Brief

Beijing Mobile Phone Users to Get Free Incoming Calls

Beijing Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, plans to dramatically slash its mobile telephone call fees in early February 2007 with a monthly package based on a one-way billing scheme. The caller-pays plan, in which incoming calls are free for the person who receives the call, has been welcomed by China Mobile and China Unicom subscribers in pilot areas in Guangdong, Shanghai and Tianjin, allowing the companies to reinforce their positions in the market. That has put pressure on fixed-line operators China Telecom and China Netcom to lower costs and improve services. Recent figures indicate that there were nearly 70 million new mobile phone subscribers in China in 2006, but only 17 million new fixed-line-phone subscribers.

China to Launch Two Satellites for 2008 Olympic Games

China will launch two satellites dedicated to radio and TV relay services for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in June and October 2007, the China Satellite Communications Corporation (CSCC) said on January 29. The two satellites are being built under strict quality controls to ensure their timely and smooth launches. The CSCC has been contracted to provide broadcasting and TV signal transfers and traffic monitoring and navigation services for the 2008 Olympic Games. China launched an Olympic weather forecasting satellite, the Fengyun-2D, on December 2006 and the China Meteorological Administration announced in early January 2007 that the Fengyun-2D satellite was operating normally. The satellite will enable meteorologists to provide accurate and timely weather forecasts during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, especially for the opening and closing ceremonies and important contests.

Foreigners Granted Patents

China approved 58,000 patents in 2006, with more than half of them, 56.6 percent, being granted to foreigners, according to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). Applicants from overseas filed 33,000 patent applications, a number that reflects that China’s market is getting more attention from other countries because of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). But, although China has granted a large number of intellectual property rights (IPR), its domestic IPR competitiveness and innovation still lags far behind that of developed countries. About 99 percent of Chinese companies never apply for patents. Investments in research and development by large- and medium-sized corporations accounted for a mere 0.71 percent of their annual turnover on average, much lower than the average of 5 percent reported in developed countries.

New Clinics for Rabies Vaccination in Capital       

Beijing has opened 37 new outpatient clinics to provide rabies vaccinations for human beings since the beginning of 2007, bringing the total number of the clinics to 82, according to the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau. The clinics, which are also designed to raise public awareness of rabies prevention, are open 24 hours a day and must make regular reports to local centres for disease control and prevention. Districts and counties in the municipality are required to set up more clinics to provide inoculations against rabies. Although no permanent resident of Beijing contracted rabies in 2006, the disease killed more than 2,000 people in other parts of the country. Despite the local government’s good record of controlling rabies, more than 110,000 Beijing residents have received rabies inoculations to prevent the onset of the disease. Beijing now has more than 550,000 registered dogs, most of them vaccinated, while the actual population of dogs is estimated to be more than one million. Still, one fatal case of rabies was reported in Beijing in February 2007.

High Salaried People Must Submit Income Tax Reports

Those who earn more than 120,000 yuan (US$15,400) a year in Beijing will have to submit income tax reports in the period January 1–March 1, 2007, regardless whether they have paid taxes or had taxes deducted at the office, on the penalty of being fined no more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,286). According to the Regulations on Automatic Income Tax Report (trial) issued by the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau, in addition to those who with an annual incomes of more than 120,000 yuan (US$15,400), those who get incomes from two or more sources in China, those who have incomes from abroad, and those whose total incomes have reached a taxable level, but who have never paid taxes before, and those who meet the standards of the State Council of China, will have to submit such reports, too. It is estimated that there are about 200,000–300,000 such persons residing in Beijing.

Municipality Launches Drive to Crack Down on Drug Trafficking

Beijing on January 30, 2007, launched a 10-day drive to crack down on drug trafficking which has been on the rise in the Chinese capital. The massive campaign, planned from January 30 to February 8, 2007, involved local public security, customs, frontier defence, civil aviation, railway, highway, post and logistics authorities. The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau imposed a “heavy-fisted crackdown” on drug trafficking to cut the channels for drugs coming into Beijing. Capital International Airport, the city’s three railway stations, buses, subways, entertainment venues and hotels were the major focuses in the campaign. In 2006, Beijing Customs cracked 12 cases of drug smuggling and seized 17 kilograms of drugs, but in January 2007 alone, the Customs cracked five drug smuggling cases, seized nearly eight kilograms of drugs, and captured six suspects, including five foreigners, according to Beijing Municipal Commission of Drug Control. International traffickers are using Beijing as a transit station for their cross-border drug smuggling, because of the capital’s advantages in air, railway and highway transportation.

4.1 Million Spring Festival Travellers at Beijing West Train Station

An estimated 4.1 million people are expected to flow through the Beijing West Railway Station during the 2007 Spring Festival, with more than 200,000 travellers expected each day during the peak of the holiday season on February 14–16, according to a spokesman of Beijing West Railway Station.

At a press conference on January 30, the spokesman said the Beijing West Railway Station Administrative Committee will try to ease traffic by cooperating with public security, transportation management, public traffic, and Fengtai District authorities. Fifty-nine pairs (to and from a destination) of temporary trains will bring the total of trains serving the station to 146 pairs. As many as 258 ticket offices will be available to serve the public, including a temporary ticket office set up on the west parking lot at the station. Space is being reserved in the terminal’s waiting room in case a large number of passengers get stranded because of natural reasons.

Foreign Tourists in Beijing Spend US$4 Billion in 2006

Foreign tourists spent a record US$4 billion in Beijing in 2006, local authorities said on January 25, 2007. Forty percent of the 3.9 million foreign tourists, 7.5 percent more than in 2005, came from Japan, the United States and the Republic of Korea. Rapid increases in visitors from Russia, Sweden and Australia were also recorded. About 132 million Chinese from outside the capital joined the tourist throng, spending 148.3 billion yuan (US$19.1 billion), 14 percent more than in 2005.

Country to Adopt New Pricing System for Oil Products

China’s motorists could be in line for sharp petrol price increases under a new State pricing plan, dubbed the “crude price plus cost” method, for oil products. The trial operation of the new system would help put an end to heavy losses in the oil processing and petrochemical industries. Industry observers believe the new system means domestic oil prices will become more closely linked to those on international markets, and consumers will have to bear bigger-margin price rises on imported oil. The “crude price plus cost” method was based on Brent, Dubai and Minas crude-oil prices, taking into account processing costs and possible opportunities for enterprises to profit. China’s car owners have fuelled a growing demand for oil products. But oil processors have failed to profit from their sales, because prices of fuel oil are under rigid State control and international crude oil prices have been generally rising.

Low-Emission Cars Account for 60 Percent of Sales

Cars with engine sizes smaller than 1.6 litres accounted for 60 percent of Chinese car sales last year, industry statistics show. “The rise in sales of low-emission cars was due to high oil prices and government policies favouring small cars,” said a report from the China Association of Auto Manufacture. China raised the price of processed oil several times in 2006 and some cities have removed restrictions on driving routes open to small-engine vehicles in recent years. About 328,000 cars with an engine sizes of less than 1.0 litres were sold in 2006, accounting for 8.6 percent of total domestic sedan sales, said the report. Cars with an engine size of 1.0–1.6 litres accounted for about half of total sedan sales. Of the ten best-selling brands, six were economy cars, the Jetta, Buick Excelle, Elantra, Xiali, Cherry QQ and Cherry Cowin. China’s car sales increased by 37 percent to 3.83 million units in 2006.

4G Phones Get Trial Run in Shanghai’s Changning District

The world’s first fourth-generation (4G) mobile communication system was officially launched on January 28, 2007, in Shanghai’s Changning District following a field trial conducted in October 2006. The home-grown 4G system provides speeds of up to 100 mbps (megabytes per second) for wireless transmissions of data and images, many times faster than that of current mobile technology. The rollout of the trial, which has cost 150 million yuan (US$19.2 million), is a milestone in the development of China’s 4G technologies.The country has set a goal of conducting field tests of the 4G system and putting it into trial commercial use between 2006 and 2010, according to the FuTURE Project.4G mobile communication, which is expected to be used commercially by about 2010, will be able to transmit data as quickly as optical fibre lines, dramatically improving the streaming of high-quality images and data services via wireless transmission.

DHL Launches Domestic Air-Express Operation

Germany’s DHL became the first foreign express company to launch a domestic air-express operation in China on January 27, 2007. The China Air Transport Association (CATA) has approved DHL’s flights to 17 cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Dalian, Shenyang, Qingdao, Tianjin, Chengdu, Xiamen, Urumqi, Xi’an, Nanjing, Kunming, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan. The company plans to have 37 branches covering 70 cities in China in the next five years. The service will mainly cater to the clothing, electronics, transportation and bio-tech industries. The Chinese air express market has grown by an annual average of 20 percent since 1990 to become the world’s second-largest, and it is expected to double in size by 2010, according to Boeing’s World Air Cargo Forecast 2006–2007.

Road King Acquires Sunco

Road King Infrastructure Limited, a Hong Kong-listed company, on January 29, 2006 confirmed its purchase of a 39.74 percent larger stake in Beijing-based Sunco Property for 1.3 billion yuan (US$167.2 million). This follows the September 2006 purchase of a 55 percent stake in the firm. As one of the country’s largest property developers, Sunco reportedly suffered from a cash-flow shortage because of the combined effects of an overly rapid expansion of the property sector and tightening governmental policies. Road King’s core business involves investments and the development and management of toll roads and bridges in China. The firm entered China’s property market in 2004. Its real estate projects have reached a total floor area of 1.6 million square metres. After acquiring Sunco, Road King will expand its China property business to more than 16 cities, covering 39 projects with a construction area of 12.5 million square metres.