China Economy Forum

[Edison Chen]

SWIFT sees Europe gaining in China yuan payments share

SHANGHAI: Europe now represents 10 percent by value of global payments in China's currency, transactions organisation SWIFT said on Tuesday (Aug 26), as more countries seek a greater share of yuan business through new clearing arrangements.

Although China's special administrative region of Hong Kong is the dominant centre for offshore yuan trading, four European countries are in the top ten, said the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. They are Britain, France, Germany and Luxembourg, it said, all of which have reached agreements with China's central bank for yuan-clearing in their countries.

Over the past year Britain's yuan payments have surged nearly 124 percent, France has jumped almost 44 percent, Germany has soared 116 percent and Luxembourg gained around 42 percent, the organisation said in a statement, although it gave no values.

China is trying to make the yuan, also known as the renminbi (RMB), used more widely internationally in line with its standing as the world's second largest economy. It has agreed RMB clearing centres in several European countries over the past year.

In the statement, Michael Moon, SWIFT's head of payments and RMB for the Asia-Pacific, said the announcements "have boosted the RMB trading activities in these countries".

Last month the yuan remained the seventh most used global payment currency - unchanged from June - with a 1.57 percent share, SWIFT said.

China keeps a tight grip on the value of its currency and limits capital flows into and out of the country due to fears they could disrupt the economy. But authorities have tried to further liberalise the yuan's movements and create a more market-oriented exchange rate.

SWIFT sees Europe gaining in China yuan payments share - Channel NewsAsia
China Money Network − Europe To Become Second Largest Offshore RMB Market - Tune in for China's Financial Markets and Investment Opportunities

 

[FashiontrendsinpkCom]

I only say one phrase.... China Rocks Yaar

 

[Edison Chen]

Guanghui Wins Approval to Import Crude as China Opens Xinjiang

Guanghui Energy Ltd., a Shanghai-listed (600256) explorer with overseas oil assets, became the first non-state company this year to be allowed to import crude as China’s government opens resource-rich Xinjiang to private investment.

The oil unit of the Urumqi, Xinjiang-based company gained approval to import 200,000 metric tons of crude this year, according to a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday. Xinjiang, with about a quarter of China’s onshore crude reserves and almost 30 percent of its natural gas, may introduce policies to open resources to private and foreign investors, two company officials said earlier this month.

With oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan and no domestic refining assets, Guanghai Energy may be the first private company to sell crude to PetroChina Co.’s refineries in northwest China, according to ICIS-C1 Energy, a commodities researcher in Shanghai.

“For non-state companies to sell crude, the government has to grant quotas,” Amy Sun, an ICIS-C1 analyst, said by phone from Guangzhou today. “This way, Guanghui may sell ESPO crude easily to PetroChina’s refineries in Xinjiang, where there is a local shortage of such feedstock.”

ESPO refers to Russia’s East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude.

China allocates about 10 percent of its crude-import requirements to 22 non-state traders under a quota system started in 2002, part of a commitment made when it joined the World Trade Organization, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The traders are able to import as much as 29.1 million tons this year, or about 600,000 barrels a day.

Guanghui’s quota is about 4,000 barrels a day, which is of negligible size in China’s oil market, compared with 5.8 million a day of imports, said Grace Lee, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Shares of Guanghui Energy rose as much as 10 percent to 8.98 yuan in Shanghai trading. That would be the highest closing price since December 2013.

Guanghui Wins Approval to Import Crude as China Opens Xinjiang - Bloomberg

 

[Beidou2020]

 

[cirr]

China-Eurasia Expo to highlight opening-up, cooperationalong Silk Road economic belt

(Xinhua) 13:02, August 30, 2014

URUMQI, Aug. 30 -- The Fourth China-Eurasia Expo scheduled to open on Monday aims to be a bridge to facilitate the economic and technical cooperation among the countries along the ancient silk road, said an official.

Chi Wenjie, deputy secretary-general of the Secretariat of the annual expo, said on Saturday that 10 significant forums and exchange activities will be held during the six-day event with a theme of building the Silk Road economic belt through opening-up and cooperation.

The forums include the China-Eurasia Economic Development and Cooperation forum, Eurasia News Media Forum, Central Asia Technological Innovation and Cooperation Forum and the summit on the application of the Beidou navigation satellite system.

Initiated by President Xi Jinping, the Silk Road economic belt revival project could involve over 40 Asian and European countries and regions with a combined population of 3 billion.

Chi said that 48 countries and regions from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and Africa have confirmed their attendance to the expo.

Covering a floor area of 89,000 square meters, the expo comprises four exhibition areas to highlight overseas delegates, international cooperation, new high-tech and services trade and merchandise trade.

Chi said that international organizations will also hold a number of events during the expo, including the roundtable forum of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the Mayors' Forum along the Silk Road.

Forty-four overseas high-ranking officials from United Nations Development Program, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and other countries will participate in these forums, Chi said.

Delegates from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China are also expected to explore the cooperation on the fruit industry.

More than 110 ethnic textile and attire companies of Xinjiang will display their products at the expo to facilitate textile cooperation with foreign enterprises, Chi said.

China-Eurasia Expo to highlight opening-up, cooperation along Silk Road economic belt - People's Daily Online

 

[TaiShang]

China to invest in building cement plant in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz First Vice Prime Minister Tayirbek Sarpashev (1st L) and Sun He (3rd R), business counselor with the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan, attend the ground-breaking ceremony of a cement plant in Kemin, Chui province, Kyrgyzstan, Aug. 29, 2014. A ceremony was held Friday to mark the ground-breaking event for a new cement plant with Chinese investment in northern Kyrgyzstan. The projected cement plant, believed to be largest in Kyrgyzstan on completion, will be located in Kemin, Chui province, about 13 kilometers east of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, with the investment totaling 70 million U.S. dollars, according to Sun He, business counselor with the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. (Xinhua)

KEMIN,Kyrgyzstan, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- A ceremony was held Friday to mark the ground-breaking event for a new cement plant with Chinese investment in northern Kyrgyzstan.

The projected cement plant, believed to be largest in Kyrgyzstan on completion, will be located in Kemin, Chui province, about 13 kilometers east of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, with the investment totaling 70 million U.S. dollars, according to Sun He, business counselor with the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

As economic and business cooperation serves as an important foundation to bilateral relations between the two countries, Kyrgyzstan and China have been joining hands in building a number of infrastructure projects, such as China-Kyrgyzstan gas pipeline, a highway, reconstruction of a power station in Bishkek, said Sun, who insisted that Friday's event showcased positive prospects of healthy cooperation between the two countries.

While addressing the ground-breaking ceremony, Kyrgyz First Vice Prime Minister Tayirbek Sarpashev said he was confident that the Chinese invested cement plant would not only add more jobs to Kemin, but also bring about tax revenues between 10 million to 15 million U.S. dollars upon completion a year to his country.

Zhu Rongjun, general manager of ZETH-Cement, the fully Chinese investment subsidiary registered in Kyrgyzstan and the investor of the new cement plant, said they would use advanced technology for production at the plant and promised that the plant's construction process would also be pollution free.

Upbeat about high cement demand potential in Kyrgyzstan and even in kazakhstan, Zhu said the plant would start formal construction later this year and be completed and put into production in 15 months.

 

[Beidou2020]

Smartphone subsidy cuts to lift local firms

Domestic telecom carriers currently squeezed by paying Apple, Samsung

China should end smartphone subsidies to overseas vendors and give more support to local brands, industry insiders said on Tuesday, as telecom carriers pledged to cut operating expenses and Apple Inc gets ready to debut its next-generation iPhone.

Xiang Ligang, a telecom researcher in Beijing, said cutting carriers' subsidies to foreign-made handsets will not only reduce carriers' operating expense but also leave local players with more market demand.

"It will be a one-stone-two-birds move for the Chinese smartphone industry," he said.

The country's three telecom carriers－all State-owned enterprises－spend at least 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) each year subsidizing gadgets made by Apple and Samsung Electronics Co, according to Xiang.

Apple and Samsung are the only two overseas brands to have a sizable presence in China, the world's largest smartphone market in terms of shipments.

"High dependence on contract phone sales in the country made the two companies especially sensitive to carrier subsidy cuts," said Simon Jin, account manager at Gfk Retail and Technology China Co Ltd, an industry consultancy.

More than 43 percent of the iPhones sold in China are contract phones, and the proportion of contracted Samsung gadgets is near 50 percent, data from Gfk showed.

Chinese telecom carriers massively cut back on operating expenses this year in a bid to keep profit margins growing. The carriers shut down premium customer lounges at Chinese airports and eliminated nonessential customer services in July to restrain daily expenses.

The move was led by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the highest-level watchdog of SOEs.

China Mobile Ltd, the nation's largest telecom carrier by subscribers, said it plans to cut about 5 billion yuan in subsidies this year as a part of its 20 billion yuan operating expense reduction campaign. The company paid smartphone makers more than 26 billion yuan in subsidies in 2013.

"Giving subsidies to high-end phones made by Samsung and Apple does not make any sense because buyers in this category are not price-sensitive," Xiang said. "In other words, they will buy a 5,000 yuan smartphone even if there is no discount."

Apple is set to unveil its next-generation iPhone in early September. Carriers are predicted to spend less on iPhone marketing because of budget squeezes.

Jin from Gfk estimated that with carriers' budgets getting slimmer, most of the subsidies will go to middle- and low-end handsets to push sales.

"Carriers' budget cuts will affect high-end handsets and devices that support earlier-generation telecom technologies," Jin said. The carriers will continue to spend big on smartphones using fourth-generation networks, the fastest technology available in the country.

Although Chinese vendors such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, ZTE Corp and Lenovo Group Ltd also heavily rely on carrier channels for handset sales, their profits are less likely to be hurt by subsidy cuts because most of the shipments come from low-end 4G devices.

Liu Jun, senior vice-president of Lenovo, said rapid adoption of 4G devices will offset subsidy cuts in the long run.

Lenovo is the largest contract phone provider for China Mobile and China United Telecommunications Co Ltd (China Unicom) by shipment. About half of the 13 million smartphones made by Lenovo were sold by a carrier service in the second quarter.

Samsung and Apple will face stronger challenges from local vendors after their subsidies are cut, analysts warned.

Huawei, Lenovo and vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd have built a number of devices capable of luring high-end consumers, said James Yan, a senior analyst at IDC.

 

[cirr]

Now, 'magic mirror' that will make shopping easy for people

New Delhi, Aug 31ANI | 2 hours ago

A new "magic mirror" technology has been created that could help people in shopping by displaying a 3-D picture of their measurements, for different outfits and accessories.


According to China Daily, the system comprises a scanning room with 16 sensors, a computer creating a 3-D visual human model based on the scanning results and photographs of the human face, and a large display screen.

The system makes suggestions by matching users and garments by size and skin tone. Users can change the clothes on their visual figures displayed on the screen by hitting a button on the screen.

The product has been developed by Shanghai Yin Science and Technology Co, Belgian company DNA Interactif Fashion and US firm [TC]2.

Li Hao, a sales representative in the 3-D division at Shanghai Yin Science and Technology Co, said that model-building might take up to 15 minutes, depending on the Internet broadband width, with the server currently located in Belgium.

The system could be updated as data would be accumulated, such as ages, personal preferences and features specific to a region and that the company plans to relocate the server to China.

The Guangdong Association of Garment and Garment Article Industry are working with Hao's company to place the system in public venues, such as shopping centers, to collect data.

The system could also help garment makers to reduce their huge stocks by allowing them to showcase older designs no longer available in stores.

Now, 'magic mirror' that will make shopping easy for people - newkerala news #97286

 

[Edison Chen]

After 20 years at Western multinationals such as Coca-Cola Co. KO -0.19% and NikeInc., NKE +0.93% Wayne Chen was offered a senior management role at China VankeCo. 000002.SZ +1.51% , a Shenzhen-based residential-property developer that is the world's largest by revenue.

Mr. Chen, a Shanghai native who had moved to the U.S. about 15 years ago, said he didn't plan to leave Hay Group, a U.S. management-consulting firm where he was a Shanghai-based managing director.

But Vanke persisted, winning him over with talk of providing housing for China's aging population and establishing a global footprint in cities such as San Francisco, Singapore and New York. He started working for Vanke in February as chief human resources officer, one of about a dozen China-born, Western-educated executives to join the company during the past five years.

Mr. Chen is an example of what is called a "sea turtle" or "haigui" in Mandarin: a Chinese native who has returned home after stints in the West. Sea turtles, also a homophone for students returning from overseas studies, are highly prized by Chinese companies because they understand the nuances of Chinese culture and can draw upon Western practices to help their new bosses expand, especially overseas.

"Chinese companies are looking to skill up so they can go international in the next 10 years, and want to get these executives into their business," said Max Price, a Beijing-based partner at recruiters Antal International.

The number of sea turtles has been increasing over the past several years, though that growth has slowed recently. Last year, some 350,000 sea turtles returned to China, about a 30% rise over the prior year, compared with a 56% rise in 2009, according to China's Ministry of Education, which tracks the phenomenon.

The number of Chinese "sea gulls"—who fly back and forth between China and the West—is also growing, according to Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China & Globalization, who has studied the overseas Chinese population as well as the returnees.

Some executive returnees are attracted by salaries and benefits that can be as much as 50% higher than those offered at Western multinationals, compensation experts say. They are also finding an increasing number of Chinese companies have global ambitions and sophistication on par with Western peers, and often offer Chinese natives better positions with greater scope for decision-making.

Generally, sea turtles "are leaving for power'' after they have reached career ceilings at Western multinationals, said Benjamin Zhai, a managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc., a big U.S. search firm. One Chinese state-owned enterprise recruits sea turtles by saying, "Come join us because we don't have a glass ceiling," according to Alan Pang, head of talent in greater China for consulting firm Aon Hewitt.

Working for a Chinese company in China means that "you're making global decisions rather than having these decisions made for you" by Western headquarters, said Guo Xin, a sea turtle who joined Beijing-based recruiting firm Career International as chief executive in July 2011 after leaving U.S. consulting firm Mercer. "I don't prize a bigger title or more money, but job satisfaction."

Chinese companies are also gaining an edge as foreign multinationals such as technology power Microsoft Corp.MSFT -0.75% and car maker Audi AGNSU.XE +0.48% face investigations in China over their business practices, recruiters say.

To be sure, many sea turtles who have worked at Western companies for years experience culture shock when they join a Chinese company. "The success rate is less than 50%," said Kitty Zheng, a Beijing-based recruiter for Spencer Stuart, another major U.S. search firm.

These days, China's increasing problems with pollution are also a deterrent.

Freeman H. Shen, a Shanghai-based sea turtle who is a top executive at Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., a Chinese car maker, said some of his friends have good careers in China but "want to move out of China because of the air-quality thing."

These executives are moving to the U.S. with a Chinese company because they believe their children will have a better chance of getting into a good U.S. college if they complete high school there, said Mr. Shen, Geely Holding's group vice president for corporate development and mergers and acquisitions. In his own case, Mr. Shen's two children are ages 5 and 11 years old; they attend an international school in Shanghai with many American children.

After 16 years at Western multinationals, he intends to stick with Geely, which became his first Chinese employer in 2009, because "Geely has opportunities for me,'' said Mr. Shen, who has brought 10 high-level sea turtles to the company or its units during the past four years.

Those who stick it out often cite powerful personal motivations.

Joan Ren, a partner at Shanghai private-equity firm Ample Harvest Finance, said a chance to make a bigger impact at a local company influenced her 2012 decision to leave General Motors Co. in Shanghai, where she was a top manager of its Chevrolet division.

Li Sanqi, 60, was part of the first wave of Chinese to study in the West. Mr. Li said when he came back to China in 1985, he couldn't find many jobs that adequately used his engineering background.

He left again and launched a number of technology startups in the U.S. over the next two decades, returning in 2009 with telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co.

"I was impressed," said Mr. Li, who is now chief technology officer in Huawei's products and solutions division. "I know it would have been hard in the 1980s and 1990s for a Chinese company to become this big."

Mr. Chen, of Vanke, said the Chinese property developer is giving him many opportunities to make use of his Western job experience. He is revamping Vanke's executive hiring and promotion system to put less weight on certain aspects of the interview and more on past performance and online assessment tools. Such criteria were used successfully at his Western employers, according to Mr. Chen.

Chinese Firms Lure Native Executives Home - WSJ

 

[TaiShang]

Chinese Firms Lure Native Executives Home - WSJ

LOL. So much for "the great China exodus."

 

[Jlaw]

Now, 'magic mirror' that will make shopping easy for people

New Delhi, Aug 31ANI | 2 hours ago
A new "magic mirror" technology has been created that could help people in shopping by displaying a 3-D picture of their measurements, for different outfits and accessories.


According to China Daily, the system comprises a scanning room with 16 sensors, a computer creating a 3-D visual human model based on the scanning results and photographs of the human face, and a large display screen.

The system makes suggestions by matching users and garments by size and skin tone. Users can change the clothes on their visual figures displayed on the screen by hitting a button on the screen.

The product has been developed by Shanghai Yin Science and Technology Co, Belgian company DNA Interactif Fashion and US firm [TC]2.

Li Hao, a sales representative in the 3-D division at Shanghai Yin Science and Technology Co, said that model-building might take up to 15 minutes, depending on the Internet broadband width, with the server currently located in Belgium.

The system could be updated as data would be accumulated, such as ages, personal preferences and features specific to a region and that the company plans to relocate the server to China.

The Guangdong Association of Garment and Garment Article Industry are working with Hao's company to place the system in public venues, such as shopping centers, to collect data.

The system could also help garment makers to reduce their huge stocks by allowing them to showcase older designs no longer available in stores.

Now, 'magic mirror' that will make shopping easy for people - newkerala news #97286

This is important. No more bringing in so many clothes to try on.

 

[cirr]

China Focus: New energy a new magnet for Xinjiang investment

English.news.cn 2014-09-06

URUMQI, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with an abundance of flat, windy expanses and steady sunshine, is becoming a magnet for investors seeking to harness the region's clean energy resources.

This became apparent as investors inked several major energy deals at the fourth China-Eurasia Expo (CEE), a six-day international fair that concluded Saturday in Urumqi, Xinjiang' s regional capital.

On Tuesday, Huocheng County of Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture drew a 500-million-yuan photovoltaic project with Zhenfa New Energy, based in the eastern Jiangsu Province. The project is expected to be put in production this year.

"In addition to boosting local economy, the environmentally friendly project will also be beneficial for the treatment of desertification in the locality," said Mao Haijuan, president of Zhenfa.

Huocheng is a prime example of the investment scene emerging across Xinjiang. According to official statistics, a total of 23 industrial projects involving clean energy were clinched at the CEE this year, with a total contract value of about 37.7 billion yuan (6.1 billion U.S. dollars), topping the combined investments of traditional projects in coal and coal chemical industries.

In recent years, renewable energy is increasingly a new choice for investors over traditional resources amid China's worsening environmental woes, particularly in Xinjiang, where new energy such as wind and solar are largely available thanks to the region's geological conditions.

Xinjiang is home to nine major wind areas. Its wind energy accounts for 37 percent of the country's total, only second to north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Meanwhile, average daily hours of sunshine in Xinjiang is the second best around the country, allowing for photovoltaic projects to be steered through the wide areas of desert and sand.

Another underlying reason for the new energy fervor at the expo is governmental support, explained Yu Wuming, deputy director with the National Windpower Engineering Technology Research Center.

In 2012, the National Development and Reform Commission put forward a broad-stroke plan for Xinjiang encouraging power generation via renewable energy, which, according to Yu, laid a solid foundation for future projects.

The region's ultra-high voltage power transmission line, which transmits electricity from Xinjiang to the east of China, has also contributed to the growing number of investors in the region.

Xinjiang expects to reach a capacity of 13 million kw of wind power and 3 million kw of photoelectricity by the end of 2014, according to State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Company.

 

[TaiShang]

Australia and China to sign free trade agreement

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Sydney.

At a joint press conference, Bishop said Australia and China are on track to sign a free trade agreement by the end of this year. She said the Australia-China relationship was strong, mature and growing.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Australian Counterpart Julie Bishop attend a news conference before the second China-Australia diplomatic and strategic dialogue in Sydney, Australia, Sept. 7, 2014. (Xinhua/Jin Linpeng)

The wide ranging talks are the second Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue. They come ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Australia in November as part of the G20 leaders’ summit. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told journalists that the two countries should go beyond their differences and become sincere friends.

"For the China-Australia relationship to really take off like a bird, it needs two wings. One, mutual benefit, the other, mutual respect. Only with both can our relationship soar higher and go further. China and Australia can do just that - recognise our differences and go beyond our differences, try to understand each other and respect each other. And on that basis show greater mutual trust and greater support," Wang said.

 

[Beidou2020]

Reforms prompt a huge increase in registrations by new companies

There has been a surge in company registrations, after the government slashed red tape, an official of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce revealed.

Since the registration reforms were introduced on March 1, more than 1.76 million corporations registered, 68 percent more than the number of corporations set up during the same period last year, said Zhou Shiping, director of the department of enterprise registration under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce on Friday.

The key reforms introduced in March were Regulations on the Registration of Company Registered Capital, the revised Company Law and the State Council’s circular to reform the general system of registration.

"The reforms have significantly lowered the cost of entities entering the market, and shorten the time they have to wait before entering," he said.

According to the revised Company Law, stockholders of a corporation no longer have to submit the registered capital within two years after the corporation is set up, unless there are special requirements on their corporation.

The revised law has also canceled the minimum amount of registered capital required to set up corporations, again except for special requirements.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce has set up an electronic system recording credit and other information of enterprises around the country. The information, including annual reports, and any administrative penalties the industry and commerce authorities have imposed on them, will be available to the public.

"It helps guarantee the safety of commercial activity when access to the market is more open," said Zhou. "The system helps to improve the transparency of both the corporations and the government authorities, and improves the supervision on the market entities by the society."

The reform will further improve the environment for investment and business operations, and help create more jobs, Liu Yuting, deputy head of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

"It will especially offer a huge impetus to the development of small and medium-sized companies," he said.

Shi Tiantao, a professor of finance and law at Tsinghua University, told Xinhua that investors now have more options to suit their needs.

"Without a limit on the minimum amount of registered capital, investors can decide which kind of company they want to set up according to their own ability and the actual amount of capital they have."

 

[Beidou2020]

Company boom invigorates China market

A spurt of growth in new Chinese enterprises is the direct result of recent pro-business measures, an official said on Tuesday.

Zhang Mao, head of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said over 5.5 million new market entities, including private businesses and farming cooperatives, were registered from March to July.

Among them, about 1.6 million were commercial enterprises, up 64.5 percent from the same period of 2013, Zhang told a press conference. Nearly 95 percent of them are private companies.

"More than 10,000 enterprises were set up each day in the past five months," he said.

Changes to business registration went into place on March 1, lifting restrictions on minimum registered capital, payment deadlines, down payment ratio and cash ratio of registered capital. Theoretically, a business can be started with just one yuan.

"The reform has helped entrepreneurs and increased the momentum of economic development," Zhang said.

Along with a lower market threshold, new disclosure rules for corporate information will take effect on October 1 to prevent unqualified companies from flooding the market. Companies will be obliged to release public annual reports on their finances and activities under the supervision of local industrial and commercial authorities.

"Easy access accompanied by strict regulation will help create a fair market for competition," said Zhang.