Archive for the ‘China trade’ Category

EU launches anti-dumping probe against Chinese wire rod

    BRUSSELS, May 8 (Xinhua) — The European Commission launched Thursday an anti-dumping probe against wire rod from China, Moldova and Turkey, opening the fourth case targeting Chinese steel products in five months.

    ”The investigation will determine whether the product concerned originating in China, Moldova and Turkey is being dumped and whether this dumping has caused injury,” the Commission said in the European Union (EU)’s official journal.

    The Commission said the probe was initiated following a complaint lodged on March 25 by the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (Eurofer), a Brussels-based industry body representing major EU steel producers such as Arcelor Mittal and Thyssen Krupp.

    Upon receiving complaints, the Commission has 45 days to decide whether to launch an anti-dumping investigation.

    It was the fourth EU anti-dumping probe against Chinese steel products in five months.

    Also upon complaints from Eurofer, the Commission opened the first anti-dumping investigation into certain hot-dipped metallic-coated iron or steel flat-rolled products from China in mid-December, and the second one into stainless steel cold rolled flat products on Feb. 1.

    The third one was launched against Chinese steel wires in mid-February based on a complaint by a European producers’ group called Eurostress Information Service.

    China’s Ministry of Commerce has voiced regret over the anti-dumping applications and hoped to solve the issue through dialogue and negotiations. It also hoped the Commission would refrain from adopting anti-dumping measures.

    European steel users feared that they would face supply shortage if the EU takes anti-dumping measures against Chinese steel products.

    The EU anti-dumping investigation normally takes no more than a year, and in any case must be completed within 15 months, after which the EU governments will have the final say on whether to impose definite five-year anti-dumping duties.

    However, the Commission may impose provisional duties within 60 days to nine months during the investigation period, which may last for six to nine months.

    Under EU rules, before taking provisional anti-dumping measures, the Commission must consult its member states, which are set to be divided on the issue.

China’s agricultural trade deficit hits $3.66 bln in Q1

    BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) — China reported a deficit of 3.66 billion U.S. dollars in agricultural product trade in the first quarter, against a surplus of 460 million U.S. dollars for the same period of 2007.

    Exports reached 9.35 billion U.S. dollars in the first three months, up 9.6 percent year on year, while imports surged 61 percent to 13.01 billion U.S. dollars, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Agriculture Thursday.

    The ministry did not give any explanation for the deficit, however, according to the statistics, a decrease in grain exports and soaring pork and oilseed imports could be the reasons.

    As a net exporter of grain, the country exported 1.04 million tons of grain in the first quarter, shrinking 72.8 percent.

    Meanwhile, the country’s pork imports nearly quadrupled and oilseed imports surged 36.8 percent from a year earlier.

    The Ministry of Commerce last week issued a notice calling for tightened control on grain and fertilizer exports, faster imports of commodities such as edible oil and meat, and expanding storage of farm produce to ensure domestic supply.

    This was the Chinese government’s latest efforts to stabilize agricultural production and food supplies.

    Higher prices for meat, eggs and vegetables pushed the first-quarter inflation to an 8-percent year-on-year increase. The government set a target of about 4.8 percent for the inflation index increase this year.

Microsoft to build $280mln R&D center in Beijing

Microsoft announced an unexpected 44.6-billion-dollar bid for Yahoo Friday, as a latest move by the software giant to challenge Google’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.(Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)
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    BEIJING, May 7 — Software giant Microsoft yesterday said it will invest 280 million U.S. dollars to build a research and development center in Beijing and significantly expand its research team in the country.

    The new R&D campus, set to accommodate 5,000 employees, will become Microsoft’s largest research center outside the United States when it is completed in 2010, said Zhang Yaqin, the company’s China chairman.

    ”Through investments such as this, we are building on our capabilities as one of Microsoft’s key global R&D centers,” said Zhang.

    He said the company will hire 1,000 new research employees in China in the next fiscal year, which starts in July.

    Microsoft currently has 3,000 research staff in the country, with 1,500 full-time employees and another 1,500 working on a project basis, Dow Jones has reported. The company has said it will double the number of its full-time research employees in China to 3,000 in the next three years.

    Last year, Microsoft invested about 280 million dollars in its R&D activities in the country, said Zhang Hongjiang, chief technology officer of Microsoft’s China R&D Group. The company also recruited 1,000 new employees to its China R&D Group last year, making it Microsoft’s largest research team outside the US.

    About 80 percent of the company’s 3,000 research staff in the country develop products for worldwide users and only 20 percent of them work specifically for demand from emerging markets such as China, Zhang said.

    ”But I expect this percentage to grow in the future,” he said.

    Microsoft started its first R&D center in China as early as 1995. The company now has research facilities in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

    These investments are said to have helped Microsoft win support from the Chinese government and boosted sales in the Chinese market.

    PC shipments in China reached 36.84 million units last year, research firm IDC has said. It predicted the number to grow at an average rate of 17.2 percent until 2011, when shipments will hit 64.94 million units.

    The country also has the world’s largest number of Internet and mobile phone users, offering what is believed to be huge opportunities for IT companies.

    Microsoft does not disclose its revenue from the Chinese market. But Fortune Magazine estimated in a story last year that the software giant’s revenue from China would exceed 700 million dollars last year, about 1.5 percent of Microsoft’s global sales.

    (Source: China Daily)

China sees export growth of electronic, information products slow in Q1

    BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) — China’s foreign trade of electronics and information products reached 201 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of this year, a growth of 17.7 percent year-on-year.

    The growth rate was 6 percentage points lower than the year-earlier level, according to figures released by the Ministry of Industry and Information.

    The total trade volume included 115.9 billion U.S. dollars in export value, up 20.2 percent, and 85.1 billion dollars in import value, up 14.5 percent.

    The growth rate for exports was 7.4 percentage points lower than the same month of last year, while that for imports was 4.4 percentage points lower.

    Of the total exports, wholly owned foreign companies accounted for 77.4 billion U.S. dollars, or 66.8 percent.

China’s Alibaba forms strategic alliance with India’s Infomedia

    HANGZHOU, May 6 (Xinhua) — China’s B2B e-commerce portal alibaba.com has entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Infomedia, India’s largest yellow pages and special interest publishing company, Alibaba announced on Tuesday.

    ”India is a priority market for Alibaba’s global plans and Infomedia will help provide on-ground support including sales, marketing and customer service,” said the Alibaba CEO Wei Zhe.

    ”We believe the alliance will help Alibaba become a major online trade platform in India by the end of 2008,” Wei said.

    Alibaba and Infomedia partnership will combine the power of traditional print publishing with online media and e-commerce to provide India small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) with a one-stop solution for global and domestic trade.

    Around 20,000 Indian companies have signed up each month for Alibaba’s India channel since the launching of the channel last December and Alibaba has more than 400,000 members in India.

    Alibaba’s net profit surged to 967.8 million yuan (138 million U.S. dollars), more than quadrupled from a year earlier. Currently, the Hangzhou-based company has nearly 300,000 paid members, accounting for about a 70 percent market share of online B2B trade in China.

    Currently, India has more than 8 million SMEs with employees of about 30 million. A predicted 3 million SMEs participate in the B2B trade.

China Minmetals takes over German micro-cutting tools producer HPTec

    BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) — China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co. Ltd. (CMN), a subsidiary under the country’s metal and mineral titan China Minmetals Corp.(CMC), has bought HPTec, Germany’s leading manufacturer of drills and cutters for an unspecified price, CMC told Xinhua on Tuesday.

    CMN said this move is to update its tungsten sector and it will have a 100 percent control of the Ravensburg-based company, the biggest European producer of printed circuit board (PCB)-use microcutting tools.

    Founded in 1977, HPTec has branches in Singapore, the Republic of Korea and China.

    The acquisition is part of CMC’s strategy since 2002 to transform its business focus from metal trading to production.

    State-owned CMC is one of China’s major importers and exporters of metals and minerals. As a Fortune 500 member, the corporation’s operating revenue was 21.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, with profits topping 7.1 billion yuan (1.02 billion U.S. dollars).

China’s top copper tube producer to set up plant in Mexico

    BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) — Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group Inc., China’s largest precise copper tube producer, is to set up a plant in Mexico, the group announced Tuesday.

    The Mexican plant, in the copper-rich Coahuila with a designed capacity of 70,000 tonnes of precise copper tube, will start test production by the end of 2008, Golden Dragon President Li Changjie told Xinhua.

    The plant is to cost up to 80 million U.S. dollars, which will be funded by Standard Chartered, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.

    The group plans to list in Shanghai next year, raising 1.6 billion to 2.0 billion yuan, Li said.

Growth in exports set to drop to 10%

    BEIJING, May 6 — Weak external demand is set to pull down China’s export growth to 10 percent after the 25.7 percent jump in 2007, a research unit under the Ministry of Commerce said.

    The country’s 2008 trade surplus may also drop to 200 billion U.S. dollars from a record 262 billion dollars last year, Li Yushi, director of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, was quoted by yesterday’s Shanghai Securities News as saying.

    China’s trade surplus fell 10.6 percent year on year to 41.4 billion dollars in the first quarter this year, the first time the quarterly figure headed southwards

    The nation’s export growth slowed to 21.4 percent in the first three months from 27.8 percent in the same period last year, mainly because of weaker demand from the United States.

    Chinese exporters will face tougher internal and external environments this year, which will add pressure on their operations, the research agency said in a report, according to the newspaper.

    However, the country’s export growth in future may be helped by robust exports of electromechanical products, according to Liu Haiquan, vice director at the comprehensive department under the ministry.

    Exports of electromechanical products, which jumped 23.1 percent in the first quarter of this year from the same period a year ago, have a big potential to grow even more, Liu was quoted as saying.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)

Middle East, Chinese entrepreneurs seek “Silk Road revival”

    RIYADH, May 5 (Xinhua) — The 2008 China-Middle East Summit opened here Monday, bringing together nearly 100 entrepreneurs mainly from China and Saudi Arabia to discuss key opportunities and challenges of the ‘New Silk Road.’

    The summit was jointly sponsored by the Financial Times and Hong Kong-based First Eastern Investment Group. Chinese Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Yang Honglin also took part in the meeting.

HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, addresses the 2008 China-Middle East Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 5, 2008. The 2008 China-Middle East Summit opened here Monday, bringing together nearly 100 entrepreneurs mainly from China and Saudi Arabia to discuss key opportunities and challenges of the “New Silk Road.”(Xinhua Photo)
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    Representatives exchanged views alt=”Gai Ruyin, deputy governor of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, addresses the 2008 China-Middle East Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 5, 2008. The 2008 China-Middle East Summit opened here Monday, bringing together nearly 100 entrepreneurs mainly from China and Saudi Arabia to discuss key opportunities and challenges of the "New Silk Road."” hspace=0 src=”http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/06/xin_5520505061657578186619.jpg” border=0>

Gai Ruyin, deputy governor of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, addresses the 2008 China-Middle East Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 5, 2008. The 2008 China-Middle East Summit opened here Monday, bringing together nearly 100 entrepreneurs mainly from China and Saudi Arabia to discuss key opportunities and challenges of the “New Silk Road.”(Xinhua Photo)
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Chinese firms triumph in U.S. battery suit

    BEIJING, May 6 — A U.S. court’s decision to shoot down the patent infringement claims of a U.S. battery maker has ended a lengthy case against Chinese battery manufacturers and marks the first victory of Chinese enterprises in trade disputes such as this.

    ”It lasted five years and cost millions of dollars,” the China Battery Industry Association said in a press release yesterday, “but the victory marks a perfect ending.”     

    Experts said the win will put Chinese battery enterprises in a better position to tap overseas markets, the United States in particular, which have seen an annual twofold increase in recent years.

    According to Wang Jingzhong, spokesman for the association, battery from China costs only half that of the local ones in the US.

    Energizer Holdings, the second largest battery maker in the U.S., in 2003 filed complaints against more than 20 companies, including nine Chinese manufacturers, claiming they had infringed on Eveready’s zero-mercury-added patent.

    According to an announcement by Hogan & Hartson, the law firm that helped Chinese enterprises with the case, the patent claims were unfounded.

    The U.S. Court of Federal Appeals for the Federal Circuit in late April affirmed a previous ruling by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that Energizer’s claim was not valid. It is the final decision on the case since this was the second time Energizer appealed.

    Energizer used to ask Chinese manufacturers for $1 million as patent fees plus 2 to 3 cents on each battery sold. “That was unacceptable since we earn only 1 cent on each battery,” said Wang from the association.

    Chinese battery makers thus worked together to fight the suit initiated by Energizer. According to experts from the association, fees for Section 337 investigations are very high and therefore companies stand to gain when they work together and share the legal costs.

    Under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, ITC is authorized to conduct investigations into claims of infringement on US intellectual property rights and other unfair trade practices in imports into the US, and take remedies such as issuing general or specific exclusion orders or cease and desist orders.

    The U.S. last year initiated 17 Section 337 investigations against Chinese enterprises. The products included recorders, digital TVs, memory cards and media players.

    A recent report released by the Ministry of Commerce said Chinese enterprises are facing increasing trade barriers. Yu Benlin, deputy chief of the ministry’s bureau of trade fairs for imports and exports, last week said enterprises should take the lead in dealing with these suits and protecting their interests.

    (Source: China Daily)