09/04/2009   Source: People’s Daily

Bribery in urban construction projects accounted for nearly 40 percent of all the 6,277 business bribery cases Chinese prosecutors dealt with in the first six months of 2009, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate Thursday.

The more than 6,000 cases involved 918 million yuan (about 134 million U.S. dollars) in total, the SPP’s anti-corruption and anti-bribery bureau said.

About 2,000 of all the cases were prosecuted and 96.7 percent of them led to convictions, a bureau official said on condition of anonymity.

Data released by provinces and cities for 2008 showed the industry has always been vulnerable to bribery.

In 2009, prosecutors across the country stepped up checking on bribery in the businesses of construction, land transfer, property trade, insurance and bank credit as the public voiced strong dissatisfaction over the transparency of these industries.

A total of 46 prefecture-level and 751 county-level officials were punished, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the total, the official said, without revealing the details.

China’s Criminal Law rules that government employees who take bribes of more than 100,000 yuan would be sentenced to over 10 years in prison and those who commit more serious crimes might face life imprisonment or execution.

About 76 percent of all the bribes were “major or serious cases” each involving 50,000 yuan or more, the official said.

More than 77 percent of the cases were charged with taking bribes and 19 percent with paying bribes, the official said.

08/31/2009 Source: Xinhua

Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang said Monday China’s government would provide strong support for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them tide over the current economic downturn.

“The most effective way to withstand the impact of the global economic meltdown is to accelerate technological innovation, the new economic growth engine,” Wan said in a signed article on the front page of Monday’s Study Times, run by the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Wan attributed SMEs’ development hiccups mainly to low-tech products and poor research and development capability.

China has more than 42 million SMEs which contribute more than 60 percent of the nation’s GDP, 50 percent of tax revenues, 70 percent of import and export trade and 80 percent of urban employment.

But the number of innovation-based SMEs in China is only about 160,000, much less than in the United States where they made up about 10 percent of the sector, and Israel where they comprised 17percent.

In China, SMEs refer to enterprises where staff numbers are less than 2,000, annual revenues are under 300 million yuan (44.1 million U.S. dollars), or with total assets under 400 million yuan.

Wan said to sharpen these enterprises’ innovative edge, the Ministry of Science and Technology planned to make research and development resources more accessible for them.

The ministry would help establish a technology platform participated in by universities, research institutes and enterprises. It would coordinate research and development and enable innovation-based SMEs to share the results.

Wan, also vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, said the ministry would set up national State-funded laboratories and technology centers for the SMEs.

To ease technological personnel shortages, the ministry, together with other central departments, would assign 100,000 researchers and technicians from universities and research institutes to the SMEs, Wan said.

08/31/2009 Source: People’s Daily

Chinese police in the last three months have broken up nearly 280 gangs and seized 1,469 suspects who used telephones to scam or defraud people, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Monday.

Nearly 4,800 cases have been solved by the police and more than19 million yuan (about 2.8 million U.S. dollars) recovered since the ministry launched a special four-month crackdown on telecommunications fraud on June 12.

The crackdown is part of an MPS campaign to maintain social stability for China’s National Day celebrations, ministry spokesman Wu Heping said Monday. This year the celebrations mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Wu said telephone swindles had been on the rise before the MPS started the campaign. Suspects usually called the victims on the phone and pretended to be their superiors, long-lost friends, even Mafia members before asking the victims to forward money to their bank accounts.

The eastern province of Jiangsu reported nearly 600 such cases in a month at the beginning of this year, Wu said, but because of the crackdown the province had only reported 10 cases in August.

But Huang Zuyue, a vice director in charge of criminal investigations with the MPS, warned swindlers might now begin to operate in central and western parts of China as well as from outside the country.

The MPS would work with police from other countries to crack down on cross-border cases, he said.

He asked members of the public, especially the elderly and middle-aged who account for 70 percent of the victims, to be on guard against telephone swindles, as they were becoming more organized and sophisticated.

08/25/2009 Source: People’s Daily

Against the backdrop of the international financial crisis, China’s outbound direct investment is expanding rapidly while international capital flow, transnational investment, and mergers and acquisitions are dropping sharply. This year, China’s outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to exceed FDI into China for the first time, reaching 150 billion U.S. dollars.

China’s actual use of FDI amounted to 48.4 billion U.S. dollars in the first seven months of the year, down by 20 percent over the same period last year.

China’s overseas investment reached 52.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, nearly double that of 2007.

China’s outbound investment has upgraded from its early stage into a stage of rapid development, and China’s role in the global economy will shift from “manufacturer” to “capital exporter.”

Fan Chunyong, standing director of China Industrial Overseas Development and Planning Association explained the reasons for that. Firstly, 30 years of economic development has enabled China to accumulate a large amount of capital. Chinese capital will naturally flow overseas if that market has lower cost and higher profit than domestic investment.

Secondly, with increasing economic globalization, China has broad access to the transnational production processes and global production networks. Chinese companies have a strategic need to invest in overseas upstream production and downstream markets to guarantee the stability of their supply chains and target markets, and prevent external factors from causing uncertainty in their overall production and operation.

Thirdly, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, many countries are facing serious funding shortages and have huge demand for foreign capital. At present, many foreign enterprises are successively coming to China to find buyers. Holding the world’s highest foreign exchange reserve of almost 2 trillion dollars, China has plentiful capital.

In addition, costs for capital market are relatively low due to the strong Chinese currency. All of these factors are naturally driving Chinese enterprises to seize overseas investment opportunities.

08/25/2009 Source: Xinhua

Chinese police have detained 4,953 people in connection with more than 10,000 cases of theft and vandalism of electricity, telecommunications and broadcasting facilities.

The crackdown was launched in February to ensure normal operation of these facilities ahead of the National Day on Oct. 1.

From March to June, police confiscated illegal holdings worth about 36.44 million yuan (5.33 million U.S dollars) and broke up 309 criminal gangs, said a statement on the Ministry of Public Security website Tuesday.

Nine government departments including the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched the campaign to curb widespread vandalism and theft of electricity, telecom and broadcasting facilities.

The campaign, which is to end in November, had so far “effectively curbed” the number of vandalism and theft cases, the statement said.

The statement said without giving numbers that theft and vandalism cases at electricity facilities from March to June dropped 73.8 percent year on year, while economic losses decreased 66.6 percent.

The number of theft and vandalism cases involving telecom facilities dropped 62 percent year on year, with economic losses down 60 percent.

Police launched a similar campaign from March to October last year to ensure normal operation of these facilities during the Beijing Olympic Games.

08/24/2009 Source: Xinhua

The Chinese government has not yet given approval to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. to purchase Hummer, government officials said Monday.

The officials, who refused to be named, were commenting on recent media reports saying the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) had approved the Chinese machinery maker’s acquiring Hummer.

Sichuan Tengzhong did not say in its application to the National Development and Reform Commission that it would produce Hummer in China, or acquire Hummer’s assets or stake in parent company General Motors (GM).

An MOC official also denied media reports the ministry had given a green light to the deal, saying Tengzhong had only said it would purchase the Hummer brand in its application.

The ministry has asked Tengzhong to make clear whether it intended to buy the Hummer’s patent or its technology.

The Chengdu-based company signed a memorandum of understanding with GM in early June to buy Hummer.

08/24/2009 Source: Xinhua

A draft law relating to the operations of armed police, submitted for the second reading by Chinese lawmakers Monday, has been revised to include a clearer definition of their duties and a tightening of restrictions of their powers.

The draft revision was tabled at the 10th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC), the top legislature, which opened its latest four-day, bi-monthly session Monday.

The new version of the draft contains clearer descriptions about “incidents threatening social security,” a category that is the responsibility of armed police.

In the new version, riots, massive violent crimes and terrorist attacks are listed as “incidents threatening social security.”

The original draft did not include terrorist attacks in this category but in a separate section.

The armed police played a major role in quelling riots in Lhasaon March 14 last year and in Urumqi on July 5.

The revision also tightens the procedure for the mobilization of armed police and makes clear a strict, law-abiding procedure must be followed.

Instead of entitling governmental and police authorities at county level or higher to mobilize armed police as in the original version, the revision says a detailed procedure will be decided on by the State Council, the country’s cabinet, and the Central Military Commission, the military’s top decision-making body.

The draft adds four articles to restrict the power of armed police in response to lawmakers’ arguments from the first reading.

Detaining citizens or searching them or their property “illegally” has been banned .

The armed police also should not leak state and military secrets or cover up crimes, the revised draft says.

A major part of China’s armed forces, armed police number about 680,000.

The draft also highlights the force’s mission to maintain national security and order.

Armed police would be responsible for the security of sites including public facilities, factories, water projects “of national significance,” bridges and tunnels on major traffic routes; armed patrols of major cities “at special times”; assisting in pursuit and arrests, and dealing with public security incidents.

The draft, if approved, would also empower the armed police to stop and question suspects in the course of guard and patrol missions, enable them to commandeer public transport facilities when necessary, and to use equipment, facilities, venues and other materials of an organization or individual temporarily in emergencies.