Monday December 14

China pinpoints major economic tasks for 2016

The Communist Party of China (CPC) unveiled its major economic tasks for 2016, the first year of the country's 13th Five-year Plan.

To reduce housing inventories, more migrant rural workers should be issued urban-residency permits, which will allow them to purchase housing in cities, according to a statement released after a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee presided over by President Xi Jinping.

China should also increase the urbanization ratio, which is based on the number of registered urban residents; will make cities more livable, adjust the size of cities, improve urban infrastructure and protect historical and cultural heritage. (Photo 1)

Air pollution jumped to alarming levels last month

Recent spells of severe smog engulfing northeastern and northern regions of China contributed to November's alarming rise in pollution levels, according to the nation's top environmental watchdog.

Beijing saw its readings of PM2.5 hazardous particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter soar to 118 micrograms per cubic meter on average in November, a year-on-year increase of 39 percent, according to the monthly report released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The city saw four more days with heavy pollution in November compared with the same period last year, it said.

The ministry said soaring coal consumption from heating plants was the major reason for the severe smog. Vehicle exhaust fumes also played a major role in worsening the pollution on smoggy days, said Wang Yuesi, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Tuesday December 15

Baidu 'self-driving' cars to hit roads in 3 years

Online search giant Baidu Inc said that it has set up a new business unit to spearhead its automobile efforts and plans to put self-driving cars on the road in the next three years.

The Beijing-based company, which successfully completed the test drive of its self-driven car on various roads last week, said it intends to mass-produce the vehicles within five years.

Baidu is not the only company betting on the future of self-driving technology. Tech giants like Google Inc and Samsung Electronics Co have already made their presence felt in the sector with autonomous driving technologies.

In China, Baidu's Internet rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Leshi Internet Information and Technology Co are also moving into car-related businesses by teaming up with automobile makers.

$93b to be spent on moving 10 million people

China will spend 600 billion yuan ($93 billion) in the next five years to relocate about 10 million impoverished people, an official said.

The investment at all government levels should match the determination of the central government in fighting poverty, Su Guoxia, spokesperson of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, said at a press conference.

In 2016, spending on poverty alleviation by the central and provincial governments will increase by a large margin, Su added.

At the end of last year, 70 million people in the countryside lived below China's poverty line of 2,300 yuan in annual income by 2010 price standards.

Wednesday December 16

Rescuers douse wrong plane

Firefighters at an airport in Fujian province responded to a report of a possible fire on a passenger jet, but mistakenly sprayed fire-retardant foam on another aircraft,causing millions of dollars in damage to its twin engines.

Fuzhou Airlines confirmed on that a Boeing 737-800 passenger liner sustained damage to both of its engines on Dec 10. The cost of replacing them is estimated at about 120 million yuan ($18.6 million).

A local government source with knowledge of the incident said on Monday that the airline would be compensated by the agency that operates the airport. The source did not want to be identified.

Suit filed against Volkswagen

A domestic environmental group has filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen over the company's cheating on emissions readings.

It is the first public-interest lawsuit in China related to pollution from automobile exhaust. The group said it hopes to attract attention to the need to supervise motor vehicle exhaust.

China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, an NGO based in Beijing, said it entered the case against the German auto giant because it 'produced the problematic vehicles for the pursuit of higher profits and circumvented Chinese laws, which has worsened the air pollution and affected public health and rights'.

The company has admitted that it installed software on diesel engines that switched pollution controls on when the vehicles were tested but switched them off during driving to achieve higher fuel efficiency.

Thursday December 17

SCMP deal joins Alibaba's media group

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's headline-grabbing HK$2.06 billion ($266 million) deal to acquire the media assets of SCMP Group, including the South China Morning Post, is probably just another step in its quest to build a media empire, Hong Kong-based analysts said.

'The SCMP acquisition is just one of the building blocks, if not a vital one, for Alibaba's growing media empire and ecosystem,' said Hanna Li Wai-han, a strategist at UOB Kay Hian (Hong Kong) Ltd. '(Alibaba founder-chairman) Jack Ma himself has long taken a keen personal interest in media assets, given the e-commerce behemoth's fruitful track record of buying media properties.' (Photo 3)

China to give whole nation 4G coverage by 2018

China aims to cover all its urban and rural areas with 4G network by 2018, according to an action plan published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The country also plans to install fiber optics in more than 80 percent of its villages, according to the MIIT's three-year action plan 'Internet Plus.'

With regard to the upgrading of network infrastructure, the ministry set the target of 'basically completing a broadband-based, integrated, ubiquitous and secure next-generation national information infrastructure.'

The plan will integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data with modern manufacturing to encourage the development of e-commerce,industrial networks, and Internet banking, and to help Internet companies increase their international presence. (Photo 2)

Friday December 18

China launches its first dark matter satellite

China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite was launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province on a Long March 2-D rocket on Thursday.

After three months' on-orbit test, the Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite (DAMPE) will be in service for three years to observe the direction, energy and electric charge of high-energy particles in space in search of dark matter.

Designed in the shape of a one-cubic-meter box weighing 1.9 metric tons, DAMPE carries four probes that coordinate with each other to search for signs of dark matter, which gives the satellite the widest observation spectrum and highest energy resolution of any dark matter probe in operation.

Unemployment rate expected to rise

China's 'invisible unemployment' will become more visible next year, a top Chinese think tank's report warned, as it urged the government to allow more unviable state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to go under.

In contrast to outright layoffs, invisible unemployment is the practice by which profit-losing state-owned enterprises adopt a strategy of idling employees while giving them part of their wages. They do so due to pressure from employees as well as from authorities to prevent social unrest.

However, the annual economic forecast from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicts that because of the glut of capacity in the heavy industry sector, more SOEs in the sector will 'inevitably' face restructuring and bankruptcy next year, and lay-offs will increase.

The warning came as Wuhan Iron & Steel Co, a major SOE, reportedly plans to slash 6,000 jobs in three months, while its parent company might cut 11,000 jobs and reduce salaries by 20 percent next year.

Stephon Marbury, a two-time NBA All-Star and three-time Chinese Basketball Association champion,is expected to be given a Chinese "green card", or permanent residence permit, later this month. Marbury, 38, left the US and a $20 million contract six years ago to play pro basketball in China. He is so popular in his adopted hometown of Beijing that he was named an honorary citizen of the city. Xinhua

Border defense soldiers train in heavy snow in Bole of the Mongolian autonomous prefecture of Bortala, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on Dec 11. Xinhua

(China Daily 12/18/2015 page12)