Monday March 21

Li rules out using 'currency war' to boost exports

China is opposed to any 'currency war', which would be detrimental to the smooth recovery of the world economy, said Premier Li Keqiang while meeting with Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, in Beijing on Monday.

China will not use yuan depreciation to boost exports, since this would affect the country's efforts to upgrade its economic structure, he said.

The premier said China will push forward reform of the yuan's exchange rate mechanism and ensure the yuan's exchange rate floats within a reasonable band and is kept largely stable at an appropriate and balanced level, according to an official statement. (Photo 1)

Drone maker to launch nationwide farm services

The nation's largest commercial drone manufacturer is setting up a vast service network to expand the use of agriculture-specific unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Shenzhen-based DJI Innovation Technology Co said it will train 10,000 people across the country to operate the drones and set up 100 after-sales service centers. The company will also offer subsidies to up to 10,000 people to start a business in farm drones.

He Xiongkui, a professor at the Center of Crop Protection Equipment and Spraying Technology at China Agricultural University, said at present the number of agricultural drones is no more than 4,000, but the demand is on the rise.

The penetration rate of agricultural drones in China is only 3 percent, compared with 50 percent in the United States and Japan, according to industry statistics. (Photo 2)

Tuesday March 22

Value of top 100 brands soars to $525b

The value of China's top 100 brands surged 13 percent to $525.6 billion last year despite the country's economic slowdown, an annual survey showed.

For the first time, market-driven brands that are owned by entrepreneurial companies contributed more than half, or 51 percent, of the value of the top 100, surpassing the State-owned enterprises, the survey known as the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands said.

According to the survey, Tencent remains China's most valuable brand, growing its value 24 percent to $82.1 billion, followed by China Mobile at $57.2 billion and Alibaba at $47.6 billion.

The highest new entrants were telecoms brand Huawei, ranking seventh with a brand value of $18.5 billion and online retailer JD.com Inc that ranked 15th with a value of $9.4 billion.

The 2016 edition of the survey was released in Beijing by the New York-based research firm Millward Brown, which owns BrandZ, and the communications group WPP Plc.

Blacklist urged to block invasive species

China should blacklist people who habitually carry or mail invasive species and other prohibited items across its borders, a senior quarantine inspection official has suggested.

Such a system would check the rising number of such violations, according to the official, who is also a member of China's top advisory body.

Information on those who are blacklisted should be shared between departments, including the Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau and visa-issuing departments, said Xu Jinji, vice-president of the Chinese Society of Inspection and Quarantine.

Last year, authorities prevented 980,000 batches of harmful species from entering China, a year-on-year increase of 20 percent and covering 5,788 species, the administration said.

Wednesday March 23

Two more Chinese companies to sponsor FIFA

Two more Chinese companies will join Wanda Group as FIFA partners this year, Wang Jianlin, chairman of Wanda, said.

Wang made the announcement at a news conference and did not disclose details.

Wanda Group has signed a sponsorship contract with FIFA, according to a statement by the world soccer governing body. The contract will grant Wanda the highest level of sponsorship rights, which will be valid for 15 years and includes the next four FIFA World Cup events, it said.

'Chances of China qualifying for the World Cup will become brighter with more Chinese companies becoming FIFA sponsors,' Wang said.

There are eight seats for the top-level FIFA sponsors globally, with US companies dominating the list. (Photo 3)

Automaker eyes Russia, Iran markets

GAC Motor, a division of the Hong Kong- and Shanghai-listed Guangzhou Automobile Group Co, plans to build car-assembling facilities overseas to meet the increased demand for Chinese homegrown vehicles, a senior company executive said.

'We are conducting research on the sites of the overseas factories in Russia and Iran, to prepare for booming demand for Chinese vehicles,' said Wu Song, general manager of GAC Motor.

Overseas sales of its cars, under the Trumpchi brand, grew 38 percent year-on-year in 2015, with the name becoming especially well known in the Middle East, according to a company source. In the first two months of this year, GAC Motor sold about 55,000 Trumpchi-branded cars, four times the number in the same period in 2015, according to the company source. (Photo 4)

Thursday March 24

Police in East China's Shandong province have detained 37 suspects implicated in a vaccine scandal that has shocked the nation and raised questions about vaccine safety.

Shandong police announced last month that they had arrested a mother and daughter alleged to have illegally sold improperly stored or expired vaccines worth more than 570 million yuan ($88 million) across 20 provincial-level regions since 2011.

Three pharmaceutical companies are being investigated by police, according to the work group handling the case.

No more side effects have been detected among the patients vaccinated with suspected illegal vaccines, an official at the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) said Wednesday.

Grain production had shortfall in 2015

China's total grain output increased 2.4 percent year-on-year to 621 million tons in 2015, the 12th consecutive year of growth.

Despite that, China had a shortfall of between 20 million and 25 million tons in the amount of grain it produced and consumed in 2015, as Chinese developed a taste for more diverse grain choices.

Food imports reached a record 120 million tons last year, with soybean accounting for more than 70 percent of the total. Imports of corn increased 80 percent year-on-year and rice 30 percent.

State granaries' large inventories and competition from imports have depressed grain prices in China, making life difficult for farmers.

China's 13th Five-Year Plan announced earlier this month has a big focus on improving the quality of agricultural products. Authorities will put more stress on improving farmland and encouraging the application of new technology in farming.

Friday March 25

Online team rids Internet of improper content

An online team in China dedicated to rooting out violence and terrorism on the Internet has rid cyberspace of improper and illegal content, an official of China's top Internet watchdog said.

The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center received more than 20,000 violence- and terrorism-related reports from netizens - including many parents and youngsters who frequently surf the Internet - and it ordered websites and network managers to remove 200,000 pieces of unlawful content, Zhang Chenggang, director of the center, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

A nationwide campaign against online violence and terrorism has been ongoing for many years and the center was established in 2005.

China has 4.23 million websites producing 40 billion pieces of content every day, 'which is a huge workload for the Internet management departments to cover, let alone distinguish illegal or harmful ones from among them,' Zhang said.

Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen are richest cities

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have topped a ranking of China's richest cities.

Instead of measuring each city's GDP per capita, the list is based on total deposit balances held at all financial institutes. This figure is also referred to as the total capital amount, and indicates the result of economic growth in certain regions and cities, according to the report released by China Business News, an economic news portal.

China's leading cities, Beijing and Shanghai, are far ahead of other regions, and their total capital amount is above 10 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion), according to the report.

A villager dressed in traditional costume presents a horsemanship performance during a prayer ritual that kicks off the new farming season in Gyangze county of Xigaze, Tibet autonomous region on March 16. Xinhua

Martial art school students practice Shaolin kung fu on a cliff at Songshan Mountain in Dengfeng, Central China's Henan province, on March 17. Provided to china daily

(China Daily 03/25/2016 page12)