Four million cars to bring problems

Four million cars to bring problems

 

Beijing’s traffic management authority says the growing number of registered vehicles in the city will worsen congestion. [China Daily]
Wan Huaiyu said he does not care whether his second car would become Beijing’s historic four-millionth vehicle.
“It’s my car. I have a real need to own it, whether it is the four millionth or the five millionth,” the 30-year-old businessman told METRO as he steered his parents and sister into a brand new 110,000-yuan Beijing Hyundai Elantra at the largest auto market in Beijing last Sunday.
The Beijing traffic management bureau yesterday put the city’s car population at an unprecedented 3.99 million as of last Sunday, predicting the number would break four million before the weekend. The news came with a warning though, that roads in Beijing would continue to suffer from congestion if the same growth rate continues.

However, few car buyers seemed to believe in the government’s latest words of caution. In fact, the opinion of many is that the government wants them to contribute to the world’s largest auto industry and the nation’s GDP growth.
Wan said that congestion would not stop him from adding another car to his collection.
The central government decided last Wednesday to increase the vehicle purchase tax for low-emission cars from Jan 1 next year by 2.5 percent to further boost economic growth. The move immediately sent thousands of buyers after last-minute bargains at Yayuncun auto market.
Last week’s car rush pushed the number of cars in the city up another 10,000 and increased Beijing’s new drivers up 12,000 to 5.66 million, official numbers showed yesterday.
The two figures were 3.5 million and 5.1 million at the same time last year, a stunning annual growth of 14 percent for new cars and 10 percent for new drivers.
And the obvious impact of a sudden influx of cars and drivers has led to a rise in traffic collisions this year, traffic police said.
“If new drivers could realize they are not steering bikes but actually four-wheeled cars, many collisions might be avoided,” Zhang Chenjun, deputy director of the Beijing traffic police command center, told METRO in an interview this week.
“But as a matter of fact, minor accidents like scrapes and rear-end collisions have increased this year and subsequently caused more congestion,” Zhang said, without providing statistics.
“The public is paying the price after sacrificing air quality and road efficiency for fast economic growth,” Ou Guoli, an economics professor with Beijing Jiaotong University, said yesterday.
“The auto industry has benefited from the car rush, but the cost is too high,” he added.
The municipal committee of transport, which draws up the transportation policies for the city, also told METRO in an interview earlier that the city’s car rush has grown beyond control in recent years.
However, the government has no obvious plan to ditch its current car ownership policies, which include tax discounts and cheap license fees.
Experts admitted it was now too late to control Beijing’s car population from exploding.
“There is no point in controlling the ownership of cars, because Beijing’s limited roads were already overrun when it hit the three-million mark,” Mao Baohua, a Beijing-based government advisor on transportation policies.
“The car rush is a result of an expanding middle class. The only choice now is to use financial policies such as issuing high emission taxes and parking fees,” he said.
Beijing authorities are considering whether to raise parking fees in downtown areas next year and are predicted to implement a congestion tax, following the example of notoriously congested cities like Singapore and London.

Work on nuclear plants gears up

Work on nuclear plants gears up

 

A journalist inspects the construction site of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant. The plant will have six reactors with a total capacity of 7,500 mW by 2020. [China Daily]
China’s first third-generation nuclear power plant, the Sanmen project, will have six reactors with a total capacity of 7,500 mW by 2020, a source close to the subject said yesterday.
They would provide more than 10 percent of the country’s total nuclear power capacity, the source said, without elaborating.
Construction of the second reactor, which has a capacity of 1,250 mW, started yesterday. Work on the first reactor with the same capacity started in April.
More than 40 billion yuan($5.8 billion) is being invested in the first two reactors. The first reactor is scheduled to start generating power in August 2013, and the second one in June 2014, according to the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp (SNPTC), which is building the Sanmen project.
Both reactors have used the AP1000 technology developed by the US-based Westinghouse Co. The Sanmen nuclear power plant is also the world’s first plant using the technology.
“Compared with second-generation nuclear power plants that have already come into operation, the safety standard of the Sanmen project is much higher,” said Zhong Yingqiang, an executive with Sanmen Nuclear Power Co, the project’s operator.
High safety levels are one distinct advantage of third-generation nuclear power projects. They also have a longer life cycle compared with second-generation projects, said analysts.
Besides Sanmen, the third-generation technology has been used at two other nuclear power projects – Haiyang in Shandong and Taishan in Guangdong.
The Haiyang nuclear power plant also uses AP1000 technology from Westinghouse. The first phase of the project was the construction of two reactors. The building of the first reactor started in September.
The Taishan nuclear power plant uses another third-generation technology, the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) technology developed by French nuclear power company Areva. Construction of the two 1,700-mW reactors is scheduled to be completed in 2014, according to the French company.
China, the world’s second-largest energy consumer, has put an increasing focus on the construction of third-generation nuclear reactors in recent years. In 2007, the country set up SNPTC, which is mainly responsible for the domestic development of nuclear power using advanced third-generation technology from overseas.
“Development of nuclear energy, a clean energy, fits well with the country’s efforts in building an environmentally friendly economy,” said Fu Manchang, a nuclear power analyst.
According to an industry plan drawn up by the National Development and Reform Commission, China plans to increase its nuclear power capacity to 40 gW by 2020, accounting for 4 percent of the nation’s total power capacity. However, in line with the rapid development of the sector, the target was reportedly revised to 70 gW.
As well as building nuclear projects in the coastal areas, China has also started developing them at inland sites. Three areas, in Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, have been chosen as the first batch of inland nuclear projects.

Chinas 3G users hit 9.77 mln by October

China’s 3G users hit 9.77 mln by October

The number of Chinese users of the third-generation (3G) mobile technology, or 3G, had hit 9.77 million by the end of October, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Tuesday.
China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, the country’s top three communication service providers, have invested over 102 billion yuan (14.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 3G network construction this year, but this still falls short of its target investment of 143.5 billion yuan, according to MIIT figures.
Among the 9.77 million registered 3G users, China Mobile, the country’s biggest wireless service provider, alone had 3.94 million.

Construction of HK-Zhuhai-Macao bridge begins

Construction of HK-Zhuhai-Macao bridge begins

China on Tuesday began construction of the world’s longest cross-sea bridge linking its southern economic hub Guangdong Province to Hong Kong and Macao, a move widely expected to bring economic ties closer.
Vice-Premier Li Keqiang attended the inauguration ceremony in Zhuhai, Guangdong, and announced the opening of the project.
The Y-shaped Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge will have a total length of almost 50 km, of which about 35 km will be built over the sea, making it the longest cross-sea bridge in the world, said Zhu Yongling, an official in charge of the project construction.
It will be built according to the six-lane expressway standard with a vehicle speed limit of 100 km per hour.
“It is designed with a service life of 120 years. It can withstand the impact of a strong wind with a speed of 51 meters per second, or equal to a maximum Beaufort scale 16 (184 to 201 km per hour),” Zhu said.
The entire project is estimated to cost almost 73 billion yuan ($10.7 billion), which will be shared by authorities on the mainland, and in Hong Kong and Macao, he said.
During construction in the following years, they will take into consideration the protection of ocean ecology and fishery resources, such as white dolphins, he said.
“We will control the construction noises and turbidity of seawater, and prevent oil pollution,” he added.

Nations set to sign nuclear agreement

Nations set to sign nuclear agreement


China will soon reach an agreement to receive nuclear power assistance from Kazakhstan, a source said.
The unnamed source with ties to the government said the two countries had originally planned to sign the agreement during President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to the Central Asian country.
But due to Hu’s limited time there, an agreement was not drafted, but the source said one will be signed soon.
The agreement, once signed, will allow the resource-rich Kazakhstan to offer substantial help to China, which has a rising demand for nuclear plants.
China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co from China’s major economic engine, Guangdong province, has begun cooperating with Kazakhstan’s state nuclear power firm for uranium, according to the source.
A legal framework such as an intergovernmental agreement is necessary for more cooperation in the nuclear energy field, said Kairat N. Kelimbetow, chief executive officer of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna.
Kelimbetow, who is in charge of the state-funded enterprises and state-owned finance in Kazakhstan, said the two countries have been negotiating for the past two months over the nuclear agreement.
As China is set to increase its nuclear power supply, there is a huge potential for cooperation, Kelimbetow told China Daily.
Kazakhstan, a nation rich in natural resources, is set to surpass Canada and Australia to become the world’s biggest uranium producer in 2010, according to its national plan.

Renovation projects help build market

Renovation projects help build market

A worker walks in front of the housing development project Chaoyang Shoufu yesterday. [China Daily]
Unfinished buildings, known as lanweilou in Chinese or rotten-tail buildings, are being revived amid the booming real estate market in Beijing.
Located in Chaoyangmen area near the East Second Ring Road, a new residential apartment block named “Chaoyang Shoufu”, built from the deserted shell of a nine-year-old failure, is now taking preorders of apartments at an average 35,000 yuan per sq m.
Construction on the high-end apartment building project was formerly known as “Senhao Apartment”, began in 1999. However, work was stopped in 2002 by its developer at the time who falsified contracts and obtained 750 million yuan from banks. It was the biggest bank loan fraud to date in the city.
In September 2008, a Beijing-based real estate developer snapped it up at an auction for 560 million yuan.
A salesperson of the renovation project surnamed Ma told METRO yesterday that more than 2,000 customers have already registered to get hold of only 287 apartments, despite the fact that the 70-year property ownership term has only 61 years left.
“We have renovated the interior structure and replaced old facilities such as water pipes,” said Ma.
According to an investigation conducted by the Beijing municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development last year, there are about 50 unfinished buildings scattered across the wealthy central districts, most of which have undergone suspension periods of 5 to 10 years.
Beijing launched a project in 2006 to investigate unfinished buildings with a plan to renovate them before the Beijing Olympic Games. Through the use of auctions, qualified developers bought most of these buildings at low prices and received preferential government policies such as shorter licensing term.
Unfinished buildings are generally considered as a symbol of a financial bubble, but real estate agents in Beijing said they are still valuable in the booming housing market.
“Many buildings located in the central districts are skyrocketing in price this year, but there is still space for investment,” Xu Chao, manager of the investment consultant department at Centaline Property Agency, said yesterday. He added that the growing trend of the real estate market would continue.
“Most of those unfinished buildings were suspended because of financial problems or fraud. In addition to the location, purchasers need to check out the qualifications of new developers and the ownership terms,” said Xu.
Liu Weixin, a retired real estate expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has researched the market in China for more than 30 years, agreed with the idea of renovating unfinished buildings.
“Most of the suspended buildings were constructed for business use and had a lot of land resources and money wasted on them. It is a good idea to reuse them,” Liu said yesterday.

Airlines weather downturn

Airlines weather downturn

Chinese airlines have weathered the financial maelstrom without too much turbulence, with the latest statistics indicating a profitable year for the air transport industry.
By November, the industry, including both airlines and airports, netted total profit of 11.8 billion yuan ($1.73 billion), according to statistics released yesterday by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on its website.
By comparison, the industry had lost 28.2 billion yuan last year and globally, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has forecast a loss of $11 billion for the industry this year.
“The performance of China’s air transport industry is the best in the world,” Li Jiaxiang, head of CAAC, told China Central Television.
From January to November, airlines carried a record 210 million passengers, up 19.6 percent from the same period of 2008. Meanwhile, nearly 4 million tons of cargo and mail were handled in the 11 months, up 5.7 percent year-on-year.
The total air traffic in the period hit 38.65 billion tons-km, up 11.4 percent over last year.
“The domestic market has performed especially well, which is a major factor that sustained growth,” said Li Lei, an aviation analyst with CITIC China Securities.
The government’s policy support by giving back 4 billion yuan of previously collected fees to airlines and airports, and airlines’ gains in fuel hedging, have contributed to the profits, he said.
The CAAC figures also pointed to growth in cargo and mail throughput on international routes. It said cargo and mail throughput has stopped declining for 10 months and increased by 0.2 percent year-on-year in November.
The promising air transport market in China has also propelled many foreign airlines including Lufthansa German Airlines and Continental Airlines to expand their business in China.

China launches venture capital foundation for small businesses

China launches venture capital foundation for small businesses

A venture capital foundation aiming to raise money for China’s small businesses was launched Saturday to help relieve their financing hardships.
The China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises and the Shenzhen Junsheng Capital, a leading private equity and asset management company, will jointly operate the foundation.
In the initial phase, the fund aims to raise 1 billion yuan ($147 million), with 2 billion more to be collected after the road show completed, said Li Zibin, chairman of the association.
The money will be raised through private offering. Subscription should be no less than 50 million yuan, Li said.
The foundation will help push private capital to finance the growth of small businesses, said Wang Liming, head of the small business department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Li Zibin said the initial fund is expected to come from some government agencies such as the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology. Banks, insurance and securities companies are also invited to join the mission.
Small businesses in China have suffered limited financing sources as the nation’s commercial lenders preferred State-owned enterprises and large key projects.

Cross-border pipeline pulls region closer

Cross-border pipeline pulls region closer

China and Central Asia opened a new “Silk Road” yesterday when President Hu Jintao and leaders from three other nations officially opened a natural gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan to China’s Xinjiang region.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (2nd L, front), Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (3rd L, front), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (1st L, front) and Uzbek President Islam Karimov (R, front) attend the inauguration ceremony of the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline in the gas plant on the right bank of the Amu Darya River, Turkmenistan, on Dec. 14, 2009. [Xinhua] 
The pipeline – the longest in the world – is being seen as a sign of growing trust in Central Asia and should help China hit its goal of cutting carbon emissions, experts said.
Hu helped get the gas flowing by turning a symbolic wheel to open a valve on the pipeline, along with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

The gas will be pumped from Saman-Depe, in eastern Turkmenistan, all the way to China’s most westerly region.
Officials cheered and hugged after the four presidents symbolically opened the floodgates in the windswept settlement of Saman-Depe, which was decorated with Chinese and Central Asian flags for the occasion.
“China is positive about our cooperation and the opening of this gas pipeline is another platform for collaboration and cooperation between our friendly nations,” Hu said.
The 1,833-km pipeline will snake through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, before entering China at the border pass of Horgos in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang.
It will be capable of delivering 40 billion cu m of gas a year, more than half of China’s current annual gas consumption, once it reaches full capacity between 2012 and 2013.
China consumed 77.8 billion cu m of gas last year.
Central Asian leaders hailed the project, which will eventually deliver gas to cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as a sign of new cooperation in the region.
“The pipeline passing through our countries will revive the ancient Silk Road, which was once a conduit for the exchange of goods between Asia and Europe,” Berdymukhamedov said. “The successful implementation of this project could become a prototype for all international energy partnerships.
“This pipeline will have a positive impact across the entire region and beyond, and it will become a major contributing factor to security in Asia,” he said.
The project is part of Beijing’s strategy to reduce its reliance on coal, which currently meets around 70 percent of China’s energy needs, said Lin Boqiang, director of Xiamen University’s China Center for Energy Economics Research. “The project will definitely improve China’s energy mix and eventually help curtail greenhouse gas emissions.”
China wants to cut carbon intensity by up to 45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level.
“To live up to its word, China has no choice but to resort to cleaner energy, such as natural gas, and import more to solve the shortage,” Lin said.
The gas deal is also good for the Central Asia economy and will help the region recover from the global financial crisis, Lin added.
“Gas suppliers are keen to find stable, profitable export markets and the Chinese market is what they need,” he said.
The opening of the new link comes as China and Russia are working on their first cross-border oil pipeline.
The two projects reflect the political will of China and its neighbors to work more closely together, said Yang Shu, director of the Center of Central Asian Studies at Lanzhou University.
“Only partners who trust each other will build such long, cross-border pipelines,” he said. “Apparently, the bond between China and these countries is growing.”
Improving ties will stabilize the region, which has been targeted by terrorists and separatists, Yang added.

Billion-ton iron ore deposit found in N China

Billion-ton iron ore deposit found in N China

An 1-billion-ton iron ore deposit was found in northern Hebei province, official said Saturday.
The 6-km long deposit is 41.43 to 108.95 meters thick on average and lies 100 to 600 meters deep underground, said Zhang Shaolian, head of Hebei Provincial Bureau of Land and Resources.
The deposit, in Hebei’s Luannan county, was the largest ever found in China since the 1980s, Zhang said.
In addition to the proved 1.04-billion-ton iron ore, the deposit has an estimated unproved reserve of 500 million tons, Zhang added.
The deposit is shallow and comparatively easy for mining, he said.
The No.1 Geological Exploration Institute of China Metallurgical Geology Bureau, who had been prospecting the area since February 2008, issued a report with details of the deposit including its reserves, Zhang said.
The report was reviewed and approved on August 12 jointly by central and provincial land and resources reserve evaluation authorities, he added.