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July 2009 Nantong police arrested a man on 24 July on suspicion of fraud in relation to the evasion of road tolls. The police are still putting the case together and, when it is brought to prosecution, it will be first-ever toll evasion-related fraud case.
The suspect Li, a haulier who used to buy potatoes from Shandong province and sell them in southern Jiangsu, worked out a plan with his accomplice (still at large) in March. They each bought a truck of the same model and drove their truckload in opposite directions on the Shandong-Shanghai route only to meet in Nantong. At the toll station in Rugao Nantong, they would exchange number plates and tickets so that over the months until Li’s arrest, he evaded more than Rmb3,000. On 24 July, they were caught at the northern side of the Sutong Bridge when the handover of the plates and tickets triggered an automatic alarm system.
The Jiangsu city of Zhangjiagang imported 2,441.6 tons of wool in the first six months of 2009, up nearly 15 per cent year-on-year and worth a total of US$14.9m, according to the local inspection and quarantine bureau. The statistics confirm that the world wool processing industry is moving to China.
A number of wool trading companies inside Zhangjiagang bonded zone have been importing aggressively, taking advantage of the current low prices in the world market. Some major processing companies such as Zhangjiagang Tianyu and Zhong Ao have also been reported to be importing modern technology and equipment and increasing their capacity.
The inspection and quarantine bureau is promoting a new inspection regime that it says will reduce the inspection time by 15 days and save businesses Rmb1.5m-2m.
Chinese citizens made 1bn domestic trips in the first half of 2009, up 11.7 per cent year-on-year, according to a survey by the State Administration of Tourism. The growth was 5.4 percentage points higher than that of the whole of 2008.
However inbound trips fell 4.4 per cent to 62.06m in the first six months, impacted by the global economic downturn and the spread of the swine flu virus. Chinese citizens made 22.55m overseas trips in the first half, up 1.1 per cent year-on-year.
Cargo throughput at Chinese ports rose 17.5 per cent year-on-year in June to 598m tons, the fourth consecutive monthly rise. This was 0.7 per cent higher than in May. However, container throughput continued to decline.
International cargo throughput rose 9.9 percent to 408m tons while domestic cargo increased 37.8 per cent to 189.9m tons.
Shenzhen, one of China’s largest ports, has experienced a recent upturn in shipments to Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It exported US$7.85bn-worth of goods to Asean in the first half of this year, up 10.8 percent year-on-year, according to Shenzhen Customs House.
Sections of the Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway will be linked together by the end of this year, Zhang Shuguang, chief of the transportation department at the Ministry of Railway told Beijing News. The railway will be completed before 2011, in time to begin operations by 2012.
The train has a designed speed of 350 kph, and it will only take about four hours to travel the 1,318km between China’s two leading cities. Currently, it takes about 10 hours on the fastest train and a ticket costs about Rmb500. Last year, experts estimated that the ticket price on the new Beijing-Shanghai railway would be Rmb600-800, compared with the current price of an airline ticket between the two cities of some Rmb1,130.
Construction of the new Beijing-Shanghai railway began in April 2008 with a total investment of Rmb221bn.
China Eastern Airlines, the country’s third-largest carrier, plans to launch 29 weekly direct flights between nine mainland cities and Taipei from September. The services include 10 weekly flights from Shanghai and four from Nanjing, Shanghai Daily reported.
Nanjing International Airport said that more than 40,000 passengers had flown direct to Taipei since the service was initiated last July. China Eastern and Air China operate six scheduled weekly flights from the capital of Jiangsu povince. The journey takes only two hours, three times shorter than before when a transit flight via Hong Kong was needed.
Direct services between Chongqing and Taipei will increase from one flight a week to three flights a week from 1 September. The flights are scheduled to operate on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, leaving Chongqing at 3:10pm and returning from Taipei at 7:20pm, according to Chongqing Branch of Air China.
A new toll road regulation was submitted to the people’s congress of Jiangsu province for approval on 27 July, according to China News Service. The main purpose of the regulation is to standardise the process of toll collecting.
According to the draft, toll road operators are asked to upgrade their technology and adopt non-stop collection procedures. They are also told to promote monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions of toll charges. According to the draft regulation, toll road operators and the relevant local authorities will be obliged to provide free food and drinks to road users delayed for more than four hours on a toll road closed due to severe surface damage, major accidents or natural disasters.
Western China’s industrial value added increased by 13.2 per cent in the first six months of this year, according to the State Statistics Bureau, well ahead of the 5.9 per cent recorded in the coastal region and 6.8 per cent in central China. Rural fixed asset investment increased by 42.1 per cent in the west, compared with 26.7 per cent along the coast and 38.1 per cent in the central regions.
Figures for individual western provinces audited by the bureau confirm that the interior is leading the economic recovery. For the first six months of the year, Sichuan’s industrial output increased by 13.5 per cent to Rmb601.5bn, 6.4 percentage points higher than the national average and four percentage points higher than last year’s growth. Over the same period, Chongqing’s industrial value added increased 12.5 per cent.
Six companies, including Carrefour, Huayi Brothers, Shanghai Huge Group and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, have signed strategic co-operation agreements to set up businesses in Huangpo, a peripheral city of Wuhan in Hubei province.
Carrefour told local media that Huangpo enjoyed a good location and the move conformed with corporate strategy to develop China’s outer suburban markets. This will be the first time that the French retailer has opened an outer suburban outlet in China.
Covering an area of 16,000 sq metres, the new Carrefour Huangpo store is expected to open next year.
In a separate development, DHL Supply Chain has opened a 3,000 sq metre domestic transport hub in Wuhan ETDZ. Last month, TNT launched a road distribution hub in Wuhan, while Fedex Express has upgraded its customer service centre there.
The Hubei-based Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile (DPCA), a joint venture between PSA Peugeot Citroen and Dongfeng Motor, is to shelve plans to build a third plant because of concerns of overcapacity, according to China Business News.
Building on the third plant, which was designed to assemble 150,000 vehicles a year, came to a halt as DPCA’s current annual output capacity was deemed more than sufficient to cope with prevailing levels of demand.
The new plant, launched in 2007, was backed by PSA’s chief executive at the time, Christian Streiff, who stepped down in March this year.
DPCA produced 109,784 vehicles in the first half of 2009, up 2.3 per cent year-on-year. Its sales in the same period grew 14 per cent to 117,324 units, according to the Ministry of Commerce. It sold about 52,000 models under the Dongfeng-Peugeot brand, and 65,740 of the Dongfeng-Citroen-branded models.
China Infrastructure Group-controlled Wuhan Yangluo terminal recorded a container throughput of 113,900 teu in the first six months of 2009, up 31 per cent over the same period last year. The company attributed the surge to the re-opening of the Yangluo-Yangshan route on 28 February.
The direct route, re-opened with the help of local government subsidies to shipping lines, allows containers from Wuhan to reach Yangshan Bonded terminal in Shanghai within 48 hours, according to Ms Jia Bo, assistant to the general manager of Wuhan Yangluo terminal. Regular calls are available four times a week. By 30 June, 135 container barges had sailed non-stop to Shanghai with a 100 per cent punctuality rate. In June alone, throughput reached a record 26,000 teu, making Yangluo the largest container terminal in Wuhan. Most of the increase in cargo is from outside Wuhan, according to Jia.
Experts predicts that the new direct route, suspended earlier due to a lack of business that caused commercial losses, may build the critical mass thanks to the government subsidy and help establish Wuhan as a future transhipment centre.
Three pharmaceutical clinical research organisations (CROs) in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, including MediTech and Sundia, claim that Customs clearance time for CRO shipments has been shortened from three days to one day on average after implementing a trial scheme that began a month ago.
Recognising that quick and efficient shipment is crucial in the CRO sector, which provides support to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, the Chinese government is paying more attention to creating an attractive environment for them, according to China Sourcing News. On 22 June, Shanghai Pudong Customs, Pudong International Airport Customs and Zhangjiang Group started to implement various measures to speed up Customs clearance processes for the three companies.
As part of the scheme, trained customer service professionals at Shanghai Customs have been assigned to assist CRO companies to ensure a smooth declaration and clearance process. This new Customs clearance model will be implemented for more CRO companies after the trial concludes.
Despite the depressed state of the global shipbuilding industry, Chongqing’s shipbuilders recorded revenues of Rmb5.6bn in the first half of 2009, a 21 per cent year-on-year increase. Exports accounted for Rmb616m of the total.
Chongqing-based shipbuilders target small to midsize ships and specialised vessels. Zhejiang Donggang Shipyard recently launched a stainless steel chemical tanker for a customer in Japan, while Chongqing Jinlong Shipbuilding completed an LPG carrier built for a shipowner in Shanghai.
The second runway at Jiangbei International Airport is expected to be finished in July 2010, according to Chongqing municipal government. The project was started in September 2008 and is now 30 per cent complete. A new terminal is to be completed by November 2010.
By 2015, the airport is expected to handle 30m passengers and 450,000 tons of cargo. In 2007 it handled 10.4m passengers.
China’s urban fixed asset investment increased by 33.6 per cent in the first six months of this year to Rmb9,132bn, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The growth rate was 7.2 percentage points higher than the same period of last year, said the bureau. The increase in June alone was 35.3 per cent.
Zhang Hanya, director of the Research Institute of Investment under the National Development and Reform and Commission, said that the surge in fixed-asset investment was mainly a result of increased government spending designed to boost the economy and counteract falling exports. Exports declined 21.8 per cent in the first six months of 2009 from a year earlier because of a slump in overseas demand.
UPS has opened an international air hub in Shanghai Pudong International Airport in a bid to increase its China market share. The hub, involving a total investment of US$125m, is the US express delivery firm’s largest international transit facility in Asia and will connect China to its global air network with direct service to the US and Europe.
The new facility, covering 35,000 sq metres, will be able to sort 17,000 packages an hour by 2012.
People’s Daily reported that rivals DHL and FedEx are also building hubs in China. DHL will invest US$175m in a North Asia express transfer facility in Shanghai, due to be completed in the second half of 2010. FedEx will open its Asia-Pacific hub in Guangzhou in the first half of next year.
Wuhan Iron and Steel has signed an agreement with Australian Centrex Metals to jointly develop iron ore mines in southern Australia. Under the agreement that has yet to be approved by the two governments, the Chinese company will pay US$176m to gain a 60 per cent stake in the co-operation mine area, which covers some 600 sq km.
The National Audit Office has publicly criticised construction work on the Rmb67.5bn Xiluodu dam, the world's third-largest hydropower project. The developer of the controversial Jinsha River dam between Sichuan and Yunnan provinces has slashed its original building schedule by 27 months to accelerate the project. This has added to the risks and costs, the audit office claimed. It also said a lack of controls has led to developers securing inappropriately high fees.
The dam’s developer, China Three Gorges Project Corp, told China Daily that the auditors had exaggerated the problem.
Construction work on two bridges in Chongqing will start around 1 October, according to the municipal government.
Dongshuimen Bridge and Qiansimen Bridge are dual highway-rail bridges that will require a combined investment of Rmb1.5bn. When completed in July 2012, they will connect Jiefangbei central business district, Jiangbei town and Danzishi district.
Bulk cargo port and logistics operator PYI Corp is expected to complete its 51 per cent acquisition of Yichang Port Group in October, according to company chairman Joseph Chow quoted by Lloyd’s List.
Mr Chow said the company continued to take measured steps to materialise its bulk cargo logistics network along the Yangtze River, delivering “satisfactory progress and promising results”.
He said Yangkou port in Rudong, Jiangsu province, contributed about HK$41m to group operating profit for the year to end March. The soft opening of Yangkou took place in October with the inauguration of a general cargo berth.
Last month, PYI Corp acquired a 25 per cent stake in Jiangyin Sunan International Container Terminal for Yuan28m from Shanghai Port Container (Macau).
Statistics from Chongqing Municipal Government showed that during the first six months of 2009, the average disposable income of rural residents was Rmb8,192, up 9.9 per cent year-on-year. Expenditure by the average rural resident during the same period was Rmb6,000, up 10.2 per cent. About 40 per cent of rural expenditure is on food, leaving relatively little for other items. There are four cars, four washing machines and three refrigerators for every 100 rural households.
Chongqing encapsulates many of the challenges and opportunities that exist in China. Eighty per cent of the municipality’s 31m population are rural residents, but the proportion is declining. Each year over the past decade, more than 500,000 farmers have become urban citizens, putting massive pressure on infrastructure, employment, housing, food, healthcare and welfare systems in the urban areas.
Zhangjiagang imported a total of 2.236m tons of waste steel during the first six months of 2009, up more than 1,000 per cent year-on-year, according to the city’s inspection and quarantine bureau. Total imports were valued at US$630m, up 518 per cent.
Since the second half of last year, the worldwide economic downturn has caused the price of waste steel to plummet. In response, some locally-based importers such as Shagang, Fengli and Puxiang have started buying aggressively, leading to surge of imports in Zhangjiagang.
The Yangtze River Administration is sending a team of inspectors to check on the safety of ro-ro transport along the Yangtze, specifically in the Three Gorges Reservoir. Starting form 15 July, the team will visit shipping lines and ro-ro terminal operators. Special attention will be paid to Chongqing, Fuling, Wanzhou and Yichang where ro-ro business has been growing at double digit rates in recent years.
The inspectors will try to ascertain if local operators employ safety procedures for ro-ro vehicles. They will also check if local maritime safety authorities, port authorities and maritime police have adequate supervision systems in place.
A major fire broke out at 11:55am on 18 July at the Yueyang Chemical Plant’s private terminal. The vessel 'Gantian Yihua 046’ from Jiangxi province was unloading 1,080 tons of the highly flammable solvent cyclohexane when its bow caught fire. The local maritime safety authorities and maritime police immediately sent a rescue team, while the Emergency Response Code was activated at the Yangtze River Administration under the Ministry of Transport, and a deputy director took charge of co-ordinating the rescue efforts.
It took more than two hours to extinguish the fire. No casualties or leakages were reported. An investigation is being carried out to ascertain the cause of the fire.
The first two purpose-built container vessels to transport Shanghai’s household waste will be put to use by 1 October, according Shanghai Maritime Safety Authorities. One is a 360 dwt vessel carrying 16 teu and the other 500 dwt carrying 24 teu. By the end of 2010, a fleet of 35 vessels will have been formed to transport the entire city’s household waste. These vessels, which will ply the city’s network of rivers and creeks, will replace trucks in transporting the waste to a municipal landfill site. The special containers are made watertight to prevent contamination of the water.
Officials predict that during Shanghai Expo 2010 between May and October, daily household waste in Shanghai will exceed 8,000 tons.
BASF is to press ahead with building a multibillion-dollar chemical project in Chongqing, despite the concerns of some Chinese environmentalists and residents. The Germany-based multinational said it had the experience and technology to ensure the environmental safety of the plant, which will produce methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. MDI is an intermediary chemical used in the manufacture of polyurethanes.
Johnny Kwan, senior vice president of the BASF Group and BASF Greater China board chairman, said the public could visit the company’s website or call its officials directly to raise concerns and ask questions.
BASF now publishes an annual report aimed at enhancing its transparency in Greater China focusing on seven important financial, social and environmental indicators: sales, number of employees, occupational safety, water, waste, air emissions and energy consumption. Mr Kwan denied that the report was made public in response to heightened public pressure over environmental concerns.
BASF is one of the largest foreign investors in China’s chemical industry. Earlier this month, it confirmed a major expansion of its joint venture in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.
In March, BASF was reported to be considering postponing the Chongqing investment due to an expected fall in the global MDI market in 2009.
Taiwan UNI Air plans to launch a twice-weekly service between Chongqing and Taipei from September. By then, there will be seven direct flights a week between Chongqing and the Taiwanese capital.
Air China and Sichuan Airlines both recently announced increases in the frequency of their services between the two cities.
Twenty people in Chongqing were confirmed killed by recent heavy rainstorms. The toll included 16 hikers swept away by a flash flood in Tanzhangxia Canyon in Wanzhou county.
The four-day rainstorm destroyed 1,686 homes and 4,900 hectares of cropland in the counties of Chengkou, Yunyang, Kaixian and Wanzhou, the local government said.
These were the heaviest rainstorms to affect Chongqing in 50 years.
After five years of construction, the Suzhou-Nantong Yangtze Road Bridge was formally opened on 13 July.
The road bridge provides a link between the Jiangsu cities of Nantong and Suzhou. It has a span of 8.1km and consists of three lanes each way. Situated 108km upstream of the Yangtze mouth, the bridge joins the national highway network on both banks.
The new crossing should ease navigation problems caused by ferries operating in the Yangtze estuary and promote economic growth in the Yangtze River Delta. A road journey between Shanghai and Nantong now takes just one hour, compared with almost four hours previously, taking into account the ferry trip.
The bridge has already undergone a month-long trial, during which time there was a daily flow of 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles.
It has the world’s longest span of 1,088 metres, overtaking the previous record holder, the Tatara Bridge in Japan, which has a main span of 890 metres. The main navigational opening is 62 metres high and 891 metres wide, allowing the passage of 50,000-ton cargo vessels.
China’s three largest airlines have called for the reintroduction of fuel surcharges on domestic routes in response to rising oil prices, South China Morning Post reported. The joint application was filed by China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Air China on 10 July to the National Development and Reform Commission.
Wang Jianjun, managing director of China Southern’s finance department, said that because of the price increase, the carrier faced paying Rmb2.24bn more for jet fuel in the second half of 2009. Surcharges, which could be partially passed on to passengers, might help alleviate the problem but analysts believe the action might stifle demand for air travel. The idea of a fuel surcharge was rejected by the government in January.
The world’s largest bulk cargo port company has been created in Hebei province in northern China, according to a report by Xinhua. Hebei Port Group is made up of the ports of Qinhuangdao, Caofeidian and Huangye. Their combined throughput was 281m tons in 2008, the largest volume in the world, said Xu Zuyuan, Vice Minister of Transport. The group has Rmb18bn-worth of assets and 17,000 employees.
The establishment of the group was planned by the provincial government, which aims to optimise cooperation between the ports in Hebei. It will also strive to diversify the goods being transported, currently dominated by coal, and promote the development of container shipping.
Central China’s Hubei province recorded a 10 per cent GDP growth in the first half of this year to Rmb540bn, according to local reports. Fixed asset investment, a key driver of growth in recent months, increased 38 per cent over this period.
Retail and wholesale operator Metro plans to invest €80m to open four more stores in China this year, reported China Daily. The stores will be located in Changshu and Kunshan, both in Jiangsu province, and Hangzhou and Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, said Metro President Cai Letian.
Metro had 38 stores in 31 Chinese cities at the end of 2008 and recorded nationwide sales of €1.05bn, up 15 per cent year-on-year, according to the report.
The development of China’s western regions still has a long way to run, according to the latest Blue Book of the Western Region of China. Despite massive infrastructure investment and exploitation of its significant natural resources, the economy of west China still lags behind the national average.
The region’s economy made up only 17.8 per cent of China’s total in 2008 and its average GDP per capita was only 41.1 per cent of that in the east. Individual incomes are also much lower. Eight western provinces were among the 10 lowest income areas in 2007. Gansu province recorded the lowest average income, with people there earning 42.3 per cent of the average figure in Shanghai.
The Blue Book was compiled by the Centre for Studies of China Western Economic Development at Northwest University in Xian, Shaanxi province.
Throughput at China’s main ports totalled 2.64bn tons in the first half of 2009, a rise of 0.5 per cent year-on-year, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Transport.
Foreign trade business, however, continued to decline. Throughput of foreign trade products in the first six months decreased 1.3 per cent year-on-year to 950m tons, while that of TEUs decreased 10.9 per cent to 52.42m units. Imports and exports have declined for the past seven months.
Ports that are less reliant on foreign trade business have fared relatively well in recent times. For example, Tianjin Port Co achieved a throughput of 184m tons in the first half of this year, up 1.2 per cent compared with a year ago, while its container throughput rose 1.9 per cent to 4.16m teu.
The bulk cargo sector in China has also performed robustly, partly as a consequence of the Rmb4,000bn government stimulus package. China imported 297m tons of iron ore in the first half of 2009, up 29.3 per cent year-on-year, according to the General Administration of Customs. In June, iron ore imports hit 55.3m tons, up 46 per cent.
Copper imports have also surged. China imported 475,999 tons of unwrought copper and semi-finished copper products in June, compared with 422,666 tons in May. This represented a 174 per cent increase year-on-year.
Singapore’s state investor Temasek is reported to have been in talks with a unit of Bank of China to launch a US$1bn-2bn investment fund that will focus on China infrastructure projects.
The initiative was said to have been taken by BOC International, the investment banking arm of Bank of China. Talks were in their early stages but the two sides had agreed on the general idea of the fund scheme, according to sources with direct knowledge of the plan.
The fund’s aim would be to tap into investment opportunities emerging from China’s Rmb4,000bn economic stimulus package launched late last year.
Nissan Motor plans to launch its lithium ion battery-driven vehicles in the Chinese market in 2011, according to Yasuaki Hashimoto, president of Nissan (China) Investment. This is one year after their planned release in the US and Japan.
In April, the Renault-Nissan alliance signed an agreement for promoting the use of electric vehicles with China’s auto industry regulator. Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province, will be the first pilot city in Renault-Nissan’s zero-emission vehicle programme.
Consumers in Wuhan, home to the Dongfeng Nissan joint venture that will make the Nissan electric cars, are likely to be the first in China to use these vehicles, China Youth Daily said. The cars will have a maximum speed of 140 kph, making them suitable to be driven on expressways.
The All-China Environmental Federation is suing Jiangyin Port Container Co in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, in what is believed to be one of the first public lawsuits involving an environmental organisation as the main plaintiff.
The federation said it had received a complaint from more than 80 households in Junshan district in May, related to the handling of iron ore powder shipments by Jiangyin Port Container.
An investigation group sent to the area by the federation to validate the claim, said that the distance between the company’s freight yard and the surrounding residential areas was less than 50 metres. Company workers begin washing iron ore powder at 5:00am every day and the wastewater is discharged untreated into the Xibei Canal and the Yangtze River through underground sewage pipes. The drinking water sources of Wuxi and Jiangyin are both located on the lower reaches of the river.
The noise and dust caused by the company during its operation and transportation have severely affected the surrounding environment, according to the investigators. The federation held that Jiangyin had violated the laws related to the environmental impact assessment, and the prevention and control of air, water and noise pollution.
It was reported that Jiangsu Provincial Intermediate People’s Court had placed the case on file for investigation and possible prosecution.
The All-China Environmental Federation is a non-profit civil society organisation, which is supported by the government and whose members include environmentally active organisations and individuals. Its aim is to serve as a bridge between the government and the public in implementing a sustainable development strategy.
SIPG Jiujiang port reported a record year-on-year monthly jump of 28 per cent in cargo throughput in June to 630,000 tons. Container throughput also rose, by 8 per cent year-on-year to 7,735 teu, continuing an upward trend that began in May. Equally important for the port, in the first six months 71 new customers brought it additional revenues of Rmb2.8m.
Jiujiang port in Jiangxi province is more than 90 per cent owned by the Shanghai International Port Group.
Data published by the Yangtze Maritime Safety Administration showed that 153 major accidents and collisions happened within its jurisdiction between January and June this year. They caused 17 deaths and 18 vessels to sink, leading to a direct loss of Rmb14m.
These totals represented improvements on the same period last year: by 37 per cent in terms of the number of fatalities, 22 per cent in terms of the number of sunken vessels and 12 per cent in terms of direct losses.
An expressway project leading from a popular tourist destination in Guangxi province, Yangshuo, has been approved by the State Development and Reform Commission, according to the provincial transport authorities. The Yangshuo-Luzha Expressway is part of the Shantou-Kunming Expressway in the national expressway network and an important link between the southwest region and the Hong Kong/Macau area. This is also the first road project in Guangxi to be invested and operated by a foreign investor.
The road will be 87km long and will cost a total of Rmb4.66bn. The Malaysian investor MTD Capital will invest Rmb1.631bn in the project, with the rest of the funds coming in the form of bank loans.
Wuhan’s Baishazhou Yangtze Bridge was closed on 6 July for a new round of renovation work that is due to be completed by 30 September. The bridge, which has a daily traffic volume of 70,000 vehicles, is a vital part of the city’s transport network that connects the different parts of the city across the Yangtze River and its largest tributary, the Hanjiang. Only two days’ notice was given to the general public prior to work commencing.
Diverted traffic has caused severe delays in the surrounding area, particularly at the ferry dock. Reports say that daily traffic on the ferry has jumped by nearly 60 per cent to 41,000 vehicles both ways. According to the local Yangtze Daily newspaper, the city’s mayor Ruan Chenfa has ordered the transport authorities to make sure that this new round of renovation will make the bridge maintenance-free ‘for at least six years’.
Built in 2000, the orthotropic bridge lined with tar has required annual maintenance, causing a major headache for the city authorities. An orthotropic bridge is one whose deck comprises a stiffened structural steel deck plate that allows it to bear auto traffic. During the current work, the bridge will have a new epoxy asphalt paving. The new material has already been used on the Nanjing No.3 Yangtze Bridge and elsewhere in the world, and experts believe it could last 6-8 years without requiring any maintenance.
However there are two pre-requisites, according to Mr Zhu Xuchu, the architect who designed the bridge in the first place. First, overloading severely damages the road surface and should be banned completely. Second, the project itself needs to ensure that no vibration and no water, not even sweat from the construction workers, is allowed during the paving process so as to allow the material to glue to the steel.
Reports say that the city is preparing to install a weighing system at both ends of the bridge in its efforts to crack down on overloading.
A local court in Jiangyin recently sentenced a truck driver to four years in jail for stealing the contents of a container he was transporting, according to China News Service. His accomplice was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months, and both were ordered to return Rmb95,760-worth of stolen goods to the plaintiff.
The driver was on a short-term contract with an international freight forwarder in Shanghai and was sent to Jiangyin, Jiangsu province, on 14 June 2007 to collect a container of Japan-bound fine wool from the plaintiff, a local textile manufacturer. The plaintiff loaded and sealed the container and prepared all the paperwork before the driver signed off the forms. The defendant then drove to a car park in Shanghai and, using a special tool, stole 42 boxes of wool weighing one tonne.
The thieves were able to close the container without any obvious sign of damage before it was taken to the port. The theft was only discovered when the Japanese recipient opened the container.
In June, 1.08m passenger journeys were made via Chongqing Airport. This represented a 40 per cent increase on the same month in 2008. Freight volume grew 10 per cent to 12,000 tons.
The airport has at least 15 daily connections to the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and there are international connections to Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia.
The 318km-long Dazhou-Chengdu railway, the first express railway in southwest China, was put into operation on 7 July, reducing the train journey between Chongqing and Chengdu to two hours. The journey between Chengdu and Dazhou in northeast Sichuan province will be shortened from five hours to three hours 30 minutes, according to Chengdu Railways Bureau.
Elsewhere in the region, the Dongshuimen Yangtze River Bridge project in Chongqing has been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. When completed, the bridge will connect the districts of Nanan, Yuzhong, Jiangbei and Yubei. It will comprise an upper deck for car traffic and a lower deck for trains.
China Clean Energy Inc, a producer of biodiesel fuel and environmentally-friendly chemical products made from renewable resources in China, has confirmed that the construction of its Jiangyin plant will be completed in September 2009. The new plant will have a production capacity of 100,000 tons of biodiesel and up to 30,000 tons of chemicals.
Jiangyin is a Yangtze port city in Jiangsu province, situated to the west of Zhangjiagang.
The first half of the year saw domestic investment in Chongqing jump 28.1 per cent year-on-year to Rmb39.8bn and 34.5 per cent in terms of the number of projects to 4,440, according to statistics released by the local government on 7 July.
The top 20 projects each utilised investment worth at least Rmb300m, accounting for nearly a third of the total inward investment from domestic companies. The most popular destination is the northern part of the city, followed by the south bank and Shapingba district.
Manufacturing and real estate continued to be the most attractive sectors, accounting for 70 per cent of the total investment.
Domestic investment came from around 30 provinces and municipalities across China while Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang and Shanghai led the pack, each investing Rmb4bn and more.
One of the city’s major FIEs, Chongqing Changan Suzuki Automobile, produced its one millionth car at the end of June. The company started operations in 1995, manufacturing the Alto model; today it produces a number of additional models including the Cultus, Swift and SX4.
Real-time information about water quality from China’s major rivers and lakes is now available online. The Ministry of Environmental Protection is publishing the results of tests on surface water quality at 100 locations, with the information updated every four hours, reported China Daily.
Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said publishing real-time monitoring results was “a step forward” for environmental information disclosure in China. Five indicators — the pH level, dissolved oxygen, total organic carbon, chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen — are being used to gauge the water quality of China’s seven major rivers and three lakes, along with tributaries in the southeast and southwest.
The Dapu Tunnel in Shanghai will be closed on 10 July for major reconstruction. The 2.7km-long tunnel, built in 1965, connects the east and west banks of Huangpu River that divides the city.
The tunnel lies at the heart of the Shanghai 2010 Expo complex. Reconstruction is expected to end next March before the opening of the Expo on 1 May.
It was initially designed with an hourly traffic flow of 670 vehicles, which rose to 2,587 vehicles an hour after two subsequent renovations. The forthcoming reconstruction project will transform it from a two-way tunnel to an east-to-west, one-way tunnel. Dapu, together with a second tunnel being built 12 meters to its west, will form a four-lane two-way transportation system.
Sinopec and BASF are to go ahead with a US$1.4bn expansion of their 50-50 joint venture in Nanjing. The investment includes expanding BASF-YPC’s existing steam cracker and three plants as well as constructing 10 new chemical plants. The expansion will become operational by 2011, according to the Chinese partner.
The initial cost of the project was put at US$900m but has since been increased due to higher construction costs, exchange-rate impacts and plans for additional capacity.
The extension will allow the complex to produce chemicals for a range of industrial sectors including construction, electronics, pharmaceuticals and automobiles. Despite the global recession, BASF expects Chinese demand for chemicals to grow 6.5-7 per cent a year until 2020.
Yangzi-BASF Styrenics, another Nanjing-based joint venture between the two partners, is being merged into BASF-YPC. This company produces styrene monomer, polystyrene and expandable polystyrene.
Founded in 2000 with a total first phase investment of US$2.9bn, BASF-YPC started commercial production in 2005.
The Asian Development Bank is to loan US$100m to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for urban improvements designed to spur sustainable growth and improve the environment. The announcement was made prior to the recent outbreaks of violence in the region.
The loan will be used to build or upgrade more than 100km of roads, install traffic signals and other road safety systems, and to construct public toilets and other sanitation facilities.
Xinhua noted that Xinjiang has some of China’s highest poverty rates and that poor urban infrastructure has deterred investment, degraded the environment and limited growth opportunities.
Anhui provincial port authority has vowed to double the water level of the Yangtze River within its territory to 10 metres. The decision was taken at a gathering of transport officials along the Yangtze held in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, on 25 June. At the meeting, all the local governments signed an agreement with the Ministry of Transport to work together on a new round of investment in the Yangtze, and the modernisation of the waterway, the ports and the vessels.
The ministry is working on a major dredging project to make the shipping channel 10 metres deep up to Nanjing by 2012. From there, the Yangtze cuts through Anhui province and major port cities such as Anqing, Chizhou, Tongling, Maanshan and Wuhu. The provincial government has planned to invest in a series of dredging projects that will double the water level from the current five metres. It is not clear yet when the target will be achieved. Upon completion, however, 30,000 dwt ocean-going vessels could reach Tongling all year round and 50,000 dwt ocean-going vessels on high tide. At the current guaranteed water level of five metres, only 5,000 dwt vessels can reach Tongling.
Typically, an increment of one metre in water level allows the passing of an extra 1,000 teu, thereby reducing transport cost significantly for shippers.
A loaded truck caught fire on a ro-ro barge sailing on the Three Gorges Reservoir on 1 July, according to the Three Gorges Navigational Administration. Crew members immediately contacted authorities for help and applied a water hose to extinguish the flames. Eighteen other trucks on board the barge were forced to disembark while the cargo from truck in question, comprising foodstuffs and 13 tons of undeclared AIBN, was unloaded onto another vehicle. This was the first-ever major chemical scare in the waters of the Three Gorges involving undeclared dangerous goods.
According to regulations, barges carrying dangerous goods have to use a specially designated route and be accompanied by maritime authorities and the fire brigade.
Azobisisobutyronitrile, commonly known as AIBN, is a flammable solid that can explode if dissolved in acetone.
A key supplier to the Changzhou plant of photovoltaic (PV) product manufacturer Trina Solar is to establish a production facility next door to its client. Beijing Hua Mei Dazheng Technology signed an agreement with Changzhou National High Tech District to build a production facility adjacent to Trina Solar’s manufacturing facility.
Construction will start in the second half of 2009, with production expected to begin in the first half of next year. Beijing Hua Mei was one of the first PV glass companies to be established in China and it has supplied Trina Solar since 2007.
Jifan Gao, Trina Solar’s chairman and CEO, said the investment showed that Changzhou in Jiangsu province is fast becoming a hub for China’s solar PV industry.
A rock collapse forced the temporary closure of the Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway’s Jinyun Mountain Tunnel on 28 June. Hundreds of vehicles trapped inside the tunnel were freed by emergency services within about half an hour, and no casualties were reported.
The rock fall followed a period of prolonged, heavy rain in Chongqing.
Construction has begun in Chongqing on what will be China’s largest recycled aluminium alloy project.
Sigma Group, founded in 1978 and headquartered in Taiwan, is investing Rmb1.5bn in the project in Gangqiao Industrial Park in Yongchuan district. Sigma focuses on secondary aluminium smelting and metal scrap trading. It has two other smelting plants on the mainland, one in Shanghai and the other in Zhangzhou, Fujian province.
Chongqing Sigma Plant plans to start operations in 2010, and it will have a monthly production capacity of 50,000 tonnes.
Flash Global Logistics says it has added 66 locations to its China network. The expansion enhances the company’s existing distribution, Customs clearance and Importer of Record capabilities.
Headquartered in the US, Flash provides rapid deployment and set-up for import/export of critical parts and products, evaluation of in-country requirements, documentation and streamlining, Customs clearance and VAT deferment management.
China’s domestic air passenger traffic in May increased 26 per cent from a year earlier, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). This was higher than the average monthly growth rate of 18 per cent for the January-May period. However, passenger numbers on international flights declined by more than 17 per cent over the first five months.
Over the past month, many domestic air carriers have started new routes and added frequency to existing services.
They are also expanding their fleets, with Li Jiaxiang, director general of the CAAC, saying that they plan to buy 243 aircraft in 2009. Xinhua quoted Li as saying that the country’s aircraft orders have not been affected by the global economic recession, and no other countries would buy as many aircraft as China this year.
DHL Supply Chain plans to add 10 transportation hubs in China by the end of 2009 in response to growing domestic shipping activity, Dow Jones reported.
The announcement was made at the opening of the firm’s US$25m hub in Shanghai. DHL Supply Chain, which focuses on warehousing, road transportation and distribution, also operates major hubs in Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Wuhan.
Martin Rowe, a vice president of DHL Supply Chain Greater China, said Fuzhou and Xian would be among the 10 new hubs, but he didn’t name other sites.
Meanwhile, FedEx Express has officially opened an expanded customer service centre in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. The express transportation company now has three customer call centres in China, the others being in Beijing and Guangzhou.
Established in May 2007 when FedEx launched domestic services in China, the Wuhan centre has been upgraded to serve international express customers in the east of the country and domestic time-definite customers throughout China. The new facility has doubled the number of its customer service representatives to 200; they manage all aspects of customer shipments, from pick-up to final delivery.
Yangtze River police have arrested nine people suspected of carrying out one of the largest oil tanker robberies in recent years. At about 2pm on 13 December, three men climbed on board an oil tanker from Nanjing and held the crew at knife point, while transferring 50 tons of imported crude oil onto two of their self-propelled barges before speeding away.
The police assembled a special team to solve the case and their breakthrough came in early May when they followed up a number of leads after interviewing two brothers operating in the waters of Taizhou, Jiangsu province. From the brothers, the police tracked down all nine suspects and made the arrests in late June.
Throughput of general cargo along the Yangtze trunkline totalled 100m tons in June, up 14.5 per cent compared with the same month last year, according to statistics released by the Yangtze River Administration under the Ministry of Transport. Out of this total, foreign trade-related cargo throughput soared by 38 per cent to 13.5m tons on the back of increased imports of commodities such as iron ore. Container throughput fell by nearly 16 per cent to 550,000 teu.
The total throughput of general cargo during the first half of the year rose by 3.2 per cent year-on-year to 518m tons, of which foreign trade-related cargo rose by 18.5 per cent to 71.98m tons. Container throughput fell by 13.4 per cent to 2.94m teu. Officials from the administration believe that the second half of the year will see a steady increase in general cargo throughput.
Anhui’s new Provincial Port Law, released on 30 June and effective on 1 October, includes a warm welcome to outside investors. According to the local law, companies and individuals, domestic and foreign alike, are encouraged to invest and operate Anhui ports and their legal rights are guaranteed. The law also stipulates that priority will be given to the construction of common-user terminals.
Anhui has 17 ports along the Yangtze trunkline and its tributaries, including major ones such as Wuhu, Maanshan, Anqing, Tongling and Hefei. By the end of 2008, the province had a total of 1,269 berths. Among them, 56 berths could accommodate 5,000 dwt vessels, while 300 berths could handle vessels of between 1,000-5,000 dwt.
The Deputy Director of the Go West department of the State Development and Reform Commission, Ms Li Yingming, told a press conference last week that a series of new incentive policies would be announced later in the year to provide new momentum to the Go West campaign.
The campaign, officially started in 2000, is effectively a programme of affirmative action involving large-scale funding of a range of huge transport infrastructure projects to pave the way for more inward investment. The central government’s Rmb4,000bn stimulus package announced last November is largely focused on road, rail and waterway projects in the interior.
Ms Li said that the focus for the first decade of the Go West campaign had been in establishing three major economic zones in the interior: Chengdu-Chongqing zone, Guanzhong Yitianshui zone (in Xian and Gansu) and North Bay zone in Guangxi. The plan for the first zone is being drafted, while those for the second and third zones have already been approved by the State Council. She said that new policies would further stimulate development and ultimately improve the lives of ordinary people.
The Deputy Minister of Transport Xu Zuyuan announced on 25 June that the central government would take measures to push through a vessel standardisation programme across the Yangtze trunkline by the end of 2013. The measures include subsidies, shared equally by the central and local governments, which are provided to ship-owners that withdraw their vessels on a compulsory basis under the programme. Ship-owners could also apply for funding for renovation.
The programme first began on the Three Gorges Reservoir in June 2003, where the standardisation of vessels was crucial in utilising the shipping capacity in the shiplocks. Between 1 October 2009 and 31 December 2013, the programme will be rolled out across the entire length of the Yangtze. Vessels below 600 dwt will be banned from operating. Single hull oil tankers and chemical carries will have to be converted to double hull. Passenger cruisers whose waste emissions do not reach regulatory standards will also be banned.
According to Mr Xu, mechanisms are being set up across various bodies including the maritime safety authorities, vessel inspection agencies and shiplocks management to make sure that non-standard vessels will not be issued with shipping permits.
The programme is expected to raise the average dead weight tonnage of vessels from the current 800 tons to 1,000 tons and increase the standardisation rate in the Three Gorges Reservoir to 75 per cent, thereby adding 10 per cent to its shipping capacity.
Separately, a total of 1,193 new vessels were inspected in Jiangsu province during the first five months of 2009, amounting to a total dead weight tonnage of 545,000 tons, up 38 per cent and 135 per cent respectively year-on-year.
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