China Economy Forum

[yusheng]

Chinese CPUs are just the beginning... Middle Kingdom to go for GPUs too


Reported by Nebojsa Novakovic on Thursday, April 5 2012 11:18 am China is enjoying increasing success with its own CPU developments, even though for now it is confined to the internal markets mostly. However, they are already undertaking the next step, and preparing to move into the GPU

Earlier this year, we covered the raising phenomenon of Chinese CPUs in quite a detail [part1, part2, part3], including the main high end lines of Loongson (MIPS) and Shenwei (Alpha), as well as over a dozen of ARM licensees there. Then there was Icube with their UPU, a truly fused CPU plus GPU at the core and register level.

There's more to it: at the high end front, besides the academic-government MIPS and purely military, for now, Alpha, our friends in the north also developed their own Fengtian SPARC compatible processors. For now, these are not used as the main CPUs, but as I/O processors in some large supercomputers to help manage the ultrafast interconnects, twice the Infiniband QDR speed, that the country uses in their largest machines such as Tianhe. These interconnects have the SPARC CPU to manage the general I/O, and a NPU, network interconnect processor, with most of the protocol overhead hardwired. Therefore, the main Xeon or other CPUs in the cluster don't need to be bothered handling the interconnect I/O overhead, raising the total real system performance.

However, don't be surprised to see these SPARC processors go further in the near future, to become main CPUs in specific uses, even with much faster FP units, for instance - the current units are well multithreaded and multicore, as far as I understand, but without SIMD FP yet, which should appear in the next generation.

Even more interesting is the initial dedicated GPU design effort in China, in fact at least two of them: one is expected to come from the same team in the Tianhe supercomputer, and the other one is coming from far north, in Harbin. While very little is known about either of them for now, there is one common point I understand is valid for both: they will focus on OpenGL and Compute GPU use, not consumer-grade DirectX gaming - China is seemingly not interested in getting even more of its flock addicted to games, but would gladly use the SIMD or vector-like GPU math capabilities in its computing efforts, though. That might be quite commendable, after all.




Read more: Chinese CPUs are just the beginning... Middle Kingdom to go for GPUs too by VR-Zone.com





http://bbs.hdchina.org/thread-65429-1-1.html

 

[cirr]

3 of top 5 mobile handset vendors will be Chinese by 2014, according to Gartner

Oct 25,2012 0 Telecom Lead India:

By year-end 2014, three of the top five mobile handset vendors will be Chinese, according to Gartner.

Huawei and ZTE are the top Chinese phone makers. Lenovo is also gearing up to grab market share in smart phone segment.

Going by the Gartner prediction, Nokia, BlackBerry, LG, Sony, HTC, etc. are likely to face tough market conditions globally. Samsung and Apple are the top two players in phone market globally.

Mobile phone penetration in emerging markets has resulted in a changing of the guard in terms of the leading vendors.

The openness of Android creates new markets for OEMs that previously did not have the necessary software expertise and engineering capabilities. The market continues to consolidate around Android and iOS, with other ecosystems struggling to gain traction, and, with most vendors committed to Android, it has become difficult to differentiate.

The result is that the traditional mobile phone players are getting squeezed, being unable to compete with Apple and Samsung at the high end and struggling to differentiate from aggressive new vendors, most notably Huawei and ZTE, which are using the same Android platform for their models, according to Gartner.

Chinese vendors have the opportunity to leverage their strong position in the domestic Chinese market for entry-level smartphones and expand to other regions, because this is not just an emerging-market phenomenon.

According to a recent report in TelecomLead.com, the global mobile phone market grew 6.1 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2011, as the feature phone market declined faster than anticipated, which lowered the market growth its lowest point in over two years, according to the IDC.

IDC revealed that vendors shipped 427.4 million units in Q4 2011 compared to 402.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010. In China, competition in the Android market intensified as mid-range vendors, such as Lenovo, Coolpad, and Huawei, shipped large numbers. However, the worldwide Android market was dominated by Samsung, followed by HTC and LG.

3 of top 5 mobile handset vendors will be Chinese by 2014, according to Gartner | TelecomLead.com

 

[Death Rattle]

Are Chinese Banks Hiding “The Mother of All Debt Bombs”?

China's massive bank financed stimulus was intended to keep the economy moving. It may instead lead to economic disaster.

Financial collapses may have different immediate triggers, but they all originate from the same cause: an explosion of credit. This iron law of financial calamity should make us very worried about the consequences of easy credit in China in recent years. From the beginning of 2009 to the end of June this year, Chinese banks have issued roughly 35 trillion yuan ($5.4 trillion) in new loans, equal to 73 percent of China's GDP in 2011. About two-thirds of these loans were made in 2009 and 2010, as part of Beijing's stimulus package. Unlike deficit-financed stimulus packages in the West, China's colossal stimulus package of 2009 was funded mainly by bank credit (at least 60 percent, to be exact), not government borrowing.

Flooding the economy with trillions of yuan in new loans did accomplish the principal objective of the Chinese government — maintaining high economic growth in the midst of a global recession. While Beijing earned plaudits around the world for its decisiveness and economic success, excessive loose credit was fueling a property bubble, funding the profligacy of state-owned enterprises, and underwriting ill-conceived infrastructure investments by local governments. The result was predictable: years of painstaking efforts to strengthen the Chinese banking system were undone by a spate of careless lending as new bad loans began to build up inside the financial sector.

When the Chinese Central Bank (the People's Bank of China) and banking regulators sounded the However, Professor Victor Shih of Northwestern University has estimated that the real amount of local government debt was between 15.4 and 20.1 trillion yuan, or between 40 and 50% of China’s GDP.alarm in late 2010, it was already too late. By that time, local governments had taken advantage of loose credit to amass a mountain of debt, most of it squandered on prestige projects or economically wasteful investments. The National Audit Office of China acknowledged in June 2011 that local government debt totaled 10.7 trillion yuan (U.S. $1.7 trillion) at the end of 2010. Of this amount, he further estimated, the local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), which are financial entities established by local governments to invest in infrastructure and other projects, owed between 9.7 and 14.4 trillion yuan at the end of 2010.

Anybody with some knowledge of the state of health of LGFVs would shudder at these numbers. If anything, Chinese LGFVs are known mainly for their unique ability to sink perfectly good money into bottomless holes in the ground. So taking on such a huge mountain of debt can mean only one thing — a future wave of default when the projects into which LGFVs have piled funds fail to yield viable returns to service the debt. If 10 percent of these loans turn bad, a very conservative estimate, we are talking about total bad loans in the range of 1 to 1.4 trillion yuan. If the share of dud loans should reach 20 percent, a far more likely scenario, Chinese banks would have to write down 2 to 2.8 trillion yuan, a move sure to destroy their balance sheets.

Are Chinese Banks Hiding "The Mother of All Debt Bombs"? - The Diplomat

 

[Bhai Zakir]

Because the chinese economic bubble will burst

 

[illusion8]

China's massive financial stimulus was what saved the world economy in 2008.

 

[applesauce]

Because the chinese economic bubble will burst

as was predicted every year for the last 30+ years...still hasnt happened yet

 

[yusheng]

China's Beidou system ready for Asia-Pacific service
Updated: 2012-10-16 03:15(Xinhua)

BEIJING - A 16th satellite will be added to China's indigenous satellite navigation system, Beidou, within this month, paving the way for the network to provide services to the Asia-Pacific.

A report in the Beijing News on Monday quoted Guo Shuren, a core member of the China Satellite Navigation System's development team, as saying that the system is expected to start providing free services to civilian users in the Asia-Pacific region in the first half of 2013.

China has successfully launched five satellites for Beidou this year in an effort to eventually weave a constellation of 35 satellites by 2020, at which point it could rival the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) for services around the Earth.

So far, the Beidou system has a total of 15 satellites, five in geostationary orbit, five in inclined geostationary orbit and five in medium Earth orbit, according to the management office.

Ran Chengqi, spokesman and director of the office, said in December last year that six more satellites will be launched in 2012 to further improve Beidou and expand its service area to cover most parts of the Asia-Pacific.

Since it started to function on a trial basis on December 27th, 2011, Beidou has been stable and its services have been increased and improved, said a spokesman of the office on September 19th after the successful launch of the 14th and 15th satellites.

The 16th will probably be launched in the last 10 days of October, according to the Beijing News report.

China started to build up its own space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) system in 2000 by launching the first satellite for an experimental version of the Beidou.

Beidou has since started providing licensed services for China's government and military users in transport, weather forecast, fishing, forestry, telecommunications, hydrological monitoring and mapping, according to the spokesman.

However, it is estimated that more than 95 percent of navigation terminals sold in China are GPS terminals.

To compete with foreign rivals, the Beidou terminal can communicate with the ground station by sending and receiving short messages, 120 Chinese characters in each, in addition to the navigation and timing functions that the world's other major navigation systems can provide.

During relief efforts after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit China's southwest in 2008, the system's messaging role helped rescue teams keep smooth contact with each other and the headquarters.

According to the management office, Beidou's free service will be able to track locations within an accuracy of 10 meters, measure speeds within 0.2 meters per second and synchronize clocks with an accuracy of 10 nanoseconds.

Liao Chunfa, a veteran researcher of navigation satellite system, said the space-based PNT system is an essential strategic resource for a country and China should in no way rely on foreign systems in the long term and must develop Beidou unswervingly.

At the same time, Beidou is compatible and interoperable with GPS, the EU's Galileo system and Russia's GLONASS. According to Guo, Beidou's terminals for civilian users will be compatible with GPS.

"To ensure national security and meet the demand of access to services at any location on the planet, China should also develop alternative PNT systems as backups for the Beidou system," Liao suggested.

 

[yusheng]

Beidou navigation system installed on more Chinese fishing boats
05-17-2012 20:31 BJT


BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- China's homegrown Beidou Navigation Satellite System has grown in popularity among fishermen, with nearly 70,000 people using its short message service (SMS), said an official from the system's management office.

Many fishermen use the messaging service to communicate with their families and friends for free, according to Ran Chengqi, director of the system's management office.

Ran made the remark at a seminar held on Wednesday in Guangzhou, according to a Thursday report by Chinanews.com.

Fishermen using the messaging service send about 700,000 messages every month, the report said.

The system has also provided services related to navigation, vessel monitoring and emergency rescues since it went into initial operation in China and its surrounding areas last December.

More than 30,000 access terminals for the system have been installed on fishing boats in China, helping to ensure fishermen's safety and promote fishery development, Ran said.

China began to construct the Beidou system in 2000 with a goal of breaking its dependence on the U.S. Global Positioning System by 2020.

Authorities plan to launch a total of 30 satellites to complete the system, launching its 13th satellite about two weeks ago.

The system will be able to provide high-quality navigation services to most users in the Asia-Pacific region this year, an unidentified official from the system's management office said Wednesday.

Fishermen can use the system to send distress signals if they encounter a mechanical failure or other trouble, as well as reach relevant authorities in the event of a maritime border conflict, Ran said.

China currently has 1.06 million fishing vessels, accounting for nearly one-third of the global total. However, about 80 percent of the boats lack modern navigation systems.

Since the end of 2010, south China's Hainan province has spent 79 million yuan (12.5 million U.S. dollars) to install navigation equipment on 6,000 locally-registered fishing boats. Fishermen were required to pay just 10 percent of the total cost of installing the equipment on their boats.

The province's navigation system has helped save six fishing vessels and 27 fishermen and avoid economic losses of nearly 100 million yuan, according to the Hainan Department of Ocean and Fisheries.

The large-scale reinforcement of navigation systems has also been undertaken in other coastal provinces, such as Guangdong and Shandong.

"Fishermen love the system. I was once told by a fisherman in Fujian province that he has enshrined the Beidou terminal on his boat along with a statue of Matsu, a patron saint of Fujian's people," Ran said.

 

[rcrmj]

Because the chinese economic bubble will burst

not before the joke Indian economy for sure

 

[shuttler]

The first high-speed Electrical Multiple Unit (EMU) train made for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, successfully completed by Changchun Railway Vehicles Co Ltd, is on display on June 7, 2011, in Changchun, Jilin province. This is the first trade of an EMU between China and the South American market, and in total 30 trains will be delivered in preparation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. [Photo/Xinhua]

The interior of the train [Photo/Xinhua]

A route map on display inside the train


中国城铁车辆首次为世界杯服务
The suburban railway vehicles in China for the World Cup for the first time

中商情报网 日期：2012-10-26
Business report net Date: 2012-10-26
中商情报网Business report net


从中国北车集团长春轨道客车股份公司获悉，该公司当天在巴西与里约热内卢州政府签署了60列240辆地上电动车组EMU的销售合同。这批车辆将直接服务于里约的2014年世界杯和2016年奥运会。

连续在同一城市举办世界杯和奥运会，历史上都极为罕见。当里约热内卢被确立为2014年世界杯和2016年奥运会举办城市后，旋即做出了5年内投资120亿雷亚尔巴西货币完善轨道交通网结构的规划，开展包括城铁在内的基础设施建设。

自2008年，里约州政府先后举行了三次城铁车辆的全球招标。中国北车长客股份公司在与法国ALSTON，西班牙CAF，韩国ROTEM等国际轨道交通巨头的竞争中胜出，中标里约热内卢针对世界杯和奥运会进行的全部城铁车辆EMU地上电动车组和地铁的采购。不仅开启了中国城铁车辆特供世界杯的历史，也创造了中国城铁车辆首次在境外服务奥运会的纪录。

据悉，长客制造的首列EMU地上电动车组，已经在今年3月20日正式上线运营。这是世界上强度等级最高的动车组之一，每列4辆编组，最高时速为100km/h，具有现代化程度高、智能化强、车厢宽敞舒适、载客量大1300人等特点。

曾经的里约热内卢城市轨道系统面临着十分艰难的境况，运营的列车中只有10列装有空调，而大部分列车都面临着老化的问题。目前里约热内卢州城铁线路上的百余列在轨列车大多为上世纪80年代的老旧车型。

里约州州长塞尔吉奥？卡布拉尔在25日举行的签字仪式上介绍，目前该州城际铁路网客流量约为每天60万人次，预计到2012年世界杯时将达到日均100万人次，中国列车的到来不仅增加了路网运力，同时提升了安全系数和舒适度，受到各方好评。

据当地媒体此前报道，长客股份公司的城铁列车投入运营后，里约城铁公司的乘客投诉量骤减48%。

根据协议，长客股份公司除了向里约热内卢提供新造城铁车辆外，还将对里约城市轨道交通公司现有的73列城铁列车进行翻新，包括设备更新，增加空调系统等。

2009年，长客股份公司与巴西里约热内卢方面分别签订了120辆EMU地上电动车组和114辆1a线地铁车辆的销售合同。此前，巴西的城轨列车几乎为法国ALSTON和西班牙CAF所垄断。

目前巴西里约在线运行的城铁列车中，已经有26列来自长客股份公司。长客股份公司提供的城铁车辆全部到位后，“长客造”城铁车辆将占当地在轨列车总数的半壁江山。

长客公司的相关人士介绍，经济处于高速发展中的巴西、阿根廷、泰国等新兴市场国家对运输设备需求旺盛，对建设和完善城市轨道交通网络有着强烈的愿望。为此，长客股份公司将这些国家作为重点出口市场，将高端城铁车辆导入这些国家。

Learned from the China North Vehicle Group Changchun Railway Vehicles AG, the company that day with the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, signed the contract for the sale of 60 240 on the ground EMU EMU. These vehicles will directly serve the Rio 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.

*****Consecutive World Cup and the Olympic Games, held in the same city are extremely rare in history. When Rio de Janeiro was established as the host city for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, soon made within five years of investment 12 billion real (Brazillian Currency ) improve the structure of the rail transport network planning to carry out the construction of infrastructure, including suburban.

****Rio state government since 2008, has held a global tender for the three suburban railway vehicle. China CNR shares of long-off win in competition with France ALSTON, CAF of Spain, South Korea ROTEM international rail transportation giant, the suburban railway vehicle EMU ground EMUs and metro procurement bid of Rio de Janeiro for the World Cup and the Olympic Games. Not only opens the suburban railway vehicles in China especially for the World Cup history, but also created a suburban railway vehicles in China for the first time outside the service Olympic record.

*****It is reported that the first row of the long-off manufacturing the EMU ground electric car group, has formally launched operations in March 20 this year. This is the highest level of the world on the strength of one of the EMU the grouping column 4, a top speed of 100km / h, with a high degree of modernization, intelligent, spacious and comfortable cabin, its large capacity 1300.

****Former Rio de Janeiro urban rail system is facing a very difficult situation, the operator of the train, only 10 air-conditioned, and most of the trains are faced with the problem of aging. Rio de Janeiro chow wire road rail train hundreds of columns in most of the old models of the 1980s.

****Rio state Governor Sergio? Cabral in the signing ceremony held on the 25th, the chow interpersonal railway network traffic of about 600,000 passengers a day, is expected to the 2012 World Cup will reach one million daily passengers, the arrival of the train, not only increase the capacity of the road network, and at the same time enhance the factor of safety and comfort, by all praise.

****Previously reported, according to local media, the the long passenger AG suburban trains put into operation, the the Rio suburban railway company the amount of passenger complaints plummeted 48%.

****Under the agreement, the the long passenger AG addition to Rio de Janeiro from new suburban railway vehicle, will the existing 73 suburban trains in the Rio urban rail transport companies to carry out renovation, including the renewal of equipment, air conditioning system.

****In 2009, the long-off shares of companies with Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, signed the contract for the sale of 120 EMU ground EMU and the 114 1a line subway cars. Previously, Brazil's urban rail train is almost monopolized French ALSTON and Spain CAF.

****The Brazil Rio Online running suburban train 26 from long passenger AG. After the long passenger AG suburban vehicles in place, the long passenger made "suburban vehicle will account for half of the total number of local rail train.

****The related parties of the company's long-off, the economy is in rapid development of Brazil, Argentina, Thailand and other emerging market countries, strong demand for transportation equipment, construction and improvement of urban rail transit network has a strong desire to. To this end, the long-off stock company in these countries as a key export market, the high-end suburban railway vehicle import these countries.

Translation:Google

 

[yusheng]

China unveils large radio telescope in Shanghai
English.news.cn 2012-10-28 17:15:36

SHANGHAI, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- A massive radio telescope for use in space observation was unveiled Sunday at the foot of Sheshan Mountain in Shanghai.

The telescope will be used to track and collect data from satellites and space probes.

The newly-built radio telescope can pick up eight different frequency bands and also track Earth satellites, lunar exploration satellites and deep space probes, said Hong Xiaoyu, head of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory.

"We hope that the new radio telescope will go into operation earlier so that we can use it to observe the unmanned lunar probe Chang'e-2," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar orbiter project.

The telescope will be used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy, as it can collect accurate data and increase its angular resolution during astronomical observation.

China's VLBI system is made up of four telescopes in the cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, Urumqi, respectively, as well as a data center in Shanghai.

Radio telescopes differ from optical ones in that they use radio antennae to track and collect data from satellites and space probes. The first radio antenna used to identify astronomical radio sources was built by Karl Guthe Jansky, an engineer with Bell Telephone Laboratories, in the early 1930s.

 

[cirr]

SA's Transnet signs multi-billion rand deal with Chinese rail company

As part of its long-term fleet renewal program, Transnet has inked a deal to purchase 95 locomotives from Chinese company, CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive.

Author: Christy Filen

Posted: Monday , 22 Oct 2012

JOHANNESBURG (Mineweb) -

Transnet has inked a deal to purchase 95 locomotives from Chinese company, CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive, to replace a portion of its ageing fleet.

Siyabonga Gama, the CEO of Transnet's Freight Rail business, said that the value of the deal was confidential but that an approximate number was R2.6bn.

According to the CSR website, which announced it had won the tender on 12 September, the deal was worth $400m which is closer to R3.4bn at current exchange rates.

The first batch of locomotives is to be delivered by December 2013 and the last batch by September 2014. The first 10 would be assembled in China while the balance would be made locally and supplied with a 30 month warranty and a separate six year warranty on the traction motors.

The locomotives will be a step down from what China South Railways is used to building, with the specifications including a dual voltage system (3kv DC/25kv AC) that will minimise change over times as they are used across different parts of the country's railway network said Transnet CEO, Brian Molefe.

CSR produces trains that are more than three times more powerful than those ordered by Transnet and have the capacity to produce 106 locomotives per month said Molefe who pointed to our narrow gauge railways and limited electricity supply as specific requirements that the Chinese company would have to adhere to.

The new locos would also be more energy efficient and have longer maintenance cycles said Transnet's press release.

Xu Zongxiang, the executive director and general manager of CSR Zhuzhou, said that the order would be relatively easy to fulfil and that it had produced around 2000 of these types of locomotives in the past. It was still looking for a local partner to assist with the traction motors Zongxiang said.

Zongxiang took the opportunity to share that CSR Zhuzhou was busy with prototype trains run by super-capacitors that re-charged whenever it stopped at a station and allowing the train to travel 1.5km on a single charge thereby doing away with the need for power supply along the tracks.

The company also showcased a 500km/h high speed test train at InnoTrans 2012 in September its website said.

Public Enterprises minister, Malusi Gugaba, said that the historic tender required bidders to comply with a 60% localisation threshold in order to qualify and that it would contribute towards "massive local development". The minister was unable to quantify the number of jobs that would be created through the deal.

CSR Zhuzhou has set up a local venture (CSR E-loco Supply) in which it holds a 70% stake to facilitate the deal. The other 30% is held by a broad based black economic consortium called ‘Matsetse Basadi'.

Lietsiso Mohapeloa, talking on behalf of the consortium said that one of the lead companies in the consortium was a 100% black women owned company made up of mainly professional engineers and that they would together hold a 15% stake.

Another 10% stake said Mohapeloa would be held by a company made up of business people with project and business management skills who also had approximately 30% black women ownership.

A community trust would hold the other 5% with a further 5% earmarked for a prospective employee share scheme.

Mohapeloa said that he holds various interests in telecommunications, IT, construction and project management ventures of which he named Channel Data, Motebong and Electrohaps as a few.

Gigaba invited proposals to be submitted for the supply of another 1064 locomotives to meet Transnet's growth aspirations of increasing volumes from the current 201mt per annum to over 350mt over the next seven years as part of its R300bn capital expenditure program.

As background, CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive company is the biggest supplier of electric locomotives, electric multiple units and metro rail cars in China. It has publicly stated its ambitions to expand outside China and has supplied into Iran, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia and India.

CSR Zhuzhou has over 9000 employees and production capacity of 1000 electric locomotives and 1000 metro cars per year. The company generated revenue of more than $2.3bn in 2011 Transnet said.

SA`s Transnet signs multi-billion rand deal with Chinese rail company - ENERGY - Mineweb.com Mineweb

 

[shuttler]

China Rongsheng Heavy Industries Delivers Two More VLOCs


Shipbuilding. Energy. Transport :: China Rongsheng Heavy Industries Delivers Two More VLOCs :: Press Release

Sep. 28, 2012 - China Rongsheng Heavy Industries is pleased to announce that it has delivered today one 380,000 DWT class Very Large Ore Carrier (“VLOC”) to each of Vale S.A. (“Vale”) and Oman Shipping Company S.A.O.C. (“Oman Shipping”), with a combined tonnage of nearly 800,000 DWT, marking a new record high of the Group’s single-day deliveries. With the ongoing advances in innovative technology and world-class shipbuilding experience, plus the improvement of scale and production efficiency, the building and delivery process of VLOCs is further enhanced. As of today, the Group has already delivered 5 VLOCs this year.
........
........

Despite the ongoing challenges on the shipbuilding industry brought about by the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, China Rongsheng Heavy Industries’ delivery plan has not been readily impacted. After delivering a single VLOC last year, the Group has smoothly delivered 5 VLOCs this year as of today. With another 4 VLOCs launched and being undergoing outfitting, 1 or 2 more VLOCs are expected to be received by ship owners by the year-end. As of today, the Group has delivered 15 vessels, represented a volume of approximately 3.14 million DWT, this year. It marks an over 90% growth comparing with the same period of last year and demonstrates a further improvement of the manufacturing efficiency and execution capability of the Group.

Both Vale and Oman Shipping are long-term customers and strategic partners of China Rongsheng Heavy Industries. The VLOC built for Vale and Oman Shipping adopts an environmentally friendly design to lower fuel consumption and reduce emission of SOx and NOx, while the operating efficiency is also better than most of the existing ore carriers. With its Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) recorded at approximately 1.99 during sea trial, VLOC is in line with the low-carbon green product concept and meets the benchmark requirements on emission reduction set by International Maritime Organization (IMO) which will come into effect as of January 1 in 2013. With this high standard of quality and increasing maturity in design and technology, China Rongsheng Heavy Industries’ VLOC is expected to attract an even broader range of customers globally.

 

[shuttler]

China building first vessel for underwater archaeology

English.news.cn 2012-10-24

Xinhuanet.com

A new vessel intended for boosting underwater archaeological search activities will be ready by the end of 2013 to set sail in the Chinese waters, China Daily reports citing a statement of State Administration of Cultural Heritage

BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- China plans to build its first vessel capable of retrieving archaeological findings from the sea by the end of 2013, a major step to strengthening the underwater search abilities of Chinese archaeologists who currently rely on rented shipping boats.

The 4.8-metre wide and 56-metre long boat, to be powered by an integrated full electric propulsion system, will "basically" meet China's underwater archaeological needs, according to a statement released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) on Wednesday.

With a displacement of 860 tonnes, the vessel will be used in China's coastal areas and could sail as far as waters off the Xisha Islands, or the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea, if sea conditions are good, it said.

Archaeologists will be able to use the ship to detect, locate, map, videotape and excavate underwater archaeological findings, according to the SACH.

The vessel is being designed by the 701 research institute of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and built by the Changhang Dongfeng shipbuilding corporation in Chongqing.

The news will be a boon for Chinese archeologists who have long struggled with the inconvenience of having to ride fishing boats along China's 18,000 km-long coastline in order to uncover the country's massive quantities of underwater relics.

Many speculators and fishermen have joined this hunt for treasures in the South China sea, a busy sea lane which is said to have at least 122 wrecked ships on its bottom.

Many of the wrecked ships date back to the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1276) dynasties, when China's trade with foreign countries was thriving.

Many speculators and local fishermen surveying the area have used crude means to retrieve underwater relics, prompting authorities to take action.

The protection of China's underwater relics faces "severe challenges" from rampant looting of underwater relics, the SACH said in the statement, adding that the country needs to improve its talent tool of archaeologists and related facilities

 

[cirr]

Lenovo tops China's smartphone market in just six months

Huawei and ZTE left for dead, now to swamp Samsung

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor

Posted in Business, 30th October 2012 01:01 GMT

Despite launching its first smartphone in the second quarter of 2012, Lenovo is already the top Chinese smartphone company, according to analyst outfit TrendForce.

Lenovo has captured 14.7 per cent of China's smartphone market, leapfrogging past rivals ZTE and Huawei, both of which have been in the market far longer.

Samsung seems next in the company's sights: TrendForce says the Korean company has 15.5 per cent of China's smartphone market.

The prize on offer is colossal: TrendForce says Chinese buyers will acquire 294 million smartphones in 2013. They won't all be particularly smart, the analyst notes, as Chinese carriers don't subsidise handset purchases to the same extent as their western equivalents. Chinese consumers also have lower disposable incomes than those in other nations, which means their smartphone purchases tend to be lower-end devices costing 800 to 1200 Renminbi ($US130-$US180).

Source；DRAMeXchange

Western smartphone makers have struggled to deliver a product at that price, but ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo – plus lower-profile brands like Ningbo Bird – can do so comfortably in their home nation. That ability, TrendForce believes, will see Chinese brands together tot up 200 million smartphone sales in 2012, or about the same as Samsung. Apple is expected to sell about 120 million iPhones in 2012.

TrendForce does not say how many smartphones Lenovo has sold, but says ZTE and Huawei will together move 65 million in 2012. Lenovo started late, so some back of the envelope maths suggests it must be shipping close to 10 million a month already.

Whatever the actual number, it's a stunning result given the company's late entry to the market. Coming on top of its dethroning of HP as the world's top PC-maker, that makes 2012 a very good year for Lenovo. ®

Lenovo tops China's smartphone market in just six months ? The Register