Pakistan, China to correct trade imbalance
From Javed Akhtar ( APP)

BEIJING—Pakistani mangos and oranges will be imported in China at zero tariff from next month, while Chinese-made textile machinery and organic chemicals will enjoy free duty in Pakistan at the same time, Chinese Ministry Commerce announced here Wednesday. There are benefits brought by the early harvest programme (EHP) between the two countries, having a long history of friendship, signed formally last Friday in Beijing.
The EHP is a significant step towards the free trade agreement (FTA) between the two economies, and may help address the imbalanced trade between them, in which China has a big surplus, said a Ministry’s official in an interview with APP. EHP, often a prelude before an FTA, is a framework offering quick tariff reduction on some products so that each country can feel the benefits of a FTA earlier.
According to the EHP agreement, more than 3,000 categories of products will have zero or lower tariff from January 1, 2006. Some 486 categories of Chinese goods exported to Pakistan will enjoy the zero-tariff treatment, mainly vegetables, fruit, stone materials, textile machinery and organic chemical products. Meanwhile, China will give zero-tariff treatment to 769 categories of goods imported from Pakistan, mainly vegetables, fruit, stone materials, cotton fabrics and man-made fabrics. For those products with lower tariffs, China will cut its tariffs by 27 per cent on 1,671 kinds of products from Pakistan, and Pakistan will cut tariffs by an average range of 22 per cent on 575 kinds of products from China.
The bilateral trade between the two countries has been expanding quickly this year. In the first 10 months, the total exports and imports reached US$3.4 billion, soaring 44 per cent year-on-year. But the trade is severely imbalanced, and, for example, China had a trade surplus of US$1.9 billion last year compared to a total trade volume of US$3.1 billion. Bo Xilai, the Minister of Commerce, said China has noted the situation and he believed the FTA, which may have many contents in favour of Pakistan, will help to ease the problem. “And we also encourage Pakistani companies to engage in more market promotion in China, and the Chinese Government will give as much support as possible,” Bo said at a news conference. China said it will further cut import tariffs on more than 100 categories of products beginning Jan. 1, 2006, involving vegetable oil, raw chemical materials, automobiles and parts.
Approved by the State Council, or China’s cabinet, the move was taken to honor China’s tariff reduction commitment upon its entry into the World Trade Organization, the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said in a statement. Since China has fulfilled most of its tariff reduction obligations, the latest plan will not have a big impact on China’s overall tariff level, according to the statement. China’s overall level of import tariffs will remain at 9.9 percent in 2006, compared with 10.4 percent in 2004. The average import tariff will be 15.2 percent for farm produce and 9.0 percent for industrial goods, it said. As of 2006, China will continue its tariff and quota management of wheat, corn and five other farm produce items and three categories of chemical fertilizers, and abolish tariffs and quota management of soybean oil, palm oil and rapeseed oil.
China will also stop collecting export tariffs on textile goods, and impose provisional tariff rates on over 60 categories of exports as of Jan. 1, 2006, according to the statement. China will impose more preferential import tariffs on products from the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as of 2006 according to the agreement on the China-ASEAN free trade area. Similar preferential import tariffs will also be available for products from Pakistan and Hong Kong and Macao according to related arrangements.
                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                       
Chinese cities facing shortage in natural gas

BEIJING—Gas supplies have been cut to households and businesses in some regions in China due to a shortage arising from increased demand this winter and poor planning, state media said Wednesday.
More than seven cities in central China’s Henan province, including the provincial capital Zhengzhou, have reduced natural gas supply to urban dwellers because of the shortage, the China Daily reported.
In Zhengzhou — a city with more than two million residents — supply can only meet two-thirds of the daily needs of its 600,000 users, the report said.
Natural gas is most often used for heating and cooking in China.
The China Times quoted Zhengzhou government officials saying at a recent press conference that the shortage was due to China’s main gas supplier diverting some five billion cubic meters (175 billion cubic feet) of gas meant for provinces including Henan, to Beijing instead.
The diversion began this year and is aimed at ensuring adequate supply for the capital in the runup to the 2008 Olympic Games it will host, the officials said. Beijing’s demands are growing, as many new buildings are being constructed.
Another reason was that Zhengzhou’s annual natural gas needs have increased from 95 million cubic meters in 2002 to 300 million cubic meters this year, the officials said.
Gas needs in Zhengzhou have jumped to 1.6 million cubic meters a day this winter, but the Zhengzhou Gas Co. Ltd. can only provide 1.1 million cubic meters a day, the China Daily quoted
Yan Guoqi, president of the company, as saying.
Yan said tight supply was also being felt in other cities including Xi’an, Chongqing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Wuxi, China Times said.
Since the start of winter, some people in Zhengzhou have not been able to cook meals on their gas cookers.
Guo Jun, a professor at the Henan University of Finance and Economics, blamed the problem on the failure of Zhengzhou Gas Co. to predict and meet the needs of users and also the government’s incompetence in dealing with emergencies.
“They just did not pay much attention to the lives of the people and the government has not offered proper solutions,” Guo told the China Daily.
City officials will focus on supplying adequate gas to residences, universities, hospitals, kindergartens and orphanages.
Supply to natural gas stations for automobiles, bath houses and factories will be temporarily suspended.

(The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item)

                                                                                                                                                                           
Pak, China pledge to join hands for building harmonious society

BEIJING—Pakistan, China and 22 other Asia-Pacific countries supported the concept of building a harmonious society and agreed work together to achieve this cherished goal. A conference that ended here attracted nearly 200 experts from regional countries including Pakistan discussed the theoretical depth of the harmonious society concept and its implementation.
According to the experts, the concept may provide solutions to many political and social problems. Its true implementation needs projecting modern ideas like democracy, rule of the law, fairness, justice, vitality, stability, orderliness and harmonious co-existence between the humankind and nature. “Actually, the features are inherently interactive, integrated and linked to each other,” said Bo Guili, professor of public administration with the China National School of Administration (CNSA).
He said the building of a harmonious society would not only reflect the basic interests and desires of the people, but also lead to immediate benefits for them. Raza Ahmad, capacity development/governance specialist with the Asian Development Bank, said effective public administration and good governance will play a central role in creating societal harmony while promoting poverty reduction and inclusive economic growth. “The need for a competent, responsible and responsive public administration for poverty reduction services can’t be underestimated,” he said. At the conference, experts from India, Philippines, Pakistan and China agreed that the grave shortage of medical services for the poor and outdated medical practices are a common phenomenon in those countries.—APP

China vaccinates 6.85b birds against Bird Flu

BEIJING—China has vaccinated 6.85 billion domestic birds against the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus this year, the nation’s chief veterinary officer said Wednesday. Jia Youling said more than five billion had been inoculated since the start of October, the start of a spate of 26 bird flu outbreaks.
The government announced last month it intended to vaccinate its entire poultry industry, which is the world’s biggest with 14 billion fowls produced each year, against bird flu. The statement drew some criticism from international health experts, who cautioned that such a massive program may not be practical and could have unexpected negative consequences if not carried out properly. Jia confirmed there had been 30 outbreaks of bird flu in China this year but said the situation was now largely under control. “In the face of a very complicated epidemic situation, we are fully capable of effectively containing the spread of bird flu in China. We have full confidence and strong determination,” Jia said. The bird flu virus has killed more than 70 people in Asia since 2003. China has reported a total of five confirmed human cases of bird flu this year, resulting in two deaths.—APP


China to complete un-manned lunar missions by 2017
From Our Correspondent

BEIJING—China will finish all its unmanned lunar probing activities around 2017 and will then start a program to send astronauts to the moon, Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China’s lunar probe program, has said. Ouyang, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was quoted by Wednesday’s Beijing Morning Post as saying that the first lunar satellite, Chang’e-1, will be launched at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province in 2007.
The lunar probe program will be accomplished in three steps, namely lunar orbiting from 2004 to 2007, lunar landing from 2007 to 2012 and return from the moon from 2012 to 2017, according to Xu Dazhe, deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group Ltd. The total cost for the first stage will be 1.4 billion yuan (about 175 million US dollars).
The State Council, China’s central government, approved the country’s first lunar probe program in 2004. A lunar probe engineering center was set up in Beijing in August this year by the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. China’s first lunar satellite was designed to obtain three-dimensional images of the lunar surface, analyze the content of useful elements and materials, and probe the depth of lunar soil and the space environment between the earth and the moon.
According to the design, the satellite system consists of a satellite platform and payload, which will be based on China’s Dongfanghong 3 satellite systems and other mature satellite technology. The satellite will be 2,350 kg in weight with 130 kg of payload, and will orbit the moon for one year.
 

Foreign investment down by 1.9% in 11 months
From Max Lee
The Daily Mail’s Special Correspondent in Beijing

BEIJING—China’s actual use of foreign investment dropped year-on-year 1.9 percent to 53.13 billion US dollars in the first 11 months of this year, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday. During the January-November period, the number of newly foreign-funded enterprises came to 39,679, up 1.17 percent year on year, with the contractual foreign funds of 167.21 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 23.99 percent from the same period of 2004. The top 10 investors include Hong Kong, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States, Singapore, China’s Taiwan Province and Germany.