Category: Foreign News

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

The Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most important initiatives of the 21st century. Nothing is more important for world peace and prosperity than building much-needed infrastructure in the developing world, especially in the poorest countries.

A priority of the Belt and Road Initiative is to plan, finance, construct and operate critical infrastructure — roads, railways, airports, ports, power plants, telecommunications. No country in the world has China’s experience in building such infrastructure, so Belt and Road projects are naturally suited for win-win cooperation, within the framework of “achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration.”

As China continues to transform and restructure its economy, it needs high-quality growth of the country’s manufacturing industries. By leveraging this domestic expertise, it is of great significance for China to develop new modes of globalization.

Infrastructure construction seems ideal, which is just what China is experienced in and what developing countries need to kick-start their economies. This is the essence of win-win: mutual benefits make Belt and Road cooperation sustainable.

From the very beginning of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping has stressed “achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration.” This guiding principle reflects China’s overarching policy of seeking win-win in international cooperation and in maintaining equal relations with all countries.

Today, in our new complex international environment, China’s principle of “shared growth through discussion and collaboration” takes on even greater significance.

“Discussion and collaboration” can ensure the quality of Belt and Road Initiative projects. It is only through detailed discussions and sophisticated collaboration that optimal project structure and operations can be achieved, and this is especially relevant for infrastructural construction. Key, of course, is to match loan servicing schedules, interest and principal, with reasonably conservative forecasted revenues directly or indirectly generated by the project, which can include national or regional economic growth.

One aspect of China wisdom is that learning from the past can improve the future. Some developing countries may not be experienced in structuring the financing for large infrastructure projects. Thus, in the project planning discussions, China, which has much experience, can advise and bring “best practices” to the project. Again, this is the benefit of “discussion and collaboration”.

“Shared growth” means that Belt and Road cooperation takes win-win as essence and pursues common development of all involved sides. Over the past five years, a series of successful projects under the Belt and Road framework have generated new opportunities for the economic and social development of host countries.

Best is to take “shared growth” seriously: what is shared is what is had by both sides. For host countries, infrastructure enables and stimulates economic growth. China also reaps more development opportunities, such as diversification of trade, and opens the doors of its inland provinces wider.

By boosting (over time) the economies of developing countries, China benefits from increasing trade, as does the entirety of the world. Belt and Road cooperation is an initiative seeking mutual benefit, win-win result and common growth.

From the world’s perspective, poverty, under-development, and deep inequalities are seemingly intractable problems — and economic development, catalyzed by infrastructure construction, is an essential part of the solutions. Economic development must come first, then all other problems can be addressed. Nothing good can happen without economic growth — this is the essence of the Chinese experience.

From China’s perspective, after decades of remarkable growth, economic transformation is necessary, and this includes industrial transitioning and geographical rebalancing within China and expanding China’s opening up by enhancing globalization. All of these can be achieved by the Belt and Road Initiative.

There are substantial global challenges, of course – economic, financial, structural, ecological, political instability, political risk, nationalism, terrorism. What’s sure is that the world has great need and China has a grand plan.

(Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, is a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal)

By Khalid Rahman (Pakistan)

I have visited more than 10 Chinese cities in my nearly 30 trips to China. I liked interacting with the local communities every time I arrived in a new place, during which I was deeply impressed by the elements of inclusiveness and harmony contained in Chinese culture while maintaining diversity. Such inclusiveness and harmony are reflected in every aspect, including China’s interaction with the world.

Over the past 40-plus years, China has made incredible accomplishments in the economic arena. At the same time it witnessed comprehensive and historical changes in the society, with advances being made in every field.

With increasing comprehensive national strength, the country is playing a more important role in regional and international affairs. Belt and Road initiative is a reflection of Chinese willingness to share development opportunities with the world, which indicates the confidence and sense of responsibility of a major country.

In my opinion, inclusiveness and harmony are the essence of Chinese wisdom. They not only serve as a cultural factor that propels China’s social advances and development, but also are a reason for the popularity of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in many countries. People of insight across the world, envisioned by the BRI, are aware that global challenges require all the people to seek shared development by treating each other as equals, beefing up coordination and making good use of resources. The BRI, which encourages all countries to realize peaceful co-existence and common development through more inclusive and harmonious cooperation, sets a great example for the world. By proposing the BRI and building of a community with a shared future for mankind, China has contributed new solutions to global governance by following a principle of mutual benefit and win-win result.

Harmony and development are complementary to each other in Chinese philosophy. The BRI underlines the inseparable relationship between national and regional development, in a belief that every country makes contribution to regional stability by its own development, and in turn, regional stability will provide guarantee for the economic and social development of individual countries, as well as the mutually beneficial cooperation among them. During the past five years, the BRI has started improving the connectivity among the countries along the route, and thus bringing closer the people from different countries and regions. It will be facilitating win-win economic and trade cooperation, and will also be creating substantial opportunities for progress in more developing countries.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a very good testimony. As an important pivot linking the land and maritime silk roads, the CPEC has reaped abundant harvests. A batch of infrastructure projects have facilitated the life of Pakistani residents after they were completed and put into operation. The construction of the CPEC has also increased the connectivity between Pakistan and the region, and in a long run, it will fully unleash the economic potential of the region and boost their trade.

Indeed, the BRI is making tangible contribution to regional prosperity and stability.

(Khalid Rahman is Executive President at Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad. The article is compiled by People’s Daily reporter Ding Xuezhen based on an interview with Rahman.)

By Xu Hailin
After China established vocational education and training centers in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, some western officials and media outlets constantly attacked China with groundless accusations. However, if they had paid attention to heated discussions about vocational education during China’s two sessions in early March and interpreted China’s moves from that perspective, their misunderstanding of China might be reduced.

The Chinese government is determined to stabilize and expand employment. “Stepping up the development of modern vocational education is a strategic move that will ease current employment pressure,” reads the Government Work Report that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered on March 5 to the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress.

During China’s rapid growth and current economic transition, technicians and skilled workers are urgently needed. There are about 280 million migrant workers in China who are the main workforce for the country’s secondary and tertiary industries. Despite the huge number, highly skilled personnel are still in short supply as a majority of migrant workers don’t have a good academic or technical background that enable them to be competent. However, China’s industrial development is directly linked with workforce capability.

In addition, people without wanted skills could face unemployment and be gradually marginalized. Marginalization will breed antisocial emotions that affect the stability of a country and its development. This could happen in China or in any other country.

To prevent such destabilizing factors, vocational education and training centers have been established across China for migrant workers to improve themselves from big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen to smaller ones like Bincheng in East China’s Shandong Province. The Chinese government will allocate 100 billion yuan ($14.9 billion) to provide training for more than 15 million people to help them upgrade their skills or switch jobs or industries. The vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang are along the same lines.

The underdeveloped education in the autonomous region has limited people from learning modern work skills. In addition, extremist thinking has forced some ethnic minority people away from the country’s development achievements and made them feel it is hard to integrate into modern society. Vocational education will help fix these problems, maintain stability of employment and boost the development of China.

The training centers in Xinjiang are part of China’s effort to prop up vocational education and enable more people to gain professional skills.

Since reform and opening-up, the Chinese government has realized the importance of the workforce and attached great importance to improving their capability in both academic and technical aspects.

Enhancing vocational education is in line with China’s lessons learned from development in the past decades. As China aims to comprehensively develop its economy, skilled workers will play a key role that affects the speed and quality of growth.

Source:Global Times/People’s Daily

By Jennifer Y Omiloli with Agency report

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans were in disarray as her government sought to plot a way around the speaker of parliament’s ruling that she had to change her twice-defeated divorce deal to put it to a third vote.

After two-and-a-half years of negotiations with the EU, Brexit remains uncertain – with options including a long postponement, exiting with May’s deal, an economically disruptive exit without a deal, or even another EU membership referendum.

Speaker John Bercow blindsided May’s office on Monday by ruling the government could not put the same Brexit deal to another vote in parliament unless it was substantially different to the ones defeated on Jan. 15 and March 12.

Brexit Secretary, Steve Barclay, said the ruling meant a vote this week on May’s deal was more unlikely, but said ministers were studying a way out of the impasse and indicated the government still planned a third vote on May’s deal.

“This is a moment of crisis for our country. The ruling from the speaker has raised the bar and I think that makes it more unlikely the vote will be this week,” Barclay said.

“We always said that in terms of bringing a vote back for a third time we would need to see a shift from parliamentarians in terms of the support – I think that still is the case.”

May is due at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday at which she will ask for a delay to the March 29 Brexit departure set in law as the British government tries to come up with a way to leave the EU after 46 years of membership.

EU leaders could hold off making a final decision at that summit on any Brexit delay depending on what exactly May asks them for, senior diplomats in the bloc said.

“Now it looks like we have to wait till the week after the Council to find out what happens,” said a diplomat.

Bercow said his ruling, based on a convention dating back to 1604, should not be considered his last word and the government could bring forward a new proposition that was not the same as those already voted upon.

Barclay, who last week said Britain should be unafraid of a no-deal exit, indicated the government was looking at different options and that circumstances, such an extension or a shift in support, would indicate a change in context.

“The speaker himself has pointed to possible solutions, he himself has said in earlier rulings we should not be bound by precedent,” Barclay said.

“You can have the same motion but where the circumstances have changed.”

“The speaker himself has said that where the will of the House is for a certain course of action, then it is important that the will of the House is respected.”

He ruled out May asking Queen Elizabeth to cut short the entire parliamentary session, known as prorogation, saying involving the 92-year-old monarch in Brexit was a bad idea.

“The one thing everyone would agree on is that involving Her Majesty in any of the issues around Brexit is not the way forward, so I don’t see that a realistic option,” he said.

By Fang Yingxin from People’s Daily

China completed its 3rd UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process on March 15. Le Yucheng, head of the Chinese delegation, described the process as “smooth and successful.”

Le, who is also the Chinese vice Foreign Minister, delivered a keynote speech titled “Meeting People’s Aspiration for a Better Life through Continued Progress on Human Rights in China” at the conference.

In the speech, Le elaborated on the profound concern for human rights in the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era while presenting China’s achievements in promoting human rights since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

He noted that the key to China’s great transformation and the historic progress which were never seen before in the country’s human rights development since the founding of the PRC is China’s “strong commitment to socialism with Chinese characteristics and to the path of human rights development with Chinese characteristics, one that takes the national conditions as the foundation, the people as the center, development as the priority, the rule of law as the criterion and openness as the driving force.”

“We are happy to accept all recommendations that are consistent with China’s conditions and conducive to our human rights development,” Le said in the speech, announcing that China has decided to accept the 284 recommendations raised by various parties.

Both the number and proportion (82 percent) of recommendations accepted by China were among the highest in major countries, according to Le, who also responded to issues concerned by various parties in his keynote speech, including issues relating to Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Delegates of countries including Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan and the Philippines spoke at the conference, making positive comments on China’s accomplishments in human rights development and praising the country for taking part in the UPR in an open, confident, and honest manner.

China is welcome to give earnest and responsible feedback on the recommendations put forward by various parties, said the foreign delegates, expressing their support to the UN Human Rights Council in adopting the 3rd UPR Outcome Report on China.

In his remarks, Le refuted sternly the recent accusations made by some countries and non-governmental organizations against the vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, saying the accusations were “groundless”.

China firmly opposes any acts of interfering in the country’s internal affairs and damaging the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity under the disguise of human rights, stressed Le, who reiterated China’s great determination to adhere to the path of human rights development with Chinese characteristics, and to protect and promote human rights.

At the end of the conference, warm applause filled the venue, while delegates of many countries congratulated the Chinese delegation on the formal adoption of the 3rd UPR Outcome Report on China.

The final report on China’s 3rd UPR was adopted and widely recognized by the UN Human Rights Council, according to Le. “Wide recognitions” of China’s achievements in human rights development, China’s path of human rights development, and China’s determination to promote human rights were witnessed at the conference, expressed Le.

Delegates of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Macao SAR were present at the conference.

The conference was chaired by Coly Seck, President of the UN Human Rights Council and Permanent Representative of Senegal to the UN Office at Geneva. Yu Jianhua, Permanent Representative of China to the UN Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland attended the conference.

Representatives of relevant Chinese government agencies including the Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Leading Group for Reform of the Judicial System and the United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee were also present at the conference.

By Gu Zhongyang and Yu Jingxian from People’s Daily

China has lifted 82.39 million people out of poverty over the past six years, cutting the poverty headcount ratio to 1.7 percent from 10.2 percent, according to the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

The office also indicated that the country’s three-year action plan on poverty alleviation got off to a good start. China lifted 13.86 million people out of poverty in 2018, lowering the poverty headcount ratio by 1.4 percentage points from the year before. Over 10 million people were lifted out of poverty each year from 2013 to 2018.

China has made solid progress in poverty alleviation in areas of extreme poverty. In 2018, the country allocated an additional 12 billion yuan of poverty alleviation fund, or 60 percent of its additional fund in this aspect, to “three regions and three prefectures,” which include Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibetan regions in four provinces, southern parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan province, and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province.

More focus has been put on deeply impoverished areas, including a breakthrough collaboration on poverty alleviation between the eastern and western regions, the “pairing assistance” program that allows rich regions of the country to offer financial and personnel support to extremely impoverished regions, and assigning officials from central government departments to designated rural areas for targeted poverty alleviation

An estimated 1.3 million people in the “three regions and three prefectures” got rid of poverty in 2018, with the poverty headcount ratio dropping 6.4 percentage points, 3.3 percentage points higher than the average decline in the western region. An estimated 4.8 million people in 334 deeply impoverished counties were lifted out of poverty in the same year.

Last year, 9 provinces and cities in east China provided financial assistance of 17.7 billion yuan and donations of 4.8 billion yuan from all sectors of society to impoverished western regions, and helped 1.44 million people escape from poverty by means of employment transfer.

A range of major poverty alleviation measures have been implemented, including poverty alleviation by fostering distinctive industries, advancing relocation, carrying out ecological restoration, strengthening education and improving social security.

The country has focused efforts on supporting poor farmers in poverty-stricken areas through fostering planting and breeding industries. It has made great progress in reducing poverty by promoting photovoltaic power facilities and e-commerce, and improved the mechanism of helping impoverished households reduce poverty.

By means of employment transfer, the country created employment opportunities for 2.59 million people in 2018. It established more than 30,000 poverty alleviation workshops, helping 770,000 registered impoverished people get employed in areas closer to their home.

The country has improved the basic conditions of poorly built and low performing rural schools providing compulsory education in poor areas, and made greater efforts to control the proportion of children dropping out of school.

Poverty alleviation through medical security has also been implemented. The program to provide medical treatment to impoverished people with serious diseases in rural areas was expanded to cover 21 kinds of diseases and over 10 million poor people have received treatment. China has further reduced the ratio of self-paid health care costs for poor patients, and improved medical treatment conditions in poor areas.

In addition, more than 500,000 people living under China’s poverty line have been employed as government-paid forest rangers through ecological poverty-relief programs.

China will beat poverty with precision poverty alleviation in 2019. The country will be committed to ensuring that the impoverished rural people have stable access to adequate food and clothing, compulsory education, basic medical services and housing, and to achieving indices of major basic public services close to the national average level.

The country will intensify poverty alleviation in areas of extreme poverty like the “three regions and three prefectures” and ensure social safeguards for the most vulnerable groups.

This year, over 10 million people will be lifted out of poverty and around 300 impoverished counties are expected to get rid of poverty, said Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

By Shada Islam

Europe and China can and should work together to enhance connectivity between Asia and Europe. Implementing BRI and connectivity therefore requires Asia-Europe cooperation.

The story of the Silk Road has intrigued me since childhood. The magic of faraway lands, traders bringing soft silk and exotic spices to countries across the long and winding road, the thrill of cultures and peoples meeting each other across the centuries.

Through the years it has been fascinating to see how different countries have tried to resurrect that dream of an inter-connected Eurasia, with varying degrees of success. The Chinese version of the ancient Silk Road, spanning many nations, regions and peoples, is gaining traction across the world.

That’s a good thing. The world needs more investments in infrastructure and connectivity to boost growth and development. However, to succeed and live up to its potential, today’s new Silk Road requires a collaborative effort.

By the time Beijing hosted the BRI Forum in July 2017, knowledge of the Chinese initiative had increased. The turnout of heads of state and government, foreign ministers, business leaders and academics was impressive. The focus was on how to make the blueprint work – and how BRI was going to improve global connectivity.

Two years on, and it’s clear that many countries are actively engaged in BRI and that there is no dearth of projects eligible for BRI funding.

Here in Europe, EU reaction has gone through different phases, starting off with confusion and caution. Recently, the EU has stated that there could be some form of cooperation – provided certain key principles are respected by all those involved in the projects.

Such synergies are discussed within the context of the EU-China Connectivity Platform. European businesses, regions and academics are spending more time, effort and energy in trying to understand the various facets of the BRI.

Our first discussion on BRI was in China in 2014 at a round-table attended by leading Chinese and European scholars. The discussion was quite basic: we were all interested but had many questions.

Since then, the topic has been discussed in all our EU-China meetings. We recognize that while the focus of international discussions is on infrastructure, BRI is also about transport, energy, digital economy and people-to-people contacts.

The new EU connectivity strategy was unveiled in autumn last year and we believe that China and the EU can work together in connectivity and develop the common standards for connectivity projects.

We think that efforts should be made to multilateralize ongoing national and regional discussions on connectivity. Europe and China can and should work together to enhance sustainable connectivity between Asia and Europe. No country or organization can undertake such an immense challenge on its own.

(Shada Islam is Director of Europe and Geopolitics at Friends of Europe)
(Source: People’s Daily)

By Tian Hong from People’s Daily

Shanghai is currently digging more potential of the China International Import Expo (CIIE), turning the 6-day event into an all-year-round trading platform.

The first CIIE attracted 3,617 foreign exhibitors to Shanghai within only 6 days last November and generated a total trading value of $57.8 billion. To sustain the performance, Shanghai opened an import commodity exhibition and trading center a month after the conclusion of the event, bearing a hope to turn exhibits into commodities.

So far, over 20 commodities that were popular at the first CIIE have been introduced to the Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center, including Spanish cured ham, Australian wines, and Japanese rice.

The center provides a package of services including bonded exhibition, transaction, logistics and storage, and customs clearance.
Bonded trading has two major advantages when compared with the traditional model in which duties are usually paid before the transaction. On one hand, it enables merchants to pay their duties after the sales, which grants the merchants more flexibility of cash flow by lowering capital occupation; on the other hand, the commodities, if failing to find the proper markets, can be returned to the bonded warehouses and shipped to other destinations without paying duties.
A rice brand from Japan’s Hokkaido witnessed huge popularity at the first CIIE. Its products later completed debut in the Chinese market under the bonded exhibition trading service by Shanghai Pushihui Import and Export Co. Ltd.

Under the innovative mode, the rice is directly transported to a bonded warehouse beside the Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center, and duties will be collected at the end of each month after the products are sold. Thus, the price of the rice is 10 percent lower thanks to the cut of cost.
The import commodity exhibition and trading center, as a pilot platform of bonded trading, was established under the cross-department efforts of Shanghai Customs, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce and the Administration Committee of Shanghai Hongqiao Central Business District.
The platform reviews the information of applying merchants and adopts dynamic supervision and takes control of the commodity quality through access threshold and withdrawal mechanism.

Furthermore, the platform offers preferential prices of rent, “zero charge” of bonded warehouse and information services, as well as duty-assessment on actual prices, in a bid to save logistics and capital cost for enterprises.
More than 400 brands and 8,000 commodities from over 50 countries have entered the first phase of the Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center, according to an official from the Administration Committee of Shanghai Hongqiao Central Business District.
Now the planning of the second-phase project has been completed, and a bonded logistics center for multi-users will be put into use at the second CIIE, the official introduced.

To make full use of the spillover effect of the CIIE, Shanghai is speeding up in building a new mechanism for an open economy at a higher level.
A slew of innovative mechanisms has been rolled out, such as the acceptance of inspection results for imported commodities, the pilot program of overseas pre-inspection for products to be debuted in Shanghai, and the pre-classification mechanism for newly released products.
By doing so, Shanghai aims to build itself into a globally renowned shopping center, a major destination of first launches, a prioritized destination for high-end brands, and a hub for original brands.

In addition, the city has set up relevant standards to attract brands to stage “world debuts” of products and to open the world’s first flagship franchises in Shanghai. It enhanced efforts on the protection of trademarks of “first-launch” products and included qualified brands debuting their products in Shanghai in a key protection list.

Owing to the policies and regulations in the past, time and places of foreign brands’ marketing campaigns and promotions were always limited, which resulted in a weak motivation for internationally renowned brands to debut their products in Shanghai.
To change the situation, Shanghai Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau opened a “green channel” to build the city into a destination for more “world debut” activities.

Statistics indicated that in 2017, a total of 1,265 domestic and foreign brands chose Shanghai as the place to make the initial launch of their products. The figure doubled between Jan. and Oct. 2018, with 2,890 renowned brands organizing “world debut” activities in the city.

Agency Report

40 million manicure products, 30 million makeup sets, 10 million pairs of tights, 10 million pairs of underpants, 8 million lipsticks, and a wig every two seconds — China’s fast-moving consumer goods have witnessed soaring sales on Alibaba’s online global retail platform AliExpress over the last year.

With continuous exploration and development into overseas markets, more foreign customers are buying consumer goods from China with a simple click on AliExpress, suggested a report on the global beauty economy released by AliExpress on March 12.

Beauty products were the most popular at the beginning of this year, with an increase of online orders in key markets including France, the U.S., and the Middle East exceeding 40 percent, revealed the report.

In the past half a year, AliExpress has seen the number of online shops selling beauty products rise by over 35 percent, indicated the report, also showing that more than 600 official online flagship makeup brand stores have created a high annual growth of 100 percent, raising the number of products available online by 50 percent.

Nail polish, eyelash extensions, and makeup brushes have topped the hot list, while people in Russia, the U.S. and France have been the most frequent buyers of cosmetics on AliExpress.

Sales of beauty kits on AliExpress increased by 300 percent last year, while sales of skin care products were 10 times higher than that of average sales on the South Korea market, said the report.

Fashionable boutique jewelry from China has also been growing in popularity on the platform, with sales from European and American countries rising more than 35 percent, while sales in Asian countries including Japan, South Korea and Thailand have increased by over 200 percent.

Original jewelry designs from China are becoming increasingly trendy according to the report, indicating that these unique designs have been bought as far away as Burkina Faso in the west of Africa and New Caledonia in Oceania.

Hair loss has become a universal problem, according to data from AliExpress, showing that sales of hair-loss prevention products have increased by 150 percent over the last year, ranking first among all categories on the platform.

Various products relating to hair loss prevention including hair regrowth essential oils, combs, and hairline concealer have also been welcomed in overseas markets, and that the proportion of male buyers in this sector has been rising year upon year.

In 2018, the proportion of males buying hair-loss prevention and hair regrowth products rose by 11 percent compared with the figure in the previous year, reaching 46 percent, said the report.

Chinese wigs have become one of the most popular items on AliExpress. Wig sales on the platform have reached 7 billion yuan a year, with the most famous wig companies in Xuchang, central China’s Henan Province, seeing a daily sales volume of 40,000 and annual revenue of 1.5 billion yuan (about $223.5 million).

Wig prices on the platform usually range from $100 to $300, while the most expensive costs up to $800.

The report noted that the U.S., the U.K., France, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Italy had bought the most wigs on the platform. It showed that online sales of wigs in European countries had risen by over 50 percent, while in 10 African countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, and Tanzania, the figure had grown by up to 300 percent.

Source: People’s Daily Online

By Wang Cong

China’s top legislature on March 15 passed a highly anticipated new foreign investment law, paving the way for an overhaul of the country’s regulatory system for foreign investment that would offer investors greater access and better protection.

The 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) voted to adopt the draft foreign investment law, in one of the most important legislative achievements from this year’s NPC annual session, which concluded on March 15.

Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a presidential decree to promulgate the law.

(On the afternoon of March 10, the Shanghai delegation held a group meeting to review the draft foreign investment law during the two sessions.
Photo: People’s Daily Online)

The new law would replace three existing laws on various types of foreign investment and become the first unified legal standard for foreign investment activities in the country.

The law enjoyed overwhelming support at the NPC, with 2,929 deputies voting for the passage of the law, eight against and eight abstentions. The law will come into effect on 1 January 2020.

After deliberation on the draft law, lawmakers made seven amendments, including adding a clause to prohibit administrative agencies and their employees from revealing commercial secrets, according to the Beijing News.

The amendments also included stronger language on protecting foreign firms’ intellectual property rights (IPR), replacing a phrase about encouraging technology cooperation based on a volunteering principle and commercial rules, with one about taking strict legal actions against IPR infringement.

Consisting of 41 articles in 6 different parts, the law provides a legal basis for various aspects of foreign investments from classification to management. Overall the law offers foreign investors equal treatment, greater access, and better legal protection.

“[The law] provides more comprehensive and equal treatment to foreign companies and is very modernized and also fitting for our country’s development,” Wong Yuk-shan, an NPC deputy and president of the Opening University of Hong Kong who voted for the law, told the Global Times on March 15.

“The law would improve the transparency in all aspects for foreign companies and will attract more [foreign investors] to China,” said Ian Fok Chun-wan, an NPC deputy from Hong Kong and CEO of the Fok Ying Tung Group.

Actions to follow

That is expected to be followed by amended rules and regulations from the State Council, China’s cabinet, for implementation of the new law, said Kong Qingjiang, vice dean of the School of International Law at China University of Political Science and Law.

“It is basic, which means it is not very specific and would likely require the State Council to set what’s known as the administrative regulations,” he said.

The State Council will introduce a series of matching regulations and normative documents to protect foreign companies’ rights and interests under the new law, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at a press conference on March 15, after the conclusion of the NPC session.

The State Council will release a shortened negative list for foreign investments, which means more sectors will be open to foreign companies, and propose revisions to laws governing IPR and set up a punitive mechanism to better protect foreign firms’ IPR.

“In a word, China will further open up and China’s opening-up measures will not come on a one-time basis but will be introduced over time,” Li said.

Among the regulations, the State Council would likely draft new rules regarding the national security review of foreign investments and a negative list for foreign investors, Kong said.

The new changes made to the draft law also included a part that gives the State Council the power to draft specific rules for the implementation of the new law to ensure a proper transition period for foreign companies already operating in the country, according to the Beijing News.

But, Kong said, all the rules and regulations must be in line with the new law, which also underscored equal opportunity for foreign companies to government procurement and better services from all levels of governments to help foreign companies.

New amendments to the draft law further clarified those parts by adding services to government procurement of foreign goods and adding streamlining administrative process and improving efficiency, to improve better services for foreign investors.

Source: Global Times/People’s Daily