News in Chinese Media

Xinhua News Agency

    The number of Chinese foreign trade companies has grown in the past two decades to 25,300, the daily, International Business, reports.

     Before 1978, China had only a dozen companies dealing with imports and exports, but the trade companies that have been set up since then have helped break the monopoly of those specialized companies.

     Sino-foreign joint foreign trade companies were also allowed on a trial basis in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai and in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) after 1979 and there are now four of these joint ventures.

     Since 1992, non-specialized import and export companies that include manufacturers, research institutes, and commodity distribution companies have been given the right to get involved in foreign trade and this was further extended to private enterprises and research institutes this year, so that there are 142 private companies in the business.

     According to the report, of those 25,300 companies, 9,080 are in distribution and 12,143 are in manufacturing and research.

Xinhua News Agency

    Chinese scientists working for the military have developed a new mine detector that can be used under various climatic and geological conditions.

     The one-kilogram detector has 3 probes that can function in temperatures from 40 degrees below zero Centigrade to 50 degrees above zero.

     By using the new device, Chinese troops have cleared mines from a 2,000-sq-km area, without a single mishap.

     Scientists in a Nanjing engineering research institute belonging to the the People's Liberation Army's General Armament Department spent 10 years developing the mine detector. The scientists say that it can find various types of land mines containing a tiny amount of metal.

     There are at least 100 million land mines worldwide that are still undetected and that pose a grave threat to mankind.

Xinhua News Agency

    Chinese scientists working for the military have developed a new mine detector that can be used under various climatic and geological conditions.

     The one-kilogram detector has 3 probes that can function in temperatures from 40 degrees below zero Centigrade to 50 degrees above zero.

     By using the new device, Chinese troops have cleared mines from a 2,000-sq-km area, without a single mishap.

     Scientists in a Nanjing engineering research institute belonging to the the People's Liberation Army's General Armament Department spent 10 years developing the mine detector. The scientists say that it can find various types of land mines containing a tiny amount of metal.

     There are at least 100 million land mines worldwide that are still undetected and that pose a grave threat to mankind.

Xinhua News Agency

    Beijing is ready for the 22nd Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the first UPU Congress to be held in China, the organizing committee says.

     It will be held at the Beijing International Convention Center, which has been equipped with a printing shop to print congress materials, and improved facilities to ensure a supply of coffee and other refreshments for the nearly 2,000 representatives from 188 countries and regions.

     The Continental Hotel, where most of the participants will stay, has spent 5 million yuan improving its computer and telephone systems and other facilities and plans to hire several hundred foreign languages majors from universities in Beijing to work as interpreters and receptionists.

     Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo, who is chairman of the organizing committee, said at a meeting earlier this month that the Chinese government is paying a great deal of attention to the congress and he had asked departments concerned to do their best to make sure it is a success.

Xinhua News Agency

    The industrial sector in central China's Henan Province has reported improvements in profits and efficiency in the first half of the year.

     Industry's profits were up 143 percent over last year's corresponding period to 2.6 billion yuan, according to the provincial statistics bureau.

     Deficit-ridden enterprises managed to cut losses by 20 percent on an annual basis and the state sector reported better performance, with 377 million yuan in profits in the January to June period, compared with losses of 424 million yuan for the same 1998 period.

     But, in spite of these figures, a provincial official says that industrial performance allows no optimism because the record growth followed a drastic drop in industrial production last year and there are still major problems such as increased marketing costs, with some state enterprises operating in the red.

Xinhua News Agency

    The Chinese University of Science and Technology in east China's Anhui Province will receive four to five times the amount it now gets over the next three years, according to a decision made Sunday jointly by the Ministry of Education, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the provincial government.

     The university is now a leader in synchronous radiation and high-temperature superconductor research, and also operates many of the country's key labs engaging in frontier research.

     Fully one-seventh of the academicians at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering below the age of 60 are graduates of the university.

     However, this is only one of ten universities which will benefit from the Ministry's "Transcentury Project." Beijing University, Qinghua University, Nanjing University, Fudan University, and the Shanghai Jiaotong University are also included in the project.

     "These universities are crucial for the acceleration of the educational level in China, and we aim to make them world-class institutions within the next three years, schools which will nurture talent and engage in high-level research projects in the next century," said Minister of Education Chen Zhili.

Xinhua News Agency

    The city of Ningbo in east China' s Zhejiang Province has begun carrying out regulations for the protection of the property ownership of private enterprises.

     According to the regulations, adopted by the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, no organizations or individuals are allowed to infringe on the legal property of private enterprises.

     The regulations also insist on compensation and appropriate arrangements for private enterprises which must relocate because of public construction projects.

     Private enterprises are encouraged to become engaged in hi-tech industries, infrastructure construction, and comprehensive agricultural development, according to the regulations.

     Financial institutions also are urged to provide loans and offer services to private enterprises.

     The regulations also forbid organizations from collecting extra fees and charges from private businesses, and for those that violate these regulations, disciplinary punishment and penalties will be enforced.

     Statistics show that private enterprises account for more than one-third of the city's economy.

     According to June statistics from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the total number of private enterprises in China is now some 1.23 million, with registered capital exceeding 750 billion yuan (about 90 billion U.S. dollars).

China Daily

    SORROW swelled when the candidates of this year's national college entrance examination in Beijing received their score reports on Sunday afternoon, about two weeks after the examination.

    Yesterday's Beijing Morning Post reported that most of the 50,000 candidates in the city found they had underestimated their performance in one of the most important tests they took in their life.

    Passing the national college entrance examination with a high score means better opportunities to study in a college with a good reputation, which gives advantages in the increasingly competitive job market in China.

    In a new procedure, differing from the traditional way of applying to colleges, the candidates are required to make their selection through estimating their performance in the exam before the result is published.

    The three-day national college entrance examination was held on July 7-9.

    The underestimation is reflected in the candidates' choice of colleges.

    A student who is dying for entering China's prestigious Qinghua University applied for an ordinary college due to his wrong assessment of his performance.

    He got 610 points, 40 points higher than the figure he himself had estimated his score to be.

    A teacher who has many years' experience in correcting exam papers for the annual exam said the candidates' high score partly resulted from the lowered requirements compared with the past exams.

    The gap between the estimated marks and the real score is wider in Chinese, history and social sciences than in mathematics, physics and chemistry, according to Lu Heying, a teacher at the Beijing No 92 Middle School.

    The social science questions provided the candidates with more room to show their creativity, but at the same time they caused difficulty for them to evaluate their performance, Lu added.

    Some students feared that they might "lose face" in case they overestimated their performance.

    One of the reasons for the underestimation lies in the lack of experience, according to the paper.

    

    

China Daily
Author:  Zhu Baoxia

    NOW that more and more married couples are volunteering to restrict the number of children they have, family planning in China is no longer the "most difficult issue on earth" as it was described 10 to 15 years ago.

    Family planning officials have shifted their key task from controlling numbers alone to placing equal stress on the quantity and the quality of the population.

    To achieve this goal, the State Family Planning Commission (SFPC) is to make more scientific information on family planning available in the next few years.

    "Family planning administrative departments have a duty to enhance the quality of the Chinese people. The fundamental task of family planning is to control the growth of the population and improve the quality of the people," said Yang Kuifu, vice-minister of the SFPC at a national meeting in Shandong yesterday on the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

    China currently has 130 million illiterate and semi-illiterate people, and 60 million disabled. About 1.3 per cent of babies a year are born with defects.

    Yang asked local governments to stress the importance of disseminating scientific knowledge to help establish a new attitude towards birth among the masses and teach them about the use of contraceptives, safer birth, and better reproductive and child health care.

    The rural population, over 80 per cent of China's total, will be the main target of the education campaign.

    County family planning clinics and village family planning schools will be in the front line of spreading knowledge. Women volunteers will be trained. After returning home, they will pass on what they have learned to their neighbours.

    The commission has mapped out a blueprint for population and family planning work in the next half-century. It sets targets for providing minimum reproductive health care services for couples of a reproductive age by next year and basic services by 2010.

    Yang stressed that China has made great achievements in population control in recent decades. The birth rate has stabilized at a low level, and the natural population growth rate dropped to below 10 per thousand last year.

    However, the quality of the population lags behind the needs of social development.

    Infectious diseases such as hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases still pose a major threat to public health.

    The lack of doctors and medicines remains a serious problem in rural areas, and maternal and child health care is also lagging behind.

    In the countryside, there are a good number of women suffer from diseases that affect maternal health and influence the next generation, said Yang.

    With the improvement in living standards, people are demanding more knowledge of family planning and better services, along with improved reproductive and maternal and child health care, he said.

    

    

Xinhua News Agency

    The city of Ningbo in east China' s Zhejiang Province has begun carrying out regulations for the protection of the property ownership of private enterprises.

    According to the regulations, adopted by the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, no organizations or individuals are allowed to infringe on the legal property of private enterprises.

    The regulations also insist on compensation and appropriate arrangements for private enterprises which must relocate because of public construction projects.

    Private enterprises are encouraged to become engaged in hi-tech industries, infrastructure construction, and comprehensive agricultural development, according to the regulations.

    Financial institutions also are urged to provide loans and offer services to private enterprises.

    The regulations also forbid organizations from collecting extra fees and charges from private businesses, and for those that violate these regulations, disciplinary punishment and penalties will be enforced.

    Statistics show that private enterprises account for more than one-third of the city's economy.

    According to June statistics from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the total number of private enterprises in China is now some 1.23 million, with registered capital exceeding 750 billion yuan (about 90 billion U.S. dollars). (Xinhua)

Dalian Daily

    As a dragon-role playing project in Dalian information industry, Dalian Software Zone was started constructing in 1998. Yesterday there happened three big events in the zone: it was formally listed as one of the 12 software industrial bases of the national ¡°Torch Plan¡±; its first phase of construction came to completion and Dongda Software Zone (Dalian Branch) opened.

    Located in Dalian High and New-tech Industrial Zone, Dalian Software Zone covered an area of 2.98 sq.km., with higher learning institutes surrounding it.

    After more than one year¡¯s construction, Dalian Software Zone has now formed its rudiment. There are now erected several buildings at the cost of 300 million yuan, including 11-thousand- sq.m. Dalian Software Zone Entrepreneur Center, 8-thousand-sq.m. Dongdaarpai Software Development Building, 9.7-thousand-sq.m. Dongdaarpai Software Training Building, 7-thousand- sq.m. Dongdaarpai Software Engineer Apartment and Auxiliary Facilities.

    The fast construction of the zone can be attributed to the new operational mechanism of ¡°civilian-run with the help of the city¡± and favorable policies issued by the municipal government on various aspects like tax, talent introduction, investment environment construction.

    The zone has now set its 2000 year goal, i.e. to realize a total sales volume of 400 million yuan, earn US$20 million foreign currency and establish 20 software enterprises with annual output over 5 million yuan.

    

    

Dalian Daily

    The average age of Dalianners rose to 75.75 in 1998 from 35 before emancipation in the past half century. The average age of the male is 73.68 and that of female is 77.07, 5.75 years higher than the national average.

    The higher average age can be seen as a symbol of improved living environment of Dalian.

    By the end of 1998, there have been 1655 medical organs of various kindsand 43 thousand medical practitioners in Dalian. Health clinics scattered in the countryside have made the target of ¡°everyone has the right to enjoy medical care by the year 2000¡± fulfilled 5 years ahead. Various kinds of epidemics have been taken under control. Working environment of workers has been greatly improved. Mortality rate of pregnant women and infants was reduced.

    With the economic development, people gradually formed healthy living habit and began to pay attention to various kinds of body-building activities, and all these combine to make people in Dalian live longer.