Current Events

·China Urges Creation of Better Development Climate

·Shanghai Hosts International Business Advisers Conference

Economy

·Gallup Survey: Chinese Intend to Buy More

·Sino-Swedish Chemical Joint Venture Operational

·Renovated Qinghai-Tibet Road Gets High Marks

·China Begins Large-Scale High-Definition TV Production

·China's Real Estate Market Declining Slowly, Report

·China Cracking Down On Illegal Contracts

·Modern Literature Museum Opens in Beijing

·Conference on Underground Space Held in Xi'an

·Beijing's Largest Park Opens

·"Miandi" Says Farewell to Beijing

WASHINGTON, September 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng urged here Tuesday the developed countries to take actions to create a better environment for the healthy development of the world economy.
Speaking at the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Xiang called upon the developed countries to increase resource transfer to and import from developing countries, implement active and responsible fiscal and monetary policies, and coordinate their interest and exchange rates policies.
Xiang warned that the global economic environment, though improved, has not stabilized completely and there are still many uncertainties in today's world economy.
"To further consolidate the recovery and stabilize the world economy is a challenging task before the governments around the world," he said.
Xiang also called upon developing countries to continue their economic restructuring to this end.
In order to prevent any future crisis, Xiang said, it is important to strengthen the international financial cooperation and promote the trouble-free and smooth operation of the international financial market.
The international community should help developing countries improve their financial supervision and risk prevention capacity, he said.
Xiang also stressed the need for the international community to strengthen the supervision on short-term capital flow and contain the excessive speculation of cross-border hot money.
On reforming the international financial architecture and establishing a new international financial order, Xiang said the developing countries' full participation is essential, and their interests and demands must be reflected.
"The policy choices by the affected countries or regions to overcome the crisis must be respected, and no model should be imposed indiscriminately," he said.
The financial crisis also caused serious difficulties to China's economy, but the Chinese government has taken effective measures based on its own circumstances and maintained a rapid growth of the economy, the finance minister said.
The Chinese government, taking into account the need to maintain a healthy development for the Asian and the global economy, has adopted a highly responsible policy stance and made tremendous sacrifice by keeping the Chinese currency stable, thereby contributing to the recovery of the Asian economy, he added.
Xiang expressed his hope that the World Bank, as the largest development finance institution, will build upon its comparative advantages to provide more concessional funds and further promote the capital flow to its developing country members.
"We also hope that the Bank will strictly keep its political neutrality in the conduct of its business, and resist any attempt to politicize the Bank," he said.
The Chinese minister urged all the member countries, the major shareholders in particular, to respect and protect the Bank's Articles of Agreement to create a better environment for the Bank to fulfill its development mandate.

Shanghai Hosts International Business Advisers Conference

SHANGHAI, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The 11th Conference of the International Business Leader Adviser Council for the mayor of Shanghai was held recently in China's leading commercial and financial center.
Representatives from 23 prestigious multinational corporations worldwide attended the conference.
Since Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji initiated it in 1988 while serving as Shanghai's mayor, the conference has been an influential international forum contributing greatly to the city's reform and economic development over the past decade.
Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi said the city is seeking constructive advice on its opening up, reform of state-owned enterprise, environmental protection, enlarging consuming markets, and blueprints for the city's future development.

SHANGHAI, September 28 (Xinhua) -- China will become a moderately developed country in 50 years, a senior Chinese official said here today at the ongoing Fortune Forum.
Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission, said in a speech that efforts will be made to consolidate the construction of basic facilities, spur technological advances and upgrade the industrial structure in the new century.
The pace of agricultural modernization should be speeded up and efforts will also be made to develop the western region of China, and protect the environment, he said.
China will further lower import taxes, introduce more advanced technology and equipment, and promote global economic cooperation, he said.
Foreign investors are encouraged to invest in the sectors of infrastructure, basic industries, pillar industries, and high-tech and new industries, he added.
The Chinese government will gradually open insurance, banking, retail and wholesale, telecommunications and other service sectors to overseas investors.
China's gross domestic product has increased 5.4-fold since 1978 when the reform and opening-up drive was initiated.

Gallup Survey: Chinese Intend to Buy More

SHANGHAI, September 28 (Xinhua) The Gallup Organization announced here today at a press conference that a sample survey made in 10 Chinese cities indicates that 30 percent of the respondents intend to buy color televisions in the next two years.
Richard W.Burkholder Jr, director of Worldwide Operations Survey Research of the Gallup Organization, said here today at the ongoing '99 Fortune Global Forum that another 22 percent said they intend to buy life insurance.
He said the sample survey, made among nearly 4,000 randomly selected respondents in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Wuhan, Nanjing, Chengdu and Xi'an, indicates that 22 percent also expect to buy washing machines, and another 21 percent plan to buy refrigerators during the next two years.
The survey also indicates that 16 percent will buy property insurance and 10 percent hope to purchase computers. In addition, 10 percent of respondents are ready to buy mobile phones in the next two years. The survey shows that many people are familiar with such famous international brands as Coca-Cola, Santana, Head and Shoulders, Panasonic, and Pepsi-Cola. He said that though 96 percent of Chinese urban households already have color TVs, the television market still has great potential, as China has the world's largest population and has had steady growth during the past decade.

Sino-Swedish Chemical Joint Venture Operational

GUNZHOU, September 28 (Xinhua) -- A Sino-Swedish chemical joint venture went into operation today in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.
Lonza Guangzhou Fine Chemicals Ltd. has been funded with 30 million US dollars jointly by Sweden's Lonza company and a Guangzhou pesticide factory.
The joint venture mainly produces niacinamide, better known as Vitamin B3, which is widely used in the production of medicines, foodstuffs, animal feed, and cosmetics.
The new company is expected to become one of the world's largest producers of niacinamide with an annual production capacity of 3,400 tons. Most of the product will be sold to the international market.

Renovated Qinghai-Tibet Road Gets High Marks

XINING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The Qinghai-Tibet Road in western China has a new look after renovations over the past nine years, and the newly improved highway received high appraisals from experts Tuesday in Golmud in northwest Qinghai Province.
This road is a key state project supporting economic development in the Tibet Autonomous Region and is the highest road in the world, with an average elevation of 4,000 meters.
Part of the highway traverses an area of perma-frost to the longest extent of any such road in the world.
In 1991, China added 1.3 billion yuan (156 million US dollars) to renovate the road and tackle key problems facing the project.
Automobiles can now travel along the highway at speeds twice as fast as that prior to the renovations.

China Begins Large-Scale High-Definition TV Production

SHENZHEN, September 29 (Xinhua) -- China has begun mass producing high-definition digital TVs, as the Konka Group's new production line goes operational in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.
The plant was built at a cost of 500 million yuan and has an annual production capacity of 100,000 units. It is expected to sell 10,000 units this year, all of them in the US market.
Being China's leading TV producer, Konka has a research lab in the US's Silicon Valley. It produced China's first digital TV in 1998.
It has a contract with the US's Mckinsey for sales and marketing and over next three to five years plans to sell over 2 million high-definition digital TV sets.

China's Real Estate Market Declining Slowly, Report

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The growth of China's real estate market is decelerating but at a slower speed as sales continue to decline, according to a report released today by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The bureau's real estate index, which is an indicator of the industry's development, dropped 0.36 points from July to 101.29 points in August, and 2.06 points from one year earlier.
The report shows that unsold housing reached 71.47 million square meters for the January-August period this year, increasing 21 percent year on year, but the rate was 1.1 percentage points lower than that for the January-July period, shedding by the biggest margin so far this year.
As a large quantity of lower-priced housing for low-income people entered the market in the past eight months, the average housing price has dropped to around 2,009 yuan per square meter, the lowest so far this year, according to the report.

China Cracking Down On Illegal Contracts

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- China's intensified efforts to crack down on illegal contracts since the issue of the Contract Law in March have contributed a great deal to maintaining a good market order in the country.
Sources with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said today that China handled more than 3,000 cases involving illegal contracts in the first half of this year, an increase of 20 percent from the same period last year.
The illegal contracts involved a total value of 1.8 billion yuan, five percent less than the figure a year earlier.
An official with the administration noted that the Contract Law, which is to take effect on October 1, provides practical legal basis for the standardization of business activities. It is expected to help private enterprises pay attention to the standard ways of dealing with contracts, an important thing many of them have long neglected.
About four billion contracts are clinched annually in China. Last year, 1.5 million cases of economic disputes were handled, most of which were related to contracts.

Modern Literature Museum Opens in Beijing

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Contemporary Literature Museum, largest of its kind in the world, opened Tuesday in Beijing.
Located in the city's northern suburbs, the museum covers a total of 46 mu (about three hectares), with a floor area of 30,000 square meters.
Construction of the museum began in March 1998. It includes a library, a sub-exhibition center and an archives, all in traditional architectural design and equipped with an advanced technology system.
The museum will feature research, collections, and cultural exchanges on the history and works of modern Chinese literature which began with the May 4th Movement in 1919 when Chinese intellectuals arose to resist domestic feudalism and foreign imperialism.

SHANGHAI, September 28 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai, China's largest trade and financial city, plans to spend more than 150 billion yuan (18 billion US dollars) to improve its urban infrastructure over the next 10 years in a bid to become an international financial center.
Zhang Huiming, director of the Shanghai Municipal Construction Commission, told Xinhua at the ongoing '99 Fortune Global Forum that Shanghai's transportation, housing and environmental protection have been greatly improved over the past few years.
The total investment in these areas has reached 100 billion yuan for the past nine years, he said.
Shanghai, with a total population of 13 million, has already completed construction of about 4,000 kilometers of new urban roads.
The 64-kilometer-long viaduct system connecting the downtown area with the local airport, railway station, and suburbs was opened to traffic on September 16.
Zhang said there are about 15,000 buses and 40,000 taxis now serving in the city's public transportation sector, as well as a subway system.
The city has removed more than 20 million square meters of shabby houses in the old urban areas, on the site of which new houses have been built, he said, adding that more than 98 percent of the local household now are using coal gas.
Shanghai will give priority to improving its transportation system continuously, and plans to construct a highway system in suburban areas to connect with neighboring cities and provinces.

Conference on Underground Space Held in Xi'an

XI'AN, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The Eighth International Conference on Underground Space opened Tuesday in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
The meeting was hosted by the Associated Research Centers for Urban Underground Space (ACUS, with more than 150 representatives from China, France, Japan and the United States attending.
The participants will discuss the development of the use of underground space, challenges to the development of urban underground space, and underground engineering and technologies.
ACUSis a non-governmental academic organization established in the 1980s, and has promoted increased international cooperation in underground-space research.
China has a long history and vast experience of exploiting underground space.

Beijing's Largest Park Opens

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The 320-hectare Chaoyang Park, the largest in Beijing, was opened to the public Tuesday.
The park is one of 67 key projects marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Adjacent to the legation quarter, the park has several entertainment and recreational facilities. The modern park is about 20 hectares larger than the famous Summer Palace, the imperial garden built in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty (1644- 1911).
Located in eastern Beijing, the park will provide local residents with a good place to enjoy morning exercises and leisure holiday time, Vice-major Wang Guangtao said at the park's opening ceremony.
The park is filled with lakes and large lawn areas, and many attractions including a water recreation area and other facilities for outdoor games and activities.

"Miandi" Says Farewell to Beijing

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- The last batch of 3,000 little yellow taxicabs known as Miandi (bread-shaped) will soon be eliminated from this Chinese capital by October 1, 1999, today's " Beijing Daily" reports.
The "Miandi" has been quite popular among local citizens because of its low cost and convenience since it first appeared at the end of 1980s. In 1993, the number soared to 23,000.
However, its rapid increase caused controversy when Beijing fell to be one of the top 10 cities that suffered worst atmosphere pollution in the world.
Accounting for less than two percent of local automotive vehicles, these mini-vans produced eight percent of the city's total vehicle emissions, official tests showed.
Bad safety records is another reason for clearing the "Miandi" out of the taxi fleet. Most of them have already logged more than 500,000 kilometers.
In 1998, about 14,000 "Miandi" exit from taxi fleet in Beijing, and another 6,000 retreated from the fleet in March this year.
"Miandi has become a part of the history of Beijing," the paper says.

BEIJING, September 29 (Xinhua)-- The Chinese Foreign Ministry recently updated its Chinese language website, according to a ministry press release.
The new site will officially open on October 1 and will have a more interesting design and information, various columns on the ministry, China's foreign policy, bilateral relations, regional and international issues, news briefings, backgrounders, and special reports on China's foreign affairs and policies on major regional and international issues.
The website originally began on July 1, 1998. An English language version is still being updated and is expected to reopen later this year.
The website can be reached at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn

XI'AN, September 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese hydrologists have found water in a karst formation in arid northwestern China that is equal in size to 10 large reservoirs.
The new water source will provide 25.4 billion cubic meters of mineral water a year. This is 23 times the amount of the Great Artesian Basin in Australia and similar to the amount of storage capacity of the Three Gorges Dam.
Some 350 wells have been dug in the Junggar, Tarim and Ordos basins in 5 provinces and autonomous regions in that area, which can provide 665,000 cubic meters of water a day, according to Li Lierong of the Land and Resources Ministry.
This is part of a national water-location scheme that began in 1995, which has benefited more than one million people in the northwest. The Ordos is a sedimentary basin that was formed during the Mesozoic Era.
The first well was dug in Shaanxi Province, after which large amounts of water were found in mountainous parts of Gansu and Ningxia. In the Ih Ju League of Inner Mongolia a well with a daily output of 10,000 cubic meters of water has also been dug.
In the past four years, farmers living on arid plains in northern Shaanxi Province have dug 40 water wells from 500 to 1, 000 meters deep. according to Xu Qingzhou, a senior engineer in charge of the water exploration project. Each well provides 5,000 cubic meters of water on average a day.
Yuan Daoxian, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is a well- known karst expert, described the discovery as a breakthrough in hydrogeological research and significant for economic and social development in northwestern China.
Northwest China includes Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces and the Ningxia Hui, Xinjiang Uygur, and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions and has a total area of 3.3 million square kilometers, or one third of China's territory. The region has many natural resources and is a leading grain, cotton, energy, and raw materials producer.
However, the region's annual water resources are only 210 billion cubic meters on average, or about a tenth of the national total. By 2000, the region is expected to have an annual shortfall of 15 billion cubic meters of water because of limited precipitation and a high rate of evaporation.
To date, 80 percent of the surface water in the northwest has been utilized but underground water only accounts for a quarter of its recoverable reserves and a tenth of the region's annual water consumption.
Consequently, the better development of underground water is an important means of solving the water shortage problem, said Dang Xueya, a senior engineer in charge of water in Shaanxi.
The Land and Resources Ministry has decided to spend 80 million yuan (about 9.6 million US dollars) on water exploration in the Ordos through 2002.

World's Largest Tiger Breeding Base In China

NANNING, September 29 (Xinhua) -- It took Guilin's 500,000-sq.m. Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Village only 5 years to increase its number of tigers from 32 to 171 to become the world's largest tiger breeding base.
The park, in the suburbs of the picturesque city of Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, now has Siberian, South China, Bengal, and White tigers. At the present rate of breeding, the number of tigers is expected to reach 500 by the year 2000 and 1,000 by 2003, according the International Wildlife Conservation Association.
But, it warns that the world's tiger population has dropped from 100,000 at the turn of the century to around 6,000 because of shrinking natural habitats and poaching, putting the animal on the verge of extinction.
To ensure its existence, more than 150 nature reserves have been set up and 280 zoos and breeding centers around the world are using modern technology to help tigers reproduce. China began putting 400 million yuan into improving conditions at the breeding center in 1993. But getting tigers to breed is a very complicated task, according to Guo Honglin, who works in the village. He explains that the tiger has a low reproduction rate and a life span of 15 to 20 years. The breeding span of a female tiger lasts only about six years.
However, better wildlife care and immunity from disease as well as animal surgery have increased the reproduction rate to over 95 percent and prolonged the breeding period of female tigers to 12.5 years. Tigers in the park even give birth to triplets or quadruplets. The center has tried using Caesarean section on tigers and gave the first blood transfusion to a tiger suffering from anemia.
To avoid inbreeding, it has set up a DNA Data Bank for 40 tiger families, the largest so far in the world, and has imported more than a dozen tigers from the US, Australia, Italy, and Bangladesh to expand the gene pool.
Its newest project is training tigers to return to the wild, according to Zhou Weisen, the center's director, and helping them adapt to natural living conditions.
Man has brought the number of Siberian tigers down to 30 and South China tigers down to less than 40 in the wild, says Meng Xianlin, the director of the China Endangered Species Import and Export Management Office.