.

The online system has also been applied in other places including Tianjin and Guizhou.

In Tianjin, more lawmakers and political advisers have become aware of using both sides of a piece of paper while taking notes, people.com.cn reported.

In addition, dining expenses have been reduced.

The organizer of Shanghai People’s Congress session offered only six hot dishes served buffet style.

“The buffet allows us to choose what we like and avoid the unnecessary waste of food, which is a very wise decision,” said Shanghai lawmaker Zhuang.

In Guizhou, meeting participants are served with hot water instead of tea.

“Replacing the tea with hot water will definitely minimize the costs of labor and materials,” said Wang Shaoer, a member of the provincial political advisory body.

Hebei province has come up with another way to save resources.

Passes that are valid for five years were given to deputies and committee members.

Passes will be kept by the organizers after the first-year congress and be reused for the following four years. Lawmakers and political advisers serve five-year terms. They used to be given a new pass each year.”

via Less is more at annual meets |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.

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15/09/2012

* Home Depot closes stores as it shifts focus

Home Depot closes stores as it shifts focusChina Daily: “Home Depot Inc, the largest home-improvement retailer in the United States, said it is closing its remaining seven big box stores in China as it shifts its focus to specialty and online outlets in the world’s second-largest economy.

The move will affect about 850 employees, and the company will record an after-tax charge of about $160 million, or 10 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter, it said in a statement issued on Thursday.

Employees of Home Depot gather outside the company’s Xi’an store on Friday as the home-improvement retailer declared that it will close all its seven stores in China. [Photo/China Daily]

“Closing stores is always a difficult decision,” said Frank Blake, the company’s chairman and CEO. “We’ve learned a great deal over the last six years in China, and our new approach leverages that experience.”

The company said it will keep its two recently launched specialty outlets – a paint and flooring store and a home decoration shop – in Tianjin.

It is also in talks with several Chinese e-commerce websites to explore selling its products online, it said, a combination believed to be more adequate to Chinese customers’ needs and shopping preferences.

The Atlanta-based seller of building materials and home-improvement products will also keep its R&D team in China, as well as the 170 workers in its sourcing offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen, the statement said.

Home Depot has 2,249 retail stores in operation globally. Excluding the charges related to the store closures, Home Depot expects its fiscal 2012 diluted earnings per share to rise 19 percent to $2.95 for the year.

The company’s success story in the global market did not translate well in China, where the do-it-yourself home decoration-retailing concept has failed to inspire Chinese homeowners, industry analysts said.

The US company acquired a local peer, The Home Way, in 2006 and took over its 12 outlets in China. However, it has closed five outlets since 2009. The company has also replaced three top executives since its establishment in the country, a move that did not alter its sales decline.

Though specialized home-improvement retail is an upcoming trend, Home Depot arrived in China too early, at a time when the country’s decoration culture and consumption behaviors were not ready for the concept, said Chen Lei, a retail analyst at China Galaxy Securities. Despite the construction boom, the low labor costs made the DIY decoration concept irrelevant, he said.

Chinese homeowners rarely paint houses or lay out wooden floors themselves. Rather, they prefer to hire decoration companies, which often find products with more competitive prices from local building material stores, Chen said.

In addition, the company’s strengths in the United States, including its lower prices due to its global sourcing channels, have been diluted in China.

“You can always find local brands that are cheaper, and consumers in various regions have very different preferences,” Chen said. “Winning the market through a price war is not going to work for a foreign retailer in China.””

via Home Depot closes stores as it shifts focus |Companies |chinadaily.com.cn.

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29/04/2012

* China’s great leap forward – into the supermarket

The Guardian: “Made in China says everything, economically, about the last decade. Sold in China tells you everything about the next.

Recent output figures from China were greeted with concern after the country reported its lowest GDP growth for three years, although, at 8.1%, its magnificent compared to the UK’s double-dip recession. Still, there is much talk among economists about a “hard landing”, a “property bubble” and “bankrupt banks”. But there is one key fact to remember about the economy in China. It’s that the minimum wage is going up 15% a year, every year, for the next five years. Take a billion workers and give them a 100% pay rise. It changes everything.

Within a generation, China is likely to displace the US as the biggest consumer market in the world. At Tianjin Port, the world’s fifth biggest, container ships used to export Chinese goods to the rest of the world but come back empty. Now they return with the finished and semi-finished goods from the rest of the world to satisfy a ravenous consumer appetite.

In Tianjin’s vast factory zone, across the road from a Foxconn plant making the next wave of Apple iPhones, the Master Kong factory makes more pot noodles than anywhere else in the world. The huge automated production lines, with machine tools imported from Japan and Germany, churn out five billion noodle packets a year – enough to reach to the moon and back. All the raw materials come from China, all of the finished product is consumed in China. Its just one of 23 Master Kong plants on the mainland.

Further south in the “groundscraper” and weirdly Hogwarts-esque Shanghai offices of Ping An, China’s second biggest insurer, 12,000 commission-led telesales agents make one million sales calls every day. It is the largest telemarketing operation on the planet, feeding on the explosive growth of domestic car sales. Last year 14.5m cars were sold in China – or 2m more than in the US, previously the world’s biggest auto market. Nine in 10 were to people who had never bought a car before. Ping An now insures 32m private cars, raking in premiums of £2.2bn 22.3bn renminbi a year. Four years ago, that revenue was below £100m.

Just off outer ring road five in Beijing, a mundane average-income district, the Wu Mart hypermarket is perhaps an early indicator of how domestic consumption will grow.

The store bears more resemblance to a Lidl than a Tesco but, unlike the oddly deserted luxury shops in the city centre, it is teeming. It’s instantly apparent that mid-range western brands are phenomenally popular with middle-income Chinese consumers. Shelf after shelf stocks the likes of Colgate toothpaste, Nivea, Quaker Oats and Snickers bars.

Whole aisles are devoted to disposable nappies. China’s one-child policy, rigorously enforced, means that spending on a sole child is proportionately huge. Hong Kong babies use 50% more diapers than those in the west, and mainland China is heading the same way. Want to invest in China? Maybe buy Procter & Gamble (Pampers) or Kimberly-Clark (Huggies) instead.“

via Chinas great leap forward – into the supermarket | Money | The Guardian.

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17/04/2012

* Irish horses to race in China as Magnier wins €38m stud deal

Independent.ie: “HUNDREDS of Irish horses are set to race regularly in China after bloodstock giant Coolmore announced a ground-breaking deal. The agreement is part of a plan that will see Ireland help set up a horse racing industry in Tianjin, China’s fourth largest city.

Horse racing in Sligo, Ireland

Horse racing in Sligo, Ireland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Top Irish stud farm Coolmore – owned by racing tycoon John Magnier and based in Fethard, Co Tipperary – will help China set up a similar operation. The planned equine centre will be the first of its kind in the country.

It is due to open for business next year. The contract is worth more than €38.5m to Ireland over three years.

via Irish horses to race in China as Magnier wins €38m stud deal – Irish, Business – Independent.ie.

A sure sign that China is liberalising. As far as we know gambling is illegal in China. Though, behind closed doors …  

But now we are going to see real horse racing in China. Or will the races be run without any betting?!

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