Charles Hartman, executive vice-president of the company, said yesterday discussions are underway with several Chinese companies to establish two joint ventures.

The first joint venture would be located in Southwest China's Chongqing and would rely on a rice husk gasification system suitable for rice growing areas.

He said the second plant would be in East China's Shandong Province and would install a gas network for centralized cooking in rural areas. With the system, straw left in the field can be used in an centralized unit to produce clean gas which can be transported to each house of the village through pipelines, he said.

Investment for each venture would range between US$5 million and US$25 million.

While vowing to deliver its technology and bring in some western capital, Hartman said the company is looking for partners from the manufacturing side that could have an existing plant making some products similar to BG's.

"So we can use the equipment and assembly line, which would minimize cost," he said.

Hartman said the company also expects the participation of Chinese financial institutions.

The establishment of the two joint ventures could be the beginning of the company's operations in China, he said, "Feasibility studies will be done to see if the same kind of arrangement can be reached in Southeast China."

He said that the Chinese market has large potential as the government is paying more attention to environmental protection.

The company has received enthusiastic support from the local and central governments, he said. "They encourage us to move as quickly as we can.".

With strong confidence, he predicted that the company's business in China would exceed more than half of the company's whole business in the future.

He said that the most difficult thing in the way of the company's presence in China is the inheritance of old ways. Chinese farmers usually burn straw and rice husk.

More than 10 carnivorous animals, including tigers, lions and leopards, at the Hefei City Zoo in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, are now adapted to the new diet, of which, 80 percent is meat and the other 20 percent is vegetables, and they have lost weight by an average 4 to 6 percent.

Obesity in captive carnivorous animals has become a thorny problem to an increasing number of zoos over the world, and in the Hefei City Zoo, most carnivorous animals had grown fat because of the rich diet of pure meat and lack of exercise, noted Wu Zhi'an, head of the zoo's general management section.

"Some of them even developed a beer gut and rolls of fat on their bottoms and walked falteringly," Wu said.

What worried zoo keepers most was that many animals had suffered declining health and lowering ability to breed as a result of obesity.

A leopard even died of heart failure resulting from too much fat around its pericardium in 1993, as an autopsy found.

The zoo tried to control the weight of the fat animals by reducing their food intake, but later gave up the method because it cut down the nourishment absorbed by the animals as well.

Last November, zoo keepers decided on a diet change, replacing pure meat with big meatballs mixed with maize flour and vegetables. The new diet was carefully worked out by a group of nutritionists on the theory that the pancreases of carnivorous animals secrete amylase that helps digest cereals, Wu explained.

"The tigers, lions and leopards all expressed strong dissatisfaction with the green food at first, and we heard their angry roars time and again," Wu said.

A tigress named Dongdong did not even take a sniff at the unconventional food. Zoo keepers tactfully substituted meatballs for her by large pieces of fresh meat covered with vegetarian content and finally restored her appetite.

Lingling, a seven-year-old lioness who weighed 175 kg originally and failed to mate last year, went on a hunger strike for three days. While coaxing the surly lioness to eat, zoo keeper Wang Haiyan had to lower the vegetarian content but then increased it again gradually until one month later when the lioness was totally accustomed to the new recipe.

Lingling, with 13 kg of weight shed after two months on diet, has now regained a vigorous and graceful figure and gave birth to two cubs recently.

Successful "marriages" are on the rise among these animals this year, an indication of good health for captive animals, according to Wang.

The Hefei City Zoo has about 60 carnivorous animals, and plans have been worked out to apply this diet to all of them step by step.

There is no need to worry about the animals' losing of wild nature due to the altered diet, for it actually imitates to a certain extent the natural eating habit of carnivorous animals who normally eat some plants such as leaves and grass roots in the wild to add nutrients, said Han Demin, a zoologist and secretary- general of the Anhui Provincial Association for Animals.

Meanwhile, the zoologist added, a partially vegetarian diet is more nutritionally balanced and is therefore conducive to digestion and prevention of captive carnivorous animals from obesity.

Xu Yunfei, a senior engineer with the Shandong Research Institute of Communications, noted that Shandong will enjoy a superior advantage when an extended New Eurasia Continental Bridge crosses the province, which is a north-south line from the Tumen River Delta in northeast China bordering Russia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to Melbourne, Australia.

China has started feasibility study several years ago on the extension of the existing New Eurasia Continental Bridge to the Republic of Korea, with a vehicle ferry being built connecting Yantai or Weihai in Shandong with Inchon of the Republic of Korea.

Both Japan and the Republic of Korea have shown interest in the idea, and a special forum involving experts from the two nations and China was held last year.

According to Xu, the extension will not only link the west-east transportation line with the Republic of Korea but also with Japan.

The north-south intercontinental line is aimed at linking up northeast Asia, southeast Asia, and Australia.

There have already been some sections completed along the route, though they are not joined yet.

As the economies in these areas progress rapidly, efforts to link up the sections will be stepped up, Xu said.

A monitoring vessel sent by the administration has detected that the red tides were retreating in sea areas close to Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, and the old river-mouth of the Yellow River.

The administration reported Monday that the red tides were found spreading rapidly in the sea areas, covering 1,500 square kilometers close to Cangzhou and 400 square kilometers at the old river-mouth.

The administration attributed the fading away of the red tides to successive winds, rainfalls and low temperatures in the past few days.

People living in coastal areas have been urged to pay greater attention to red tides and report them to the authorities.

Dalian Tianbai Market deals in commodities of over 80 thousand varieties and receives an average of customers of 100 thousand a day. As one of the organizer of the nation-wide move called ¡°no fake products in 10 thousand markets of 100 cities¡±, they have been striving to supply good service to customers. One of their slogans promises to accept back sold commodities if customers are not satisfied with them. Series measures to upgrade service quality are also taken by the market. From 1994 on, the market has accepted back sold commodities valued at 37.92 million yuan, which brought a loss of 376 thousand yuan to the market. At the same time, this act also made considerable profits for the market. In the past year alone, Dalian Tianbai Market realized a record high profit of 25.06 million yuan.