rings blogs rings weblogs, rings blog, ring weblog

China has issued detailed measures to regulate the pilot program for cross-border trade settled in yuan, according to a document released Thursday by the central bank.

The document posted on website of People’s Bank of China specified how to make transactions using the yuan to settle trade with Hong Kong, Macau and regional trade partners.

China’s State Council, or Cabinet, announced a pilot program to allow exporters and importers in five cities to settle cross-border trade deals in Renminbi, or yuan.

The cities are Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Dongguan. The latter four are all in south China’s Guangdong Province.

Questions continue to emerge two days after a central China train collision that left three dead and 63 injured in the Hunan Province.

The accident happened at around 2:30 a.m. Monday, but the two trains involved in the accident should not have met each other according to the time schedule. Train K9017 should have entered the Chenzhou Station at 2:12 a.m. and left at 2:22 a.m. while train K9063 should have entered at 2:38 and left at 2:41 a.m. in Chenzhou City of Hunan.

An employee of the Chenzhou Station, who refused to be named, denied a “dispatching mistake.”

“The time could not be wrong,” the employee said and refused to show the records to Xinhua. The employee said the records had been archived by the investigation team from the Ministry of Railways.

Another employee of the station named Deng Yonghong said train K9017 arrived at a high speed one minute after the train K9063 left while she was standing on the platform.

Deng said she thought it was a passing train but she heard a strong crashing noise shortly thereafter.

Guangzhou Railway Group, which runs the two services and the station, blamed the accident for brake failure, said Sun Jing, general manager of the Guangzhou Railway Group, in a closed-door meeting at 1 a.m. on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Railways has launched an investigation, but details will not be disclosed until it is complete, said Chen Hualan, director of the ministry’s department of work safety, who refused to be interviewed by Xinhua.

As of Wednesday, all train service has returned to normal.

Three injured passengers were discharged from the hospital Tuesday and another 20 left on Wednesday, doctors said.

Venezuela has sent an aircraft to Costa Rica to pick up Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted earlier on Sunday from Honduras’ presidency, Costa Rican Vice Security Minister Jose Torres told media on Sunday.

“The Venezuelan government has sent an aircraft to Costa Rica to take President Zelaya to an extraordinary meeting of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in Managua,” Torres told local newspaper La Nacion.

Zelaya, who arrived in Costa Rica early on Sunday, had already been due to go to Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, which on Monday will host the summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA).

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Zelaya was seized by soldiers in his home and put on a plane to Costa Rica against his will. He described the act as “kidnapping.”

Zelaya is currently staying in a hotel close to Juan Santamaria International Airport in Costa Rican capital San Jose.

Flu outbreaks at three schools in Guangdong province struck 22 students, prompting calls for tighter prevention and control measures at the community level.

There were 51 new cases of A(H1N1) flu on the Chinese mainland between 6 pm Saturday and 6 pm Sunday, bringing the total to 729, with no reports of deaths.

Of 30 new cases confirmed in Guangdong, nine were from Xi’nan Central Primary School in Foshan, six were from Trade Vocational School in Guangzhou and seven were from Shipai County Central Primary School in Dongguan.

The students were all in stable condition.

Xi’nan Central Primary School last Friday asked more than 600 first-grade students not to come to school for seven days, while Shipai County Central Primary School closed for one week last Monday when 30 students were confirmed infected with H1N1.

The Beijiao Central Primary School in Pengjiang district of Jiangmen confirmed 11 cases of the virus on Tuesday and was closed for seven days.

The Guangdong provincial health department called for tight prevention and control measures among students before summer vacation begins.

“Prevention efforts should now focus on outbreaks at the community level,” Xu Ruiheng, a doctor with the provincial center for disease control and prevention told Guangzhou Daily.

Meanwhile, 10 new cases were reported in Sichuan province, seven in Shanghai, six in Beijing, three in Zhejiang province and two in Fujian province. Tianjin municipality and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region each reported one new case.

Guangdong has 214 confirmed H1N1 flu cases, the most on the mainland.

Beijing has asked the city’s 1.24 million primary and secondary school students to return to the city seven days before the next semester starts.

Thailand would like to enhance cooperation with China’s northern port city of Tianjin, visiting Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said here Thursday.

Thailand and Tianjin have cooperated closely in various fields and there was still much room for further cooperation, Abhisit said during a meeting with Zhang Gaoli, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and party chief of Tianjin.

Abhisit said Thailand would take the opportunity of the development of Tianjin’s new coastal district (the Binhai New Area) to further promote cooperation.

Tianjin had a sound basis of cooperation with Thailand, said Zhang, adding that both sides were expected to exploit their advantages to the full to expand trade and tourism exchanges and advance Sino-Thai relations.

During his stay in Tianjin, Abhisit also visited the Dongjiang Free Trade Port Zone.

At the invitation of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Abhisit came to China for an official visit scheduled to run from June 24 to 27. Besides Beijing and Tianjin, he will also visit Guangdong Province, south China’s economic hub.

Beijing commuters were not convinced yesterday by claims that traffic congestion in the city had improved dramatically this year.

A report published Sunday by the Beijing Transportation Research Center said the average amount of time lost per day to traffic jams in the first four months of the year was 3.25 hours, down from eight hours over the same period last year, website Qianlong.com reported yesterday.

“The report is not convincing at all,” a commuter surnamed Wang told the Global Times.

He said his daily commute from Guanzhuang to Hongmiao, both in Chaoyang district, took as long as ever.

“I haven’t seen any fewer traffic jams. The 13-kilometer drive always takes between 40 and 60 minutes,” he said.

The abundance of road works and poor design of some traffic flow systems had created more congestion than ever, he said.

“It’s hard to imagine what the situation would be like if the restrictions policy ended. Driving in Beijing is already a painful experience,” he said.

Despite Wang’s comments, the report claimed vehicles traveled up to 22 percent faster during the daily rush hours this year than they did last year.

Chen Yejun, who lives in Haidian district, said he had given up taking buses during the peak hours, as it was quicker to walk about 300 meters to his nearest subway station.

“The frequency of the traffic jams forced me to choose the subway, even though traveling on them is like being a sardine in a can,” he told the Global Times.

“The general situation has improved a little, but the roads that get the worst traffic jams are just as bad as ever,” taxi driver Xie Deyong said.

Guo Jifu, director of the research center, claimed people’s opinions were too subjective.

“The report is based on objective data. An individual’s activity is limited, so his or her views are not comprehensive,” he told the Global Times.

The improvements were thanks to the development of the public transport system and the car restrictions policy, he said.

“Although the number of vehicles and trips has increased, the number of traffic jams has fallen,” he claimed.

Beijing has more than 3.7 million vehicles on its roads and the figure is growing by 1,250 a day, CCTV.com reported yesterday.

“We will continue to improve the public transport system,” Guo said.

“This will include shortening the intervals between subway trains and extending lines.”

The Beijing municipal government planned to spend 80 billion yuan ($11.8 billion) on transport infrastructure this year, of which almost 18 billion was spent in the first four months, the Xinhua News Agency reported last month.

The ruling parties of China and Spain are committed to seeking stronger relations, according to a statement issued by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee International Department on Sunday.

The pledge came out of the meeting between senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) He Guoqiang and Deputy General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) Jose Blanco on Wednesday, said the statement.

He, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, hailed the sound relations between the two ruling parties and appreciated PSOE’s commitment to Spain-China friendship.

He proposed the two parties take a strategic view of their exchange and cooperation, strengthen exchange mechanisms and communication on major issues in a bid to inject a vitality to the country-to-country relations.

Blanco, also development minister, said PSOE-CPC ties enjoyed a solid foundation and huge potential. He said the matured inter-party relations worked for the overall Spain-China ties.

Both pledged to make continued efforts to party-to-party ties and deepen substantive cooperation.

After the meeting, He and Blanco held a seminar with more than 20 Spanish entrepreneurs. He briefed them on China’s economy and introduced some policies in response to concerns of some Spanish entrepreneurs on exploring the Chinese market.

He said businesses in China and Spain could complement each other and work more closely while tackling the global economic downturn, exploring markets in both countries and around the world.

Blanco said the Spanish people admired China’s thousand-year-long culture, the industrious people and the economic boom.

The development minister said the Spanish business would like to bring their strengths in infrastructure and clean energy to China’s economic development.

Some Spanish entrepreneurs reviewed their cooperation with Chinese partners and presented their perspective on further exploring the Chinese market.

He concluded the Spain tour on Friday. After a stopover in Greek, He will visit Jordan and Mongolia.

Two new cases of the A/H1N1 flu have been confirmed in Larissa, central Greece, according to Athens News Agency.

It was announced on Thursday that the cases concern a 33-year-old local woman and her 25-month-old son, who returned from a visit to the United States on Sunday with flu symptoms.

The National Health Operations Center confirmed the laboratory results on Wednesday, while the woman’s relatives and colleagues were called for testing at the Larissa General Hospital, but tested negative for the virus.

The woman and her baby were found to have a mild case of the virus, and would be following medical treatment at home.

A total of 30 H1N1 flu cases have been confirmed in Greece, allof them in mild form.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been in decline for eight months, but the size of the fall in May was smaller than the one in April, probably signaling an easing off.

In comparison with other economies, China is still poised to be among the first choices for global investors in the next five years, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said.

According to the figures released by the ministry Monday, in May, the FDI dropped 17.8 percent compared to a year earlier - equaling $6.38 billion. The number of newly approved foreign enterprises contracted by 32 percent to 1,649.

The figures exclude those in the financial sector.

But May’s performance was better than April’s, when the FDI registered a negative growth of 22.5 percent.

Between January and May, the FDI fell by 20.4 percent year-on-year to $34.05 billion and newly approved foreign enterprises dropped by 33.8 percent to 7,890.

In the same period, foreign investment in China’s central and western regions fell by 35.7 - more than the national average. Newly approved foreign enterprises fell 30.2 percent. For several years prior to the financial crisis, the regions had seen higher rates than the national average.

Yao Jian, a MOFCOM’s spokesman, noted the central and western regions’ sharp decline: “The coastal areas have the advantage of having gathered a much larger number of foreign investment enterprises in the last three decades.”

Encouraged by confidence from global investors in China’s 4 trillion yuan stimulus plan, the “decline in FDI will probably be slowing during the rest of the year,” predicted Li Jianfeng, macro-economics and trade analyst with Shanghai Securities, a domestic brokerage.

“There is a good chance that the FDI will register a positive growth in the last quarter, given the low reference point in 2008,” he added.

During the first quarter, the FDI decline showed some signs of bottoming out. But in April, the performance went down again by 22.5 percent, compared with a decline of 9.5 percent in March.

At the same time, the International Monetary Fund predicted China’s GDP would grow by 6.7 percent this year, 1.3 percentage points lower than the Chinese government’s target, but higher than the 5.25 percent of India and 5 percent for Vietnam, two countries vying for FDI.

The stimulus plan is having an effect, said Yao, who pointed out that retail volume rose to 4.88 trillion yuan in the first five months, up by 15 percent year-on-year.

Yao predicted that in 2009, China’s FDI will contract by an annualized 20 percent in contrast to last year’s growth of 27.65 percent.

The ruling parties of China and Egypt, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Egypt’s National Democratic Party (NDP), are committed to taking their relations to a new high.

The message came out of the talks between He Guoqiang, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary-general of the NDP Muhammad Yousuf El-sharif in Cairo on Sunday.

He spoke highly of China-Egypt ties, citing stronger political trust, increased trade cooperation, various people-to-people programs since both countries forged diplomatic ties in 1956, particularly since both established a partnership of strategic cooperation in 1999.

He, also secretary of the CPC’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said China appreciated Egypt’s precious support on issues related to Taiwan, Tibet and human rights.

With opportunities to cement and build bilateral relations ahead, He said China would like to work with Egypt to deepen exchanges and cooperation in various fields and seek new progress of bilateral relations and benefit the two peoples.

During their hour-long talks at the NDP headquarters, He proposed the two ruling parties maintain high-level visits, enhance political trust and work for country-to-country ties.

The CPC’s anti-graft chief also suggested both parties deepen substantial cooperation and diversify exchange and cooperation programs.

El-sharif said that as ruling parties of both countries, the NDP-CPC exchange and cooperation at various levels will help bolster Egypt-China partnership of strategic cooperation and work for the common interest of the two peoples.

El-sharif echoed He’s proposal on party-to-party ties, saying the NDP would like to take ties with CPC to a new high.

After the talks, He and El-sharif witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on CPC-NDP exchange and cooperation.

Later Sunday, He met with presidents of the Confucius Institute of Suez Canal University, which was jointly established by Suez Canal University and North China Electric Power University in 2008.

Confucius Institute, named after a great Chinese thinker, philosopher, statesman and educator Confucius born in 551 B.C., is part of China’s efforts to promote the Chinese language and Chinese culture abroad. The Chinese government plans to set up at least 100 Confucius Institutes around the world.

After the meeting, He presented a set of equipment and software featuring Chinese culture to the Confucius Institute of Suez Canal University.

He arrived in Cairo on Saturday for a three-day goodwill tour, which will also take him to Spain, Jordan and Mongolia.