Month: May 2019

A new round of investigation on risky public-private partnership (PPP) projects has started in China, with an eye on slowing the growth in local government debt and preventing financing risks, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

PPP projects worth more than 13 trillion yuan ($1.88 trillion) will be re-evaluated, to figure out whether the financing process has increased the off-budget debt of local governments. The order has been sent to all provincial-level local governments, a senior official from the ministry’s Finance Department, who did not want to be named, told China Daily.

The investigation is expected to be completed by the end of June, and after that all PPP projects will be supervised by a national government debt supervising system, according to the official.

The investigation was conducted because the auditing department raised doubts that some local governments might add contingent liabilities, a part of debt that is hard to measure, in the name of supporting PPP projects, the official said.

“Projects that will increase local governments’ contingent liabilities should be stopped or transferred in other legal ways for continued construction,” said a notice sent by the Ministry of Finance to provincial-level local government officials.

The provincial financial departments should also remove all illegal PPP projects from the registration process. Experts and consultancies that offered illegal services or provided false information for project assessment will be punished, the document said.

The measure will be another strong measure to curb local government debt, especially when they have compulsions to borrow more due to the economic slowdown to support State-owned entities and stabilize local growth, said analysts.

The leverage ratio of local governments is likely to reach 23 percent of GDP in 2020, a 3 percentage point increase from 2018, according to Moody’s, a global ratings firm.

The PPP financing model, which was promoted by the central government from 2015, aims to ease part of the local governments’ infrastructure spending pressure. But the rising liquidity shortage, mainly due to the high reliance on short-term debt and limited access to external financing, sparked policymakers’ worries on debt risks.

By the end of March, 8,839 PPP projects were registered with the Ministry of Finance, with total investment of 13.42 trillion yuan. Municipal engineering and transportation projects accounted for most of the projects under the scheme.

The Ministry of Finance had tightened PPP regulations earlier and imposed conditions that local governments can inject only a maximum of 10 percent of their annually budgeted spending into PPPs, which in turn crimped project growth. Accounting distortions also clouded prospects for PPP projects, which could have understated some financial risks, analysts said.

“But PPP will remain the main financing model for Chinese local governments to fund infrastructure investments over the medium term, despite a tightening in regulations,” said Yang Jing, director of the corporate research department of Fitch Ratings.

The move also indicated a trend that China’s central government has begun to exercise stronger oversight of local governments, and the local governments’ investment decisions are much more aligned with the central government’s aim of supporting economic growth, according to economists.

“It could be challenging for the central government to manage the risk spillovers in an economic slowdown,” said Lillian Li, a senior vice-president with Moody’s. “While the central government would likely try to prevent any risk contagion, potential policy missteps or the complexity of local economic systems, or both, could hold back policy support in a timely manner.”

As the central government seeks greater transparency for its contingent liabilities, local governments’ direct financing through the bond market has increased while their reliance on indirect financing through local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, has declined, said Moody’s.

According to the Wind Info, a Chinese financial information platform, bond issuances by local governments accounted for 27 percent of the total bond issuance of governments and local government financing vehicles last year, up from 15 percent in 2015, while LGFVs’ share declined to 30 percent from 40 percent.

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A short film released in celebration of the Asian Civilization Dialogue Conference personifies unity and the riches of the continent through song.

Children from Pakistan, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea and China proudly sing in their own languages, the lyrics depicting the traditional cultural elements of each country.

Images of famous natural landscapes, traditional dances, food and national costumes are united to reflect how the richness and diversity of Asian civilization can be brought together.

Video by: China Review Studio 

 

 

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Easing of restrictions doesn’t mean much, founder of telecom company says

As Huawei Technologies Co faces arguably its biggest challenge in its 30-year-plus history, the company’s 74-year-old founder Ren Zhengfei wants to show the world that Huawei is prepared for a worst-case scenario.

Instead of responding to the US-led crackdown on Huawei with anger, Ren, who is also the CEO of Huawei, said he is still of firm belief that global cooperation is a must to take the telecom industry forward.

“Huawei is now like a plane, working hard to fly back (to our base) while fixing (the holes on) its body,” Ren said during an interview on Tuesday. The plane Ren is referring to is an Ilyushin Il-2 aircraft, which kept flying despite being hit by antiaircraft shells and machine-gun fire and managed to make its way back home during the World War II. The image of the aircraft is featured in a poster of Huawei’s internal portal. Its tagline reads: Heroes are forged, not born.

These words mirror how Huawei, the world’s largest telecom equipment maker and second-largest smartphone vendor, is dealing with the US government’s ban which forbids it from buying US technologies without special approval.

‘We are well-prepared’

Though wings of “our plane” have been struck, the core part of the “aircraft” is based on self-developed components using world-leading technologies, Ren said. “We are well-prepared for such a scenario with a Plan B (for all high-end components),” he said.

In a two-and-half-hour interview with Chinese media, he said the US government’s decision to ease its ban on Huawei for 90 days “doesn’t mean much”, for the company has already made sound preparations for the restrictions.

“We can make the chips that we bought from US companies, but it does not mean we will stop buying chips from them. Instead, we should grow together,” Ren said.

“We don’t want to do harm to friends,” he said. “We want to help them achieve good balance sheets.”

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According to him, during the “peace period”, half of the company’s chips were from US companies, while the remaining half was developed by itself. Currently, Huawei buys at least 50 million sets of chips every year from US semiconductor giant Qualcomm Inc.

“If there is a supply shortage, we have a backup,” said Ren, who founded Huawei in 1987. Huawei’s chip-designing arm HiSilicon is now capable of designing processors for smartphones, servers, artificial intelligence products and others.

HiSilicon President He Tingbo said in an internal letter last week: “We have been developing backup products for years. Such efforts can ensure strategic safety of most of the company’s products and continuous supply of most products.”

When it comes to the operating system for smartphones, Huawei has developed its own version, which could hit the market as early as this autumn. Huawei’s OS is expected to replace Google’s Android operating system in its smartphones in case the US tech company restricts its use on Huawei devices in compliance with the US ban.

These moves are all part of Huawei’s efforts to prepare for actions from the US government, which accuses it of posing national security risk. The Shenzhen-based company repeatedly denied the accusation and said these charges were not supported by factual evidence.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting US telecom carriers from buying products from companies deemed as national security risks. Separately, the US Commerce Department added Huawei and its 70 affiliates to an Entity List, which banned the company from buying parts and components from US companies without prior government approval.

On Monday, the US said it had temporarily eased restrictions and issued a 90-day license to allow Huawei to purchase US technology in order to maintain existing networks and provide software updates for existing Huawei handsets.

Eugenio Bregolat，former Spanish ambassador to China，talks with China Daily about the importance of dialogue among different civilizations as well as the China-EU relations, China-Spain relations prior to the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations, which will open on Wednesday in Beijing.

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Danish jewelry manufacturer and retailer, Pandora, recently held an exhibition in Sanlitun, Beijing, demonstrating stories of different kinds of love —from that of a couple to motherly love and a love for one’s pet.

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These stories were collected from five Chinese celebrities, including former Olympic gymnastics champion, Liu Xuan, and her husband, the clarinetist Wang Tao, who also attended the event to tell their story and their understanding of love.

Audiences were able to enjoy exhibits of Pandora’s new jewelry collections, have an interactive experience and scan QR codes to make their own e-cards to express love to others.

Around two years ago, iconic Taiwan rock band Mayday launched their 18-month-long marathon world tour, titled Life, selling 4 million tickets and reaching audiences across four continents.

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The runaway success of this tour has now been adapted into the upcoming film, Mayday Life, which will hit domestic theaters on Friday.

A silver screen reworking of the 2017-2018 Life world tour, the movie stars the five members of the band and features special performances by Crazy Alien actor Huang Bo and Tony Leung Ka-fai, a four-time best actor winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Thanks to the band’s huge fan base, Mayday Life has been dominating the presale box-office charts ahead of Friday’s release. With reservation ticket revenues reaching 2.5 million yuan ($361,670) from nearly 18 percent of the country’s 60,000-plus screens, Mayday Life is now outperforming Disney’s live-action remake of its film, Aladdin, which has earned 1.6 million yuan in presale ticket sales for the same opening day.

A sneak preview of the film was held in Beijing on May 17, gathering director Muh Chen and the five band members, Ashin, Stone, Nasa, Guan You and Monster.

Ashin, whose real name is Chen Shin-hung, says the most difficult part of making the film was selecting the most compelling scenes from the 122 concerts they performed worldwide.

“Each concert lasts nearly three hours, and one of their most interesting characteristics is that the five of us love speaking on stage, making jokes and trash-talking to each other. We wanted these scenes to appear in the movie, which made the editing a major project in itself,” he says.

NEW DELHI – The mobile application of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on early Friday announced the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the just-concluded 17th general elections.

According to the ECI data, the BJP crossed the half-way mark of 272, required to form the government.

The party’s tally is most likely to rise further, as BJP candidates are leading in 31 more parliamentary constituencies, and the counting of votes is still underway, showed the ECI data.
Buoyed by the victory, Prime Minister Modi said he dedicates it to his countrymen. “The people of this country contested this election. I dedicate this victory to my countrymen,” he said while addressing thousands of BJP supporters at the party headquarters in New Delhi.

“We had sought mandate for a New India. I bow down before the 1.3 billion countrymen on this occasion. I thank the Election Commission of India and the security personnel for carrying out the entire election process peacefully.”

Modi was accompanied by his party president Amit Shah, who is credited with forging strategic alliances with smaller parties across different states thereby ensuring BJP candidates’ victories.

Senior BJP leaders, including Home Minister (Internal Security) Rajnath Singh, External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Health Minister J.P. Nadda were also present at the victory rally.

Speaking on the occasion, party president Amit Shah said that the BJP had secured more than 50 percent of votes polled in as many as 17 states, while the main opposition party the Indian National Congress (INC) could not even win a single constituency in a large number of states.

Earlier, main opposition party the Indian National Congress (INC) president Rahul Gandhi conceded defeat and congratulated Modi over his victory. He tweeted, “I accept the verdict of the people of India. Congratulations to the winners, Mr Modi & the NDA. Thank you to the people of Wayanad for electing me as your MP. Thank you also to the people of Amethi. Thank you Congress workers & leaders for your hard work in this campaign.”

Addressing media persons at his party headquarters in New Delhi, Gandhi said, “The BJP and the INC have different ideologies and visions. Modi and the BJP have their ideology, and the INC has its own. We will continue with our ideology and vision. There are many people in the country who believe in the INC’s ideologies and policies.” He also appealed to his partymen who lost the elections not to lose heart and continue to work for the party together as a team.

Gandhi also congratulated his arch rival and Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani who defeated him in the Amethi parliamentary constituency in northern state of Uttar Pradesh. “I congratulate Smriti Irani, and I hope she will take care of Amethi constituency,” he added.

“Today the election results have been announced. A new prime minister will take over. Our countrymen have given their verdict, and we respect that,” Gandhi said.

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Roman Pabich from the United States won first place for men while Sakura Yosozumi from Japan topped the women’s group in the Vans Park Series skateboarding competition Shanghai stop on Saturday.

Sixteen contestants who passed the preliminaries competed in combinations of speed, style, flow, amplitude and creativity at Yangpu Riverside Hanyi Park.

Young athletes showed their talent in the competition: CJ Collins, 15, placed second and Brazilian Luiz Francisco, 18, secured third place in the men’s group. On the women’s podium, Japan’s Kisa Nakamura, 18, placed second and Brazilian Yndiara Asp was third.

The competition will continue in Sao Paulo, Montreal and Paris-Chelles through August before the world championships in Salt Lake City in September.

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Once Upon a Bite, a food docuseries by Chen Xiaoqing, has proved to be an instant phenomenon with great ambition. It captures the hearts and stomachs of viewers in China through mouthwatering images and more importantly, the stories behind them.

The crew traveled to 22 countries over four years, observing Chinese and global flavors across the world.

This year, Flavorful Origins, another production by Chen which was purchased by Netflix, has introduced authentic Chaoshan dishes to a much broader viewership.

How do you create a delicious dish? Does food travel further and faster than other cultural components? What are the major features of dishes in areas such as Beijing and Hangzhou? China Daily discusses these questions and more with Chen Xiaoqing. Now let’s hear from the connoisseur!

Guest: Chen Xiaoqing

Reporter: Li Wenrui

Camera: Zhou Bing

Editing: Li Wenrui

Copy editor: Ian Goodrum

Subtitles: Yang Shan

Producer: Li Wenrui

Executive producer: Feng Minghui

Contact the producer at [email protected]

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Canon, the Japanese multinational imaging and optical products maker, announced its official entry into Chinese animal medical treatment market, marking the company’s further step in expanding its business from camera to medical equipment.

At the 11th East and West Small Animal Veterinary Conference in Xiamen held from May 20 to May 23, Canon unveiled its two digital radiographic products designed for animals’ X-ray imaging of various sizes.

Kurohara Hidemi, head of Medical Products Business Unit of Canon (China), said in an interview that the products launched during the conference mark the multinational company’s formal entry in Chinese animal medical treatment market, and he’s confident that the Canon’s solution can excel amid its Chinese and Japanese counterparts that currently dominate the market.

“Chinse market is very large, although the United States is still the largest market in terms of medical equipment on a global scale, we firmly believe that in the near future, China will catch up with and even exceed the size of the US market,” said Hidemi. “China currently owns advanced technology in Artificial Intelligence…and as the medical equipment arm of Canon, we believe the market will become more and more important.”

He said it was the first time Canon has taken part in such a conference in China, and it has been actively in talk with many manufacturers of X-ray machines.

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