Airlines & airports

• Cargo demand at Cathay Pacific Airways rebounded 2.4% year-on-year in September boosted by hi-tech consumer products. Demand from Hong Kong, mainland China and other manufacturing centers, such as Vietnam, began to pick up as a result of large shipments iPhone 5s and other electronic goods.
• Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals said its cargo traffic rose 2.1% in the third quarter from the same period a year ago. The firm handled 697,791 tons of cargo in the period. Exports decreased 2.3%, while imports and transshipments rose 3.9% and 10.6%, respectively, from a year earlier.

Express delivery

• United Parcel Service has announced the opening of three new healthcare distribution facilities in the Asia-Pacific region, two of which are to be located in China, in Hangzhou and Shanghai. The third facility will be located in Sydney, Australia.“Asia is our fastest-growing market for healthcare, and we are seeing increased activity in the region, especially in China,” said Bill Hook, Vice President of UPS Healthcare Logistics.
• A draft amendment to the Postal Law, submitted to the bi-monthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), would legally authorize postal administrations at the municipal level to supervise the industry.

Logistics industry

• Work began on a new cold-chain high-tech industrial park with a total investment of USD800 million in Jiaozhou, Qingdao, by the China International Marine Containers (Group). Covering an area of 5.8 hectares, the park contains five integrated sections, including an industrial management headquarters, a research academy, a refrigerated container factory, and equipment manufacturing centers. When complete, the park’s total output value is estimated to reach CNY15 billion, with an annual production of 100,000 cold boxes.

Ports & sea transport

• Cosco Pacific said third-quarter profit was little changed from a year earlier as a trade slowdown pinched cargo volumes. Net income rose 3.9% to USD98.2 million, the Hong Kong-based company said in a statement to the city’s stock exchange. Excluding a contribution from a stake in a container maker and non-recurring items, profit fell 0.5% to USD76.6 million. Volume growth at the company’s container terminals slowed to 9.2%, from 11% in the first half. Cosco Pacific’s terminals handled 14.6 million containers in the third quarter.
• Cosco Container Lines and China Shipping have agreed to jointly operate shipping routes from north and northeast China to Fujian province and Shantou in Guangdong province. The two shippers, with a combined market share of 80% in the domestic coastal container trade, would each deploy ships to jointly operate the routes. The two companies and their parent companies would also cooperate in other fields.
• The Ministry of Transport is considering trying out a carbon trading system or a carbon tax for the domestic shipping industry. A final plan has yet to be devised, but the measures are likely to call for slowing down the speed of ships. Zhang Shouguo, Deputy President of the China Shipowners’ Association, warned that if a carbon tax is levied, some weaker shipping companies will close down, noting that the price of shipping in China has already dropped below cost.
• Chinese shipyards saw a rebound in new orders in September. They received orders for 34 new vessels, totaling 1.92 million DWT, accounting for 60% of the world’s total new-order volume and an 81% increase from the same period last year.
• Chinese shipping companies have opened their first China-Russia container route, shipping more than 100 containers filled with consumer goods, computer components and ironware products from Ningbo to Russia’s Vostochny. Container ships ply the route weekly, departing Ningbo port every Thursday. After arriving at Vostochny port, cargoes will be unloaded and transferred via railway to East Europe.
• Orient Overseas (International) (OOIL) could be heading for a total turnover of around USD6.4 billion this year after the parent of Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) reported revenues of USD4.47 billion in the first nine months of the year from its box shipping business. This was 7% higher than last year and followed a 10.9% rise to USD1.59 billion in container shipping revenue in the third quarter. OOCL Logistics generated USD230 million in revenue in the first half of this year. OOCL’s total container volume climbed 5.1% to 3.95 million TEU in the first nine months. Average revenue per TEU grew 7.2% between July and September.

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce (FCCC) has the pleasure to invite you to a seminar on China’s macro-economic perspectives. This seminar will take place on Monday 19 November at 12h at the offices of Barco, President Kennedypark 35, Kortrijk.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Alexander van Kemenade will present the EIU’s long-term macroeconomic forecasts for China and discuss these in light of the new leadership’s challenges and reform prospects. He will also touch upon the current downturn in China and recovery prospects.

Mr van Kemenade will also turn to regional growth trends within China. Over the past decade, the changing nature of China’s economy has been underscored by a profound geographical shift in growth dynamics. The centers of economic change are no longer found on the coast in Shanghai or Shenzhen, but further inland as historically-sluggish regions begin to benefit from a recent wave of investment.

The programme is as follows :

12h00     Registration and buffet lunch
12h45     Introduction by Mr Bert De Graeve, Chairman, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce
12h55     “Which road ahead for China’s economy?” by Mr Alexander van Kemenade, Senior Economist and Deputy Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Access China
13h30     Question and answer session

Mr Alexander van Kemenade’s area of expertise is China’s macroeconomic and political outlook, with a focus on regional dynamics at the sub-national level. He regularly contributes to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s custom research and has co-authored numerous in-house publications. He manages a number of data products, including Access China’s province- and city-level demographic forecasting model, as well as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Chinese city competitiveness rankings. He is fluent in Mandarin and has lived in China for over 20 years.

Register for this interesting seminar before 13 November 2012 at the following link:

http://www.flanders-china.be/events_subscription1.asp?id_event=267&lang1=

The participation fee for members of the FCCC is €65. The fee for non-members is €95.

The next China Lecture Café “Concrete for tall structures: the Shanghai case” by Prof. Dr. Ir. Luc Taerwe and Prof. Dr. Ir. Geert De Schutter will take place on November 20th from 12h to 14h, in Het Pand, room “Rector Blancquaert” (Onderbergen 1, Gent). Sandwich lunch will be provided. Subscribing is free, but mandatory, by email to isabelle.decoen@ugent.be.

The city of Shanghai, China, is expanding at an amazing rate. Major structures are being constructed or have recently been completed, including tunnels, bridges, and record-breaking tall structures such as the ‘World Financial Center’ and ‘Shanghai Tower’. For this expansion, concrete as a building material is of the utmost importance. In addition to high volumes of traditional concrete, new types of specialty concrete are being used, such as high-strength concrete and self-compacting concrete. For many years, the Department of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, and the Magnel Laboratory for Concrete Research, Faculty of Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium, have been coordinating research efforts concerning concrete structures. Several aspects, of high importance for superstructures such as the tall buildings in downtown Shanghai, have been studied, e.g. creep of high-performance concrete, fire resistance of high-performance and self-compacting concrete, … In this session, a general view on the importance of concrete for tall structures will be presented, including innovative types of concrete. Some practical information will be given, linked to some towers constructed in Shanghai.

The program for the coming months is to be found via http://www.ugent.be/china.

Mr Guo Jianjun is the new Commercial Counsellor at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Brussels. He graduated from the University of International Business and Economics, LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law (University of Turin); and worked for the Ministry of Commerce of China for 16 years. He also for worked nearly four years for the Chinese Mission to the European Union, in charge of trade and investment affairs, before becoming the Economic and Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Belgium.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) has expanded investment options for insurers to help them improve returns and enhance their operations. Insurers can now invest in stock futures as well as other swaps and forwards contracts to hedge risks from investments. They are also allowed to buy wealth management products and asset-backed securities from domestic banks, and invest in mature commercial properties in main cities of developed countries. Under the new rules, insurance companies can also lend indirectly to infrastructure projects that have stable cash flows. Insurers can invest up to 15% of their total assets overseas, and can buy privately-held shares of foreign companies in the finance and energy sectors, according to the rules. Banks and trust companies are expected to benefit from the measures as they are now allowed to manage insurance assets for the first time. The CIRC is on a comprehensive expansion drive to allow more players to engage more assets in more types of investments, both on- and offshore, Z-Ben Advisors said in a note. The CIRC also lifted a restriction limiting Chinese insurers to invest only on the mainland or in Hong Kong. They will now be able to invest in 45 countries, including 25 developed economies such as the United States, Australia and Japan, as well as 20 developing economies including Brazil, India and Thailand. Approved asset classes have also been expanded from equities and bonds to real estate, currency products and non-bond fixed-income products.