On Tuesday, the center signed contracts valued at 12 million yuan to buy 711 computers and 46 automobiles from three domestic suppliers.

Pudong is one of the Chinese areas introducing purchasing system on a trial basis and the purchasing center means that Pudong has put the system into practice.

In the past four years, administrative units and institutions in the area spent 220 million yuan on various kinds of commodities, reducing unnecessary cost by 30 million yuan, which would have been used for kickbacks and personal favors. A check on a billion- yuan-worth of transaction by local hospitals shows no under-table deal is involved.

Apart from local ones, there are exhibitors from Australia, Britain, Canada, China's mainland, Italy, Taiwan and the United States.

This year's FILMART is more international than ever, said the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (TDC), the organizer of the market.

The Italian Cinema Promotion Agency is taking part in the event for the first time to promote Italy's world-famous movies. And, besides, Japan has organized a first-time mission to attend the event, the TDC said.

To aid the development of the local film and TV industry in the medium-to-long term, this year's FILMART is launching a concrete initiative -- Forum 1999, which comprises a series of discussions and workshops, that seeks to obtain new ideas for revitalizing and sustaining Hong Kong and Asian film-making.

This is the third year that the TDC has staged FILMART. Addressing the opening ceremony, Acting TDC Executive Director Anna Lai said TV has been added to the original name of Hong Kong International Film Market this year.

The change and expansion of the name indicate that the event itself has developed and grown.

To meet the industry's needs, a series of seminars with focus on distribution and co-production is being held during the fair period. Key industry players from Japan will share their experience in co-production with Hong Kong companies. There are also workshops on the outlook of film and TV markets in Germany, Italy, South Korea and Russia.

Hong Kong is one of the largest film production centers in the world and ranks first in film production on a per-capita basis. Hong Kong is also a major exporter of television programs.

The 1.5-km-long zone has numerous huge rocks. Local sculptors will carve scenes and 350 poems on 1,990 rocks at 26 selected areas.

Meanwhile, the region will build a cliff-painting museum there covering 2,000 sq m. It will feature cliff paintings in China and the rest of the world in separate halls.

The zone is expected to boost tourism development in Ningxia, and promote cultural exchanges between China and other countries, the official said.

But in fact this is just what is being tried out in northeast China's coastal city of Dalian, where government officials' names are published in newspapers and the citizens are encouraged to keep an eye on them and discuss their performance over a phone on a hotline.

Some 300 people have called in since the line was opened last month, according to Wu Hongyu, who operates the hotline at the Standing Committee of the Dalian Municipal People's Congress, the local legislature which drafts laws and appoints officials, including the mayor.

The People's Congress is China's basic political system. The People's Congresses and their Standing Committees have been the pivotal apparatus in supervision over and critical evaluation of officials. Nowadays, new forms are being adopted in many places of China to promote public participation in the evaluation of officials, which is aimed at boosting transparency of government work, promoting building of a clean government, and bolstering efficiency.

Wu says that the first call came in after the names of the heads of the labor, medical, and justice bureaus -- institutions whose work most directly impacts on local residents' daily lives -- were made public, from a laid-off worker who refused to give his name. He was unhappy with the head of the labor bureau because he thought there were not enough policies to provide job opportunities.

Other calls dealt with unemployment, malfeasance in hospitals, and the law. And some ten people provided information about suspected corruption cases, Wu says.

Wu believes that perhaps a few people are quite familiar with the three heads, while others may have just got a glimpse of them on TV. "But that doesn't matter," she concludes, "Everybody can comment on their work just by feeling the pulse of the city's daily life."

The Standing Committee of the Dalian Municipal People's Congress established three 20-member panels of people's deputies, officials, professors, and neighborhood committee members to deal with the calls and to report on the officials' performance based on people's opinions and further polls.

If the complaints about officials continue, their appointments will be in question, according to Zhang Daozhu, a section chief of the General Office of the Congress' Standing Committee, who explains that the fairness of the panels' assessment can be guaranteed by the hotline itself. The old method of monitoring official behavior was basically to listen to work reports they submitted to the Congress and to their superiors, and ordinary people had little opportunity to participate in the appraisal process.

The new policy directly targets specific persons instead of departments they are in charged of, and it gives greater rights to the people, Zhang says.

The experiment will force officials to be more careful in their conducts and to take into full account the people's interests, because public opinion is a very important factor in their political future, says Wu Bin, a sociologist with Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences.

Yu Renguo, the labor bureau chief, says,"I have been under extremely great pressure since the hotline was opened. It made me a public person and I realize that I must do more to satisfy the people, not just the government and my seniors."

"Serving the People Wholeheartedly" was an expression made famous by late Chairman Mao Zedong and it is part of the Party's highest doctrine. Since the 1980s, the Party has been making redoubled efforts to increase its transparency and encourage people to know more about and to discuss important state issues. This is regarded as helpful to the building of a clean, honest and efficient government.

In Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, a street forum that is regularly open to anybody who wants to discuss any issue with government officials was organized. And the nation's capital Beijing, a number of ministry officials have made public their personal E-mail addresses.

A number of cities have introduced a mechanism similar to that in Dalian to let ordinary people comment openly on the performance of officials, including police officials. In Haicheng city in northeastern China, even the mayor falls under the hotline supervisory system, which has proved effective in busting corruption.

The experiment is important because it strengthens the People's Congress' right to supervise officials and gives people a bigger say in politics, an official from the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, told Xinhua.

This promise was made yesterday by Li Guangrong, director of Beijing Municipal Environmental Hygiene Administration during the 11th session of the standing committee of the 11th Beijing Municipal People's Congress (BMPC).

Before then, all of the household garbage from central Beijing's eight urban and suburban districts should be treated for dangerous and polluting material by the year 2002.

Since the end of last year, half a per cent of Beijing's household garbage has been treated for these kinds of dangerous materials.

The project, Li said, should be attributed to the greatly increased funds Beijing invested in its infrastructure for handling waste in the past years.

The investment in this sector during the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-90) was only 86 million yuan (US$10.5 million), but it is expected to rise to 1.1 billion yuan (US$134 million) by the end of the ongoing Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000).

With the added funds, Beijing has been able to construct three modern and environmentally friendly garbage dumps, three modern covered posts for collecting and sorting garbage, two plants for making compost out of biological degradable waste and four small-scale plants for burning garbage.

By October 1, the National Day, Haidian District will have a new modern garbage dump, equipped with a supporting post for collecting and sorting garbage, something that would solve the problems regarding the disposal of the district's household waste.

Yanqing and Shunyi counties have also started to build their own comprehensive garbage handling systems.

To ensure the fulfillment of the promise by 2010, Li said the capital was thinking about introducing a fee, which every household would have to pay, to finance the investment.

With the adoption of a fee system, local governments would gradually stop being the operator and sole institution to pay for the disposal of waste in the municipality.

Instead, they would become supervisors, looking after the city's garbage handling systems and making sure they meet the standards, according to Li.

One of the new measures oriented towards this is the establishment of the Southeast and Southwest Garbage Transportation and Disposing Committees.

Experts here say the high-tech systems include global positioning, satellite remote sensing and global information systems.

They said the systems not only provide 24-hour monitoring of the volcano, but are also expected to provide a basis for short-term prediction of any possible eruption, in an effort to protect the scenic spot and natural resources there.

Su Yang, a researcher at the Changchun Geological Institute affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said a complete volcano monitoring network is expected to be built at Mount Changbai within three years.

The monitoring systems will be jointly built by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Jilin Seismological Bureau and the Jilin Mapping Bureau.

The latest research indicates that volcanoes worldwide will soon enter a volcanic activity period. Some foreign experts believe that the Changbai volcano is among only a few in the world that have the potential for disastrous eruption.

Mount Changbai is located in the southeastern part of Northeast China's Jilin Province in the central part of east Asia.

Experts say that in the past 30 million years, over 3,000 billion tons of material have been brought out by the eruptions of the Changbai volcano.

They said that, as the magma of the volcano is acid, the harmful gas caused by the eruptions may give rise to acid rain and forest fires.

Since the crater is the source of the Songhua, Tumen and Nenjiang rivers, an eruption would have particularly serious consequences.

China has 30 groups of volcanoes, mainly located in northeast and northern China, the western part of southwest China's Yunnan Province, near the Leizhou Straits, in the central part of Fujian Province and in the northern part of Taiwan.

Hasine's web TV box entered the local market at the beginning of this month. The size of this new machine is just 23.5cm long, 19.5cm wide and 6.2cm high with the price of RMB1,980. The manager of Shanghai No.1 Department Store told our reporter, "Lots of clients have taken a look at this new product and asked us many questions. However, few of them buy it." It is said only 5 web TV boxes were sold in the past four weeks.

Many clients are depressed when they hear it needs 33.6K modem to be online instead of a cable line. Meanwhile, its density is not as clear as a computer monitors'. Moreover, since it is a high technology product, it needs more explanation and introduction to buyers. However, most retailers do not understand how to introduce its functions to clients.

It is reported that Hasine Company has pushed its products in Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, Jinan, Qingdao, Hangzhou and Shanghai at the same time. According to feedback, the market is not promising in all these places. As a supplement for a computer, it can and will not replace the computer. Add high online fees, few clients can afford its expenses with limited information sources.

According to the contract, CPSGC will have its own finished petroleum transportation and delivery base in Dalian, which has advanced technology and complete equipment. Besides, the granting of direct right in port administration to CPSGC in Dalian Port will greatly speed up delivery of finished petroleum and upgrade service quality.

At the same time, Dalian Port will also benefit from the cooperation as the delivery volume of petroleum of CPSGC through Dalian Port will be increased to 5.2 million tons from the former 3.8 million tons.