IN BRIEF (Page 14)

China Eastern Airlines is increasing its Shanghai-Vancouver run to meet growing demand. Provided to China Daily

Aviation

China Eastern flies twice daily to Canada

China Eastern Airlines is increasing its Shanghai-Vancouver run to two flights daily beginning July 27 in response to growing demand.

Since June 2010 when it was awarded approved destination status by China, Canada has experienced a boom in Chinese visitors, now its fifth-largest source of tourists. Last year, according to the Canadian Tourism Commission, more than 273,000 Chinese visited the country, up 15.5 percent from a year earlier.

Technology

China Unicom passes 3G milestone

China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd, the nation's second-largest mobile operator, says the number of its third-generation network service subscribers exceeded 100 million as of June.

The company hit the milestone figure in less than four years, as it only received 3G licenses from the government in 2009. It took more than a decade for the company to amass 100 million 2G network users.

E-Commerce

eBay eyes China in $307 billion trade

Online sales of goods between countries will almost triple over the next five years as more people shop on the Web and merchants seek consumers across the globe, a study commissioned by eBay Inc's payment processing unit PayPal found.

Cross-border Internet commerce among Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, the UK and the US will jump to $307 billion (232 billion euros) in 2018 from $105 billion this year, Bloomberg reported, citing the Nielsen study. The top categories of goods that will be traded include clothing, shoes and accessories, followed by health and beauty products, and personal electronics, the report says.

Finance

Financial products valued at $1.6 trillion

The value of financial products in Chinese banks reached 9.85 trillion yuan ($1.6 trillion; 2.21 trillion euros) by the end of June, according to China Banking Regulatory Commission.

The size of the financial products indicated growing innovation at Chinese banks, says Wang Yanxiu, chief of the banking supervision department at the commission. In 2007, financial products in banks were worth about 500 billion yuan.

China's VC/PE market slumps as growth slows

China's venture capital and private equity market has faltered amid a slowing economy and frozen IPOs, a report says.

In the first half of 2013, investors made VC/PE deals worth $9.9 billion (7.5 billion euros) in China, down 20.9 percent from the same period last year, according to a report released by Zero2IPO, a leading integrated service provider in the market.

The VC/PE market warmed in the second quarter, but buyouts are not expected to significantly pick up. Mergers and acquisitions have replaced listing as the primary method of opting out of future transactions, as China's securities regulator has suspended all IPOs for about eight months. Among 73 VC/PE exit deals made in the first six months, 27 were M&As, according to the Zero2IPO's report.

Yuan funds for foreign exchange decline

China's total yuan funds outstanding for foreign exchange declined in June, indicating the first net outflow of capital since last year, according to data released on July 22 by China's central bank.

The funds outstanding for foreign exchange reached 27.39 trillion yuan ($4.45 trillion, 3.38 trillion euros) at the end of June, down 41.2 billion yuan over the previous month, the figures from the People's Bank of China show. The data includes foreign exchange purchases and sales by commercial banks and other financial institutions, but mostly reflects transactions by the central bank.

Service

Nation to take top spot for express delivery

China is expected to surpass the United States this year to become the world's largest market for express deliveries.

Ma Junsheng, director-general of the State Post Bureau of China, says that China's postal industry maintained fast, steady development in the first half of the year due to national economic policies and booming e-commerce.

Express delivery volumes grew more than 50 percent year-on-year in each of the past 28 months, the bureau says. The number of packages delivered by major courier companies grew 61 percent in the first half to 3.84 billion items.

Entertainment

Box office boom for Chinese films

Chinese-made movies took up 62 percent of the country's total box office revenue in the first half of this year, according to figures from the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

Cinemas grossed a total of 11 billion yuan ($1.79 billion, 1.36 billion euros) in ticket sales from January to June, of which more than 6.8 billion yuan came from domestic films.

Survey

Consumer optimism hits a high

Consumer confidence in China has topped that of other major economies to equal a record high, and economists say this signals that consumption will support the world's second-largest economy, where growth is slowing.

A survey by global information company Nielsen shows China's consumer confidence index, based on its market research, rose to 110 in the second quarter of this year from 108 in the first, indicating increased willingness to spend on consumer goods and services.

It also reached 110 in the second quarter of last year.

Manufacturing

EU regulation improves toy safety

An updated European Union safety regulation on toys will place pressure on Chinese toy makers and affect the nation's exports to an already weakening European market, but could also provide an opportunity to upgrade the domestic industry, say industry insiders.

The new safety directive, adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in 2009, took full effect on July 19. It sets stricter requirements on the quality of toys and manufacturers' obligations by adding more articles on the chemical content of products.

China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/26/2013 page18)