|
|
August 2009 Two major Yangtze ports in Anhui province, Maanshan and Chizhou, are to be opened to foreign vessels, according to Hefei Customs. The General Customs Administration, together with the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Public Security and the General Administration of Inspection and Quarantine, have decided that the ports are ready for opening up. They will join the other three major Yangtze ports in Anhui — Wuhu, Anqing and Tongling — that are already open ports.
Maanshan is situated on the eastern edge of Anhui, on the southern bank of the Yangtze and is famous for its iron and steel giant Ma Gang. Located in the southwest of Anhui, Chizhou is a transhipment hub for dolomite and other ores.
A new high-speed train that will operate between Chongqing and Chengdu will be delivered later this month, according to a local government department. The train will go into trial service in the middle of September and be put into operation around National Day in early October.
The train will carry up to 760 passengers and has a maximum speed of 200 kph, cutting the journey time to 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Six high-speed trains and three common inter-city trains will operate daily on the route.
A six-lane road tunnel under the Yangtze River in Nanjing, designed to ease congestion in the city, is expected to open for traffic in June next year, according to Xinhua.
Cars will be able to travel at speeds up to 80 kph in the tunnel, which will be able to handle twice the number of vehicles currently carried by the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.
A four-lane tunnel under the Yangtze in Wuhan was opened in December last year.
Malaysian airline AirAsia X is to launch services between Kuala Lumpur and Chengdu from 22 October. It will operate five services a week on a route not currently served by any other carrier.
New services are also to start next month from Wanzhou in Chongqing municipality to Nanjing and Shenzhen, according to Wanzhou Airport. There will be two flights a week to Nanjing and three flights a week to Shenzhen.
Honda Motor has started to manufacture the Spirior sports sedan at the Dongfeng Honda Automobile joint venture in Wuhan, Asia Pulse reported.
The 2.4-litre Spirior, known in other countries as the Accord, will be the third model to be produced at the plant after the CR-V sports utility vehicle and the Civic sedan. The company hopes to sell 15,000 Spiriors in 2009.
As a result of this expansion, the annual production capacity of the Wuhan factory has been increased from 120,000 to 200,000 units.
GE Drivetrain Technologies, part of the giant US-based multinational GE, has formed a joint venture with Chongqing XinXing Fengneng Investment to produce large diameter gears for the wind turbine industry.
Through a subsidiary, the Chinese company has 16 years of gear manufacturing experience in the automotive and motorcycle industries, while GE Drivetrain Technologies has provided drive train components to the wind turbine industry since 2004.
Chongqing XinXing Fengneng will be the majority owner, and the gears will be produced in a new manufacturing facility in Beibei, a satellite town in the north of Chongqing municipality. The companies will invest US$130m in the new project and it should be operational in 2010.
Figures released by the Chongqing government show that the number of new FIEs totalled 316 in the first seven months of the year, down 15 per cent year-on-year. The month of July saw 43 new FIE registrations, a decline of 41 per cent year-on-year.
By the end of July, the number of trading FIEs stood at 4,759, of which 1,490 were wholly-owned foreign enterprises or joint ventures in which the foreign parties held a majority stake.
The amount of freight carried by China’s railways rose 0.3 per cent year-on-year in July, the first monthly increase in 2009, according to Ministry of Railways figures.
Cargo transportation volume stood at 1.88bn tons in the first seven months of this year, a decrease of 63.23m tons compared with the same period last year. The upturn in July was attributed by Xinhua to growing demand precipitated by the government’s large-scale economic stimulus plan. Investment in railway infrastructure during the first seven months stood at Rmb247.4bn, an increase of 136 per cent from a year earlier.
Shanghai’s Urban Environmental Protection Committee is deliberating on a draft law that could force shipping companies to take out insurance against pollution spills, reported China Daily. It remains undecided whether companies would be forced or simply encouraged to buy insurance, and when the law will be enacted.
Pollution resulting from ship collisions in the upper Huangpu River is the greatest safety threat to Shanghai’s main drinking water source, according to a recent investigation. Compensation for spills usually exceeds the financial capacity of shipping companies involved in a spill.
A recent report by the committee found there to be, over the past two decades, an average of 40 spills a year that posed a serious threat to water safety.
The introduction of insurance regulation should reduce the financial risks for shipping lines, and ensure that environmental accidents are dealt with in a timely manner, said committee member Mao Wenpei.
China Shipping Group commented that the new law represented a step forward in better protections for water safety in inland rivers. However, it said that small shipping companies were unlikely to want to pay for the insurance.
DHL, the global express transportation company, has launched a cross-border trucking service linking major Chinese cities with destinations in Vietnam. The service will connect Beijing, Dongguan, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan and Zhongshan with the Vietnamese cities of Hanoi, Haiphong, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City.
Macquarie, the Australian bank that specialises in infrastructure investment, and financial services firm China Everbright are to form two funds that will seek to raise a total of US$1.5bn for infrastructure projects.
Both companies are to contribute US$100m of their own to the funds, one of which will be open to non-retail investors outside China, and the other to investors in the country. Both funds will back projects in the transportation and water utilities sectors.
Only once the money has been raised, will the funds start to choose specific projects for investment. The funds are expected to close to new investment in 2010.
Car sales in China’s western and central regions increased 33 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2009, according to a report from the global market research firm, Ipsos. Nationwide, the industry average growth rate was 24 per cent.
Some of the provincial differences have been quite pronounced. For example, Shaanxi reported a growth of 110 per cent in the issuance of new licence plates, compared with a 12 per cent fall in Guangdong. China Daily reported that car dealers in Sichuan have been delaying deliveries of certain models by up to three months because of high levels of demand.
The market in China’s interior has been more buoyant than in coastal areas during the global downturn because the economy there is less dependent on exports. Government policies of promoting the use of smaller vehicles have also proved popular in the region.
The State Administration of Taxation has issued a circular to clarify definitions contained in a previous circular regarding tax incentives for projects in China’s western regions, including Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi.
The administration states that the phrase ‘newly established transportation companies’ refers to those that ‘invest and operate’ roads, railways, aviation facilities, ports and wharves, and pipeline transportation systems, and which generate operating revenues from these activities.
The numbers 7, 9 and 11 lines of the Shanghai underground railway system will run into pilot operation by the end of this year, according to the local transport authorities. By then, the Shanghai metro will total 350km, ranking it third in the world, behind London and New York.
Shanghai started building its first line in 1993. In the succeeding 16 years, the city has built eight lines totalling 250km and 170 stations. The daily traffic volume exceeds 4m, more than the average of 3m on the London Underground.
By April 2010, one month before the start of Shanghai Expo, the city will operating 11 lines, covering 430km and transporting 5.5m passengers every day.
The operational length of China’s urban rail network stood at 776km at the end of 2008, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
These lines, located in 10 Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, handled 2.21bn passenger trips last year, reported China Daily.
Currently, 50 rail transit projects involving a total length of 1,154km are being constructed in 15 Chinese cities, according to the ministry. A total of 22 cities across the country are expected to build 79 rail transit lines with a total distance of 2,260km by around 2015. The total cost is expected to exceed Rmb882bn.
Chongqing Iron & Steel Group (Chong Gang) said that a new project to produce 4100mm steel plates will start operation in September and its first phase in Chong Gang New Area would reach an annual capacity of 6.5m tons by end of 2010. By then, the group is set to become the largest producer of shipbuilding steel in the country.
Last year, China’s shipbuilding industry produced 30m dwt-worth of vessels, using 12m tons of special steel. Chong Gang’s output of 2700mm steel plates exceeded 1m tons in 2008. This year, the production volumes of the shipbuilding industry are expected to reach 40m dwt, rising to 40m-50m dwt in 2010. Mr Dong Lin, the group’s chairman, hopes that his company will benefit from its capability to produce a wide range of steel products for the shipbuilding industry.
At the moment, shipyards in the Yangtze River Delta account for about 70 per cent of all the new builds in China. Steel plates larger than 3000mm cannot be transported by rail so the location of Chong Gang’s first phase production base on the Yangtze enables the group to transport any of its steel products to its customers along the river, said Mr Dong.
More than 200 vessels with an engine size of less than 270 kW were stranded in waters between the Three Gorges Dam and the Gezhouba Dam due to the torrents created by the largest flood during the current rainy season.
The heaviest flood started on 2 August and the Three Gorges Reservoir has been releasing water to prevent flooding along the banks. The larger-than-expected release of water prevented the small vessels from sailing safely. The Three Gorges Dam Administration of Navigational Affairs contacted the authorities at the Yangtze Anti-flood Headquarters to readjust the intensity of the release for two days to allow the vessels to pass. Between 8am on 22 August and 8am on 24 August, the intensity was duly reduced and all the stranded vessels left the area.
The Yangtze Police Yueyang branch confirmed last week that a major fire on 18 July at the private terminal of Yueyang Chemical Plant was caused by the mishandling of the highly flammable solvent cyclohexane. The chemical leaked from a pump during unloading and then exploded after coming into contact with a naked flame.
On 18 July, the vessel 'Gantian Yihua 046’ from Jiangxi province was unloading 1,080 tons of 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. One person was seriously injured and direct losses amounted to Rmb2.75m.
An important logistics centre has been established along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the Tibetan township of Nagqu.
Covering Lhasa, Qamdo, Ali and northern Xigaze, the centre provides services on freight transportation, storage, packaging, processing, distribution and information transaction. The centre will help the development of the animal husbandry and mineral exploitation sectors in Nagqu, said Lu Yongzhong, general manager of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Corporation. It is expected to handle 2.2m tons of cargo by 2015 and 3.1m tons by 2020, including minerals, local herbs and building materials.
PetroChina has put an 11,000 cubic metre oil products tank into operation in Chongqing. The municipality has suffered from tight oil product supplies for several years due to poor transportation links.
The tank, built in Qianjiang city, southeastern Chongqing, and alongside the railway, will store and transfer oil products supplied by train. It is able to transfer 168,000 tonnes of oil products a year and should ease the pressure on local supplies.
PetroChina operates 35 petrol stations in Chongqing and accounts for 95 per cent of the market share in the region.
Air services between Chongqing and Seoul will resume on 17 September with two flights a week, according to Chongqing Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission.
Services on the route began in 2000 but were suspended for lack of passengers in 2008.
The new services will operate on Mondays and Thursdays.
Carrefour is expected to open a new store in Hefei, Anhui province before the Spring Festival in 2010.
The France-based retailer will take out a 20-year lease on a 23,000 sq metre site owned by Hefei New Civil and Cultural District Investment Co. Carrefour has three existing outlets in the city.
Trade volume between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong dropped 23.6 per cent year-on-year to US$88.68bn during the first seven months of 2009, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Trade volume between the PRC and Taiwan dropped 35.1 per cent over the same period to US$52.53bn.
Air China has signed a strategic co-operation framework agreement with Sinotrans Shipping, one of China’s largest shipping companies.
The airline said that its subsidiary, Air China Cargo, and Sinotrans will work together on product design and development, co-ordination on logistical issues and further explore the possibility of joint investment in infrastructure construction and expansion in overseas markets.
Air China said it may consider establishing closer equity ties with Sinotrans’ Shanghai-listed unit, Sinotrans Air Transportation Development.
Meanwhile Sinotrans Shipping is set to almost double the size of its fleet by 2011. Company chairman Zhao Huxiang said ship prices have fallen by up to 60 per cent on their peak last year, which provides a good opportunity to purchase new vessels.
Shanghai has obtained approval from the State Council to build a bonded area in Shanghai Pudong Airport, reported Xinhua.
It will be the first bonded area at an airport in mainland China and will cover an area of some 4 sq km, according to the report.
Pudong Airport is a major aviation hub in East Asia, and the base for China Eastern Airlines, the country’s third-largest carrier, and Shanghai Airlines. It handled 2.63m tons of cargo in 2008, making it the world’s third-busiest freight airport.
Shanghai aims to be the logistics hub of the Asia Pacific by 2011, according to a logistics stimulus plan unveiled by the city. Output of the sector will maintain a growth rate of 10 per cent and account for more than 13 per cent of the city’s economy by 2011, according to the plan.
Shanghai will speed up the establishment of a logistics resource exchange centre and set up public distribution centres to offer door-to-door logistics services, focusing on agricultural products, medical equipment and medicines. It will also encourage manufacturers and logistics firms to develop major logistics projects, the plan said.
The city of Wuxi, located on one of the Yangtze’s major tributaries, Taihu Lake, is building a third power plant that generates electricity through burning household waste, according to the local media.
The Rmb981m project will be constructed in two phases. The first phase, scheduled to be completed by end of next year, will have a daily handling capacity of 2,000 tons, adding to the 1,800 tons capacity of the existing two plants. Wuxi’s daily household waste amounts to about 3,000 tons.
Chongqing’s export value rose by 9.5 per cent in July to US$61.64m compared with the previous month, while imports rose by 32 per cent to US$15.4m. The major markets are the US, Hong Kong and Italy.
About 17 per cent of the companies involved in the export market are state-owned, while the majority, around 62 per cent, are joint venture or wholly foreign-owned companies.
Wuhu port, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, announced on 18 August that it plans to sell Rmb170m-worth of A Shares to Huainan Coal Mine, the largest coal producer in Anhui province. After the private placement, the coal giant will become the largest shareholder in the port.
Earlier this summer, in May, the two parties signed a framework agreement to jointly develop Wuhu port as the largest coal centre along the Yangtze for storage and mixing. It will have an annual storage capacity of 500,000 tons and an annual transhipment capacity of the same amount.
August floods have sent an unprecedented quantity of floating waste such as broken branches and weeds down the Three Gorges Reservoir. The line of waste stretched to hundreds of metres, creating shipping hazards in the area.
More than 240 vessels have been mobilised in the emergency clearance operation. By 10 August, more than 1,000 tons of floating material had been picked up.
Mr Tang Guanjun, Director of the Yangtze River Administration under the Ministry of Transport, told the Yangtze Shippers Association that undeclared dangerous goods on vessels will be severely punished once discovered. The shipping licence could be revoked and criminal charges could result.
Following the recent sinking of the chemical containers in the Three Gorges Reservoir, the administration has started to compile a regulation on how containers should be fixed properly and safely.
A serious accident occurred on the evening of 10 August when 62 containers from the Chongqing barge 'Hanglong 518’ fell into the lower waters of The Three Gorges Reservoir in Yichang. The vessel was sailing downstream, loaded with 176 containers. Six of the containers contained potassium permanganate in barrels, one contained sodium permanganate in barrels and five contained potassium hydroxide in bags, totalling 291 tons.
The Three Gorges Administration of Navigational Affairs announced on 18 August that the sunken containers would not affect navigation in the current flood season and that China lacked the salvaging techniques required in this specific case and that therefore the operation to rescue the containers from the water had been halted for the time being. However, the situation would continue to be monitored closely.
The Ministry of Transport dispatched a group of experts to oversee the initial salvage work. As the Yangtze is in the flood season, the average water depth in the region exceeds 45 metres and the currents are running at speeds of 2.5-3.5 metres per second, making it impossible to send in divers.
As most of the vessels passing this area have a draught of no more than five metres, experts believe that the sunken containers will not affect navigation in either the flood or dry season. They predict that the boxes will eventually be buried by silting. Officials from the Three Gorges Dam said that they were using different equipment to monitor this section of the reservoir and would salvage any boxes found to be moving.
An Environment Emergency Response unit was also activated in Yichang and water quality was monitored for 30 hours before it was declared safe.
Marine Safety Authorities in Nanjing announced on 19 August that they will set up inspection points along the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River to check the weight of passing vessels. Overloading is the main cause of accidents on the Yangtze, according to official statistics. Between 6 and 15 May, officials from the Nanjing MSA randomly selected 752 vessels for on-the-spot inspections and 258 of them, or more than one third, were found to be overloaded and were issued with fines.
From 20 August, all passing vessel operators are obliged to co-operate and those who overload will be taken to the nearest terminal to lighten and then receive possible punishment.
Chongqing will shut down at least 50 hazardous chemicals enterprises in the next three years according to a local government website. The municipality has established nine red lines for the industry and any hazardous chemical enterprise found transgressing one would be shut down. Currently, there are 250 hazardous chemicals enterprises in Chongqing according to the principal of Chongqing Safety Supervision Bureau, and at least 20 per cent of them are set to be closed by 2011.
On a more positive note, Hewlett Packard will begin operations of its Chongqing PC manufacturing base at the end of 2009, reported Chongqing Economic Times citing the municipal vice director of economy and IT, Mu Huaping. The base will have an annual production capacity of 4m units, said Mr Mu. Previous reports said HP had signed a memorandum of understanding with Chongqing municipality to build a PC manufacturing plant with an annual output of 5m-10m units, to generate an estimated Rmb30bn-50bn a year.
Cargo throughput at China’s leading ports stood at 500m tons in July, a year-on-year growth rate of 12.9 per cent according to the Ministry of Transport.
Domestic trade cargo throughput rose 12.5 per cent to 310m tons, while foreign trade cargo throughput was up 13.8 per cent to 190m tons.
Container throughput was down 3.8 per cent to 10.1m teu, although this was better than the 10.2 per cent decline recorded in June. The country’s main ports discharged 56.5m tons of iron in July, up 35 per cent year-on-year, while imported crude oil increased 25.9 per cent to 16.27m tons.
China’s total railway freight volume stood at 273.55m tons in June 2009, reported People’s Daily, virtually unchanged on the same month last year.
Coal freight volume is now recovering after falls totalling more than 10 per cent that began in October 2008. Petroleum freight volume is also recovering after a winter downturn. In the first half of this year, both petroleum and metallurgical product volumes have maintained similar levels as the same period in 2008.
Freight volumes of construction materials and cement have increased significantly thanks to the fiscal stimulus package, rising by 15.1 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively.
In the first half of 2009, China’s investment in railway infrastructure increased 155 per cent year-on-year to Rmb201.46bn. Some 2,740km of new lines were constructed over the period.
One new line where construction has just begun will connect the Suzhou and Huaian in Jiangsu province. The 210km line, jointly funded by the Ministry of Railways and the provincial governments of Anhui and Jiangsu, is expected to play an important role in promoting the economies of the two provinces.
Jiangsu Yangzijiang Shipbuilding has become the latest yard to enter the ship demolition market. It intends to set up an US$88m ship demolition joint venture with Chongqing Iron and Steel, which would begin operations by the end of 2010.
The US-based Preferred Freezer Services has broken ground on a refrigerated warehouse in Shanghai’s Lingang Logistics Park.
After construction, the 26,000 sq metre facility will be the largest and most advanced single-story cold storage facility in China, according to the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Co. It will be located close to the 27km-long East Sea Bridge connecting Lingang New Area to Yangshan deepwater terminal.
According to the US company, China has the world’s fastest-growing consumer market for perishable food and pharmaceutical products, but its per-capita refrigerated warehouse space is less than one-tenth of most developed nations.
The five-step shiplocks of the Three Gorges Dam were temporarily closed on 3 August in preparation for the biggest flood crest of the summer. Recent heavy rains in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River have led to 41,000 cubic metres per second of water entering the Three Gorges Reservoir.
The water level in the reservoir has been lowered by about 28 metres to 145 metres to ensure the dam’s safety.
Nanjing port signed an agreement with Huaneng Power at the end of July to increase its stake in their joint venture, Nanjing Port Tianchen. Huaneng is one of China’s super large state-owned companies and its largest power company. It has seven power plants in Jiangsu province alone.
The joint venture is located in Longtan deepwater terminal in Nanjing with a 480-metre-long quay. The additional investment will increase handling capacity by 10m tons, meeting Huaneng’s need to tranship coal from the sea route to the Yangtze River and making Nanjing a major coal-handling port in the process.
Statistics from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange show an upturn in outbound container shipping business. The exchange’s China Outbound Container Index rose 2.4 per cent to 808.23 at 31 July, while the outbound index for the Shanghai region jumped 2.7 per cent to 752.82. According to the exchange, vessel occupancy on Europe and Mediterranean routes reached 95 per cent and the average shipping price stood at US$900 per teu. From 1 August, most shipping lines were reported to have started an additional levy of US$200 teu for the busy season and an emergency additional levy is also possible from 15 August.
On the North American route, outbound vessels are often fully loaded and shipping lines are getting ready to raise prices. The Pan-Pacific route agreement is scheduled to start a seasonal additional levy of US$500 per feu. Vessel occupancy rate on the Japan route rose 10 percentage points to 70 per cent at the end of July.
The director of Shanghai Maritime Safety Authority said in an interview on 31 July that the waterway control centre and emergency response centres for the Shanghai Expo 2010 had started operation. In addition to working closely with his counterparts in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, Mr Xu Guoyi said that modern technology involving automatic identification systems, close circuit television monitor systems and live information broadcasts will be utilised to ensure safety and security of maritime transport throughout the May to October period when the Expo will be held.
The waterway between Nanpu Bridge and Chuanyang Creek will be the centre for marine transport during the event. At the moment, about 1,000 vessels pass the area every day. By the start of the Expo, 35 special ferries will be launched to take an average daily volume of 100,000 passengers in and out of the Expo. The maritime authority has planned several emergency drills and a thorough scan of the shipping channel of the Huangpu River, the final tributary of the Yangtze before it enters the sea.
Statistics from the Yangtze River Administration show that the Yangtze dry bulk index stood at 797.4 at the end of July, 0.6 per cent down on end-June. Demand for coal went up slightly due to seasonal changes, causing the Yangtze coal index to rise nearly three per cent over June to 660.2. The Yangtze iron ore index declined by 1.12 per cent over the previous month to 833.96 as a result of falling demand for the transportation of iron ore. However, the biggest fall was in the Yangtze building materials index, which slid 5.11 per cent to 1,165.97. The index for non-metallic ores also fell by 3.79 per cent to 907.92.
The Yangtze container index in July remained almost flat in comparison with the previous month, down just 0.45 per cent to 925.37.
|
|