China Economy Forum

[Brotherhood]

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway ready to open - People's Daily Online June 23, 2011

CRH 380 trains stop at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, east China, June 23, 2011. VIP waiting zone and automatic check-in machines of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway were ready at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Thursday. The high speed railway line will be opened formally on July 1. (Xinhua)

Photo taken on June 23, 2011 shows the VIP waiting zone of Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, east China. VIP waiting zone and automatic check-in machines of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway were ready at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Thursday. The high speed railway line will be opened formally on July 1. (Xinhua)

Photo taken on June 23, 2011 shows the enquiry center at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, east China. VIP waiting zone and automatic check-in machines of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway were ready at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Thursday. The high speed railway line will be opened formally on July 1. (Xinhua)

Photo taken on June 23, 2011 shows the VIP waiting zone of Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, east China. VIP waiting zone and automatic check-in machines of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway were ready at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Thursday. The high speed railway line will be opened formally on July 1. (Xinhua)

Photo taken on June 23, 2011 shows the VIP waiting zone of Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai, east China. VIP waiting zone and automatic check-in machines of the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway were ready at Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station on Thursday. The high speed railway line will be opened formally on July 1. (Xinhua)

 

[Brotherhood]

High-speed technology eyes US patents - People's Daily Online June 23, 2011

CSR Corporation Limited, one of China's two manufacturers of high-speed trains, is mulling over whether to apply for patents for its CRH380A train in the United States, a senior company technician said.

Ma Yunshuang, deputy general manager and technology director of CSR Qingdao Sifang Co Ltd, which developed the CRH380A train, said that the company has hired US lawyers to assess its intellectual property rights for the train and compare them to existing patents in the US.

"The result of their initial assessment came out good, which means China can apply for patents (for the train) in the US. We are now planning on this," he told China Daily, without giving more details.

However, whether the patents will be granted is not under the company's control, he added.

If China is granted patents for the CRH380A train in the US, it will help CSR take part in US high-speed railway projects, industry insiders have said.

Ma said the train's technologies are rooted in Japanese technologies, but the CRH380A train is no longer the train imported from Japan years ago and is safe to use on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which will soon open.

Previous media reports said Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries transferred the technologies of a 200-km/h train to China in 2004. In the same year, China also bought technologies of 200-250 km/h trains from Bombardier and France's Alston.

CSR Qingdao Sifang Co Ltd partnered with Kawasaki Heavy Industries and produced the 200 km/h trains named CRH2 in China.

In the following year, China inked a deal with Siemens from Germany, which agreed to transfer technologies of a 300-km/h train and formed a partnership with Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co Ltd under China CNR Corporation Limited, the other major manufacturer.

There have long been voices, including Zhou Yimin, the railway ministry's former deputy chief engineer and science and technology department director, doubting the reliability of the CRH380A model.

Zhou was quoted by the 21st Century Business Herald as saying on Tuesday that "the foreign companies wrote clearly in the contracts that the top speed for operation should be 300 km/h, not 350 km/h".

He said although the manufacturing capabilities of the rail industry have improved a lot with the introduction of overseas prototypes in recent years, China's research and development remain peripheral.

A railways ministry spokesman dismissed the comments on Wednesday, saying Zhou retired in 1998, too early to know the current situation.

Ma agreed that the trains imported in 2004 are not suitable to run at 350 km/h or 300 km/h.

"But the current trains are not the imported ones," he said.

The CRH380A train, for instance, has made innovations on at least three key parts - bogie, train head and train hull.

A bogie, similar to an automotive chassis, is a key part of high-speed trains. Every bullet train carriage has two bogies at the bottom. Its function is to make a running train reliable and able to carry a certain load with less shaking.

"If you compare a train to a running man, bogies function to make sure the runner doesn't fall, doesn't suffer muscle strains and doesn't feel dizzy," he said.

Changes to the bogie prototype are necessary because China's railways are different from Japan's.

For example, China's trains run on ballastless tracks, but in Japan, trains run on ballast tracks. China's railway tunnels have a cross section of 100 square meters, but in Japan the railway tunnels have a cross section of 64 square meters.

These differences have an impact on train operations, and China could not just use the imported train as it was, he said.

In addition, CSR later started to develop 300 km/h trains and 380 km/h trains, but the bogie technology Japan transferred to China is for 200-250 km/h trains and cannot sustain the higher speed.

Ma's team made adjustments to the bogie prototype to make trains able to run smoothly at 380 km/h, based on data gained from months of experiments on the high-speed railways.

"If you compare the bogie prototype imported from Japan with the current bogie used on the CRH380A, you will find they are different," he said.

"Our technologies may originate from foreign countries, but it doesn't mean that what we have now all belongs to them. We have added our knowledge gained from experiments to the train and made designs to satisfy our needs, so the new train is not theirs anymore."

In addition to bogies, the company also redesigned the train head so that air resistance of a CRH380A train is 5 percent less than for a CRH2.

Meanwhile, after more than one year of work accompanied by failures, China mastered the technology of manufacturing large-section materials for building a light but sturdy train hull, which Japan refused to transfer but wanted to supply for bigger profits.

Ma said these efforts embody the strategy of initial assimilation followed by innovation.

"A simple technology import is using the technology as it is, but we did much more than that," he said.

"After the technology transfer was made, we did analysis and experiments on every part, trying to understand its design concept and the form of the technology used and figure out what we should do to make it work as we want."

According to Ma's estimation, more than 100 million yuan ($15 million) has been poured into experiments and innovations of new high-speed train models, an amount 10 times what the company spent on the development of a train model in the past.

He Huawu, chief engineer with the Ministry of Railways, told China Daily that China's high-speed rail has acquired nearly 2,000 patents at home.

Ma admitted that some parts of the new train, such as bearings, are made by Japan because of the country's limited industrial capability.

But all the parts bought from foreign countries are tailor-made according to CSR's technical requirements, which makes a difference, he said.

In CSR's development of 300-350 km/h trains and later 380 km/h trains, the Japanese side cooperated with CSR as a supplier, he said.

 

[HKSDU]

i swear, apple is becoming a cult now. an evil cult at that.

i like lenovo for their quality but their laptop is just too expensive. prefer cheap HPs and Gateways.

I rather buy Lenovo despite price they are solid as a rock. I dropped the thing so many times, and only received cosmetic scratches. Mate dropped his HP and keyboard keys fall out, and the harddrive got dislodged.

 

[dingyibvs]

I rather buy Lenovo despite price they are solid as a rock. I dropped the thing so many times, and only received cosmetic scratches. Mate dropped his HP and keyboard keys fall out, and the harddrive got dislodged.

I second that, you get what you pay for with HP. My last two laptops were HP's due to price, but neither could actually be used on the lap because it'll overheat. In fact, one of them would overheat when running something intensive(like a game, or even watching full-screen youtube videos!) no matter what I do, so it could only do simple stuff like surfing the net.

 

[Brotherhood]

Beijing aspires to be world-class 'wireless city' - People's Daily Online June 23, 2011

The Beijing Municipal Government and China Mobile recently signed a cooperation agreement, aiming to build Beijing into a "wireless city" that represents the highest level in China and the world.

The two parties jointly released "residents' homepage," a platform for the construction of a wireless city based on mobile communication technology and providing convenience for Beijing residents.

With a mobile phone that can access the Internet, Beijing residents will be able to check real-time traffic status, make appointments with doctors and pay public utilities bills.

Lu Wei, vice-mayor of Beijing, noted that the wireless city construction represents the trend of the future development of cities and is a symbol of a city's level of development.

The construction of a wireless city in Beijing is based on large-scale WLAN coverage with the promotion of smart urban management projects, including smart transport, digital community, precision agriculture, smart tourism, energy-conservation management and security monitoring.

By Qi Shuwen, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

Beijing has competitive edge in science, technology - People's Daily Online June 23, 2011

The latest data released by the Chinese Academy of Social Science shows Beijing is the most competitive Chinese city in terms of science and technology.

Beijing has half of the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Social Science and the Chinese Academy of Engineering and 360,000 scientists and engineers. It is also home to 86 key laboratories at the state level and 32 national engineering laboratories. Its 72 projects won China's top prizes for natural sciences and technological advancement in 2010, making it the biggest winner among the Chinese cities.

The technology market contributed 9 percent to the capital's GDP in 2010, 4.3 percent higher than 2005, Zhu Shilong, vice director of Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, said.
In 2010, Beijing had spent 75.8 billion yuan on research and development and realized added value amounting to 302 billion yuan in high-tech industry, scientific service and information industry.

The city has already formulated and implemented plans to restructure and revitalize key industries, including electronics, automobile, biomedicine and new energy.

By Zhang Hongyu, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

China to build new hydroelectric power plants - People's Daily Online June 23, 2011

The Three Gorges Power Plant in Yichang, Hubei province. China will increase the share of non-fossil fuels to 20 percent of national energy consumption by 2030 and to one-third by 2050. (Photo / China Daily)


China will invest 400 billion yuan ($62 billion) in the construction of four hydroelectric dams, to help the government boost the share of non-fossil fuels in national energy consumption.

The country will increase the share of non-fossil sources to 20 percent of national energy consumption by 2030 and to one-third by 2050, said Han Wenke, director of the Energy Research Center at the National Development and Reform Commission on Wednesday.

"There is no doubt that the country is able to increase non-fossil sources to 15 percent of the energy mix by 2020," he said.

China Three Gorges Corp will be in charge of the four hydroelectric dams, named Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba, Wudongde, and Baihetan, on the Jinsha River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world.

Part of the investment will be provided by equity trading, said Li Jing, deputy director of the company's planning and development department.

He declined to disclose further details of the financing plan.

The total installed capacity of the four dams will be 43 million kilowatts (kW), and is expected to be double that of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest power station in terms of installed or production capacity, according to the company.

The four hydroelectric stations will be able to supply 190 billion kilowatt hours annually when the project is completed.

The production efficiency and environmental and geological impact of the Three Gorges Dam have been the focus of intense discussion recently. Some experts said the plant has severely polluted the local environment.

However, industry insiders argued that it is necessary for the country to continue the development of hydroelectric stations.

"To increase water-power generation is still the priority for the power industry," said Ouyang Changyu, deputy secretary-general of the China Electric Council. "As long as the government can balance the contradiction between the construction of hydropower stations and the environment, it can develop hydropower production at a reasonable pace."

"It is impossible for the country to increase the non-fossil energy share to 15 percent in the energy mix by the end of 2020 if it slows the construction speed of hydroelectric stations," said Li. "In fact, the unit cost of hydroelectricity is lower than coal-fired electricity if we add the environmental cost into the calculation."

According to the company, the Xiangjiaba and Xiluodu hydropower stations are likely to be operational within the next two years. The Xiangjiaba hydropower station is scheduled to start running in 2012 with an installed capacity of 6.4 million kW, followed by the Xiluodu station in 2013 with 13.68 million kW of installed capacity.

Source: China Daily

 

[kawaraj]

China's Huawei storms into tablet PC market - People's Daily Online June 21, 2011

The Huawei Technologies, headquartered in China's southern Shenzhen city, unveiled a 7-inch Android-based tablet computer in Singapore yesterday, throwing itself into a market competition with Apple and Samsung.

The Chinese top technology company said it is developing a larger 10-inch tablet PC, too.

And, Victor Xu, the chief market officer of Huawei Device, said that his company plans to be among the top global five handset producers within three years, a market that is now dominated by Nokia, Apple and Samsung.


"We are also developing a 10-inch tablet...We hope to launch it this year," Xu told Reuters in an interview. However, he declined to reveal the price of the newly introduced 7-inch tablet, the MediaPad.

The company, the world's second-biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment behind Ericsson, has not specified any sales target for the MediaPad which will be put on sale in the third quarter this year.

It said the MediaPad will run on the Android operating system from Google Inc and use a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor from Qualcomm. It will also come with pre-installed applications such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a Reuter report on Monday.

The firm had said earlier it expects revenue to reach the $100 billion mark in a decade, driven by sales of telecom devices and mobile smart-phones.

how do you guys like Lenovo tablet computer, my friends are talking about that recently.

 

[rcrmj]

I rather buy Lenovo despite price they are solid as a rock. I dropped the thing so many times, and only received cosmetic scratches. Mate dropped his HP and keyboard keys fall out, and the harddrive got dislodged.

same thing happened to my 'made in Ireland' (strangly enough, 90% of the components were made in China) DELL laptop, a glass cup dropped on it, and the harddrive dislodged```but luckly DELL has very good customer services, after 5 working days I got a new laptop, so for that reason i still prefer DELL..

I guess because of western customer's stereotypes about chinese products which make Chinese brands pay extra attention and cost to enhance the overall quality of their products,,but traditional big names like Sony, Philip, DELL and Nokia enjoying very good reputation and already have solid royal customer bases so what their primary focus is the brand image, and the quality is very standard i have to say now`

 

[Brotherhood]

High-power electric locomotives improve Qinghai-Tibet Railway transportation capacity - People's Daily Online June 25, 2011

A high-power electric locomotive is seen on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in Golmud, northwest China's Qinghai Province, June 23, 2011. As high-power electric locomotives were equipped on the electrified railway from Xining to Golmud this year, the capacity of railway transportation in Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region was greatly improved. (Xinhua/Hou Deqiang)

Driver Ma Kaiyu manipulates a high-power electric locomotive on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in Golmud, northwest China's Qinghai Province, June 23, 2011. As high-power electric locomotives were equipped on the electrified railway from Xining to Golmud this year, the capacity of railway transportation in Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region was greatly improved. (Xinhua/Hou Deqiang)

The equipment inside a high-power electric locomotive is seen in Golmud, northwest China's Qinghai Province, June 23, 2011. As high-power electric locomotives were equipped on the electrified railway from Xining to Golmud this year, the capacity of railway transportation in Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region was greatly improved. (Xinhua/Hou Deqiang)

 

[Brotherhood]

China mulls policies to boost seawater desalination - People's Daily Online June 25, 2011

China's economic planner is mulling policies that would boost the development of seawater desalination facilities in order to supplement the country's supply of freshwater.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), together with 11 other departments, are working on guidelines to accelerate the development of the country's seawater desalination facilities, said Li Jing, deputy director of the Environment and Resources Department under the NDRC.

The NDRC is creating a layout for the development of new seawater desalination facilities over the coming five years, as well as a layout relating to patents for water desalination technologies, Li said.

The policies will give preferential treatment to companies that independently develop desalination equipment.

China often suffers from shortages of freshwater. Its freshwater resources per capita are just one-fourth of the global average.

Source: Xinhua

 

[casual]

I second that, you get what you pay for with HP. My last two laptops were HP's due to price, but neither could actually be used on the lap because it'll overheat. In fact, one of them would overheat when running something intensive(like a game, or even watching full-screen youtube videos!) no matter what I do, so it could only do simple stuff like surfing the net.

sounds like the heatsink is clogged with gunk.

but anyways, i am pretty good at fixing laptops so i can live with it. i must have take my piece of crap gateway apart like 20times. (i don't even bother screwing the case screws in anymore). pretty much everything that can fall apart has already. first the screen fell off within a year and now it's held together with ducktape. the starter button broke so when i need to turn it on i have to pop the keyboard off and hotwire the starter dipswitches (too cheap to buy a new starter). and my laptop is barely 2 years old.

well, laptops only needs to stay good for like 3 years. after that the hardware is outdated anyways and i buy a new one anyways. i still have a 7 old IBM thinkpad that's in working condition but it's just collecting dust.

 

[Brotherhood]

China-Britain trade targets 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 - People's Daily Online June 26, 2011

With a rapid growth in bilateral trade during the first six months of this year, China and Britain are aimed at an ambitious trade target of 100 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

That target was set by leaders of the two nations during Prime Minister David Cameron's visit in China in November.

China and Britain are important trading partners with Britain being China's third largest market in the EU and China being Britain's largest export destination save the EU and the United States.

Two-way trade in goods and services between the two nations hit an all-time high of 60 billion U.S. dollar last year, a rise of 28 percent from the previous year.

According to the economic and commercial counselor's office of the Chinese Embassy to Britain, bilateral trade of goods jumped 17.4 percent to 20.97 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months from a year earlier.

Investment is also on the fast track with more and more Chinese setting up subsidiaries in Britain. Last year, China became Britain's sixth largest foreign investor.

In addition, over the past few years an increasing number of Chinese companies, notably Shanghai Automobile and Chongqing Changan Automobile, have set up R&D centers in Britain.

Meanwhile, British enterprises continue to expand their presence and operations in China. Tesco has committed to making an investment worth 2 billion dollars in China during the next five years.

With a cumulative investment exceeding 17 billion dollars by the end of 2010, Britain has managed to maintain its position as China's largest investor among EU members.

At the same time, the potential to expand China-Britain commercial and economic ties remains huge. Trade with Britain accounts for a mere 1.7 percent of China's trade with the rest of the world. British exports to China, meanwhile, constitute less than 2 percent of China's total imports.

Source:Xinhua

 

[Brotherhood]

China's largest inland port to open air route to Russia - People's Daily Online June 27, 2011

Manzhouli, a major land port in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, will start hosting international flights when it opens an air route to Russia Thursday.

The route, between Manzhouli and Chita of Russia, will be run by Hainan Airlines Co., Ltd., with flights scheduled on every Thursday and Sunday, a source of Manzhouli airport told Xinhua on Sunday.

The city of Manzhouli, located in the northeastern part of Inner Mongolia, borders Russia to the north and sits close to Mongolia to the west. More than 70 percent of the trade between China and Russia passes through Manzhouli.

It takes seven hours to travel between Manzhouli and Chita by car, and a dozen by train, while the flight will only take an hour, said the spokesman.

Manzhouli airport, covering an area of 212 hectares, came into use in 2005. About 76,000 passengers and 1,100 tonnes of cargo has arrived at or departed from the airport in 2011 to date.

Source: Xinhua

 

[Brotherhood]

Ministry grants 5 bln yuan to fund river, lake pollution control - People's Daily Online June 28, 2011

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Monday it has arranged for 5 billion yuan (772 million U.S. dollars) to support pollution control projects along major rivers or lakes.

The special funding will go to the pollution prevention and control efforts for the Huaihe, Haihe, Liaohe and Songhua rivers, and the three lakes of Taihu, Chaohu and Dianchi, according to the ministry.

The funding will be given in the form of rewards rather than subsidies, the ministry said, adding that the allocation of the funds will be linked directly to the assessment results of pollution control. The cleaner the river or lake, the more funds local governments can get.

The ministry said local governments should take responsibility to reduce the sewage water and pollutants discharged into major rivers and lakes across the country.

Source:Xinhua