BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China is making plans to upgrade its food safety system, stressing improved quality standards and strengthened supervision, according to a notice made public Monday at www.gov.cn.In late February, south China's Hainan Province took emergency measures to stop toxic cow peas from entering the market after about 3.5 tonnes of Hainan cow peas found were tainted with a poisonous pesticide.To prevent such incidents and help ensure food safety, the country plans to increase the frequency of food tests and inspections -- especially for dairy products and other high-risk food.National quality standards for diary products will also be released this year.At least six infants died and almost 300,000 became ill across the country after consuming dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. The scandal was first reported in September 2008 and prompted a food safety overhaul nationwide.
NAIROBI, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary- General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) told Xinhua in an interview on Friday that China played a significant role in the process leading up to Copenhagen Climate Change Conference."I think China played a very significant role in the process leading up to Copenhagen, and in a sense it became very engaged at the highest international political level in the process," the UNEP chief said.Steiner noted that China took a significant step forward when it made its announcements of voluntary actions a few weeks before Copenhagen. And that sent a very important signal to the negotiations."We saw similar actions taken by Mexico, by South Africa, by Brazil, by Indonesia and also India. That created an opportunity," he said.Steiner admitted that Copenhagen did not deliver what the world had hoped, which was a deal among developed and developing countries to achieve significant agreement in reduction of emissions. However, he maintained that it was also not the failure that some people had attributed to it."I think in history it shall be written as a missed opportunity. We are now focused on moving forward towards Mexico and the world has an opportunity to reach an agreement," he said to Xinhua.On China's situation of environmental protection and carbon emissions reduction, Steiner said the nation has made rapid progress yet challenges still remain.He stressed that China has begun to take a different development path. Chinese leaders and people have started to look at development also from a sense of balance. And therefore environmental protection and sustainable development have taken a far quicker route of being addressed today than by some industrialized nations have done in historical terms."I think many of the measures the government is taking, from establishing a ministry of environmental protection to new legislation, to setting pollution standards, showed that in a period of just 10 to 15 years, China has walked a distance that some other countries had taken 30 to 40 years," he said.The UNEP chief added that "also let us be very realistic that environmental challenge for China is significant, and therefore effective action is necessary and urgent."He lauded China for including the notion of ecological civilization and the transition to a green economy into part of the country's mainstream development planning and the next Five- Year Development Program."To me it provides some very encouraging signs that we will see a very different economic development philosophy emerging in China. And this is also UNEP's mission to work with China in bringing the latest science and knowledge that have been developed across the world on green economy opportunities into the debate and discussions in China," he said.Referring to the upcoming Shanghai EXPO, Steiner said such big events can be not only a showcase for the country, but can also act as an experiment with policies, with new technologies and with new ways of management."The Shanghai EXPO, with the theme of 'Better City, Better Life, ' has put the quality of life, which is so closely related with environment management, at the heart of this international event," he said.Steiner compared the EXPO to the Beijing Olympics, saying that the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing provided many examples of innovation technology as well as environmental management initiatives. It is in his belief that the Shanghai EXPO will just stand in the same tradition.
BEIJING, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- China's large textile businesses took in 133.15 billion yuan (19.57 billion U.S. dollars) in profits in the first 11 months of last year, according to figures released by the China Textile Industry Association.The profits were up by 25.39 percent year on year, 36.40 percentage points more than that in the Jan.-Feb. period.The industry posted a total production value of 3.43 trillion yuan and 3.35 trillion yuan in sales value, each up by 9.71 percent and 9.82 percent as all major products saw production rise.The industry also witnessed a slow recovery in export. In the 11 months, garment export fell by 11.02 percent to 154.1 billion U.S. dollars, but the drop narrowed by 0.19 percentage points compared to the first 10 months.By contrast, domestic sale accounted for 79.89 percent in the total sales, up by 3.15 percent.
BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhua)-- China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced Wednesday it would issue a batch of ten-year book-entry treasury bonds with a total par value of 26 billion yuan (3.8 billion U.S. dollars) starting on Thursday.The batch is the 7th of its kind the MOF has issued this year. The issue of this batch of T-bonds ends on March 29, according to a statement on the MOF's official website.The bonds would be traded on the interbank bond market and securities bond market from March 31.The bonds have a fixed annual interest rate of 3.36 percent, with the interests to be paid every half year, on March 25 and Sept. 25, respectively, according to the statement.The last interest payments and principals would be paid back together on March 25, 2020, statement said. Book-entry bonds are the bonds recorded in the investors' securities accounts called book entries. They can be traded on the open market, and their market prices can deviate from par value.
BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- The number of railway passengers rebounded sharply in China on Tuesday as more people started their return trips after Spring Festival family reunions, the Ministry of Railways said Wednesday.Passengers wait to take their trains inside a makeshift waiting room at a railway station in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, Feb. 17, 2010. The railway station of Nanchang met its transport peak on Wednesday as large numbers of returning tourists went by trains here.Statistics from the ministry show China's railways served 4.185 million passengers on Tuesday, up 689,000 or 9.8 percent from the previous day.To cope with the increased demand for seats, the ministry added 238 special trains to ease the traffic, of which 64 were long-distance trains.People wait for their buses at a long-distance bus station in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, Feb. 17, 2010. Jinan met its medium and short-distance Spring Festival travel peak on Wednesday with most of the travelers going by long-distance buses to visit their relatives.The ministry predicts the travel peak days will probably be Feb. 19 and 20, as more and more passengers start their return trip. The ministry said it is closely watching the passenger flow situation and will adopt appropriate measures to meet passenger demand.Meanwhile, statistics from the Ministry of Transport (MOT) show that on Tuesday the country's roadways carried 28.1 million passengers, increasing 1.8 million or 12.6 percent from the previous day, while from Feb. 13 to 16 the combined figure was 127 million, up 10.8 percent from the same period last year.The MOT said that the country's roadways carried a total number of 32.5 million passengers on Wednesday, up 9.7 percent year on year.Wednesday MOT figures revealed that China's waterways were forecast to carry 780,000 passengers, down 2.5 percent year on year.The country's roadways were already ready for more passengers' long-distance return trip, as the one-week Spring Festival holiday was near its end, said He Jianzhong, a spokesman with the MOT.The Spring Festival, also known as the Chinese Lunar New Year, is China's most important annual festival. It is an occasion for reunions of family members, relatives and friends.
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- One of China's two leading State-owned shipbuilders, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), said Sunday that its profit in 2009 jumped 18.5 percent to 7.39 billion yuan (1.1 billion U.S. dollars).The Beijing-based conglomerate, which consists nearly 50 industrial subsidiaries and about 30 R&D institutes in northern China, also said its operating income rose 17 percent in 2009 to 120.9 billion yuan.General manager Li Changyin said the CSIC had overcome the impact of the global financial crisis, which crippled the global sea-based trade and brought down ship orders.Li said technological innovations had enabled the CSIC to build 180,000-dwt bulkers, 320,000-dwt oil tankers, 13,000-TEU containers as well as new types of drilling platform which can be used in water depths up to 400 feet (120 meters).According to Li, CSIC had also been actively engaged in non-ship businesses including manufacturing of wind power and nuclear power equipment, accounting for 40 percent of the CSIC's business volume.Li said the CSIC profit target for 2010 was 8 billion yuan. The operating income was expected to surpass 140 billion yuan and the CSIC output in 2010 was likely to break 10 million dwt (deadweight tonnage), he added.The CSIC, which has more than 140,000 manpower, launched an initial public share offer at the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 2009 and raised some 6.4 billion yuan.The CSIC's main shipbuilding and industrial enterprises are based in cities of Dalian, Qingdao, Tianjin, Shanhaiguan and Wuchang.The other major shipbuilding conglomerate in China -- the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is based in Shanghai, whose turf is mainly in eastern and southern China.
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BEIJING, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Foreign-funded enterprises in China exported 494.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of machinery, electrical and electronic products in 2009.A document posted on the website of the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said the figure made up 69.3 percent of the country's total exports of such products in the past year.Exports of machinery, electrical and electronic products by privately-owned enterprises totalled 106.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, down 8.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the document.State-owned enterprises only exported 92.1 billion U.S. dollars worth of machinery, electrical and electronic products, accounting for 12.9 percent of the country's total machinery, electrical and electronic products last year.The GAC document also said the majority of the country's exports of machinery, electrical and electronic products fell into the category of processing and assembling trade.China's exports of machinery, electrical and electronic products in the category of processing and assembling trade totalled 466.4 billion U.S. dollars last year, making up 65.4 percent of the country's total exports of such products.The country exported 713.1 billion U.S. dollars worth of machinery, electrical and electronic products last year, down 13.4 percent year-on-year. The exports contributed 59.3 percent to China's total exports in 2009.The European Union (EU), the United States of America and Hong Kong were the three major destinations for the China mainland's exports of machinery, electrical and electronic products last year.China exported 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars worth of products last year, down 16 percent from 2008, replacing Germany as the world's largest exporter.
BEIJING, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers Wednesday called for improving the country's food safety supervision network after a nationwide law enforcement inspection tour.National lawmakers started the inspection tour last September after the Food Safety Law took effect last June.Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, told lawmakers that many regions had not completed reform of the food safety supervision mechanism.Most of the cities and counties had not started the reform yet, Lu said at a three-day bimonthly session of the top legislature that started Wednesday, when presenting a report of the inspection tour.He called for stronger coordination led by health departments.The report suggested establishing a national food safety risk assessment center and a food safety standard management system.Earlier this month, the State Council set up a food safety commission consisting of three vice premiers and a dozen minister-level officials.The lineup of the commission's members includes Vice Premiers Li Keqiang, Hui Liangyu and Wang Qishan, as well as more than ten heads or vice heads of government departments in charge of health, finance, and agriculture among other portfolios.The establishment of the commission followed a string of nationwide crackdowns and arrests in the wake of new melamine-tainted milk products being found in Shanghai as well as Liaoning, Shandong and Shaanxi in recent months.
OTTAWA, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China and Canada have officially kicked off a series of celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.As one of the opening events, the China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra (CBCO) staged a 2010 Spring Festival Gala Concert on Monday night at Southam Hall of the National Arts Center in Ottawa.The grand show, which featured over 30 different kinds of traditional Chinese musical instruments, attracted an audience of around 2,000, among whom were senior Canadian officials and Chinese Ambassador to Canada Lan Lijun.Chinese Ambassador to Canada Lan Lijun (C) and President of the Treasury Board of Canada and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day (R) cut the ribbon for an exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of the Sino-Canadian relation ties in Ottawa, capital of Canada, March 9, 2010Addressing a reception before the show, Ambassador Lan said that the China-Canada diplomatic ties, which were forged on Oct. 13, 1970, have moved forward thanks to the personal commitment of leaders of several generations and concerted efforts of people from various sectors in both countries. "Our exchanges and cooperation in all fields have been growing steadily and exchanges at the top and other levels have increased, " Lan noted.He said that China stands ready to work with Canada, with a strategic and long-term perspective, to seize the opportunity brought by the 40th anniversary to review the past and plan for the future, and jointly forge an even better future.On the same occasion, Canadian Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella said it is encouraging to see the two countries continuing to work together in a constructive and cooperative manner."The fact that we were able to put aside our differences at the height of the Cold War and work together for a better future makes me believe that our partnership can withstand the most difficult challenges that might come our way," he said.The Speaker also praised the hard-working Chinese immigrants who endured difficult conditions long before the two countries established diplomatic ties, as they helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway, which played a critical role in history.On the eve of the concert, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also sent a greeting message, saying that the wonderful evening of beautiful music was a great opportunity to share Chinese culture with Canadians as more than a billion people around the world welcomed the Year of the Tiger."It is a time of great expectations and an occasion to recognize the significant contributions of Chinese Canadians," Harper added.Established in 1957, the CBCO has performed at Konzerthaus Berlin, Lincoln Center, John F. Kennedy Center and Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert Hall over the past five decades. Its world- class Chinese New Year Concert has also become a classic event at the Golden Hall of Vienna since 2003. This is the Orchestra's first visit to Canada.
BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is scheduled to chat with Internet users at 3 p.m. (Beijing Time) Saturday at two state news portals.The two major portals, www.gov.cn, of the central government, and www.xinhuanet.com, of the Xinhua News Agency, will jointly interview Premier Wen, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.Netizens in China and abroad are invited to raise questions to Wen via the Development Forum (http://forum.xinhuanet.com), and the premier is expected to answer some of these questions.The on-line chat will be shown live in texts, pictures and videos at the two portals.