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April 2009 Wuhan Iron & Steel, China’s fifth-largest steel maker, reported a net profit of Rmb263m for the three months to 31 March, just one-eighth of the total made in the same period last year. The company managed to stay profitable despite the recent fall in steel prices thanks to relatively strong demand for its core value-added product, silicon steel.
On the downside, as an inland steel smelter it faces higher logistics cost than coastal competitors such as Baosteel and Ansteel, said Luo Wei, analyst at China International Capital Corporation.
The Taiwan-headquartered supermarket group RT-Mart has signed an agreement to open a new supermarket in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, reported China Retail News. Construction is expected to start in October 2009 and it will open for business a year later.
With an investment of US$40m, the new RT-Mart will be located on the southern side of the Nantong Road in Hailing district, in the northern part of the city. A major renovation project has recently begun in this area.
Fixed asset investment in China increased 28.8 per cent year-on-year to Rmb2,10bn in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The growth rate was 4.2 per cent higher than a year earlier.
Two collapses in a tunnel on the Yuhuai railway line between Tongren and Yangtou, both in Guizhou province, have caused a disruption to train services in the region. The collapses, which occurred on 24 and 25 April, forced train services between Chongqing and Chengdu and Chongqing and Dazhou, for example, to be diverted from their normal routes.
The Yuhuai line, which runs from Chongqing to Huaihua in Hunan province, was opened in late 2005.
Chongqing Chaotianmen Yangtze River Bridge was due to officially open to traffic on 29 April. The bridge, located at the meeting point of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, is 1,741 long. With a main span of 552 metres, it is among the longest arch bridges in the world, according to a municipal website.
The bridge has two levels, with the upper one consisting of a roadway and walkway and the lower one composed of a roadway and light rail line. It connects Danzishi in Nanan district and Jiangbeizui, and shortens the journey time between the two areas to less than 10 minutes.
Shanghai International Port Group’s net profit fell 28 per cent to US$108m in the first quarter of 2009 as a consequence of the global economic downturn, Shanghai Daily reported.
The company handled a total of 5.56m TEUs, a decline of 15 per cent from the same period last year. It attributed the drop in container turnover and dry bulk goods to lower foreign trade volume.
Chongqing municipality said it would spend Rmb30bn to become a financial centre in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River by 2015. The claim was made by Luo Guang, deputy secretary-general of Chongqing government at a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the construction of the Chongqing Financial Centre in Jiangbeizui central business district.
Lu said the plan to build Chongqing into a financial centre is based on the city’s strong industrial base.
According to Chongqing Mayor Wang Hongju, the city will seek balanced development of banking, securities and insurance. However, it faces completion from the likes of Chengdu and Wuhan, which also want to become financial hubs in western and central China respectively.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) will bolster the development of air transportation in central China, its deputy head Yang Guoqing said during the recent Expo Central China 2009 held in Hefei, Anhui province.
Airports in capital cities of all the six provinces in central China -- Shanxi, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui -- are to undergo renovation or expansion by 2010.
The railway network is also being upgraded. According to Lu Dongfu, vice head of the Ministry of Railways, new lines totalling 16,000km in length are to be built before 2020 to extend the region’s railway network to 34,000km. By then, railway density will increase from 175km to 331km per 10,000 sq km, twice the national average.
China Cosco plans to cancel or postpone some of its ship orders, according to a report by the Financial Times. Some industry analysts had expected the state-owned shipping line to increase its order book to support China’s troubled shipyards.
The company said it was in negotiations with shipyards over delays and cancellations of dry bulk ships. The 58 ships that Cosco has on order would expand its dry bulk capacity by more than 20 per cent. In container shipping, it wants to delay until 2010 delivery of the largest three of the nine ships it is due to receive this year.
The company, the world’s biggest operator of dry bulk ships, made pre-tax profits of Rmb15.7bn in 2008, down from Rmb26.1bn in the previous year, on revenue up to Rmb131bn from Rmb112bn.
Chongqing recorded a first quarter 2009 GDP of Rmb103.22bn, up 9 per cent year-on-year. This was 2.9 percentage points above the national average, and ranked sixth among the country’s interior regions. Those ahead of Chongqing were Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Sichuan and Shanxi.
Within Chongqing, Pengshui, Wanzhou and Fuling recorded the largest growth rates.
Cargo throughput of the major ports along the Yangtze trunkline reached 85m tons in April 2009, up 1.1 per cent over the same period last year. Out of this total, 11m tons were foreign trade related, up nearly 3 per cent. Container throughput declined by 7.4 per cent to 550,000 teu.
Over the first four months, cargo throughput decreased by 2.8 per cent to 316m tons year-on-year. Foreign trade related cargo was up 3.7 per cent to 42.07 tons while container throughput fell by 9.1 per cent to 1.92m teu.
Nanjing Waterway Bureau is ordering more than 20 new vessels, including 10 speed boats, to help raise its capability to maintain the waterway under its remit, according to officials from the bureau.
Separately, the Ministry of Transport agreed on 24 April that the guaranteed water level between Nanjing and Wuhu would be raised from 7.5 metres to 9 metres between June and September and from 6.5 metres to 7.5 metres between October and May. This 101km stretch of the Yangtze trunkline is the responsibility of the Nanjing Waterway Bureau, under the Yangtze Waterway Bureau, the government agency in charge of maintaining the waterway and delivering the guaranteed water level.
The Ministry of Transport has designated Chongqing as an experimental location outside Beijing for the building of transit hubs, according to Chongqing Daily on 23 April. The hubs are designed to link railway lines with bus stops, taxi stands and coach stations with a view to making travel easier for the public. The scheme will take three years to complete and the municipality is expected to provide a model for other cities to follow.
Lhasa’s urban planning blueprint for the period 2009-2020 has recently won the approval of the State Council. This is the third urban plan for the city, and by far the largest and most politically-sensitive, since the Communists took power in Tibet in the early 1950s.
The two-and-a-half year preparation of the blueprint was completed with the help of Jiangsu province, which put up Rmb26m and sent nearly 100 professional planners; the Lhasa government invested more than Rmb13m and sent its own team of planners.
Chongqing recorded a foreign trade container throughput of 21,787 teu in March, up 28.8 per cent from the previous month. However, in the first three months of the year, foreign trade container throughput in Chongqing was 58,000 teu, down 12.4 per cent over the same period last year. This was slightly greater than the average decline in Yangtze port container throughput in the first quarter of 11.4 per cent.
Bus fares in Shanghai’s urban and rural areas are to be harmonised by end of June. The special bus fare plan, which was initiated on 1 April and will take three months to roll out across the entire municipality, will cover 16,600 buses on 1,041 bus routes. Under the scheme, passengers will pay only Rmb1 if they change to another bus within two hours of boarding first bus.
In another development, a public consultation process on bus reform in Chongqing has resulted in its postponement. The plan related to a raft of measures concerning management structure, ownership, consolidation of routes, and services and pricing. A proposal to increase bus fares was not well received in the current economic climate.
360buy.com, a Chinese retail e-commerce company, has established a logistics subsidiary in Shanghai to improve distribution quality and efficiency, reported China Economic Review.
The company has invested Rmb20m in the subsidiary, which will distribute orders in Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, areas that account for 40 per cent of the company’s total orders.
360buy.com is also building 20 distribution stations in cities such as Tianjin, Wuhan, Jinan, Xian and Chongqing to enhance its national distribution network.
The World Bank has approved loans to two important transport projects in China. The first is a US$3000 loan that supports the GuiGuang Railway Project and the second is a US$150m to the Hubei Yiba Highway Project.
The GuiGuang Railway Project involves the construction of an 857km electrified railway line between Guiyang in Guizhou province and Guangzhou in Guangdong province, providing for the first time a direct connection between some of the poorest areas of China and the more developed Pearl River delta region. The new line will operate passenger and freight trains at speeds of up to 200 and 120 kph respectively. Upon completion of the project, travel time for rail passengers between Guiyang and Guangzhou will drop from the current 24 hours to just five hours. For freight, the distance travelled between the two cities will be reduced from the current 1,440km to 820km. The new railway line will also provide a more efficient and lower cost rail transport access to Guangzhou and Shenzhen for passengers and freight to and from the western provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan. The total cost of the project is US$12.5bn.
The Hubei Yiba Highway Project includes the construction of an expressway, running along the northern bank of the Yangtze River from Yichang to Badong in Hubei province in central China. This is part of the national trunk expressway network connecting the country’s eastern and western regions.
Small airports are expected to receive government subsidies after being reclassified as public infrastructure under a new regulation, reported China Daily. The regulation stipulates that governments at all levels must take necessary measures to support airports from 1 July.
The regulation is expected to benefit small airports because large ones are profitable. China has 103 airports that serve fewer than 1m passengers a year, and an estimated 91 per cent of them are losing money.
Wang Jian, secretary-general of China Civil Airport Association, said many regional airports survive on subsidies from local governments. The Civil Aviation Administration of China also began subsidising small airports last year, but the amount is limited.
A number of airports that did not secure local government funding have been closed.
“Small airports need local governments’ support because they are built more out of a strategic need than the need for profit,” Wang said.
Chongqing Airlines has taken delivery of an Airbus A319, the first of three such planes leased from the International Lease Finance Corp.
The aircraft can accommodate 122 passengers and will be deployed by the carrier on routes to popular tourist destinations in southwest China.
China produced a total of 280.49m tons of cement in the first quarter of 2009, an increase of 12.95 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Cement output in southwest China, which was hit by a major earthquake last May, surged 36 per cent from a year ago to 16.8m tons in March. However, output in eastern China decreased 3 per cent to 44.6m tons during the month.
Crude steel output decreased 0.3 per cent from the previous year to 45.1m tons in March, although this was 12 per cent higher than in the previous month. In the first quarter, crude steel output reached 127.4m tons, representing a year-on-year growth of 1.4 per cent.
Luo Bingsheng, vice chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, said China’s 71 large- and medium-sized steel enterprises suffered a combined loss of Rmb1.51bn billion in the first two months of this year due to the waning demand.
The number of wild Yangtze alligators is expected to reach 300 from the current 120 in the next five to 10 years, an expert told China Daily.
The endangered species are living and breeding in a wider area than in 2005, said Wang Chaolin, deputy director of the Chinese Alligators Protection Nature Reserve in Anhui province. He attributed the improvement to a series of protection measures such as wild breeding, protection of baby alligators and the releasing of captive-bred alligators to the wild.
China will boost the use of hydroelectric resources along the Yangtze River in the coming decades despite, according to a strategic development plan of the river unveiled by the Ministry of Water Resources. This is despite increasing public concern about the environmental impact of these schemes.
Some 36 per cent of the Yangtze’s hydropower resources are currently exploited. This is set to rise to about 50 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2030, according to Cai Qihua, director of the Yangtze Water Resources Committee, affiliated with the ministry.
Hydro projects will be developed on tributaries in upper reaches of the Yangtze, including the Yalong, Dadu and Wujiang rivers.
China’s fixed asset investment in the first quarter of 2009 rose 28.8 per cent year-on-year to Rmb2,810bn, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The growth rate was 4.2 percentage points higher than the year before.
Many of the investment projects that form part of the Rmb4,000bn stimulus package announced last November are now coming on stream. “It usually takes three to six months between making decisions and putting investments in place,” said Zhang Hanya, a researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission.
According to the NBS, the total investment involved in new projects rose 88 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter. Zhang predicted that fixed asset investment in the second quarter may surge 30 per cent from a year earlier.
Japan’s largest tyre maker, Bridgestone, plans to invest an additional US$98m to expand capacity at its plant in Wuxi, Jiangsu province.
The investment, scheduled to start in the second half of 2011, will enable the plant to make an additional 4,200 tyres a day, increasing total daily capacity to 12,000 tyres.
The East-west Lake Bonded Logistic Centre in Wuhan Export Processing Zone reported a total of 22 transactions in the first 20 days of its operation, worth a clearance value of US$2.2m. The centre is the first of its kind in Wuhan. Imports do not attract tax upon entering the centre, while goods entering are counted as exports.
Chongqing is replacing cables at the country’s first major suspension bridge, the Stonegate Bridge, linking Shapingba and Jiangbei districts. The 1,096-metre bridge was built in December 1988 and the 216 cables had a life span of 20 years. In 2004, after a thorough health check, 36 of the rusted cables were replaced. The project to replace the remaining 180 started last October.
It takes an average of four days to replace a cable and the whole project will take 17 months to complete. The new cables will also have a 20-year life span.
According to the China Shipping News, Zhangjiagang port recorded a total foreign trade volume of nearly 8m tons in the first quarter of 2009, up 6 per cent year-on-year. Of this total, imports amounted to 6.7m tons, up 35 per cent.
This was a particularly strong performance given the overall fall in foreign trade volumes. Cargo throughput on the entire Yangtze trunkline fell by 8.8 per cent in the first quarter to 27.24m tons.
The lower cost of iron ore, chemicals, grain and international shipping in general boosted Zhangjiagang’s import levels. Imported iron ore via the port stood at 1.73m tons in the first three months of the year, up 52 per cent year-on-year. In March alone, imported iron ore hit a record of 962,000 tons, three times more than the previous month. Imported chemicals hit 1.59m tons during the first quarter, up 47.9 per cent.
A new same-day air cargo route will start from Wuhan at the end of May, flying to Chengdu and Hong Kong and then returning to Wuhan. The service will operate four times a week on a B737 plane with a capacity of 14 tons.
In a separate development, Wuhan resumed a river container shuttle service at the end of March from Yangluo to Yangshan in Shanghai, taking just five days. This means that cargo from Wuhan to Europe will take 31 days rather than 35 days.
Previously, the shuttle service between Waigaoqiao and Yangshan was a major headache for shippers as it was regarded as unreliable and unpredictable. The Wuhan-Yangshan shuttle service started a couple of years ago but did not survive because there was only one vessel and very few customers. Now the local government is subsidising three vessels to provide a regular service in the hope that the customer base will grow to a critical mass.
Wuhan North railway marshalling station, the largest in Asia according to local media, will be completed in mid-April.
With a total investment of Rmb2.4bn and an area of 4.67 sq km, the station has 112 marshalling railway lines for freight. It is located at the junction of Beijing-Guangzhou line and the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu expressway, and is expected to play a significant role in the development of Wuhan as a national railway hub.
The night navigation ban at a section of the Yangtze River that has been threatened by a massive landslide was revoked on 8 April by the Yangtze River Administration of Navigational Affairs.
The decision was made because the landslide at the river section in Yunyang county, Chongqing municipality, was no longer deemed dangerous due to a lack of heavy rainfall. However, the decision could be reversed in the event of heavy rainfall.
Waterway transportation had been suspended at night in the region since 5 April, as soil erosion had worsened since March.
A portion of the river's southern bank in Yunyang broke loose from the rest of the bank in November 2008, when the cofferdams of the Three Gorges Dam tried to hold water at a depth of 175 meters.
Logistics services provider Longwin is joining forces with Finnish forwarding agent Wikestrom & Krogius to establish a supply chain centre for the marine and energy solutions company Wartsila in Shanghai.
The two companies have won a five-year contract to provide logistical and operational services to Wartsila, including the management, transportation and distribution of some 70,000 tonnes of power-related cargo a year from the Shanghai hub to destinations in Europe.
Logwin has assisted Wartsila in building a 3,100 sq metre facility that will provide comprehensive logistics services. The new centre will enable Wartsila to consolidate goods from multiple suppliers in China, including quality control and inspection of goods on their arrival at the centre to the repackaging of the cargo into full container loads for shipment to Finland, Italy and other European destinations.
Praxair China has signed a contract to supply liquid nitrogen to Chery Automobile, one of the largest exporters of Chinese cars. Chery will use the liquid nitrogen during the heat treatment process of the manufacture of automobile parts at its plant in Wuhu, Anhui province.
Prior to this contract, Praxair China supplied industrial gases to Wuhu Bonaire Automotive Electrical Systems, an affiliate of Chery, and to Tower Automotive (Wuhu), a joint venture between Tower and Chery in China.
Praxair is one of the world’s largest industry gas suppliers. In China, it has 17 wholly owned companies, 10 joint ventures and more than 1,200 employees.
The US-based home appliances giant Whirlpool will close its washing machine plant in Shanghai, reported China Sourcing News, cutting 600 jobs.
Whirlpool’s washing machine output will be moved to the Hisense-Whirlpool joint venture plant in Zhejiang province. This 50-50 joint venture was created in April 2008, and is mainly engaged in the development and production of washing machines and refrigerators.
Wuhan government’s trial free bicycle scheme that started last October has been deemed a success, with none of the 1,000 bicycles involved being stolen. Local residents can apply for special credit cards to rent the bicycles free at one point and return them at another. The companies that provide the bicycles use the outlets and the bicycles themselves as vehicles for commercial advertisements, thereby getting a return on investment.
As a sign of adopting a greener transport policy, the local government plans to extend coverage of the scheme in the city this year to some 20,000 bicycles.
Chongqing Mayor Wang Hongju and Executive Deputy Mayor Huang Qifan met with senior adviser of Shenzhen Airlines Mr Li Zeyuan in April and discussed their mutual interest in developing Chongqing as the air cargo hub in China’s interior. Following computer manufacturer HP’s plan to build a 4m notebook production line in Chongqing last year, Chongqing is expecting a substantial increase in air cargo volumes. Shenzhen Airline, the largest privately-owned airline and the fifth largest in China, has a controlling stake in Changzhou airport and manages Wuxi airport along the Yangtze corridor. It has been active in searching for new targets, having recently signed a framework agreement with Jiangxi to develop Nanchang airport.
In another development, Chongqing Municipal Economic Commission director Mr Wu Bing announced that the city is well on the way to recovery. Among the major signs, he said that orders in the machinery sector have increased to full load and the shipbuilding sector had secured orders worth more than Rmb8bn. The consumption of electricity has started to rise, with the first three months up 1.12 per cent on the previous quarter to nearly 9.3bn megawatts.
According to the Transport Commission of Gansu province, the central government has spent Rmb1.8bn in the eight ‘severely-affected’ counties and 36 ‘affected’ counties over the past year and will spend an additional Rmb200m by the time of the first year anniversary in May. The money is being spent on rebuilding roads and bridges; the number of bridges alone exceeds 130. The transport commission vowed that all the rebuilding projects would be completed by the end of November 2010.
The earthquake last May was recorded at 8.3 on the Richter scale and wiped out a number of rural communities in Sichuan and Gansu provinces. So far, similar figures have not been made available by Sichuan provincial government.
Relief efforts have considerably increased the throughput volumes of cement and other building material such as steel along the Yangtze. In March, for the first time, the amount of cargo going upstream to Sichuan was larger than that of cargo coming downstream to the coastal region.
A conference initiated by the State Reform and Development Commission in late March concluded that the current worldwide economic crisis is creating significant problems for the Go West campaign. In Sichuan alone, 1.5m migrant workers who have returned from shut-down factories along the coast are currently unemployed. During the first two months of the year, exports declined by 55 per cent, industrial value-added by 5.7 per cent and local revenues by 35.7 per cent in the western region.
Experts said that infrastructure investment needs to be speeded up and that efforts should focus on developing the unique industries in the interior and further accelerate the pace of industrialisation to increase the purchasing power of ordinary people.
Experts have approved Guizhou’s plan to upgrade Wujiang River to link up with the Yangtze to the north. The four-year project involves 407km of waterway between the Wujiang River Ferry and Gongtan. Eight terminals will be built, comprising 16 berths for 500dwt vessels and 36 quays. It will compliment the Guiyang-Zunyi Expressway and the Guizhou-Chongqing Railway that have already been built. Construction is expected to start sometime next year.
In another development, the State Development and Reform Commission has approved a proposal to build the 345km Guizhou-Chongqing New Rail Line, which will cost approximately Rmb45bn. The line will go through mountainous terrain and involve numerous tunnels and bridges, making it a highly challenging project. It is one of 15 key rail projects on the priority agenda of the Ministry of Railway, and construction is scheduled to start in the third quarter of this year. Upon completion in 2013, the new line will help ease capacity pressure on the existing Guizhou-Chongqing line.
Shanghai International Port Group announced on 10 April that it aims to handle 29m teu this year, a growth of 3.6 per cent over last year. The company handled 28m teu in 2008, an increase of 7 per cent, and its profits were up nearly 27 per cent to Rmb4.6bn.
The company also said that it plans to double its transhipment ratio from the current five per cent.
It is also suspending talks with APMoller Maersk for a 40 per cent stake in Zeebrugge port in Belgium that Maersk has built, due to the worldwide economic downturn.
The record low water levels on the upper reaches of the Yangtze have finally come to an end, according to the Yangtze Waterway Bureau. During the second half of March, the water level in Luzhou, Sichuan province, stood at 0.1 metres below sea level, the lowest since records began. From 4 April, the water level in Luzhou started to rise, to 0.85 metres on 9 April.
The extremely low water level has severely hampered normal shipping activities, allowing the passing of only eight vessels a day, carrying just 2,300 tons. Since then, shipping activities have returned to normal with the passing of 50 vessels a day carrying 30,000 tons of cargo.
In another development, the Three Gorges Dam finished replenishing water for the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze on 13 April, releasing a total of 5.1bn cubic metres of water. Between November and April, the Yangtze experiences its dry season. One of the purposes of the Three Gorges Dam is to regulate water levels to facilitate year-round shipping. According to officials from the Three Gorges Dam, the hydropower project was not affected during this water releasing cycle.
On 1 April, the National Development and Reform Commission approved the construction of a new railway between Chongqing and Guizhou. The new line will be 345km long and will have a maximum speed of 250 kph. Construction will start this year.
At present, it takes 11 hours to travel from Chongqing to Guizhou by train. This will be cut to less than two hours when the new line is completed.
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission has issued a notice that specifies the proportion of an insurance fund that insurers will be allowed to invest on infrastructure projects. Life insurance companies will be permitted to invest 6 per cent of their total assets, based on values at the end of the last quarter, on infrastructure projects, while property insurance companies could invest up to 4 per cent of their total assets.
Insurance companies can use up to 40 per cent of the allowed investment quota on a single infrastructure project. The proportion, however, could be adjusted for major projects approved by the State Council, reported Xinhua.
In late 2008, the Chinese government allowed insurance companies to invest in infrastructure projects, such as transportation, telecoms and energy facilities. The measure is aimed to increase financing for the country’s Rmb4,000bn economic stimulus package.
Previously, the country’s insurance funds were allowed to invest in bank deposits, government and financial securities, stocks, securities-oriented funds, and in non-listed companies as shareholders.
An annual three-month fishing ban on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River came into effect on 1 April and will run until 30 June, said Hu Xuedong, deputy director of China Fishery Administration Commanding Centre. The ban stretches along 120km of the river, covering 10 cities and provinces, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hubei.
A fishing ban on 110km of the upper reaches of the Yangtze started on 1 February and will run until 30 April.
The seasonal ban has been in place since 2002 and it aims to sustain fishery resources and improve the ecological environment of the river, which has been damaged by rapid industrial development.
In early April, thousands of fish were found dead in the Fujiang River in Tongnan county, Chongqing municipality, which a local environmental authority said was possibly connected with chemical pollution.
Air China said it plans to buy the 24 per cent stake in its cargo unit — Air China Cargo — that it doesn’t already own for US$105m, reported Cargonews Asia. It is doing this in anticipation of an expected growth in the country’s air cargo business.
Air China Cargo’s operations include general cargo services, mail and express delivery services.
Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport handled 15,120 tons of cargo in March, up nearly 2 per cent year-on-year.
The local government plans to invest Rmb1.2bn in airport projects this year, including the third phase expansion.
UK-based steelmaker Corus has opened a new service centre in Suzhou Industrial Park’s free trade zone, where an aerospace hub is being created.
It will be used to supply China’s aerospace industry. Aerospace Service Centre Suzhou is modelled on Corus’s aerospace supply operation in the UK, which is one of the company’s gateways to the European aerospace market.
The service centre will stock, break bulk and process specialist aerospace steels produced at Corus’s Stocksbridge plant in the UK. It will also supply other materials, particularly non-ferrous metals, from third parties as part of a materials service package for customers in China.
Changshu terminal reported a year-on-year growth of 5.6 per cent to 350,000 tons of imported waste paper in the first quarter of 2009. Analysts believe that the low price of imported waste paper and the low rate of paper recycling in China have contributed to the increase.
According to Gansu provincial government, an estimated total of Rmb160bn will be spent this year and next on starting construction of nine railway lines, including the Lanzhou-Chengdu line and the Baotou-Lanzhou line. When completed, the total length of the nine lines will be 2,300km.
The Ministry of Railways estimated that passenger volumes during the Tomb-sweeping festival between 3 and 6 April jumped by 40 per cent to 21.6m compared with normal days, and up 12 per cent over the same period last year.
In Shanghai, passengers taking coaches to nearby cities such as Ningbo, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nantong and Yangzhou rose by 45 per cent year-on-year on 4 April alone, reaching 35,000.
However, according to reports, the general economic uncertainty might have impacted the behaviour of tomb sweepers. Of the 540,000 visitors on 4 April in Suzhou, one of the most popular destinations for ancestry tombs, very few stayed overnight as is normally the case. Local hotels expressed disappointment despite issuing nearly 40,000 discount vouchers to lure visitors.
According to statistics from the Three Gorges Administration relating to the first quarter of 2009, more cargo went upstream of the shiplocks for the first time. This was attributed to the government’s earthquake relief efforts. Cement, iron and steel, oil and other construction materials have entered Sichuan via the waterway, totalling more than 5.8m tons, 53 per cent of the total. Normally, more cargo vessels sail out of Sichuan than sail in.
According to Taicang Port Authorities, 42 vessels from Taiwan called direct at Taicang in the first three months of 2009, making Taicang the major terminal for direct trade between Taiwan and Suzhou.
Container services between Taicang and Taiwan started in December 2004, but direct routes only began last December. Vessels deployed are typically in the 6,000-8,000dwt ocean-going range. A cluster of foreign trade-related Taiwanese companies operates in Suzhou.
On 16 April, Yangtze Business Services is organising a site visit to Wuhan for manufacturers and logistics providers. Delegates will look at the city’s major terminals, the ETDZ and two of Wuhan’s major multinational companies, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen and TPV, the world’s second largest OEM of computer terminals.
In recent years, Wuhan has attracted more foreign direct investment than any other central Chinese city. The tour is a rare opportunity to meet with government officials and exchange ideas with logistics managers of companies already operating in the city.
The construction of the Nanjing Yangtze Tunnel, which began in September 2005, has reached a water depth of 60 metres, a landmark for the world-class tunnel-building technology that China claims to have mastered
The 5,853-metre-long tunnel is the most challenging engineering project along the Yangtze. So far, 4,038 metres of the tunnel has been completed without any leakage or other technical problems.
There are more than 60 bridges across the Yangtze built or being built. But only two cities have tunnels across the Yangtze: one is in Shanghai and other Wuhan. The Nanjing tunnel, upon completion, will help alleviate traffic jams across the river in Nanjing.
The project is being built by a consortium headed by the China Railway Construction Corp on a BOT basis for 34 years: four years for construction and 30 years of operation and maintenance. The tunnel will have six lanes and a top speed of 80 kph. The total investment is Rmb3.3bn, less than a third of the cost of Nanjing No.4 Bridge.
Anhui’s first direct international service started operation on 30 March, according to a provincial government website. The flights connect Hefei and Seoul, South Korea.
Chongqing Chemical Terminal was opened to the public in Changshou district on 26 March. One of the key supporting facilities of the municipality’s chemical industrial parks, the port will serve many enterprises in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Covering an area of 150,000 sq metres, the first phase project includes a bulk cargo berth, a comprehensive berth and a liquid chemical berth. Annual throughput capacity is 1.98m tons, of which the liquid chemical berth will account for about 1m tons. By 2012, annual total throughput will increase to its maximum of 5m tons.
The Changshou Yangtze River Bridge, the first road bridge across the river in Chongqing’s Changshou district, formally opened in March.
The four-lane, 1.2km bridge shortens the journey time between Changshou and Nanan, one of six central districts in Chongqing, to 50 minutes. It will also facilitate the relocation project being undertaken by Chongqing Iron and Steel (Group). The move to Changshou is designed to improve the company’s efficiency, reduce emissions and boost annual output capacity from 3m tons to 8m tons. Completion is scheduled for 2010. Changshou district government plans to develop related industries to support local iron and steel development.
Wuhan-based Dongfeng Motor Co has begun a national recall of 5,014 sedans due to suspension flaws. The recalled model of the Sunny model was manufactured between 9 February and 30 September2006, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ).
In the report submitted to the GAQSIQ, Dongfeng promised to repair all defective vehicles to eliminate risks. Its franchised Dongfeng Nissan outlets would notify customers of the recall.
China’s Defective Product of Administration Centre, a branch of the GAQSIQ, received 2,933 auto quality complaints in 2008, a year-on-year increase of 37 per cent. The centre’s information office director Wu Yousheng described the total as large and said quality issues had become a major concern for Chinese consumers.
Changan Ford Mazda Automotive Corporation received the most complaints, 386 in total, followed by 242 for Tianjin FAW Toyota Motor and 235 for Chery Automobile.
US sportswear giant Nike plans to stop production at three footwear plants in China as part of a global drive to improve supply chain efficiency. The specific locations were not disclosed, although local media reported that one of plants is located in Taicang, Jiangsu province. Nike is the main or sole buyer at all three sites, which fulfil orders to contract.
The company is trying to direct production into fewer factory bases instead of spreading orders over a larger number of plants. In February, Nike said it would cut up to 1,400 jobs, or 4 per cent of its global workforce, to reduce management costs in the deepening recession.
Siemens opened its first-ever China retail outlet in Nanjing on 25 March, selling domestic electric appliances. The shop will stock Siemens products, both locally-made and imported. There is a green corner for its EcoPlus range to show Siemens’ energy-saving credentials. The Germany-based company plans to open other outlets in Beijing and Shanghai.
A project to turn 80 per cent of Changzhou’s daily waste into energy has passed the assessment of experts and started commercial operation. The energy generated through burning the waste is being sold on a daily basis to the East China Power Grid. The Rmb400m project, built on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis with imported equipment, will be able to handle 270,000 tons of waste each year.
The new cargo facility at Wuhan Tianhe Airport started operation on 30 March. The 21,400sq metre facility is able to handle 320,000 tons each year.
In another development in Chongqing, Qianjiang Airport has received the go-ahead from the State Reform and Development Commission for its renovation project. The project, costing a total of Rmb175m, will include the addition of 300 metres to its 2,100 metre runway. This will allow the airport to accommodate larger planes such as B737, A319 and A320. It will also pave the way for the commencement of direct flights to major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Wuhan has been allocated a quota to issue three-year local government bonds worth Rmb3bn. This is part of a central government plan to allow local governments to issue bonds to finance public spending for the first time. The total quota released by the central government is Rmb200bn.
Provinces can also apply for these quotas. Wuhan was allocated Rmb3bn out of a total of Rmb8.1bn for Hubei province. A number of infrastructure projects including the metro line have applied to issue bonds.
Cargo throughput on the Yangtze trunkline fell by 11.8 per cent to 78m tons in March 2009, while container throughput decreased by 24 per cent to 450,000 teu. Throughput of foreign trade-related cargo fell 17.6 per cent to 9m tons.
Looking at the first quarter as a whole, the fall was not as steep due to a strong performance in January. Cargo throughput fell by 6.2 per cent year-on-year in the first three months to 225m tons, while container throughput fell by 11.4 per cent to 1.34m teu. Throughput for foreign trade-related cargo decreased by 8.8 per cent to 27.24m tons. Officials predict that the falling trend will continue for another two to three months before the effect of increased government spending will be reflected in throughput figures.
An operation licence was granted on 25 March to the oversize cargo terminal in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province. The terminal can accommodate vessels of up to 5,000dwt with a single lift weight of 800 tons, the biggest among all Yangtze ports.
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