01/19/2009   Source: China Daily

Local authorities in Shanghai and the Walt Disney Company have reached an agreement on major issues behind the building of the first Disneyland theme park on the Chinese mainland, Shanghai mayor Han Zheng said over the weekend.

“The municipal government started thinking of a Shanghai Disneyland more than a decade ago,” Han said at a press conference after the closing ceremony of the annual session of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress on Saturday.

“A team from Shanghai has been in contact with Disney since then and constant and pragmatic discussions have been held,” he said.

“An agreement was reached recently. But the State Council has the final say on the project and we will make arrangements according to its decision,” Han said.

Rumors of a Disney theme park in Shanghai have been circulating for years but neither of the two sides had confirmed it until recently.

On Jan 9, Disney told The Wall Street Journal in an e-mail it had worked on a joint application report with the Shanghai government, which would soon be submitted to the central government for review.

The $3.59 billion park is slated to be built by 2014 and will be sited on the east bank of Shanghai’s Huangpu River, bordering Pudong district’s Chuansha town and Nanhui district, the journal cited unidentified sources close to the project as saying.

Previous reports said 10 sq km of land has been set aside for the park. Its first phase will reportedly include a theme park, a hotel and a shopping center, covering an area of 1.5 sq km.

The mayor also said at the press conference that an ongoing project to extend the city’s maglev rail was making headway.

“The project is expected to connect the city’s two airports and will serve not only Shanghai, but also the whole Yangtze River Delta region and the country,” Han said.

“We have been listening to opinions from experts. Professionals from around the country are still comparing the available plans once they reach a conclusion, we will focus on feedback from the public,” he said.

01/15/2009  Source: Xin Hua

Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered the Ministry of Railways (MOR) to “brainstorm for measures” to help travelers over the annual Spring Festival travel peak.

The ministry’s website on Thursday reported a message from Hu, saying, “This year’s Spring festival is facing a tougher supply-demand imbalance and the ministry has to brainstorm for measures to promote passenger convenience and open the measures to public. The ministry has to ensure a smooth and safe transportation during the peak season.”

Senior officials Zhou Yongkang and Zhang Dejiang have also urged the ministry to investigate ticket shortage problems and take actions to guarantee tickets.

In response to the instructions, Vice Minister of Railways Wang Zhiguo said the ministry had ordered to suspend cargo services to allow more passenger trains in the busiest southern and eastern regions. Short-distance passenger trains would be suspended for more long-distance trains. Hard sleepers would be changed to seats.

The ministry will also transfer passenger trains serving northeast and northwest areas to south and east China and improve schedules of temporary trains, especially those for students and migrant workers.

Meanwhile, tickets will be sold only in the railway ticket sales network, except for group tickets for students and migrant workers. Hotels, restaurants and travel agencies are ordered to halt ticket booking services, and major stations will adopt 24-hour sales.

Stations have to set up counters for students and send staff to sell tickets in schools and places where migrant workers gather.

Sales staff are prohibited from buying tickets for others, from carrying cash and mobile phones during work hours, from keeping personal belongings on the sales desk.

Wang also apologized to passengers who had reacted angrily to a video posted online, which showed a sales lady in Beijing Railway Station printing 130 tickets for trains running to cities in the northeast.

Passengers had accused the station of scalping tickets.

“On behalf of the ministry, I have to apologize to passengers for their unpleasant feelings and misunderstandings the incident has caused,” Wang said. “The action was immediately investigated and turned out it was part of advance preparations to save time for passengers. There was no rumored collusion between railway staff and ticket scalpers.”

He said the ministry pledged to crack down on scalpers and exert strict supervision on booking systems, including sales outlets and online booking.

Last December a nationwide campaign was launched to tackle ticket counterfeiting and scalping. As of Thursday, the authorities had detained 2,393 people in 2,009 scalping investigations and seized 78,237 tickets, of which 60,000 were counterfeit.

MOR spokesman Wang Yongping said insufficient transport capacity resulted in the short supply and scalpers made it worse.

Almost 188 million people are expected to travel by train in the holiday season, up 8 percent or 13.73 million from last year. The daily rail traffic will grow by 340,000 people to a record average high of 4.7 million.

From Jan. 1 to 10, the number of passengers leaving Beijing increased 29.4 percent year on year. The figure for Shanghai was 22.7 percent and Guangzhou 25.8 percent.

The Spring Festival rush started on Jan. 11. The first four days saw 18.15 million travelers nationwide, 4.538 million a day, up 8.5 percent from a year earlier.

Wang said the ministry had arranged a record 2,208 temporary trains, 253 more than the same period last year, and more were yet to come into service, but the supply was still far from enough, he added.
Wang Zhiguo said the ministry would start construction on up to 30,000 kilometers of new lines with investment of more than 2 trillion yuan (292.5 billion U.S. dollars) in two years.

Operational railways would stretch 110,000 kilometers by 2012 when the difficulty of obtaining a ticket would be much eased, he added.

Illegal Workers Identified

01/15/2009   Source: China Daily

A total of 377 foreigners were found to be working here last year without the necessary documentation, an official with the exit-entry administration said yesterday.

Most of the people simply lacked understanding of China’s laws and regulations but some had deliberately tried to get around the system, he said.

Several foreigners had entered the country on tourist visas but then started working, some of them as entertainers in bars, he said.

Liu Zheng, a human resources consultant in Shanghai said: “Local firms must make sure their foreign employees have all the necessary visas and residence permits.”

American Mark Ray, who arrived in Shanghai two years ago and now works in the city, said: “I don’t know how the legal process works for expats in Shanghai.

“There are lots of foreigners and locals working illegally, so there should be more information for people, such as a website for expats,” he said.

At the end of last year, more than 68,000 foreigners had registered for employment in Shanghai, while almost 62,000 had applied for residence permits, a source from the city’s public security bureau said.

To help cater to the large numbers of foreigners, the Pudong district public security bureau yesterday opened a new exit-entry service center in the city.

The center will help deal with foreign visitors to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

As well as all basic services, the center accepts applications for L and F visas, residence permits and documentation relating to the birth of a child, a bureau official said.

It also processes residence endorsements for Taiwan people and handles travel documents for mainlanders seeking to go to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, he said.

01/10/2009  Source: Xinhua

Chinese authorities busted more than 40 major illegal private banks from July to November this year.

The illegal banks were uncovered in a five-month joint operation between the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, in eastern Fujian and Jiangxi provinces and southern Guangdong Province.

The ministry did not give an exact number of cases, but said the illegal operations involved 100 billion yuan (14.6 billion U.S. dollars).

According to the MPS, underground banks served as an important channel for money laundering and illegal foreign exchange deals. Such operations had “seriously disturbed China’s domestic finance and foreign exchange market order.”

The Ministry vowed to step up efforts in cracking down on illegal banking operations in the future and warned the public to keep away from such operations.

In December last year, the country proposed more severe punishments for illegal banking services in a draft amendment to the Criminal Law submitted to a bi-monthly session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China’s top legislature.

Authorities uncovered 42 cases of underground banking between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2008, involving a total of 84.4 billion yuan ($12.3 billion).

By Wang Bo (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-02 16:00

The Renminbi yesterday registered the largest one-day fall since it was de-pegged from the US currency in July 2005.

The daily benchmark, or the central parity rate for the US dollar, dropped 156 basis points to close at 6.8505, the lowest level since August.

Experts say the sign of Renminbi depreciation appeared last week. Last Thursday its value against the US dollar dipped 20 basis points and fell another 57 basis points on Friday.

Luo Rui, an official with China’s Central Bank, told Hong Kong-based media last Friday that the Renminbi will remain stable against the US dollar in the short run, but its future trend will largely depend on market demands and the value of other currencies.

The governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan said earlier that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of the Renminbi depreciating.

“The moderate depreciation of the Chinese currency is conducive to the domestic economy,” said Guo Tianyong, director of the Research Center of the Chinese Banking Industry, Central University of Finance and Economics.

But he also pointed out that as overseas demand has declined substantially, Renminbi depreciation is not “quite an effective tool” to spur export growth.

 The USA China Law Group (“The Group”), the exclusive North American representative of an international alliance of legal, financial, and management firms, has recently agreed to work with Mitchell Madison Group LLC (“MMG”), to add the Group’s local China experience to their forensic sourcing process in China.

The Group’s established strategic relationships with major investment banks, asset management companies, multinational corporations, and governmental and non-governmental organizations supplements and complements MMG’s extensive experience with e-commerce issues and sourcing and supply chain transformation, global payment systems, and electronic trading networks.

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 The Group’s experience and expertise add significant value to MMG’s forensic sourcing services in China by providing the local knowledge and expertise necessary to fully convert forensic sourcing into a soft audit for corporate compliance both in the US and China.

December 31, 2008:  Source: www.chinaview.cn

Credit Suisse and Founder Securities announced in Beijing Tuesday that their joint venture in China has received a business permit from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to provide services to clients in China’s domestic market.

The joint venture, Credit Suisse Founder Securities Limited, will focus on sponsoring and underwriting of A-shares, as well as government and corporate bonds in China.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse takes a 33.3 percent stake in the joint venture. The other 66.7 percent is in partner Founder Securities’ hand.

“Many international banks are longing for a share of the investment banking services in emerging markets including China”, said Kai Nargolwala, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Officer in Asia Pacific.

He added the company would not change its intention to invest in China despite the world economy slipping into recession.

Credit Suisse won approval from the securities regulator to establish the joint venture with Founder Securities in June, the first such approval after the new regulations relating to the establishment of Sino-foreign securities companies were issued in December 2007.