BOC tipped to open Shanghai headquarters
Feb-27-2012 By : agxadmin
The Bank of China (BOC) plans to set up a second headquarters in Shanghai next month, a move seen as bolstering the city’s ambitions to become a global financial center in coming years. The bank, which was founded in Shanghai 100 years ago and currently has a single head office in Beijing, is scheduled to launch the new headquarters at a ceremony on March 20 in the Pudong New Area, the would-be Wall Street of Shanghai. The city has long been China’s foreign-exchange trading center, and several foreign banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citigroup, have chosen the city as the headquarters for their operations in China. Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng and top financial regulators from Beijing were expected to attend the ceremony in Pudong, where the bank already has a high-rise building bearing its name that now houses its Shanghai branch staff. “Bank of China is the first among the Big Four to have a second head office in Shanghai and it won’t be the last one to do so,” one observer said. “The other three are also on the way, as this is part of the big plan to help Shanghai strengthen its position as the leading financial center in China,” he added. Bank of China, which won special approval to set up a commercial bank from Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, was officially established in Shanghai in 1912 and kept its headquarters on The Bund, the city’s historic waterfront, until 1949 when the new government decided to move the bank’s headquarters to Beijing. Once the Shanghai headquarters of Bank of China was open for business, the bank’s Beijing headquarters would focus more on administrative and management matters, leaving the Shanghai office to have more clout in business-related decision-making, sources told the South China Morning Post.
China to become biggest agricultural importer
By : agxadmin
China is expected to become the world’s biggest importer of agricultural produce in two to three years, as China’s agricultural imports surged nearly 30% last year, according to Cheng Guoqiang at the State Council’s Development Research Center. “China took only a year to see an increase of USD20 billion in farm imports [last year],” Cheng said. “In the past, it usually took two to four years.” The Ministry of Agriculture said on February 6 that China imported nearly USD95 billion worth of farm produce last year, with its agricultural trade deficit surging 47% to USD34 billion. At the ceremony for China’s USD4.3 billion order for American soya beans in Iowa during Vice President Xi Jinping’s U.S. trip, Assistant Minister of Commerce Yu Jianhua said China imported 58% of America’s soya bean production and 36% of its cotton in 2010. “China has become the biggest single foreign market for U.S. soya beans and cotton,” he said. Chen Mengshan, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Chief Economist, said China was for more than 95% self-sufficient with regards to major food commodities such as rice, wheat and corn. But he added, “compared with developed countries, we’re 20 percentage points lower in terms of science and technology’s contribution to agriculture.”
Export tax rebates to be raised
By : agxadmin
Export tax rebates will be increased this year in response to an export decline triggered by the European debt crisis. The move, which the Commerce Ministry said will be implemented when the time is appropriate, will be the first increase since 2009. From 2008 to 2009 when the financial crisis hit, China raised export tax rebates seven times on a wide range of goods. Tax rebate rates in general were increased to 13.5% in 2009 from 9.8% before the crisis. The aim is to achieve a 10% growth in exports this year. For the next 15 years, China is expected to lead world trade growth with an annual expansion rate of 6.29%, according to an HSBC report. The bank also expects China to overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest trading nation by 2016. China’s resilient economic growth and increased domestic consumption would continue to drive demand for commodities, consumer electronics, and cars, HSBC said. The yuan would account for up to 50% of domestic trade settlement by 2015, it added.
Hermes loses trademark dispute
By : agxadmin
French luxury producer Hermes has lost a lawsuit against China’s Trademark Appeal Board over its refusal to cancel a trademark similar to its Chinese name. Hermes registered its English name and pattern in China in 1977, but had not yet registered its Chinese name as a trademark. The company said Guangdong-based menswear maker Dafeng Garment Factory registered a trademark similar to the Chinese name of Hermes, which could mislead Chinese buyers. The pinyin for the two Chinese names has the same spelling: Ai Ma Shi. Hermes had appealed to the trademark board in 1997 over the trademark but the board approved the Chinese company’s registration in 2001. In 2009, Hermes again appealed to the board, demanding it to cancel the disputed trademark. A Chinese court now ruled against Hermes.
China to fine-tune macro-economic policy
By : agxadmin
China will “fine-tune” its macro-economic policy, given the current global economic uncertainties, the Communist Party’s Politburo said in a statement after a meeting chaired by President Hu Jintao. The government will also maintain its proactive fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies this year. The meeting was held to discuss the draft of the government work report that will be delivered at the opening of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 5 by Premier Wen Jiabao. The central government should “make a proper judgment on the macro-economic situation at the right time, and make it more targeted, flexible and forward-looking”, the statement said. Hu Yifan, Chief Economist at Haitong International, said the statement of “stabilizing growth and controlling inflation” implied that growth remained a major concern. “So the policy is to keep easing,” he said. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) cut the capital reserve requirement for banks by half a percentage point last week to help small and medium-sized firms get easier access to bank loans. The Politburo’s statement also said the government would accelerate efforts to transform the nation’s economic growth pattern, while making greater effort in expanding domestic demand, particularly consumption.
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