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BEIJING -- China is likely to become the world's second largest consumer market by 2015,  said a report released by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).Chinese shoppers select the luxury Louis Vuitton luggage at the first franchise store in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, July 25, 2007. [newsphoto]The report is based on a survey of 4,258 consumers in 13 Chinese cities from February to March 2007. According to the report, Chinese consumers are experiencing unprecedented wealth growth which is 3 to 5 times faster than developed countries in the past 50 years. Most Chinese consumers plan to spend more in near future to fulfill their family dreams."The past decade of rapid economic growth has brought prosperity but also uncertainty, resulting in a highly complex consumer market with diverse consumer attitudes," said Hubert Hsu, senior partner and managing director of BCG, at a press conference in Beijing."Capturing the next wave of consumer growth in China will involve developing deep consumer insights and creating marketing differentiation," said Hsu.The report said there are significant generational differences in terms of spending attitude among Chinese consumers. The strong interest in trading up, which means spending more money for more expensive products, was driven up by consumers' increasing desire for better goods and services and rising concern over safety and quality of cheap products.Chinese consumers put more faith in brand names compared with the US consumers and they believe good brand represents quality, safety, effectiveness and durability, said Hsu.Despite strong trading up desires, Chinese consumers continue to "treasure hunt" - make deliberate trade-offs to maximize "value" of their budgets. They use similar strategies for treasure hunting as their counterparts in other countries except several unusual tactics such as group purchase for volume discount, said the report.The report suggested global suppliers in China should establish strong, branded relationships with China's treasure-hunting consumers, provide the kinds of products that appeal to practical concerns and emotional needs, and be willing to customize their offerings to meet the needs of a geographically diverse population.While the retailers must make sure the categories they carry are the ones that treasure-hunting consumers will seek and focus on a product's technical and emotional benefits, said the report.

Beijing is bulging as its population has exceeded 17 million, only 1 million to go to reach the ceiling the city government has set for 2020.The figure breaks down into 12.04 million holders of Beijing "hukou", or household registration certificates, and 5.1 million floating population, sources with the Ministry of Public Security said at Monday's workshop on the country's management of migrants.Beijing municipal government announced last year it would limit its population to 18 million by 2020.Overpopulation is putting considerable pressure on the city's natural resources and environment. And experts have warned the current population, 17 million calculated at the end of June, is already 3 million more than Beijing's resources can feed.Given this year's baby boom, triggered by the superstitious belief that babies born in the Chinese year of the pig are lucky, analysts say there is little hope for an immediate slowdown in Beijing's population growth, even with the post-Beijing Olympics lull and soaring housing prices that have driven some Beijingers to boom towns in the neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality.Migrants, especially surplus rural laborers who have taken up non-agricultural jobs in the city, have forcefully contributed to the population explosion in recent years.About 200 million migrants are working in cities across China.Last year, Ministry of Public Security proposed police authorities in the migrants' home province should send "resident police officers" to cities to help maintain public security at major migrant communities, many of which are slums that are prone to violence, robberies, drugs and gambling.Resident policemen are currently at work in three cities: Dongguan, a manufacturing center in Guangdong Province, Binzhou of the central Hunan Province and Guigang of the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.The ministry has also demanded all cities to complete a management information system of migrants' data by the end of 2009.

上海消防审图公司

China's production of natural gas rose 23.1 percent last year, faster than in 2006, to 69.31 billion cubic meters as the country used more "clean" energy, an industry association said.In 2006, output jumped 19.2 percent to 58.55 billion cubic meters, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association (CPCIA) said. It also said that output would likely hit 76 billion cubic meters this year. China used 55.6 billion cubic meters of gas in 2006, an increase of 21.6 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics from BP.China has set a target of raising the proportion of natural gas in its total energy consumption to 5.3 percent in 2010 from 2.8 percent in 2005, amid efforts to curb pollution. Coal now accounts for about 70 percent of total energy consumption.The expansion of the natural gas infrastructure, including pipelines, reflected the rapid increases in output and consumption, the CPCIA said.China plans to start building a second east-west gas pipeline this year. The first such pipeline went into commercial operation in 2004.The new pipeline is scheduled to become operational in 2010 and will have a designed annual transport capacity of 30 billion cubic meters. It will mainly move natural gas from Central Asia to the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas, the country's two most developed regions.Construction on another pipeline, which will link the Puguang Gas Field in the southwestern province of Sichuan, one of the country's largest, with the Yangtze River Delta, started last August.

Viruses wreaked havoc on at least 1 million personal computers during the weeklong National Day holiday, according to Jiangmin Co, a leading Chinese antivirus company.The company's monitoring system detected that more than 118,000 computers crashed on October 6 alone."Viruses have been extremely active during the long vacation because more people chose to stay at home and surf the Internet, shopping online or playing online games," He Gongdao, an antivirus expert at Jiangmin, said on Monday."More than 24,000 types of viruses were detected during the week," he said.He said computer users should be more aware of viruses that could be passed on through movable disks.Another antivirus company, Kingsoft, alerted the online community to a new virus it dubbed the "ultimate killer to antivirus software".The virus, a kind of Trojan, is capable of hijacking all kinds of antivirus software when it successfully attacks a computer."It will also automatically search the keywords, including 'antivirus, Kingsoft and Kaspersky', and coercively close the programs, Li Tiejun, an antivirus software engineer of Kingsoft, said."The virus has been supported and spread by a group of people who have developed a systematic and standardized business operation to make profit," Li said. Virus controllers could detect the IP addresses of each computer, he added.The new virus, which affected about 40,000 computers a day, will remain a critical threat to many computer users even after the holiday, Li said.According to the latest survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Security, China has encountered a rising Internet security problem over the past three years, mainly triggered by a growing number of profit-driven computer virus writers, hackers and illegal traders.Some 65.7 percent of 15,000 companies polled had suffered Internet security problems from May last year to May this year, 11.7 percentage points higher than before.

At least two Chinese universities could achieve "world-class" status within the next 20 years, the president of one of the United States' oldest higher education institutions said yesterday in Beijing. Yale University's Richard Levin made the comment at the start of a 10-day visit by about 100 Yale faculty, students and administrators, the biggest delegation from the university ever to visit China. President Hu Jintao, who extended the invitation to the Ivy League university during his 2006 visit to the US, met the delegation last night at the Great Hall of the People. Hu said the visit of Levin's delegation will help promote mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, as well as the stable and healthy development of Sino-US relations. The president expressed his hope that Yale University students build strong relationships with the young people of China. In an interview with Chinese media, Levin said the country had made great progress in strengthening its top universities, by investing more in first-class facilities including research labs. "The key ingredients to being a world-class university are top students and top faculties," Levin said. "I don't think there is any doubt that China's top universities today have students that are as good as any in the world. "What remains to be built are faculties that are at the very frontier of research in their fields and worldwide leaders in their research endeavors." The delegation will spend its days meeting government leaders and visiting universities and other historical and cultural sites in Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an. The Chinese government and Yale are sharing the cost of the trip. Participating students and faculty, the majority of whom had never before been to China, were handpicked to represent the university's different schools. Delegation groups will today meet with government leaders, including Yang Jiechi, the minister of foreign affairs and Jiang Zhenghua, chairman of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party. The visiting students may even bridge some cultural divides. "I think that young people can play a very important role in securing a peaceful future for the US and China," Levin said. "Today, especially among the older generation, there is a great deal of ignorance about China in the United States, and some ignorance about the United States in China as well." Before leaving for China, some of the delegation met with US President George W. Bush, who spoke about the importance of "people-to-people diplomacy". "I think the trip will serve a cultural purpose in that our students will get a deeper understanding of Chinese culture to the extent that this throws into public view the importance of student-to-student exchanges," Levin said. "And that certainly serves a political purpose."

天津厂房结构设计哪家专业

A special assistance center was set up in Beijing Prison recently where policewomen, who are also qualified counselors, provide help for special "clients", male prisoners who are serving long sentences, Beijing Youth News reported on July 5. A policewoman counselor chats online with an inmate at a counseling and education center in Beijing Prison. [ynet.com] The police use computers with Internet access and chat through web cameras with lifers to help ease their psychological problems especially with those who have difficulty communicating. A short message service is also available for them to contact their families. The newly-established center is composed of policewomen. Due to regulations in prisons, the policewomen are not allowed to communicate with prisoners face-to-face, according to Lu Yanyan, the director of the center for counseling and correctional education in the Beijing Bureau of Prison Administration. "The work of counseling used to be the responsibility of policemen," explains Lu. "But because they are also officials who enforce correctional education on the prisoners, those who have psychological problems are reluctant to open their hearts to share their troubles. That's why policewomen fill this need." Wearing civilian clothes, not uniforms, the five policewomen appear much closer to the people they counsel. Though not face-to-face, the prisoners encounter a friendly and kind smile and feel more relaxed to talk openly about their feelings and emotions. A prisoner who was sentenced to life imprisonment seldom talked as he was abandoned by his family. But when a counselor surnamed Ren started to make appointments with him, he "became happier than before," as Ren put it. The special short message service is free for lifers. They can send as many messages as they want, but every message is checked by the officers. The quantity of messages sent and received currently is about 1,500 a day. Another prisoner told the reporter, even though he was concerned about his child's education and could not solve the problem himself, he felt more comfortable after he poured out his troubles to the counselor. As the counseling and correctional education director explains, it is important to provide counseling for those with long sentences, Lu says crimes are always the result of psychological problems and the prisoners are also disturbed by depression and anxiety in confinement.

Finance Minister Xie Xuren and his Japanese counterpart Fukushiro Nukaga have agreed to work jointly to end the controversy created by allegedly contaminated China-made dumplings.Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren (L) shakes hands with Japan's Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga at the latter's office in Tokyo, February 10, 2008. [Xinhua]At the first-ever ministerial-level meeting since the food scare in Japan, the two ministers vowed to "keep searching for the real cause" that made 10 people fall ill after eating the dumplings."We must cooperate in the investigation to get to the root of the problem and to prevent such an incident so that it doesn't become an obstacle to our friendship," Nukaga told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. "And he (Xie) said he completely agreed (with the idea)."The two also agreed to hold another dialogue next month in Tokyo. Xie was in Japan to attend expanded discussions and meetings of the Group of Seven financial ministers. Representatives of Russia, South Korea and Indonesia were also invited to the deliberations.The ministerial-level meeting came four days after Lunar New Year's Eve, when Chinese and Japanese officials met in Tokyo and said they were ready to cooperate in the investigation.China is willing to fully cooperate and share information with Japan, Li Chunfeng, head of the five-member Chinese delegation, told reporters after the third round of talks at the Japanese Cabinet Office on February 6.The country had set up a joint investigation team with Japan to get to the truth as soon as possible, Li said, calling for an objective attitude and scientific measures to solve the problem.A joint investigation team that on Tuesday inspected the plant of Tianyang Food, which made the dumplings, did not find any "abnormality" with the production process."The plant (in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei) is very clean and well managed, and no abnormality was detected," Japanese delegation chief Harashima Taiji said on Wednesday.Chinese and Japanese journalists, too, visited the plant, where production was suspended on January 30. The plant employs about 800 people.Also on Wednesday, Japanese Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said someone could have deliberately tried to contaminate the dumplings."Judging from circumstantial evidence, we'd have to think that it's highly likely to be a crime," Masuzoe said in Tokyo.Chinese police and law enforcers in Japan's Hyogo prefecture, where the 10 people fell ill, have already set up a joint task force to probe the case.In a joint announcement, Hyogo police said that after finding large amounts of the pesticide methamidophos on and small holes in some of the dumpling packages they suspected someone deliberately tried to poison the product.Tianyang reiterated it has never used methamidophos and that the dumplings were always packed immediately after coming off the production line.China Daily - Agencies

天津餐饮大厅装修设计

The weakening global economic environment will slow down growth in Asia and the Pacific, too, this year, but China, India and Japan are expected to keep up the momentum in the region, says the Economic and Social Survey of Asia-Pacific 2007. The three economies contribute more than 60 percent of the region's GDP and close to 45 percent of its imports, creating considerable opportunities for the whole region, says the survey, to be released today by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). Developing economies in the region grew at 7.9 percent in 2006, up from 7.6 percent in 2005. But their economic growth is projected to slow down to 7.4 percent this year. The decline is mainly because of the unfavorable external environment, including the slowing down of the US economy and falling demand for electronics across the world, says UNESCAP Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su in a recorded video on the commission's website. The survey shows investment continues to grow in China, while investment and consumption posted healthy gains in the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. The survey, however, warns against several downside risks in the region, such as a possible oil price hike, abrupt cooling of the US housing market, vulnerability of the currency, global imbalances and reversal of the Japanese economy after its recovery. To ensure better long-term growth in the region, the survey suggests Asian economies monitor the vulnerability of the currency and boost domestic demand through private investment.

The second batch of quotas for qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII), a scheme for foreign players to invest in the A-share market, is likely to be about billion, an industry insider, who declined to be named, told China Daily on Friday. The source said that the second batch of QFII quotas was being discussed, and pending approval by the Chinese government, was likely to be about billion, not exceeding that of the last batch, which was billion. Hu Xiaolian, Deputy Governor of the central bank and Administrator of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said earlier that related rules on the QFII scheme were being amended and the total QFII quota would certainly see an increase in 2007. However, she declined to give a specific sum. China has so far approved 52 overseas institutions as QFIIs to invest in the A-share market, of which 49 have got a combined investment quota of .995 billion from SAFE, near the upper limit of billion as stipulated previously. Industry insiders said the demand for QFII quotas was strong at present and more should be granted. "Despite the excessive liquidity in the A share market, the Chinese government should grant more quotas to QFIIs. Otherwise, they will find other ways, making it more difficult to supervise," She Minhua, an analyst with CITIC China Securities said. Meanwhile, the booming Chinese stock market is attracting more foreign financial firms to set up joint ventures in the investment sector. The Financial Times on Thursday reported that Nikko Asset Management, a QFII approved in 2003, has become the first Japanese fund firm to acquire a 20 per cent stake in a local firm, the Shenzhen-based Rongtong Fund Management Company. Nikko AM bought the stake from Shaanxi International Trust & Investment (SITI), for 3.8 yuan per share, valued at 475 million yuan, according to a statement by the Shenzhen-listed SITI.