News in Chinese Media

Xinhua News Agency

China's Central Bank Says Financial Situation Healthy

    China maintained a healthy financial situation in the first half of the year, with currency supplies increasing fast, bank deposits on the rise, bank loans appropriate, foreign exchange reserves rising, and the renminbi remaining stable, the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said here today.

     It says that the increase of currency supplies accelerated in the January-June period. By the end of June, the amount of broad money (currency in circulation plus corporate deposits and savings deposits) had reached 11.136 trillion yuan, 17.7 percent more than for the same time last year and the amount of narrow money (cash plus demand deposits) grew 14.9 percent to 3.38 trillion yuan. Cash in circulation picked up 11.9 percent to 1,088 trillion yuan.

     By the end of June, bank deposits totaled 10.276 trillion yuan, 18.3 percent more than for the same time last year; with 5,9 trillion in savings, an increase of 18.5 percent.

     However, the increase in savings in June was slower than for the previous five months, indicating that the public are starting to spend or invest more thanks to the national monetary policies. Financial organizations took steps to prevent potential financial risks and improve their service and have tried to lend more to spur the national economy.

     By the end of June, bank loans amounted to 9.06 trillion yuan, 15 percent more than for the same time last year. Medium and long- term loans and loans for infrastructure increased the most.

     By June 30, China's foreign exchange reserves totaled 147 billion U.S. dollars, 2.09 billion dollars more than at the beginning of the year and the conversion rate of the renminbi to the U.S. dollar stood at 8.278 yuan, basically unchanged from the beginning of the year.

Xinhua News Agency

Guangzhou Government Opens Office Work on Internet

    The Municipal Government of Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, has opened an Internet website for its daily operations.

     Linked to the site, the daily work of the city's personnel bureau opened to public scrutiny yesterday. In an effort to insert more operating transparency and efficiency, the city government has urged all its departments to open websites by the end of this year.

     All Internet users will be able to refer to the website for details of how things are going on inside government offices. The website is www.gz.gov.

     The city will open four websites on general government office work including public government policies, suggestions from residents, inter-government information and officials' decision.

     Following the personnel bureau, the departments of water conservation, public security, construction engineering, consultation service and government projects will open their own websites.

Xinhua News Agency

China's No. 1 Village to Issue A Shares

     Huaxi Village in east China's Jiangsu Province, known as "China's No. 1 village" for its prosperous rural industry, will offer shares for public subscription Tuesday on the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges.

     Sources with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said here today that the Jiangsu Huaxicun Co. Ltd., one of the many companies of the Huaxi Village, will issue 35 million A shares at 8.3 yuan per share.

     The company expects to raise about 280 million yuan from the issue and plans to spend the money on the building of a milk processing factory and upgrading its textile production lines.

     Located in Jiangyin City, Huaxi Village boasts more than 40 business ventures, which reported an annual output value of over two billion yuan in 1998 for the fourth consecutive year.

Xinhua News Agency

Green Food Industry Flourishes in Inner Mongolia

    -- Rich in forests, grassland and cropfield, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has turned all these natural advantages into real value and is enjoying fast-growing green food industry for the present.

     Since the region initiated a project to develop the industry in 1992, a total of 65 such businesses have emerged, developing 148 kinds of green food such as mutton, beef, dairy food, food processed from wild plants, according to the latest statistics from the green food development center in Inner Mongolia.

     About 350,000 tons of such food are processed annually, generating an annual output value of 1.9 billion yuan. Nearly 20 kinds of such products are exported overseas to countries such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and Arabic nations.

     Inner Mongolia, with 1.183 million sq. km of land, has the greatest acreage of grassland and forest among all the province- level regions in China, which amount to 87 million hectares and 32 million hectares, respectively.

     "Inner Mongolia is also know as a pristine piece of land, as a result of its relatively less developed industrial economy and therefore it is comparatively free of pollution," said Zhao Jiwen, director of the region's green food development center.

     Zhao added that Inner Mongolia's geological location also puts it in advantageous position in terms of market access since it is adjacent eight Chinese provinces and autonomous regions, and borders Mongolia and Russia in the north.

     The region has mapped out a strategy to develop its economy in the 21st century with the stress laid on boosting its advantageous green food sector.

China Daily

Y2K test of securities continues

    CHINA'S securities industry has concluded the fourth test of its computers for millennium-related technical problems, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced yesterday.

    The two-day weekend test achieved all the set goals, the commission said in a press release. But it did not elaborate.

    Chen Yaoxian, CSRC vice-chairman, inspected the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Saturday.

      He said that China's securities industry was close to resolving the so-called Y2K, or year 2000, problem but that the CSRC will continue to give high priority to the issue.

    The securities sector conducted similar tests last September and November as well as February this year.

    Chen asked the industry to pay more attention to preventing technical risks, adding that safe operation of technical system was an important foundation for the stable development of securities market.

    

China Daily

Student challenges palm print theory

    A CHINESE university life science student is claiming that the unique design of each individual human palm print is determined by a single gene, not multiple genes as is the belief behind a widely accepted theory.

    The student says he discovered close relations between people's palm prints and their health as well as their intelligence quotient.

    The Shanghai-based Wenhui Daily recently carried the report on Li Hui, a third-year student at the Life Science College of Fudan University, one of China's top universities for scientific research.

    Li made the discovery after conducting a comprehensive study of 30 members of a pedigree and sample survey of 1,200 Shanghai residents.

    However, experts said the hypothesis requires research on more family trees, more people and ways to determine the exact place of the gene on a chromosome. If the hypothesis is proved to be true, it is expected to lay a solid foundation for determination of diseases, intelligence and father-son blood relations.

     Li's innovative findings have been confirmed by Tan Jiazhen, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and one of China's leading experts in life science study. He is known for encouraging young people to be creative and innovative in their scientific research.

    It has been widely accepted that the formation of palm prints and finger prints are decided by several genes and the formation does not follow a definite rule.

    

China Daily

Workers to see higher pay

    ENTERPRISE employees in Hunan Province will have their salary increased by an average of 6 per cent.

    The local labour and social security bureau put the maximum increase at 15 per cent of the average salary, China Economic Times yesterday reported.

    The increase is made according to the country's plan of raising the salaries by an average of 4.5 per cent during the Ninth Five-Year Plan, 1996-2000, sources from the bureau said.

    The gross domestic product (GDP) of non-agricultural departments have outgrown the increase of salaries by 9.1 per cent, the newspaper said.

    The payroll of Hunan Province was 31.4 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion) in 1998, an increase of 2.81 per cent over the previous year. GDP of the province's non-agricultural departments was 238 billion yuan (US$28.7 billion) in 1998, up 11.9 per cent from 1997.

    By the end of 1998, there were 36 million employees at enterprises and government-funded institutions in Hunan Province, up 1.5 per cent from 1997. The registered unemployment rate was 3.9 per cent.

    China's employees at enterprises and government-funded institutions are covered by two different wage systems.

    Since 1985, China's enterprise workers have had their wages set by their employers.

    In 1995, Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, and Chengdu in Sichuan Province pioneered a system setting the wages according to the regional economic growth and situation in the local labour market.

    Hunan decided to increase the salary of enterprise employees at a moment when there has been speculation that China will raise the payroll of employees at government-funded institutions, including government departments, research institutes, hospitals and schools.

    It coincides with the favourable wage policy for enterprise employees to balance the salary increase of employees at government-funded institutions.

    

Dalian Daily

State Tax Registered Increase

    State tax of Dalian registered stable increase in the first half this year. By the end of June, Dalian State Tax Bureau has collected cumulative state tax of 4.585 billion yuan, an increase of 1.02 billion yuan or 28.62 per cent than the same period of last year.

    The stable economic development serves as impetus for the tax increase. According to statistics released by the cityกฏs statistics bureau, the industrial output of Dalian grew by 19.5 per cent to 71 billion yuan by the end of May, shown in tax, the industrial value-added tax increased 30.17 per cent to 1.65 billion yuan, among which finished petroleum value-added tax and other industrial value-added tax grew by 381.13 per cent and 43.16 per cent respectively. Commercial value-added tax is 450 million yuan, an growth of 8.07 per cent.

    

    

    Starting from July 1993, the housing accumulation fund system has now entered maturity stage after six yearsกฏ development. By the end of June this year, 6100 working units have entered housing accumulation fund system and 731 thousand employees have been included in the system, accounting for 99 per cent and 96.8 per cent respectively of all the working units or employees that should enter the system in Dalian. The cumulative housing accumulation fund has now reached 1.67 billion yuan.

    People who join the accumulation fund system can get loans from banks with lower interest rate to buy houses.

    To date, the reclaiming rate of loans and interest granted on the basis of accumulation fund system is 100 per cent and such loans granted in 1998 amounted to 198 million yuan, 5.28 times than the previous year.