Friday ________________________ March 22

Starbucks is going beyond coffee houses

It may soon be stocking grocery stores with its ready-to-brew packages of coffee, and opening a "community store", in which the chain will donate a portion of the store's sales to help a local community organization.

John Culver, president of Starbucks China and the Asia-Pacific, said the company is "looking at the possibilities" of selling packages of both their ground coffee and bottled drinks in Chinese grocery stores.

"We see an opportunity to create a single variety of coffee that comes from Yunnan and build on that Yunnan coffee story and tell the story to the world. That's very exciting," Culver said.

Last year, Starbucks signed a deal to form a venture partnership with the Ai Ni Group to purchase and export arabica Yunnan coffee beans as well as operate dry mills in the province.

CEO Howard Schultz said at the company's annual meeting of shareholders that the chain had achieved "stunning success" in China.

"It's no doubt that one day China will become our second-largest market after the US and it's possible that, over many years, potentially the largest one," he said.

Starbucks has more than 800 stores in 58 cities on the Chinese mainland and expects projects to have more than 1,500 stores in 70 cities by 2015. It opened its first Chinese mainland store in Beijing in 1999 and the Chinese mainland now ranks as the fourth-largest market in Starbucks' global network. It had nearly 12,000 outlets in the United States, 1,175 in Canada and 975 in Japan by the end of 2012. (Photo 1)

Airbus engine to be built at Tianjin plant

A factory in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin will assemble the new engine for Airbus SAS's best-selling single-aisle aircraft after 2016.

The Tianjin factory is Airbus's first aircraft final assembly line outside Europe. The plant, in which a Chinese consortium holds a 49 percent stake, delivered its first A320 in June 2009 and has so far rolled out 118 aircraft.

The A320neo, scheduled to enter service in late 2015, is a revamped A320 with new engines and boasts fuel savings of up to 15 percent. It has received 2,050 orders globally, including 20 placed by ICBC Financial Leasing Co Ltd in August 2012.

Monday___________________March 25

Commercial property deals expected to rise

International investors may increase their property transactions in China this year.

China, and Shanghai in particular, are still a focus for multinational companies mulling expansion and new business opportunities, so demand for commercial and residential property will remain buoyant, according to Regina Yang, director of research for international property consultant Knight Frank.

Shanghai's office and retail property sectors will see significant increases in large-scale deals this year, supported by investors' strong interest in commercial real estate, according to a research report from Knight Frank.

"On one hand, a number of deals are in the pipeline after lots of negotiations were conducted last year. On the other hand, the top management of international real estate funds are also under pressure because few deals were concluded last year," said Andy Zhang, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield China.

"This is a good opportunity to buy a quality commercial property in Shanghai. We anticipate strong leasing interest from both domestic and foreign firms looking for quality and convenience," said John Saunders, chief executive officer of Asia, MGPA. (Photo 2)

Nokia seeks to offer phones to all customers

Finnish mobile phone vendor Nokia Oyj hopes to achieve growth in China with phones for customers in all categories.

"Our target in China this year is to grow," said Jo Harlow, Nokia's executive vice-president in charge of smartphones. In order to achieve the goal, Nokia has to create attractive products, she told China Daily.

The newly launched Nokia Lumia smartphones, Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, can supplement Nokia's high-end flagship Lumia 920, which has a retail price of more than $740 in China. The cheapest model, the Lumia 520, is about $185.

China is Nokia's biggest single country market with more than 200 million users. Nokia is losing ground to Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc in the high-end market.

Nokia held almost half the smartphone market in China more than two years ago, but the figure slipped to a 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter last year, according to Beijing-based Analyses International.

Tuesday

__________________March 26

Online shopping spurs tech innovation

Chinese online-shoppers are spending more, which is sparking technological innovation that may produce big changes over the next decade.

The online-retailing surge is particularly evident in China's medium-size and small cities, said the study by McKinsey Global Institute, a research unit of global management and consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

Online retailing, the study concluded, has helped launch entrepreneurs and small and medium-size enterprises.

Online commerce in China last year produced estimated sales of $190 billion to $210 billion, trailing only the United States, according to McKinsey.

Eli Lilly seeks new drugs for diabetes

Eli Lilly and Company is looking to be a key player in the $2.2 billion Chinese diabetic medicine market with new drugs and strategic alliances with domestic pharmaceutical companies.

Though insulin is still the mainstay of the Chinese diabetic care market, Lilly expects to add more generic medicines for treatment and control of diabetes in the next few years.

China has the largest number of diabetics in the world, climbing to over 92 million last year. The number is expected to swell to 96 million by the end of this year, says a report published by the International Diabetes Federation last year.

With China becoming more affluent, living habits normally associated with type II diabetes, such as being overweight, exercising less, rich diets and sugary drinks, have become more common. (Photo 3)

Wednesday_________March 27

Asian American women's pay still lags men's

Asian American and white women working full time in the US in 2012 earned more than Hispanic, Latina and black women, but still lag behind their male counterparts, according to a report.

Compared with salaries for white male workers, Asian women's salaries show the smallest gender pay gap, at 88 percent of white men's earnings, according to an analysis of government data by the American Association of University Women.

"Education is a primary reason why Asian men and women earn more than other racial groups in the US," said Catherine Hill, AAUW director of research.

"Asian men and women have higher levels of educational attainment than any other group in the US."

American men earned an average of $54,647 annually, while women earned $43,635, according to five years of data gathered between 2007-11 by the American Community Survey, an ongoing statistical survey by the census bureau.

Nursing homes to get 10,000 beds

Beijing, home to 2.5 million people aged over 60, or 20 percent of the city's population, will get more than 10,000 beds for the aging in nursing homes.

The total number of nursing-home beds will reach 100,000 and meet international standards, which say 4 percent of senior citizens should live in nursing homes, according to Li Wanjun, director of the he municipal civil affairs bureau.

The new beds will mainly cover the suburbs and outer suburban districts like Haidian, Miyun and Fangshan. No new nursing homes are likely to be built in downtown areas because of the lack of real estate.

Thursday_______________March 28

GM aims to win luxury-car buyers

General Motors Co will offer three Cadillac sedans to win over Chinese buyers seeking luxury cars.

The redesigned Cadillac CTS will go into production later this year and Cadillac's ATS and XTS models are expected to drive a 50 percent jump in sales of the luxury nameplate in China, GM's Cadillac brand chief Bob Ferguson said.

The redesign of the CTS into a larger, more powerful car with dramatic new styling reflects the desires of Chinese luxury-car buyers, who tend to favor German brands BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. GM, the world's No 2 automaker, is vying with Germany's Volkswagen AG to be the biggest foreign automaker in China,.

GM plans to start making its smaller, entry-level ATS in China later this year. Production of the XTS at a Shanghai plant began in February. (Photo 4)

ICBC reports slowest profit growth

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd, the world's largest bank by assets, reported its slowest profit growth since its listing in 2006.

ICBC said net profit was 238.7 billion yuan ($38.4 billion) last year, up 14.5 percent from a year earlier. The bank's profit increase showed a substantial contraction compared with its 25.6 percent increase in 2011.

The central bank's move to widen the range of interest rates last year will loom large on banks in 2013, and the year will see all Chinese lenders face "great" challenges and tests on their asset quality, ICBC President Yang Kaisheng said.

ICBC surpassed Deutsche Bank to become the world's largest bank with total assets reaching 17.5 trillion yuan at the end of 2012.

(China Daily 03/29/2013 page8)