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China orders 150 planes worth $9.7b

TOULOUSE (France)—China ordered 150 Airbus single-aisle passenger jets on Monday in a deal worth some $9.7 billion at list prices, boosting European industry during a visit to France by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
Top French and Chinese aviation officials signed the deal alongside a batch of other industrial orders following talks between Wen and his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin.
Other agreements include a deal between China and Eurocopter, the world’s largest civilian helicopter maker, to produce a 6 tonne helicopter, and a 150-million-euro Chinese order for a high-speed Shitai railway link.
Both Airbus and Eurocopter are subsidiaries of European aerospace firm EADS.
China also ordered a telecoms satellite from Alcatel Alenia Space.
The jet deal comes a day after Airbus agreed with Wen to look at expanding the assembly lines for single-aisle aircraft outside Europe for the first time by building a site in China.
The A320 family of single-aisle jets comprises four aircraft capable of seating 107 to 185 passengers.
Airbus agreed with Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday to study the possibility of setting up an assembly line in China — a move that could see its jets being built outside Europe for the first time.
Wen signed an agreement to carry out a feasibility study for the project at the start a European trip expected to unlock provisional Chinese orders for 70 A320-family single-aisle Airbus aircraft worth $5 billion (40 billion yuan).
Under the plan, signed during a tour of the European aircraft-maker’s giant assembly plant in Toulouse, southwestern France, Airbus and Chinese authorities will review over six months whether to set up a second A320 assembly line in China.
Airbus planes are assembled in Toulouse or Hamburg, Germany.
Airbus said it had committed to boost fourfold the value of components it buys in China to $120 million by 2010. It has already promised China a 5 percent share of the work to build the fuselage of its latest model, the mid-sized A350.
Fanning French hopes for a cluster of aerospace deals this week, Wen began the three-day French leg of his visit by flying directly to Toulouse, the home of the country’s high-tech aerospace and space industries.
“It’s the market where you have to be,” Airbus China chief Laurence Barron told Reuters as Wen inspected the first A380 superjumbo due to be delivered to Singapore Airlines in 2006.
“One in six planes sold this year will go to China. Next year that will be one in five. We have 30 percent of their fleet now and hope that will rise to 50 percent in coming years”.
The A380, capable of seating 555 passengers on its twin decks in standard format, is Airbus’s 21st-century flagship.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

China opens door to foreign banks
71 foreign banks set up 238 branches

BEIJING—China’s chief banking regulator said Monday the country did not sell too cheaply its state banks through stock market listings on the back of stringent requirement for foreign investors.
Chairman Liu Mingkang of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said foreign strategic investors are asked to hold a minimum of a 5 percent stake at a Chinese bank, and are not allowed to sell that holding in three years.
Strategic investors are required to send directors to the Chinese banks to help decision-making and encouraged to bring in senior managers, Liu told the press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council.
He said the investors should boast sophisticated banking experience and technologies, as well as sound wishes to cooperate with Chinese banks.
Meanwhile, the CBRC stipulates a single foreign financial institution should invest in no more than two Chinese banks, which Liu said is aimed at “avoiding interest conflicts and market monopoly”.
These criteria for foreign investors mean that they actually have very limited chances for speculative profits, he said. “They have to exert their own efforts so as to achieve long-term cooperation and win-win results with Chinese banks”.
The Oct. 27 listing of China Construction Bank in Hong Kong — the first by a Chinese state bank — has led to allegations that its initial public offering price was too low, which Liu Mingkang also denied.
A total of 71 foreign banks from 20 countries and regions had set up 238 operational entities in Chinaby the end of October this year, Liu said.
Meanwhile, 173 foreign banks from 40 countries and regions haveset up 238 representative offices in 23 cities in China.
The total assets of foreign banks in China amounted to 84.5 billion US dollars, accounting for about 2 percent of the total banking assets in China, Liu told a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council.
The foreign currency loans made by them accounted for 20 percent of those made by all banking institutions in China.
The scope of business permissible for foreign banks in China has also been further enlarged as 138 of them are allowed to engage in renminbi-dominated business, and 15 are approved to offer web services, Liu said.
While honoring its World Trade Organization commitments, China also opened a number of new businesses for foreign banks, such as custodian services for qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII), insurance agency business, custody business for overseas use of insurance foreign exchange funds, and custody business for stock assets of insurance companies.
Overall, foreign banks in China are now permitted to offer more than 100 types of products and services under 12 broad categories of business activity.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

China seeks thorough probe into woman abuse
Malaysia sends team to explain alleged assault

BEIJING—China urged the Malaysian side to continue making thorough investigations on the assault and humiliation of Chinese citizens in Malaysia, Shen Guofang, assistant to Chinese foreign minister, said here Monday.
The Chinese government values the protection of dignity and safety of Chinese citizens and deeply concerns about the incident,Shen said when meeting with visiting Malaysian Minister of Interior Azmi Khalid.
Shen reiterated China’s principle and position on the cases, saying that the Chinese government deeply concerns about the matter that Chinese citizens had been successively humiliated and assaulted in Malaysia.
China hopes that the Malaysian side would fully realize the urgency and graveness of the matter, Shen said, urging the Malaysian side to conduct a thorough investigation on the cases inan earnest and responsible manner, sternly punish the offenders involved the cases in accordance with law at an early date and take effective measures to prevent the reoccurrence of such incident.
Azmi said China is a very important friendly country of Malaysia. The Malaysian government values Malaysia-China relations,and expressed regret and apology for the assault cases against Chinese citizens.
Malaysia attaches great importance to the disposal of the cases,Azmi said, noting that under the instruction of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, a special investigation committee has been set up by the Malaysian government and is making earnest investigation on the cases, Azmi said.
Malaysia will inform China of the final investigation result assoon as possible and take effective measures to avoid recurrence of such cases in future, Azmi said.
The Minister of Interior paid the visit to China under the instruction of Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi for the purpose to clarify the assault cases against Chinese citizens.
Officials from Chinese Ministry of Public Security and National Tourism Administration also met with Azmi on separate occasions on Monday.
Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Azmi Khalid began a one-week visit to China Monday two weeks ahead of schedule — to explain the alleged abuse of Chinese women in Malaysia.
Malaysia sent 16 people, including the director of the immigration bureau and tourism officials, to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to meet local officials to explain their standpoints.
Three Chinese women told a newspaper that 32 Chinese women had been abused in Malaysia for 14 days in police detention, including being forced to bark, drink unsafe water and sleep on a cement floor.
Besides, authorities have arrested three air force members and another man on suspicion of raping a 32-year-old businesswoman from Guangdong Province at a hotel in Selangor. Malaysia has launched inquiries into these issues.
Chen Caihe, a vice minister of Home Affairs, said they didn’t plan to apologize during the visit, because the investigation hasn’t ended. The foreign ministry will undertake this task if evidence proves Malaysia is in the wrong.
Chen said the delegation will talk with the Chinese government about their future cooperation, and clarify that Malaysia is a safe country.
Malaysia was a major destination for Chinese tourists until this year, when there has been a marked drop in arrivals. —APP/Agencies

HIV vaccine still some years away, say experts

BEIJING—An HIV vaccine may still be a dream but scientists say that in four to five years they may be able to tell the world which candidate vaccines could successfully be developed into effective ones.
Currently nobody can tell exactly when an effective vaccine will be available for the deadly virus though dozens have been trialled and proved to be ineffective over the past years, an international symposium revealed over the weekend in Beijing.
Robert Gallo, a scientist from University of Maryland Baltimore who participated in the symposium, was the man that proved that the virus now known as HIV causes AIDS. He commented on the difficulties facing the successful development of an HIV preventative vaccine which include the following issues:
Testing cannot use an attenuated live version of the virus or an entire dead version of the virus, forcing the use of subunits of the virus in testing.
There are enormous variations of the virus. Though vaccines can establish antibodies in a person the virus is able to mutate to modify itself, causing the antibody to become ineffective.
HIV is a retrovirus. Therefore it integrates its genes into the cell’s genes upon infection complicating vaccine development further.
He called all institutes of human virology throughout the world to take on the responsibility of developing possible vaccines against HIV.
Although nobody can tell exactly which vaccines will be effective, some vaccines exist that are worthy of further research and development, and these need to be identified, he said.
Some of these potentially effective vaccines are being tested and developed in China.
Currently, one vaccine has reached the human test stage for the first time in China, in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Another vaccine, being developed by Shao Yiming, chief expert of the National Centre for AIDS/STD, and his followers, has passed the animal test stage and is applying for the human test stage now.
Chinese HIV vaccine research has learned many lessons from the experience of other Chinese experts who have successfully developed vaccines for smallpox and other endemic diseases, Shao said.
More than 150 domestic and overseas scientists gathered at the symposium, which begun on Saturday and lasts until tomorrow, to discuss every possible preventive measure against the virus which now infects nearly 40 million people worldwide.
Besides the development of a vaccine, other preventive measures have been proposed by experts at the symposium such as public education, the issuance of clean needles, and methadone administration to encourage drug users to receive drugs from a safer and cleaner source.
By the end of this year, it is hoped that 128 stations will have been established in the country, with the role of administering free methadone to drug users in a clean and controlled environment to reduce the chance of HIV infection among drug users, Hao Yang, vice-director of the Disease Control Department of the Ministry of Health, told China Daily.
Meanwhile, China should encourage people to take HIV tests, in particular among blood donors, to prevent the spreading of the disease through blood transfusions, said Robert Gallo.
In China, at least 23 per cent of the total reported HIV/AIDS sufferers are infected through receiving contaminated blood in hospitals.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

Toxic slick forces Chinese city to cut water supply

JIAMUSI (China)—The city government yesterday banned the use of water from Songhua River even though the toxic slick was still some distance away. A prominent warning was posted on a board along the river bank at the city’s famous Songhua Square forbidding water from being drawn from the river, using it in industries or households, fishing, swimming or extracting ice.
Sand will not be permitted to be extracted from within 100 metres of the river bank. The slick had forced Harbin, 350 kilometres upstream of Jiamusi, to cut its water supply for four days. Yesterday, Jiamusi cut tap-water supply, but the 550,000 urban residents were calm about the approaching toxic slick, which will arrive at noon tomorrow.
The city government is persuading the 300 households of Liushu Island, which occupies 10 square kilometres in the river, to move. Wang Xianjia, the head of one of the three villages, said only about 80 people, mainly children and the elderly from 26 households, had moved to the city; and that 202 were staying put.
“They have livestock and harvested grain to look after,” he said. The government had ordered that no wells be used, Wang said.
But those who stayed back have stored enough water, Wang said. Li Haitao, mayor of Jiamusi, has warned that pollutants are likely to be formed as a sediment along the island, resulting in long-term contamination of drinking water.
The Heilongjiang Provincial Environment Protection Bureau said that 17 checking stations had been set up along the Songhua River, which were monitoring water quality round the clock. It reports on the situation daily to Russian authorities.
By 2 pm yesterday, the front of the slick was in Yilan County, 343 kilometres from Sanjiangkou, where Songhua River meets Heilong River, called Amur in Russia.
The taps were turned off in Jiamusi, home to 550,000 people, Sunday as the potentially lethal chemical pool approached along the Songhua river in China’s northeast province of Heilongjiang, the China Daily reported. Warnings were posted along the river bank in Jiamusi ordering people not to draw water from the river, or to swim or fish in it, according to the paper.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

China firm to get $130m in rescue plan

BEIJING—China Aviation Oil will receive $130 million in funds from its parent CAOHC, oil group BP and Singapore state-owned investor Temasek as part of a rescue plan one year after the jet fuel trader collapsed under half a billion dollars in trading losses.
CAO , whose shares remain suspended since the scandal broke in November 2004, said on Monday BP would inject $44 million into CAO for a 20 percent stake, giving the world’s second-largest oil group access to China — the world’s fastest-growing energy market.
Temasek Holdings will pay $10.2 million for a 4.7 percent stake in Singapore-listed CAO, while its parent, state-owned China Aviation Oil Holding Company, will invest $75.8 million and cut its stake in the firm to 51 percent.
“The Chinese government is proceeding with the deregulation of the jet fuel market. The regulation poses challenges and opportunities for CAO Singapore. We are well positioned for the future,” Gu Yanfei, head of the special task force of CAO Singapore told a news conference.
BP has also signed an agreement with CAO to inject assets into the Singapore-listed company six to nine months after the shares resume trading.
Separately, the company also announced its 2004 results which showed a net loss of S$864.87 million ($511.4 million) against a profit of S$54.27 million in 2003. The company made a loss of S$884.75 million from derivatives trading.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)