China Travel News

Ask questions and post comments

Choose a Topic:

Title:

Nickname:

Email:

Verification Code:

"Like Us" to read more News & Stories about China.

2011-12-28
China Reviews Rules to Curb Illegal Entry of Foreign Workers, Xinhua Says. Foreign nationals suspected of having entered the country without authorization, of having overstayed visas or of working illegally may be detained, repatriated and barred from returning to China for five years, according to the Dec. 26 report.

2011-12-16
Sina Corp., owner of the Twitter- like Weibo service in China, plunged to a 15-month low after the company said that Beijing’s municipal government will force microblog users to verify their identifies.
Sina, China’s biggest Internet portal, sank 4.5 percent to $50.41 at 12:20 p.m. in New York. It earlier lost as much as 11 percent to $46.86, the lowest intraday price since September 2010. While Sina is based in Shanghai, the Weibo unit is based in Beijing, so the new regulations would apply to all users.
The new rules, effective today, ban users from setting up accounts with aliases and sending public messages containing state secrets or information that could harm national security. Sina is “evaluating the impact” the changes may have on the Weibo operation, the company said in a statement.
Chinese officials have pressured microblog services to strengthen supervision after a fatal rail crash in July sparked an outburst of criticism of the government on the Internet. Sina has blocked references to Wukan, a village in South China’s Guangdong province where armed police are engaged in a standoff with villagers after the death in police custody of a local butcher sparked protests this week.
Microblogs, which are used to publish short messages on the Internet, have at least 300 million registered users in China. Sina’s Weibo accounted for 66 percent of the market in August, according to a Sept. 15 report by BOCOM International. China had 485 million Internet users at the end of June, more than the combined populations of the U.S. and Japan.
Weibo’s Value
“Sina’s valuation incorporated the value of Weibo a lot,” said Echo He, a senior China analyst at Maxim Group LLC in New York, in a telephone interview. “This news probably will hurt the value of Weibo in the eyes of potential advertisers and game developers because they do prize Weibo’s large market reach and the time frequent users spend on it. If Weibo’s appeal declines, it definitely affects Sina’s value.”
Sina posted a net loss of $336 million in the third quarter, its largest as a public company, after doubling marketing expenses and engineering costs for Weibo. Sina will continue to “vigorously” invest in the service, and making money from it isn’t the company’s priority “at the current stage,” Chief Executive Officer Charles Chao said on a conference call with analysts Nov. 9.
Criticism of the government spread across Weibo after two high-speed trains collided in the eastern city of Wenzhou in July, killing 40 people. Users questioned the government’s handling of the crash and spread commentary and photos of the accident at odds with the official version of events.
‘Healthy’ Environment
The government will punish microblogs that spread lies or rumors as it seeks a “healthy, orderly microblogging environment,” Xinhua reported in October, citing Wang Chen, director general of the State Internet Information Office. Microblogs should promote science, culture and morality and shouldn’t carry “illegal information,” it said then.
Sina said in the statement today that Beijing government’s rules won’t force users to change account names, and won’t affect people who only use the service to read others’ messages. The rules are applicable to microblogging service providers within the Beijing municipality and their users.
Other cities may implement similar rules because it’s the central government’s intention to tighten the regulation on mircroblogs, according to Maxim’s He. The regulation hurts Sina more than its competitors because of its popularity, He said. The analyst added that she may lower her $45 price target for Sina once she can quantify the impact of the new rule.
Tencent, Sohu
Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700), based in Shenzhen, is the second- biggest operator of microblogs with a 25 percent share, according to BOCOM International. Beijing-based Sohu.com Inc. (SOHU), owner of the country’s fifth-most visited website, also offers similar services. Tencent rose 1.7 percent to $19.48 in New York, while Sohu added 2.7 percent to $47.62.
The news isn’t the “worst case scenario” for Sina as investors had already anticipated the tightening of government regulations, according to Adam Krejcik, an analyst at Roth Capital Partners.
“Following months of speculation we believe Sina’s management is relatively prepared and also believe the actual reporting of this news, versus numerous rumors, is better for the market,” Krejcik wrote in a note to clients. “We do not believe this signals the end of Weibo in China.”
Krejcik has a “buy” rating for Sina with a price target of $110.
Sina’s shares have lost 27 percent this year as rising costs and increasing competition squeeze profits.
Two telephone calls to the Internet information office at the Beijing city government weren’t answered today. -Bloomberg

2011-12-13
Bloomberg:The global glut in lead is falling to a five-year low as China, the biggest buyer, consumes a record amount to make batteries for everything from cars to emergency lighting to electric bicycles.
The supply surplus will drop to 8,000 metric tons in 2012 from 78,000 tons this year as China, which accounts for about 44 percent of global demand, uses 9.5 percent more, Morgan Stanley estimates. Prices may rise as much as 19 percent to $2,500 a ton next year, according to the median estimate of 18 producers, analysts and traders surveyed by Bloomberg.
While lead slumped 18 percent this year amid mounting investor concern that slower economic growth will sap the use of raw materials, analysts and traders say prices will rally because consumption is expanding. Demand will advance for a 10th consecutive year in 2012, and for at least four more years after that, Morgan Stanley predicts.
“Forty-five percent of demand is recession-proof,” said Stephen Briggs, an analyst at BNP Paribas SA in London who has been following the market for three decades. “Demand for replacement batteries will continue at more or less the same rate whether there is a recession or not a recession.”
Lead fell to $2,100.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange this year, heading for its first annual decline since 2008. That compares with a 21 percent drop in the LMEX index of six industrial metals. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 commodities rose 3 percent, led by gasoil, gold and feed cattle. The MSCI All-Country World Index of equities retreated 9.9 percent and Treasuries returned 9.2 percent, a Bank of America Corp. index shows.
700 Producers
About 80 percent of lead is used in batteries, according to the International Lead and Zinc Study Group in Lisbon. Production in China, the biggest exporter, may rise about 20 percent in 2012, according to the Beijing-based China Battery Industry Association, which represents more than 700 producers. That will use a total of about 3.3 million tons of lead.
Global supply of refined lead will advance 3.8 percent to 10.22 million tons next year, compared with a 4.6 percent gain in consumption, Morgan Stanley estimates. Global production is valued at almost $25 billion based on this year’s average price.
Chinese demand shored up consumption during the global recession. Growth is now slowing after the central bank raised interest rates three times and lifted the reserve-requirement ratio six times this year to curb inflation. Reserve requirements were cut for the first time since 2008 on Dec. 5. The economy will expand by 8.5 percent next year, from 9.2 percent in 2010, the median of 11 economist forecasts compiled by Bloomberg show.
‘Exponential Growth’
China’s manufacturing contracted for the first time since February 2009 in November, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing reported Dec. 1. Export growth slowed to 13.8 percent in November from a year earlier, the weakest pace since December 2009, according to data released by the customs bureau Dec. 10. Import growth slowed to 22.1 percent.
“The time for an exponential growth of demand in China has passed,” said Shi Lei, an analyst at Cofco Futures Co. in Beijing. “Even if part of lead demand is inelastic during economic downturns, it may still be hard to stand out when all markets are under pressure.”
While the surplus is shrinking, stockpiles in warehouses monitored by the London Metal Exchange rose 73 percent since the start of January, reaching a record 388,500 tons on Oct. 14, bourse data show. That’s equal to about two weeks of demand.
Shanghai Futures
Inventories are now starting to decline, retreating 7 percent since reaching the all-time high. Canceled warrants, a measure of how much metal is on order to be removed from warehouses, touched 47,700 tons yesterday, the most since at least 1997. Metal in warehouses tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange has dropped in nine of the past 11 weeks, bourse data show.
Manufacturing in China is expected to expand next year in part because of revised environmental regulations that may be announced by year-end. Restrictions were tightened after hundreds of people were poisoned in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces in May and June. The government suspended output at almost 90 percent of lead-acid battery makers in the past several months, Cao Guoqing, deputy secretary general of the China Battery Industry Association, said in an e-mail Nov. 15.
China will have 150 million electric bikes by 2015, compared with 120 million in 2010, according to the association. Each bike uses an average of 13 kilograms (28.7 pounds) of lead, according to Brook Hunt, a research unit of Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
Commercial Vehicles
Global sales of cars and light commercial vehicles will rise 6.5 percent to a record 79.5 million cars in 2012, according to LMC Automotive Ltd., a research company in Oxford, England. China’s passenger-car sales will advance as much as 10 percent, according to estimates from General Motors Co., Volkswagen AG, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co.
Higher lead prices should bolster profit for Melbourne- based BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the biggest lead-mining company. It will report a 2.5 percent drop in net income to $23.05 billion this year, still the second-highest profit ever, according to the mean of 19 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
“The picture seems to be moving from one of physical surplus to one of physical scarcity,” said Nic Brown, head of commodities research at Natixis Commodity Markets Ltd. in London. “What has been a picture of very strong supply growth in recent years may be beginning to tail off.”

2011-11-25
China's "ghost cities" show that the country's economic boom could be more fragile than it appears.

Kangbashi is a showcase city, laid out spaciously on the grasslands of northern China.

It was dreamt up by the local secretary of the Communist Party as a monument to the country's new-found prosperity.

The place is dominated by impressive public buildings - a marble-clad library, a state-of-the-art theatre and a giant convention centre.

In the centre of town a 70m-high statue of two fighting horses looms over Genghis Khan Square.

The only thing missing is the people.

Kangbashi was built to house one million residents, but so far only 20,000 have moved in.

Acres of apartment complexes - many of them luxurious by Chinese standards - are deserted. Store fronts are boarded up.

When they first began building Kangbashi, there was a frenzy of investment. The local government contributed a £200m road network. Nearly all of the homes that now lie empty were sold off-plan.

The buyers were China's cashed-up new middle class. The country's poorly-regulated stock markets, along with controls on investing overseas, have made second, third and even fourth homes a popular store of wealth.

But from the very outset, Kangbashi defied all economic logic. There's no industry in the city, and no real reason to live there.

Now Kangbashi - along with other "ghost cities" dotted around China - has come to symbolise what many believe is a dangerous property bubble that could be primed to pop.

The scale of China's housing boom is staggering. Over the past five years the country has built nearly 40 million new homes. In some cities the price of housing has tripled in the same period.

Chinese economist Zhang Bin said: "If you look at financial crises, they're always accompanied by property bubbles.

"Lower property prices would definitely be more sustainable and healthy, but a sharp drop would mean a big contraction in the economy and problems like unemployment."

In Kangbashi, many think the bubble has already popped.

Businessman Wang Pen spent his life savings buying a two-bedroom apartment. He says its value has fallen by 20% since the start of the year.

But Mr Wang finds it difficult to believe that the good times will ever stop rolling.

"When I bought this one three years ago I was still poor, so it's a bit small," he said.

"Now I'm thinking of getting another place, something bigger."

If the bubble bursts on a nationwide scale, it could be disastrous, not just for China, but for global economic recovery.

China is now the world's second-biggest economy , and by some estimates nearly half of its GDP is in some way linked to property.

Alistair Thornton, Beijing-based economist with HIS Global Insight, said: "Property is the core of the Chinese economy.

"With the eurozone weak and the US stagnant, a sharp contraction in the world's largest growth engine would have a dramatic effect. It's not a good story."

2011-11-25
MACAU (AP) — China's superrich want supercars.

That's what the makers of world's most exotic and expensive sports cars are hoping as they gather in Macau this week for the first Asian edition of Monaco's annual Top Marques show that began eight years ago.

The supercar companies are chasing growth in China, which is churning out scores of new millionaires each year and is home to the world's biggest auto market.

Ferraris and Lamborghinis sat alongside rare and beautiful automotive works of art from lesser known marques like Italy's Pagani, West Richland, Wash.-based SSC and Sweden's Koenigsegg. They drew admiring looks from wealthy auto enthusiasts from China and other Asian countries.

2011-11-16
* UK to China/Hongkong GBP468 tax incl. by QATAR airline, one stop via Doha. Sale ends 17th Nov 2011.
Email us the passengers full name, travel date to check the availability.
1234@5starchinatravel.com

Latest News
Click the Subject below to read the details

2011-12-28
China tighten up control over illegal Foreign Workers.

2011-12-16
Beijing Internet Clampdown

2011-12-13
China’s 150 Million Electric Bicycles Bolstering Lead Demand: Commodities

2011-11-25
MACAU (AP) — China's superrich want supercars.

2011-11-25
China's

2011-11-16
* UK to China/Hongkong GBP468 tax incl.

China Guide

China Tours

Weather in China

Choose a city:

Feed Back

2012-05-18 by

... [ read more ]

2012-05-18 by
Truly excellent fast service. Recommended with no buts or hassle.
John... [ read more ]

2012-05-18 by
Fast and efficient service. Nice to have communication all along the way as to state of play. Would ... [ read more ]

2012-05-17 by
Fantastic Service. Been using them since 2009. Provided me with over 10 visas. You can trust them to... [ read more ]

2012-05-07 by
Once again very happy with the service, Cheers.
Mark P... [ read more ]

5 Star China Travel