Economy/Resources - 192. page

Sichuan Province is now in the middle of the worst drought in over 20 years. Since November 2012, the average precipitation has dropped by 52 percent. Drought continued after the spring of 2013, spreading rapidly throughout Sichuan Province, which has the largest drought-stricken area in over 20 years.

According to the Sichuan authorities, over 6 million of its population have been hit by drought. About 1.15 million people and 360,000 large livestock suffer from a lack of drinking water. The drought has also damaged or destroyed 395,000 acres of crops, with the direct economic loss alone reaching 1.74 billion yuan (approximately US$277 million).

Source: People’s Daily, March 21, 2013
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/0321/c70731-20869736.html

On March 20, 2013, China’s State Oceanic Administration released its 2012 report on China’s oceanic environment. The report indicated that the quality of the seawater along China’s coastline deteriorated in 2012 as a result of disasters including oil spills. For example, the oil spill from the sub-sea wells in the Penglai 19-3 oil field in June 2011 and from the oil explosion at the Dalian Xingang on July 16, 2010, continue to have an adverse effect on the adjacent waters and the ecological environment.

An increasing volume of pollutants are being dumped into the sea. In 2012, the pollutants discharged from 72 rivers into the ocean rose from last year to a total of 17.05 million tons. Liaohe estuary, Yellow River estuary, Yangtze river estuary, and Zhouhai estuary have seen dramatic adverse ecological deterioration. About 70 percent of the nearby waters are below standard.

The report also said that a total of 170,000 square kilometers of near-shore waters are now below the first grade of seawater quality, which is the level suitable for hosting marine life and natural reserves.

Source: China’s State Oceanic Administration, March 20, 2013
http://www.gov.cn/gzdt/2013-03/20/content_2358728.htm

On March 5, 2013, the Financial Times Chinese website published an article on how the Chinese state-owned enterprises should be reformed. The article suggested to 1) gradually break up the monopolies and create a market environment for fair competition; 2) manage and share the State-owned enterprises’ huge profits with the entire society. 

By the end of 2012, there were 10.8572 million national private enterprises, with 31.1 trillion yuan of registered capital and 20.1 trillion in sales revenue; there were 120 central government enterprises attributable to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), with total assets of 31.2 trillion yuan and 22.5 trillion in operating income.

Source: The Financial Times Chinese, March 5, 2013
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001049183?full=y

People’s Daily carried an article which was originally published by Dongfang Daily. According to the article, the “2013 Personal Wealth Investment Report” issued by the Agricultural Bank of China to its personal banking clients advised that wealthy Chinese, who have personal asset over 100 million yuan (US$16 million), should consider investing in real estate and the stock market. It also recommended investing in art collections and the red wine market. The report indicated that if China’s domestic real estate policy continues to change, wealthy Chinese may shift to investing in the overseas real estate market such as Hong Kong or the U.S. The report suggested that the least favorite investment option is the gold market.

Source: People’s Daily, March 13, 2013
http://finance.people.com.cn/money/n/2013/0313/c218900-20770252.html

In a press conference held during the National Congress, Chen Deming, Minister of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce denied the claims that China has not come forth with any new initiatives since it joined the WTO. Chen insisted that China has fulfilled the commitments it made when it joined the WTO. As to the requirement for the Chinese government to break up its monopolies and the other special rights it holds, Chen insisted that there will be reforms in state owned enterprises with the condition that the status of the socialist economic system of public ownership is maintained.

Many Chinese scholars believe that issues remain with China’s open door policy where China should make further efforts to open its doors in both domestic and foreign markets, break up the monopolies of the State Owned Enterprises, and return the gains back to the people. Hu Xindou, an economist from Beijing, told RFA that, since China joined the WTO, its monopoly in the finance industry has remained an unsatisfactory condition, especially in the banking industry and in the free exchange of currency. Sun Wenguang, a retired professor from Shandong Province stated that there are many issues in terms of whether China has been following the common regulation since it joined the WTO. For example, there is unfair trade because Chinese movies and cultural products are exported overseas while many Hollywood movies are banned in China. Sun stated that China is not an economic market country. Its telecommunication, coal mine industry, and railroads are state owned. This results in corrupt interests that only benefit special classes.

It was reported that the Agreement on Government Procurement that China submitted in December 2012 was said to be protective of its domestic enterprises, since state owned enterprises’ procurements are excluded from the agreement, while the total coverage in the agreement only accounts for 2-3 percent of China’s total procurement market.

Source: Radio Free Asia, March 8, 2013
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/zhengzhi/xl-03082013110340.html

Huang Shuhe, a deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) spoke about the difficulty of State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) reform. Huang said, for an enterprise to develop, it has to travel light. SOEs still carry many heavy burdens, such as retired workers and companies running social security. Huang said that during the 2008 financial crisis, none of the central government enterprises laid off employees, although all the Western multinational companies laid people off. This was to maintain social stability. Huang believed that the reform of SOEs still faces many difficulties, as the government has yet to transform its functionalities and the social security mechanism for 5-6 million retired workers is not in place.

Source: China News Service, March 14, 2013
http://finance.chinanews.com/cj/2013/03-14/4643414.shtml