Foreign trade boost
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08/10/2001
Foreign trade boostShanghai has adjusted its policies to encourage more local enterprises with domestic funding to get involved in foreign trade. The Municipal Foreign Trade and Economic Commission has announced that enterprises in Pudong New Area are allowed to operate foreign trade businesses. The only restriction is that they must have at least 3 million yuan (US$361,000) of registered capital and must have been operating for at least a year. The new policy permits high-tech enterprises and those manufacturing machinery and electrical equipment, with no less than 1 million yuan (US$120,000) of registered capital, to undertake foreign trade. Robust tourism Shanghai raked in 90 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) in tourism revenues in 2000, statistics show. Revenues from international tourism hit US$1.6 billion, up 18.3 per cent on the previous year, and domestic tourism generated 77.5 billion yuan (US$9.3 billion), up 7.7 per cent. Visitors from Taiwan accounted for the biggest increase of 31.7 per cent. Shanghai received 1.8 million overseas visitors, up 9.5 per cent on the previous year. They included 1.43 million foreigners (up 8.1 per cent), 176,000 tourists from the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao (up 2.4 per cent), and 199,000 tourists from Taiwan Province (up 31.7 per cent). Ideal family car The Buick Sail, a compact car produced by Shanghai General Motors, has won the "My Ideal Family Car" award during a recent online poll organized by didibaba.com. More than 70 per cent of the over 130,000 people who responded allegedly chose the model as an "ideal" family car. Shanghai GM reports that more than 7,000 units of the model, priced at around 100,000 yuan (US$12,000), have been sold since launch. Private firms increasing The number of private firms in Shanghai has reached 140,000 with about 1.7 million employees, according to statistics. The average registered capital for the private firms reached 960,000 yuan (about US$115,000), according to statistics released by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce. The private economy, which accounts for 6.1 per cent of Shanghai's total, is regarded as a growth point. Tax revenue from private firms and businesses during the past seven months of this year grew by 44 per cent over the same period last year. UPS business rising United Parcel Service reports that its business in China during the second quarter of this year increased by 25 per cent from the same period last year. UPS' global revenue for the quarter hit US$7.6 billion, up 3.9 per cent year on year. UPS has six weekly flights between China and the US. Customs efficiency The Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone in Shanghai can offer China's quickest customs port clearance - 10 hours to run all procedures to pass a batch of goods. The largest bonded zone in China is home to many production plants including those of Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Philips and JVC. China's average customs clearance period is one-and-a-half days. Shanghai aims to improve overall customs efficiency in order to meet a target of increasing the total customs trade volume to US$180 billion by 2005 from the present US$109 billion a year. 10-year-old routes China Eastern Airlines held a ceremony on Sunday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of its Sino-US routes. On August 9, 1991, China Eastern began flying from Shanghai to Los Angeles. The airline focuses on four routes. It has 14 passenger flights and 12 cargo flights every week. In the past 10 years, China Eastern has operated 5,800 passenger flights on Sino-US routes, transporting over 1.874 million people. Kodak system launched Eastman Kodak launched last week its EasyShare, an easy-use-highlighted digital photography system. Priced around 4,500 yuan (US$540), the system consists of Kodak's digital camera, a camera pedestal designed to transmit digital pictures and the auxiliary picture processing software. With this system, customers are able to access a set of convenient digital image solutions, including picture shooting, processing, transmission and printing. IC design centre Agere Systems Inc, which used to be the microelectronics unit of US Lucent Technologies Inc, has located in Shanghai its second design centre for network communications integrated circuits (IC) in the Asia-Pacific region. Situated in Pudong New Area, the centre, known as the Pudong Network Communications IC Design Centre, will join Agere's centres in the United States, Spain and Singapore as an important component of the company's global IC network, IC research and design centres.
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