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Toyota to recall over 300,000 vehicles over faulty airbag
Source:Xinhua Published: 2015-5-13 21:25:43

Toyota will recall 302,705 vehicles over exploding airbags from June 12, said a statement released by China's quality supervisor on Wednesday.

The affected models include Vios and Corrola EX, manufactured between Jan. 1, 2004 and March 31, 2007, said the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The passenger seat airbags may explode and send shrapnel flying at drivers and passengers, said the statement.

The automaker will repair the faulty components free of charge.


China April retail sales up 10 pct
Source:Xinhua Published: 2015-5-13 16:23:12

China's retail sales grew 10 percent year on year to 2.24 trillion yuan ($366 billion) in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.

The growth rate was down from the 10.2 percent posted in March.

In the first four months, retail sales grew 10.4 percent. Online sales surged 40.3 percent during the same period.

Growth in rural areas outpaced that in cities.

Sales in rural areas rose 11.4 percent in April and 11.5 percent in the January-April period, in contrast to the 9.8 percent and 10.2 percent growth seen in urban areas.

April's marginal drop was mainly caused by soft demand for home products, according to NBS statistician Lin Tao.

Growth in sales of home appliances, furniture and decor slowed down by 6.7 percentage points, 3.9 percentage points and 2.5 percentage points respectively in April from the previous month, he said.

Weakness in the sector contributed to deceleration of around 0.5 percentage points in retail sales in general, he added.


India doesn't even have their own manufacturers let alone core technology :lol:

the big "Jealousy" takes vicious turn on them against anything that China is achieving
 
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Deliveries of SUVs expand 49% in China
By Ji Xiang | May 12, 2015, Tuesday

CHINA’S passenger car sales grew nearly 8 percent in the first four months from a year ago, with deliveries of SUVs soaring almost 49 percent, according to latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers yesterday.

From January to April, passenger vehicle sales rose 7.7 percent from a year earlier to 6.97 million units. Total vehicle sales, including trucks and buses, added 2.77 percent to 8.14 million units in the same period, CAAM said yesterday.

Sales of SUVs in the January-April period jumped 48.73 percent year on year to 1.75 million vehicles, while MPV sales surged 20.02 percent year on year to 749,800 vehicles during the period.

Li Chunrong, general manager of Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Co, said at a CAAM monthly data release media conference that Chinese automakers are keen on making SUV-like vehicles as CAAM deputy secretary Shi Jianhua also attributed the sales growth of passenger vehicles to SUVs.

Meanwhile, China’s auto sales growth decelerated as April deliveries in the world’s biggest auto market shed 0.49 percent year on year to 1.99 million vehicles, according to CAAM.

China's foreign reserves show a record decline in Q1
China.org.cn, May 13, 2015
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Appreciate the yuan depreciation [By Yang Yongliang/China.org.cn]



Foreign exchange reserves held by China fell by a record $79.5 billion in the first quarter of the year from the last quarter in 2014.

Official balance of payments data released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Tuesday showed that the decline was more than the $29.3 billion fall in the fourth quarter of last year. Analysts and experts said this indicates a larger-than-expected capital outflow.

At the end of last year, China's total foreign exchange reserves were $3.84 trillion, compared with $3.82 trillion in 2013, and remained the world's largest.

It is the first time the SAFE has adjusted the calculation process for balance of payments in line with the International Monetary Fund standards.

Adopting global accounting norms will support the move to include the yuan in the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket, experts said. The IMF is expected to make a decision before the end of this year.

In the first three months, the country's current account surplus increased to $78.9 billion, up from $67 billion in the fourth quarter in 2014. Deficit of the financial and capital accounts also expanded to $78.9 billion from $30.5 billion, according to a statement posted on the SAFE's website.

"Surplus in the current account and volatility of financial and capital accounts will remain in 2015 as long as there is no significant change in Chinese economic fundamentals or geopolitical circumstances," Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, or the central bank, and head of the SAFE, wrote in the annual report for 2014, which was released on Monday.

Volatility of cross-border capital flows has increased since the second half of last year, although it finally achieved a net inflow of $38.2 billion, the SAFE reported.

Guo Tianyong, head of the Research Center of the Chinese Banking Industry at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said the large drop in foreign exchange reserves will have little effect as the overall total remains huge.

"But it will add pressure on the central bank's monetary policy," he said. "It means the People's Bank of China may increase money supply in other ways to offset the decrease to ensure market liquidity."

An effective way, Guo pointed out, was to further reduce the cash amount held by financial institutions or the reserve requirement ratio. Another RRR cut may be as soon as later this month, he said.

Since early February, the central bank has cut the RRR by 150 basis points, increasing liquidity by more than 1.8 trillion yuan ($289.9 billion).

Even so, media reports have speculated that the foreign exchange regulator might have sold some of the reserves to support a relatively strong yuan, which has gained 0.6 percent in the past three months.

But that has not been officially confirmed.
 
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China's April industrial output growth speeds up

English.news.cn 2015-05-13 15:41:26

BEIJING, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Growth of China's industrial output picked up in April after hitting a six-year low in March, pointing to tentative signs of improvement for the world's second largest economy amid downward pressures.

The industrial output grew 5.9 percent year on year in April, up from 5.6-percent growth in March, the lowest monthly level since December of 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Wednesday.

Industrial output, officially called industrial value added, is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises that have an annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (3.22 million U.S. dollars).

The start of the year saw other lackluster economic indicators, indicating a bumpy ride ahead for the world's second largest economy.

China's economic growth slowed to 7 percent in the first quarter this year, down from 7.3 percent in the previous quarter.

After more than a decade of double-digit growth, annual industrial growth slowed to 9.7 percent in 2013, and then to 8.3 percent last year.

Manufacturing output rose 6.5 percent, while the mining industry saw output grow 2.8 percent. Growth for electricity, heating, gas and water was 2.0 percent.

Industrial output of state-owned and state-controlled enterprises saw 1.9 percent growth year on year, while joint stock companies expanded by 7.4 percent. Industrial output of enterprises funded by overseas investors expanded by 2.9 percent.

All these figures are down from a year ago.

Despite the slowdown, industrial structure continued to improve, NBS statistician Jiang Yuan said, noting innovation had accelerated and the expansion of emerging industries was much faster.

The industrial value added of the high-tech sector and equipment manufacturing jumped by 10.5 percent, outpacing overall growth by 4.6 percentage points, Jiang said.

Industrial output of emerging sectors such as telecom equipment, electronic devices and urban rail transportation equipment manufacturing surged by 19.4 percent, 16.4 percent and 16.3 percent respectively.

Industrial output of high-end durable goods such as smart phones and smart TVs jumped 10.5 percent and 44.6 percent respectively.
 
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China ranks as hub for LCD making
Shanghai Daily, May 14, 2015

China has become a global hub of LCD display manufacturing as domestic firms will start mass production of liquid crystal panels and overseas giants set up facilities in the country, a research firm said yesterday.

The production of large-size LCD panels in China is estimated to reach a capacity of 232.3 million square meters this year, a 7.3 percent increase over 2014, according to Taiwan-based TrendForce.

"Backed by the huge internal demand, China-based TV brand vendors have secured their dominance over the domestic market and setting their sights abroad," said Boyce Fan, senior research manager for TrendForce.

Major Chinese panel manufacturers BOE Technology Group, China Star Optoelectronics Technology and Nanjing CEC-Panda LCD Technology Co have begun mass production in their latest plants at the start of second quarter.
 
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Alibaba's new CEO plans to overtake Walmart

2015-05-14

Alibaba Group Holding is poised to overtake Walmart later this year as the world's biggest retail platform, said Daniel Zhang Yong, chief executive officer of the e-commerce behemoth, reported TMTPost.

The goal includes achieving more than $1 trillion gross merchandise value (GMV) in five years, while developing more infrastructural platforms to empower businesses in the future, said the new CEO in an internal meeting on Wednesday, three days after he replaced Jonathan Lu.

The change of leadership was announced earlier this month as Alibaba released its better-than-expected first-quarter results. Revenue of the Internet giant surged 45 percent in the three months through March.

It's critical to achieve the sales target while retaining a thriving ecosystem, said Zhang, adding that mechanism should be improved to tackle issues such as counterfeits and bogus transactions among Taobao vendors who wished to boast sales volume to gain prominence.

"Behind the $1 trillion target, the other is our new businesses apart from ecommerce, where we need more resource allocation, focus and new breakthroughs," said the 43-year-old CEO, according to the news.

Cloud computing is a first, said Zhang, adding that cloud computing will serve as the engine in the new economic era, empowering all businesses to better serve consumers and improve productivity.

Zhang joined Alibaba as chief financial officer of Taobao Marketplace in 2007 and acted as COO since 2013.
 
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Operation Fox Hunt secures return of 150 economic fugitives from 32 countries
By Zhang Yi (China Daily) 09:01, May 15, 2015

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Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Chinese police departments have brought back 150 economic fugitives from 32 countriessince the beginning of the year and intensified their efforts to curb economic crimes.

Eight of the suspects had been on the run for more than 10 years, and 44 of them wereinvolved in cases relating to tens of millions of yuan.

Gao Feng, the political commissar of the economic crimes bureau at the Public SecurityMinistry, said the result is part of the campaign dubbed Operation Fox Hunt 2015 thatsought to hunt down suspects who absconded to foreign countries with their ill-gottengains.

Gao said China will continue to work with other countries to repatriate economic crimesuspects and assist the operation of Sky Net launched by China's top anti-graft authority.

The ministry announced an "unprecedented" haul of 680 suspects, who absconded to 69countries and regions, from July to December in Operation Fox Hunt 2014, 4.5 times thetotal number in 2013. Among them were 117 suspects who had been at large for more thana decade and 390 people who turned themselves in.

The ministry also stressed their efforts in cracking down on domestic economic crime,which has risen sharply in recent years and caused enormous economic loss to people andvarious entities.

A total number of 100,000 economic crime cases involving nearly 192 billion yuan ($31billion) have been dealt with, mainly illegally fundraising from the public, credit cardfraud, producing fake commodities and currency in the Chinese mainland, Gao said.

Illegally soliciting money from the public is the toughest economic crime for the police todeal with because the culprits usually solicit money under the guise of attractiveinvestments, he said, adding that these crimes frequently occur in sectors such asinvestment consultation, investment guarantees and online loans.

Cases of deliberate overdrafts on credit cards increased by more than 50 percent in someprovinces last year, according to the ministry. Counterfeit credit cards rings were found tobe producing fake cards with upgraded technology, making it hard for banks to detect.
 
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Chinese consumer brands keep position
Shanghai Daily, May 15, 2015

Top Chinese consumer brands secured their position by expanding into more geographical locations and offering new products, according to a latest study.

Master Kong continued to be the most frequently chosen Chinese consumer brand in China, followed by Yili and Mengniu. They were chosen by Chinese shoppers more than one billion times over the last year, according to consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel’s annual Brand Footprint report.

Meanwhile Shuanghui, Bright Food, Haday have improved their rankings in the top 10.

The rankings were calculated based on the number of households purchasing the products and their buying frequency. The study covered 412,000 households in 35 countries and 40,000 urban households in China.

Danone’s Mizone, laundry detergent producer Bluemoon, dairy firm Junlebao, frozen food brand Sanquan and sanitary pad brand Space 7 were the five fastest risers in China.

Although Coca-Cola is the most chosen brand globally and is No. 1 in eight countries, it ranks 28th in China.

Top brands in each country are invariably local, integral to a country’s culture and symbols of local habits and pride. Local brands took top position in more than three quarters of the 35 countries that were tracked.
 
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Hi-tech industries now major driving force for China's industrial growth
Xinhua Finance 2015-05-14 16:58 BEIJING

High technology industries and some emerging sectors are expanding rapidly in China and have become an important driving force behind the growth of the country's industrial production, said Jiang Yuan, an official of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Jiang made the remarks in a statement published on NBS's website after a series of major economic data for April were released on Wednesday. According to the statistician, industrial output of China's high-tech and equipment manufacturing sectors rose by 10.5 percent and 6.2 percent respectively on a yearly basis in April, outpacing overall industrial output growth by 4.6 percentage points and 0.3 percentage point.

More specifically, industrial output of telecommunication equipment manufacturing, electronic devices manufacturing, urban rail equipment manufacturing, universal machine parts manufacturing, synthetic fibers production, synthetic materials production, and production of raw materials used for chemical medicines posed a growth rate of 19.4 percent, 16.4 percent, 16.3 percent, 10.5 percent, 16.2 percent, 14.7 percent, and 12.9 percent respectively. Data from NBS showed Wednesday that China's industrial output grew 5.9 percent from a year earlier in April. Industrial output, officially called industrial value added, is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises that have an annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (3.22 million U.S. dollars).
 
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Chinese consumer brands keep position
Shanghai Daily, May 15, 2015

Top Chinese consumer brands secured their position by expanding into more geographical locations and offering new products, according to a latest study.

Master Kong continued to be the most frequently chosen Chinese consumer brand in China, followed by Yili and Mengniu. They were chosen by Chinese shoppers more than one billion times over the last year, according to consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel’s annual Brand Footprint report.

Meanwhile Shuanghui, Bright Food, Haday have improved their rankings in the top 10.

The rankings were calculated based on the number of households purchasing the products and their buying frequency. The study covered 412,000 households in 35 countries and 40,000 urban households in China.

Danone’s Mizone, laundry detergent producer Bluemoon, dairy firm Junlebao, frozen food brand Sanquan and sanitary pad brand Space 7 were the five fastest risers in China.

Although Coca-Cola is the most chosen brand globally and is No. 1 in eight countries, it ranks 28th in China.

Top brands in each country are invariably local, integral to a country’s culture and symbols of local habits and pride. Local brands took top position in more than three quarters of the 35 countries that were tracked.
Not sure why coca cola is not banned. You can remove rust on chrome with Coca-Cola. How can that be safe for humans?
 
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Chinese bus maker to open plant in Venezuela
Source:Xinhua Published: 2015-5-18 10:24:39

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that Chinese bus maker Yutong will open a plant in the South American country in October.

"This will be the most modern bus manufacturing plant in Latin America and the Caribbean. Venezuela will produce its own buses and we are going to export them," Maduro said in Miranda state on Saturday.

Land Transportation Minister Haiman El Troudi said the factory will be built in the western state of Yaracuy and will have an assembly capacity of 3,500 buses a year.

The Yutong plant is part of Venezuela's national transportation policy.

At least 90 Venezuelan cities have adopted the BusCaucagua surface transportation system, which is operated with Yutong buses, Maduro told a launch ceremony of the system in Miranda state.

So far there are 235 routes with 2,414 Yutong buses that benefit 2 million people every day, he said.

YuTong at a glance:

pic2.jpg
 
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Chinese businesses grounded in technology
By Jenny Matsui - Shanghai Daily, May 18, 2015
When it comes to technology, Chinese brands cannot be ignored. If any doubts remain about the viability of brands from the Middle Kingdom, Alibaba's world record IPO last year erased them all.

But Alibaba is not even the most valuable Chinese brand. According to the recent BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands report from Millward Brown and WPP, that distinction actually belongs to Tencent, the country's leading Internet portal. Alibaba, the e-commerce giant, comes in at No. 2, with search provider Baidu ranked fifth. That means three of the five most valuable Chinese brands operate businesses grounded in technology.

No brand can be successful without understanding what really motivates consumers. Harking back to Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen, consumers are motivated only by the things that they need or want to do and they measure the value of any potential solution primarily by its ability to deliver against their "jobs-to-be-done." Choosing the solution that best accomplishes these jobs is what matters most.

It goes without saying that China's so-called BAT — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — brands have excelled in accomplishing consumers' tech-related "jobs-to-be-done" with their flagship offers. With World of Convergence, our comprehensive investigation into these jobs and the ability of current solutions to deliver against them, TNS has pinpointed the greatest strengths of the BAT brands from the consumers' point of view. Even more importantly, we have identified the gaps that still remain. These tensions represent opportunity for the BAT brands to improve or for other tech players to exploit and disrupt the status quo.

Tencent
At the core of Tencent's business is the popular messaging platform WeChat, which also provides a gateway to other Tencent services for shopping, gaming, payments and more. According to World of Convergence, Chinese consumers consider WeChat most aligned with their need for a "portable life tool" — technology to help them keep in touch with others and stay up-to-date with what's going on no matter where they may be. Consumers love that WeChat allows them to connect more personally and build closer bonds with others around the world.

But not all is ideal. Consumers think the WeChat experience could be more streamlined, and they wish it didn't leave them at the mercy of the connectivity of the device they are using it on, which may not be all that reliable on the go. These tensions represent an opportunity for a better solution to move to the forefront in serving consumers' needs for a portable life tool — one that gets things done with fewer steps and can be used on the go without risk of a dropped connection.

Alibaba
When it comes to Alibaba, the Taobao marketplace and the related payment function Alipay, are the primary consumer platforms. Taobao/Alipay is best aligned with consumers' need for a "safe basic diversion," a digital experience that's fun and easy enough to use every day, but with enough customer support and security to be worry-free.

Taobao/Alipay indeed stands out for its high level of security in conducting financial transactions online, while consumers also appreciate its clarity on costs and 24/7 customer service. At the same time, however, they find Taobao/Alipay too transactional, not as fun or engaging as they wish. They also feel bogged down at times by delays from streaming or buffering. A solution better equipped to deliver these ideal requirements has the opportunity to get ahead in serving consumers' need for a safe basic diversion.

Baidu
Search is at the heart of the Baidu proposition, and consumers therefore consider it most aligned with their need for a "secure efficient assistant," technology that offers a versatile, efficient way to accomplish what they need to do. They laud Baidu for always finding the best answers they are looking for and for helping them gain immediate access to the content they need.

However, security is a tension for consumers. They wish Baidu would do more to protect their personal information, allowing them to hide more private content and limit outside access to their searches. Opportunity therefore remains for a solution that raises the bar on security in serving consumers' need for a secure efficient assistant.

World of Convergence has made it clear that the BAT brands offer many distinct advantages to consumers, but they are not without vulnerabilities and there is still plenty of room for other technology companies to differentiate their offers and build more innovative solutions designed to mitigate the tensions that still exist between the jobs consumers want to accomplish and the ability to get the help they seek. Companies that successfully tap into those tensions may be poised to become the next big up-and-comers in China's technology scene.

Jenny Matsui is the associate director for Innovation and Product Development of Matrix Centre of Excellence, TNS Global.
 
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China-backed AIIB founding members to meet in Singapore this week
China-backed AIIB founding members to meet in Singapore this week - Business Insider

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Founding members of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will hold a three-day meeting in Singapore this week to discuss operational policies for the establishment of the institution.

The gathering, called the 5th chief negotiators' meeting, will also discuss the draft articles of agreement for the AIIB in Singapore from Wednesday to Friday, a Singapore Ministry of Finance statement said on Tuesday.

The meeting will be co-chaired by Shi Yaobin, vice minister of China's Ministry of Finance, and Yee Ping Yi, deputy secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Finance.

A total of 57 countries have joined AIIB as its founding members, China has said, throwing together countries as diverse as Iran, Israel, Britain and Laos.

Among the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries, the United States, Japan and Canada remain absentees.

Washington had cautioned nations about joining the bank, seen as a rival to the U.S.-dominated World Bank, citing what it called a lack of transparency, doubts about lending and environmental safeguards, and concerns over Beijing's influence.

Beijing says it will not hold veto power inside the AIIB, unlike the World Bank where Washington has a limited veto.

Founder members will initially pay up to one-fifth of the AIIB'S $50 billion authorised capital, which will eventually be raised to $100 billion.
 
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China levies measures on Japanese, U.S. fiber preforms
(Xinhua) 08:15, May 19, 2015

BEIJING, May 18 -- The Chinese Ministry of Commerce made a preliminary ruling on Monday that Japanese and U.S. companies are dumping optical fiber preforms and will impose provisional anti-dumping measures.

A probe, launched on March 19 in 2014, found that their dumping activities were damaging the interests of Chinese optical fiber producers, and that there was a causal link between the dumping and the damage caused.

The ministry told domestic importers of the products to pay cash deposits to customs. The deposit rate ranges from 7.8 percent to 39 percent of the value of their imports.

Optical fiber preform is a piece of glass used to make optical fiber.

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China seeks more balanced growth by applying GEP index

(People's Daily Online) 13:35, May 18, 2015

FOREIGN201505181339000468240924322.jpg

Yantian District of Shenzhen City (File photo)

Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP), is a concept that complements and contrasts with GDP.It puts a price on the natural environment and tells people the value of the products and services that nature offers.

Urban GEP is a creation of Yantian district in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. Byputting a price on the natural system it adds another dimension to the value of the livingsystem and indicates the benefits that derive to urban residents by improving their livingenvironment.

In 2015, Yantian District began to implement a working mechanism of dual accounting,dual operating and dual promoting of both GDP and Urban GEP. Every year, Yantian willcalculate and issue the GDP and GEP figures of the district. The target is to achieve GDPgrowth without diminishing GEP. In the next step, Urban GEP will be included in thegovernment performance appraisal system and the assessment system for ecologicaldevelopment.

In a paper titled “Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Ecological Civilization”issued by central government, the concept of greenification is proposed for the first time. Itis ranked alongside new industrialization, urbanization, informatization, and agriculturalmodernization. It is key to working out how to establish a set of accountable, quantifiable,comparable and assessable indicators for ecological development.

In the form of monetary value, GEP appraises the functions of the invaluable ecologicalsystem, according to Sun Fangfang, a doctor at Research Academy of EnvironmentalSciences of Shenzhen City.

Urban GEP, takes into account indicators of the living environment including city planning,urban administration, city development and the economic value of the maintenance andimprovement of the living environment. The accounting system includes two primaryindicators, 11 secondary indicators and 28 tertiary indicators. The sum of these numbersprocessed through certain formulas is Urban GEP, says the director of environmentalprotection and water bureau of Yantian district.

The Urban GEP of Yantian District in 2013 was 101.5 billion, 2.5 times the GDP of theyear. In 2014, the figure rose to 107 billion yuan. Where did the change come from? Bychanging the power source of gantry cranes and cargo trailers from oil to electricity and gasat Yantian Port, 14 tons of air pollutant and 75,000 tons of carbon emissions wereeliminated. By developing a bicycling project, 150 tons of air pollutants and 49,000 tons ofcarbon emissions were avoided. In total, due to these measures, 150 million yuan ofecological value was created.

On Aril 27 a forum was held in Yantian District which attracted officials and scholars fromministries, international organizations and research institutions. The subject of the forumwas this pioneering idea of Urban GEP.

The indexing system has its own problems. Affected by the complexity and the regionalfactors of the ecosystem, the system faces three major challenges: accuracy of monetaryevaluation, accuracy of metrics, and forming a consensus on specifics.

However, in the forum an important consensus was reached: although more time might berequired to solve these technical problems, the principle is right.

No matter how Urban GEP is defined, the most important thing is that Yantian’s ecologicalprotection is completely in conformity with the concept of greenification proposed bycentral government. Yantian District must continue to explore the issue, according toMengwei, director of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences andAcademician of Chinese Academy of Engineering.
 
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