Some 297 business jets were registered in mainland China at the end of last year, up 16% from a year ago, according to Asian Sky Group, the Hong Kong-based aviation consultants. The growth, though slower than the 26.7% surge in 2013, underscores the enthusiasm of billionaires for status symbols, despite President Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption and austerity drive. 28 of the top 100 wealthiest people owned a total of 41 private jets. The jets cost between CNY30 million and CNY500 million.

China and Pakistan launched a plan for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan worth USD46 billion. China’s President Xi Jinping oversaw the signing of 51 agreements and MOUs in Pakistan aimed at establishing a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor between Pakistan’s southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea and China’s Xinjiang autonomous region. The plan is part of China’s “Silk Road” plan. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the corridor would transform Pakistan into a regional hub and enable China to create a shorter and cheaper route for trade and investment with south, central and west Asia and the Middle East and Africa. Xi and Sharif also symbolically broke ground on five projects via a video link. The two countries set a target of raising bilateral trade to USD20 billion in three years. Two-way trade exceeded USD16 billion last year, marking an annual growth of 12.57%. The agreed projects foresee the creation of road, rail and pipeline links that will cut several thousand kilometers off the route to transport oil from the Middle East to China.

The Silk Road Fund (SRF) for investment announced its first project as it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China Three Gorges Corp and the Pakistan Private Power and Infrastructure Board to provide capital to build the Karot Hydropower Project on the Jhelum river in northeast Pakistan.

Automotive

• When Italian luxury carmaker Maserati entered the China market a decade ago, it sold fewer than 40 vehicles in its first year. Last year, it was Maserati’s second largest market as sales of its models reached 9,400, more than doubling from 2013. But now Chief Executive Harald Wester acknowledges the company will struggle to maintain that level this year, with the country facing the slowest economic growth in a quarter of a century and a corruption crackdown orchestrated by President Xi Jinping.
• The growing wealth of China’s entrepreneurs in innovative high-tech industries is the “new money” that will bolster future sales of super luxury cars, according to Ricky Tay, Bentley’s Managing Director in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. The firm’s customers based in China come from traditional industries such as property and mining, he added. Bentley’s new SUV, the Bentayga, will go into production in the middle of next year.
• China has ordered Mercedes-Benz to pay CNY350 million and its dealerships CNY7.87 million in fines for manipulating prices in Jiangsu province. They had an agreement to impose a downward limit on the price of E Class and S Class models as well as some spare parts. The carmaker’s penalty was based on 7% of its sales revenue last year while a 1% fine applied to the dealerships involved.

Finance

• A power-transformer maker has become the country’s first state-owned company to default in the onshore note market, and the second in just a fortnight to default in China’s fledgling bond market. Baoding Tianwei Group Co, a unit of China South Industries Group Corp, said it cannot meet interest payments due on a bond. Cloud Live Technology Group Co, a restaurant-turned-internet firm, also missed a principal payment, becoming the second privately-owned company to default on onshore bonds after Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co, which defaulted on its interest payment a year ago.
• Tian Hong Asset Management Co remained the top fund in China in the first three months of this year due to a jump in managed assets by cooperating with Alibaba. Assets under management by Tianhong Zenglibao jumped 23% in the first three months to CNY711.7 billion. Total assets under management were worth CNY727.4 billion in the first quarter, nearly triple the CNY260.6 billion of managed assets of second-ranked China Asset Management Co.
• Fierce competition for customers and the threat of loan defaults are wearing bank bosses down in China. At least 20 senior executives at banks in mainland China have resigned so far this year, the Securities Daily reported. The number of resignations was based on filings made to stock exchanges by listed banks and the reasons given for the executives departures ranged from poor health and age to “personal reasons”.
• Current Vice Minister of Finance Wang Baoan has been tipped to lead the National Bureau Statistics (NBS) following the appointment of outgoing Director Ma Jiantang to the Chinese Academy of Governance as Executive Vice President.
• China’s central bank and commercial banks sold an estimated CNY156.5 billion worth of foreign currency in March, the highest since the same month in 2013. Solid capital inflows in the past had been a vital channel for the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to provide yuan liquidity for the economy, but a wave of outflows in recent months has made it difficult for the central bank to ensure ample money supply.
• Haitong Securities Co has flagged the riskiest bond borrowers. Inner Mongolia Nailun Group must pay CNY540 million in principal and interest on an 8% note on May 20. Packaging maker Zhuhai Zhongfu Enterprise Co’s CNY590 million of 5.28% securities due May 28 was also on the list. Haitong also flagged China Erzhong Group Deyang Heavy Industries Co’s bonds due in October and paper maker Henan Yinge Industrial Investment Holding Co’s 2017 debentures that investors are able to sell back in December.

Foreign investment

• Finance Minister Lou Jiwei criticized U.S. proposals for sectors to be closed to foreign investment under a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) being negotiated between Washington and Beijing. Lou said that the U.S. “negative list”, while outlining prohibitions on key infrastructure, technology and national security investment, failed to provide specific definitions for its restrictions.

Foreign trade

• Export duties on rare earths will be eliminated on May 1, the Ministry of Finance said. Rare earths－a group of minerals that are crucial to the technology and defense industries－as well as tungsten and molybdenum will be exempt from tariffs, and wrought aluminum products will also enjoy a zero rate. The move will reduce the prices of rare earths by 20% to 25%. In 2014, rare earth exports reached 28,000 metric tons, up 27.3% from a year earlier. The average export price was CNY83,000 per metric ton, down 47.8%.

IPR protection

• The number of intellectual property rights cases accepted by Shanghai’s courts last year rose 15% from 2013 to 7,688, the Shanghai Higher People’s Court said. The number of civil cases handled in the period increased 28% to 6,064 of which 463 related to firms from Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas. In the criminal and administrative cases, 19 of the 562 people tried were given prison terms of between three and seven years.

Macro-economy

• The average monthly salary of white-collar workers in Shanghai was the highest in the first quarter in China at CNY6,774, recruitment portal zhaopin.com said. Beijing was second with CNY6,688, marginally edging Shenzhen out at CNY6,682. In Shanghai, positions in financial trusts and auction industries were the best paid with an average monthly salary of CNY10,284, followed by professions such as accountants and lawyers who earned around CNY8,910. Nationally, the average salary for internet and e-commerce positions was the highest at CNY8,626.
• The building of the world’s first commercial fourth-generation nuclear power plant may start in Jiangxi province in 2017, if the government approves the project. Using China-developed high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, the first generating unit will be operational by 2021.
• The MNI China Business Sentiment Indicator, a gauge of current business sentiment, deteriorated to 48.8 in April, the worst since the start of 2009, Market News International, a unit of Deutsche Boerse Group, said in a report. The reading is also the first time that confidence has sunk below 50 since the financial crisis. The indicator stood at 52.2 in March. The monthly poll covers about 200 executives from Shanghai and Shenzhen-listed manufacturing and service companies.
• The Chinese government has decided that companies hiring people who have been jobless for more than six months will receive tax advantages. Previously, this policy only covered those who had been unemployed for more than a year. Taxation reduction and exemption policies will be expanded from benefiting small businesses initiated by graduates or registered jobless people to cover sole-proprietorship enterprises.
• Chinese Premier Li Keqiang criticized bureaucratic delays in carrying out risk assessments for big development projects. “People at some places have made these assessments into a joke,” Li said. A week earlier he had already blasted officials for dragging their feet and delaying carrying out economic reforms. Li said some assessments, including those covering the environment and safety, were necessary, but some local government departments did not have enough professional staff to carry them out swiftly and efficiently.
• China’s factory activity contracted at its fastest pace in a year in April. The flash HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 49.2 in April, below the 50-point level that separates growth in activity from contraction on a monthly basis. The weak purchasing index adds to a growing number of signs that China’s economy is decelerating more rapidly than most analysts had expected. New orders declined further to a one-year low of 49.2 from March’s 49.8.
• The urban jobless rate was at 4.05% at the end of March, against 4.1% at the end of 2014. China created 3.24 million new jobs in the first quarter, down from 3.44 million during the same period last year. China aims to create at least 10 million new jobs in 2015 and keep the urban jobless rate below 4.5%.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Chinese private conglomerate Fosun International will take a 20% stake in Canadian circus and entertainment firm Cirque du Soleil. Fosun will help the circus to further develop in China and boost its chances of success. The first show in China will be staged in June. In January, Fosun took over the French resort chain Club Med for USD1.3 billion before taking a 5% stake in UK tour operator Thomas Cook two months later.

Science & technology

• The first of China’s new-generation satellites for its Beidou global navigation and positioning network has entered its designed work orbit, marking a new milestone to having global coverage by 2020. The satellite, launched on March 30, is the 17th added to the system and will substantially expand coverage. China will start testing the inter-satellite links of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System from July 3. Since the first launch of a Beidou satellite in 2000, China has launched 16 of the system’s satellites.
• A supercomputer used by China to develop a hypersonic space weapon was too slow, having a processing speed only a tenth of that of its American counterpart, according to a researcher involved in the highly sensitive project. China owns the world’s fastest computer, the Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defense Technology. The computer has held the No 1 position for more than two years with its speed of 33.86 quadrillion calculations per second, outperforming the second-placed machine, the Titan in the U.S, by nearly two to one. But the one used for weapons research was not as powerful as NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer.

Stock markets

• The Shanghai Stock Exchange’s trading turnover exceeded CNY1 trillion for the first time last week, but the data could not be properly displayed because its software was not designed to report numbers that high. The Chinese stock market has nearly doubled over the past six months on hopes of monetary easing. Retail investors have been opening accounts at a record pace.
• The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is studying a cross-strait trading link between the Shanghai and Taipei stock exchanges, similar to the link between the Shanghai and Hong Kong bourses, which has seen a net capital flow of CNY199 billion since its opening last November. By the end of March, 30 Taiwan financial institutions had obtained approval from the regulator to invest in the mainland securities market under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) program.
• Earnings growth at China-listed companies is likely to be the slowest in three years in 2015. Reuters surveyed analyst estimates of full-year net profit at 704 Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed firms that recently booked 2014 earnings, and found average growth for 2015 of 7%. That compared with 7.7% in 2014 and a spike of 18% in 2013.
• High-net-worth Chinese are the biggest financial risk-takers in the world, with nearly all of them confident they can manage their investments and reach their financial goals, according to a survey by U.S. asset manager Legg Mason and Citibank. The survey covered more than 4,200 affluent investors across 20 markets, including 250 mainlanders with an average net worth of USD2.5 million. The Chinese were the most optimistic investors, with about 60% of them planning to increase their equities this year.
• The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has approved a second batch of 25 IPO applications for this month, following its approval of the first group of 30 applications on April 2. Two batches of IPO applications will be approved every month from now on. The CSRC has already approved 123 IPOs this year.
• The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said it will crack down on “increasing” illegal trading activity, including: financial fraud involving the mergers and acquisitions of listed companies; stock price manipulation using capital or information advantages; insider trading on the share transfer platform for unlisted companies; trading on the basis of non-public information by employees of securities firms; and futures market manipulation.
• Three out of four families with investments say they have profited from this year’s first-quarter rally in the stock market. In contrast, only 16% of families saw profits in the second half of 2013 when the nation’s stock market slumped to a record low, according to a study carried out by Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, for which 5,000 families were interviewed by phone between January and March. It found that 6% of them traded on the stock market. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 16% in this year’s first quarter after surging 58% in the second half of last year.

Travel

• China’s top train maker CSR Corp plans to go head-to-head with European rivals such as Alstom in bidding for a range of contracts including rolling stock for Britain’s GBP50 billion High Speed 2 rail line linking London and Birmingham. Construction is due to begin in 2017, with trains running from 2026, followed by an extension to Manchester and Leeds opening by 2033.
• Taxi-hailing app company Uber will launch helicopter rental services in Shanghai and Hangzhou. Customers would be able to book a 30-minute flight within Shanghai on an EC135 helicopter provided by Shanghai-based Kaijet Aviation. A chauffeur-driven Mercedes will pick up passengers and take them on to their destination after the flight. Trips will cost CNY2,999 per person.

VIP visits

• Chinese President Xi Jinxing and Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe met in Jakarta on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit for only the second time since taking office, but Abe refused to apologize for Japan’s wartime aggression and one of his Ministers visited the Yasukuni shrine shortly after the meeting, limiting any prospect of improved relations. The Asia-Africa summit is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1955 Bandung Conference which led to the Non-Aligned Movement.

• China’s Interpol office has released a list of 100 wanted economic fugitives. The people on the list, published on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s website, are mostly mid-level officials and company executives. The list showed the suspects’ photographs, identification and visa numbers, the country they fled to and the crimes they are accused of committing. The first fugitive on the 100 list has meanwhile been arrested.
• China will approve the construction of six to eight nuclear reactors this year, the China Nuclear Industry Association said in an annual report. Another eight reactors would go into commercial operation this year, which would be the biggest annual rise in China’s history. China currently has 23 reactors in commercial operation with a total installed capacity of 21.4 gigawatt (GW).
• China Southern Power Grid (GSPG) is now being investigated for corruption, as it allegedly sold low-ranking official positions in return for bribes totaling millions of yuan. The position of county Branch Manager was allegedly sold for CNY3 million. Four of the company’s executives are being investigated for graft.

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce and the Weihai EU Office in Ghent organized an information meeting on ‘Building a Successful Plant in Weihai, Shandong Province’. This meeting took place on April 16th at the Voka Box in Gent.

Representatives from the Weihai Economic and Technological Development Zone (Weihai ETDZ) offered an insight into the economic environment and main sectors for investing in the Zone and the EU-China (Weihai) Industrial Park. In addition, Bekaert also shared their experiences of building a successful plant in this zone.

Weihai City is a coastal city in Shandong. Located south of downtown Weihai, the Weihai Economic and Technological Development Zone was set up by the State Council in 1992. The pillar industries of Weihai ETDZ are electronics, pharmaceuticals, automobile parts, textiles, machinery, food processing, ICT and Environmental Protection Technology. It consists of several industrial zones, including Export Processing Zone (Weihai EPZ), Harbor Industrial Park and EU-China (Weihai) Industrial Park. The EU-China (Weihai) Industrial Park was set up in 2012 and covers an area of 14.4 sq km.

The City of Weihai and the City of Ghent have a sister city agreement, while the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce and the City of Weihai have a longstanding cooperation agreement.