IKEA plans to open four new stores in China over the next two years. The Swedish company will open its second store in Shanghai next year and welcome customers to stores in Tianjin, Wuxi, and its second store in Beijing in 2012, according to Gillian Drakeford, IKEA China’s Retail President. The company now has eight stores in China. Six of its Chinese stores are listed in IKEA’s Top 20 of fastest growing stores world-wide. The new stores in Chengdu and Shenzhen won first and second place among IKEA’s more than 300 stores around the world, with revenue jumping 135% and 126% respectively. IKEA’s more than decade-old Beijing and Shanghai stores also reported sales more than doubled in the past fiscal year. In the coming fiscal year, IKEA is launching more than 500 new products and providing over 500 products with lower prices in China.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) has destroyed or blocked the import of a wide range of foreign food and cosmetic products amid concerns that they posed potential health risks. The blacklist includes products such as milk powder, jam, chocolate and soap from the United States, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and other countries. The companies involved include General Mills, Lotte, Kraft Foods and Marks and Spencer.

About 70% of employers complain that employees who hold PhDs show little innovation in their work performance, according to a recent survey by the Huazhong University of Science and Technology which interviewed 1,392 PhD candidates, degree holders, professors and employers. China replaced the United States to become the world’s top producer of doctorate holders in 2008. The number of PhD students in China reached 246,300 in 2009, about five times the figure in 1999. The increased enrollment of PhD students has resulted in a severe shortage of qualified professors. Almost half of the professors polled admitted each of them had to supervise more than seven PhD candidates.

A Chinese scientific submarine (or submersible, since it cannot operate independently from surface ships) called Sea Dragon planted a national flag on the floor of the South China Sea at a depth of 3,700 meters during a test dive last month, which will help to reinforce China’s territorial claim on the area. The exact location has not been reported but is thought to be southeast of Hainan, between China and the Philippines. There were three crew members on board the submarine. With a maximum operational depth of 7,000 meters, it had surpassed the Russian MIRs and the deep sea probes of the United States, France and Japan. Eventually, China plans to explore the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on earth with a maximum depth of 11,034 meters, to the northeast of the Philippines. The submarine’s main task was to conduct mineral surveys. Despite the high costs, the government has now decided to build another Sea Dragon, to be able to rescue the crew of the first one in case of an accident.

Expo organizers are to stop selling standard-day and multi-day tickets to control visitor numbers during the final two months of the Expo. The record daily number has been 560,000 visitors. Only intra-day tickets (including night tickets available from 4 p.m.) and peak-day tickets for the National Day holiday (October 1 to 7) and last week of the Expo (October 25 to 31) would be available from September 1. Huge numbers of visitors are expected during September and October. Many visitors with standard-day tickets had yet to visit the Expo and there were worries they might all come at the same time. Sales of the three-day (CNY400) and seven-day (CNY900) tickets have stopped as they had all sold out. On August 28, more than 46.5 million people had visited the Expo.