Economy/Resources - 193. page

On September 25, 2012, People’s Daily published an article related to the nation’s highways asking, “How can highways survive with over one hundred billion yuan in highway liabilities?”  The liabilities of the 19 listed highway companies amounted to 124.79 billion yuan (US$19.8 billion) for the first half-year of 2012, compared to 105.33 billion yuan (US$16.72 billion) for the same period last year.

On August 2, 2012, China’s State Council announced a plan to lift road tolls for passenger cars taking the highways during major Chinese holidays in order to promote tourism and related industries. At present, the listed highway companies are affected because they have little other income except toll revenue. They have entered into a cycle of “over charge tolls, build more highways, borrow more money, and build more highways.”

Source: People’s Daily, September 25, 2012
http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2012/0925/c70731-19097317.html

Of the top 500 companies in China, 316 are State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). They account for 82.82 percent of the total revenue, 90.40% of the total assets, and 81.88% of the total profit of these 500 companies. The top 10 most profitable companies are all SOEs, including three oil companies and five banks.

As of 2007, there were 112,000 SOEs in China, of which 118 were central government owned while the rest were local governments owned.

Until 1994, SOEs had to turn over all their profits to the state’s coffers. From 1994 to 2007, SOEs kept their profits and instead, were required to pay taxes. In 2007, SOEs resumed turning over part of their profits. Depending on different industries, the rates varied from 0 percent, 3 year deferral, to 5 percent and 10 percent. Beginning in 2010, the rates changed to 0 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent, and 15 percent.

The 2011 statistics show that the central government owned SOEs turned over 82.3 billion yuan to the state, accounting for 7.4 percent of their total profits. In 2011 the net profits of these central government owned SOEs went up by 9.7 percent, while the profits they turned over to the State’s coffers increased by 8.7 percent. No explanation was given for the difference in the published official statistics.

(Editor’s note: Although the above information was released at cnpolitics.org back in April, we believe our readers may find these statistics thought-provoking.)

Source: cnpolitics.org, April 12, 2012
http://cnpolitics.org/2012/04/state-owned-enterprise/

Radio Free Asia reported that 37 bridges have collapsed in China since 2007, including the last one, Yang Ming Tan bridge in Haerbing, which collapsed on August 24. The incidents have made people wonder about the quality of China’s bridges, but experts believe that the collapse of the bridges was caused by overall mismanagement, including using substandard materials, excessive sand mining near the bridges, and overloaded trucks (driving on the bridges). Another contributing factor was the lack of openness in the official reports of the investigations of the incidents, as most of the reports focused only on the accidents themselves. According to Radio Free Asia, therefore, there is lack of public supervision, .

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 12, 2012
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/xql-09122012163445.html

Radio Free Asia published an article on September 18, 2012, titled “The Ratio of Chinese Residents’ Income to GDP Has Been Declining." The Labor and Wage Institute under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China recently published the “2011 China Wages Report.” According to the report, Chinese residents’ income increased 14.1 percent last year. However, the actual growth was only 8.4 percent, 0.8 percent lower than last years’ GDP, after deducting price factors.

In 2011, the Chinese government’s fiscal revenue grew 24.8 percent and corporate income grew by 20 percent, all of which were much higher than the growth of Chinese residents’ income at 14.1 percent. The low increase in the growth of residents’ income resulted directly in the downturn in domestic consumption, leading to unbalanced and unsustainable economic development in China.

Source: Radio Free Asia, September 18, 2012
http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gdp-09182012165542.html

According to an article in Xinhua on September 7, 2012, by 2020, China will be able to monitor its maritime territories completely through remote satellite sensing. The article reported that China plans to launch eight new satellites in the next 8 years so as to strengthen its maritime surveillance of the South and East China seas including the Diaoyu islands (also called the Senkaku Islands) in the East China Sea and Huangyan Island (Scarborough Shoal) in the South China Sea.

Source: Xinhua, September 7, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2012-09/07/c_123687799.htm