Chengdu Time. The Panda City.

SW China province to raise minimum wag....

admin — 2011-12-23 0:16:04

CHENGDU, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Sichuan province will hike the minimum monthly wage by about 23.4 percent starting Jan. 1, 2012, to help attract laborers facing rapidly rising living costs, local authorities said Thursday.

The minimum monthly wage will be raised to 1,050 yuan (166 U.S. dollars), 960 yuan, 880 yuan and 800 yuan in regions at different levels of development, the provincial human resources and social security office said in a statement.

Sichuan, with a population of 89 million, is a major source of migrant workers for major cities around China, especially in the eastern coastal manufacturing hubs.

In the southern economic powerhouse of Shenzhen, local authorities plan to raise the minimum monthly wage by 15 percent to 1,500 yuan in January to attract laborers.

Severe labor shortages and rising living costs in Chinese cities prompted wage hikes both this year and last year.

Twenty-one provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had raised the minimum monthly wage by an average of 21.7 percent by October this year, according to Yin Chengji, spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Sichuan Airlines expanding network fro....

admin — 2011-12-20 23:43:37

Sichuan Airlines is joining the growing list of second-tier Chinese carriers which are setting their sights on the long-haul international market. Sichuan Airlines general manager Li Haiying, as quoted by Carnoc.com this month, stated the carrier��s international network expansion would take off next year, supported by the carrier��s A330-200 fleet, leased from AerCap.

Sichuan Airlines commenced international services in 2007 and now operates a network of nine Southeast Asian destinations. Destinations in its network include Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Phuket, Saipan, Seoul Incheon, Taichung, Tapei Songshan and Taipei Taoyuan. The carrier operates only within Asia at present, with around 11,600 seats deployed on these services per week. It plans to expand this network profile considerably to include destinations in Europe, North America and Australia.

Air China to Open Kathmandu-Chengdu Ro....

admin — 2011-12-20 23:42:56

CHENGDU, China, Dec. 20, 2011 /NEWS.GNOM.ES/ �� Starting January 5, Air China��s southwest offshoot will open rotations from Chengdu to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, also known as the ��City of Temples��, giving culture enthusiasts an additional travel option. The introduction of the new services will bring the number of foreign destinations served by Air China��s flights to and from Chengdu up to six and further cement the city��s position as a regional hub of the carrier.

The two weekly flights, CA437 / 8, will be operated with A319 aircraft. The new services will spare the passengers the trouble of having to transfer in Lhasa, thusly cutting the travel time of one journey from 4 hours to 2 hours. Meanwhile, the new services will also optimize Air China��s Chengdu-based international route network.

Kathmandu has always been a draw for both domestic and international tourists. With Chengdu��s unique position in the travel market of southwest China, it is expected that leisure travelers will be the bulk of the passenger traffic on the route.

Philips settles LED factory in SW China

admin — 2011-12-17 22:29:52

Philips (China) Investment Co., Ltd and Chengdu municipal government have signed an agreement on strategic cooperation.

The agreement for the settlement of Philips LED project in Chengdu High-tech Zone was also reached on the same day and Philips announced its second headquarters in China will be launched there.

According to the strategic cooperation agreement, Philips will start an industrial park in the Chengdu zone, which will promote the energy-saving and sustainable development projects in the city and its neighboring areas.

Philips LED factory in Chengdu is a 25-million-euro project, which will be initiated early next year and be put into operation in 2013.

Chengdu, China's Third Telecommunicati....

admin — 2011-12-16 15:17:11

CHENGDU, China, Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Connected World Forum 2011-- focusing solely on next-generation mobile communications technology and business trends, organized by Chengdu hi-tech zone and Chengdu Tianfu Software Park, has successfully been held in Chengdu, China, and attracted worldwide major telecommunication personnel from China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Docomo, and Korea Telecom.

Chengdu, located in West China, the capital of Sichuan province, has gained fast development in the telecommunication industry in recent years, and has gradually become the third communication city after Beijing and Shenzhen. In the north, Beijing, as the country's political and cultural center, is home to a large number of enterprises in these sectors from different parts of the world. In the south, the coastal city, Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, has always been at the forefront of the reforms and opening up, and has two industry leaders, Huawei and ZTE. However, Chengdu has managed to become a sort of third leg of this information and communication transformation.

Chengdu has a large talent pool for research and development. In the 1950s, China's State Council decided to set the city up as a communications technology R&D base to meet national defense demands, and in 1956 established the Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology to educate a large pool of communications technology personnel in research and development. As for now, Chengdu has more than 70 research institutes, 30 plus enterprise technology centers, 50 plus state-level research labs, and around 40 institutes of higher education providing IT related programs, including Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology, Sichuan University, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu University of Information Technology, etc. According to the latest public statistics, there are 2.27 million technicians and engineers working in the city, among them, of which 220,000 people are employed in the software industry. The Chengdu labor market in the sector is very stable with low turnover rate, 8%, in comparison to other cities in China.

"Go West" has become the irreversible trend of IT industry

When the financial crisis hit the global IT industry in 2008, a series of transfers began to take place. Chengdu, with sound infrastructure, preferential policies, low operating costs, plenty of human resources, and good services, became one focus of this global IT industrial transfer. As for November of 2011, there are now 207 of the Fortune Global 500 firms, including IBM, Alcatel, Siemens, GE, Cisco, Ericsson, SAP, and Accenture, operating in Chengdu. Of the world's top 20 software firms, 11 have a presence there. In October 2010, Forbes magazine put Chengdu at the top of its list of The World's Fastest-Growing Cities over the next decade. In July of this year, Fortune magazine called Chengdu one of the best emerging business cities in the world. A senior economist from Asian Development Bank has noted that inland cities, such as Chengdu, have the conditions to attract firms from coastal metropolises who are trying to escape the high cost of land, production and traffic.

Currently, Chengdu has a large number of World-class enterprises, mainly covering three sectors in the communication industry. By November of this year, the world's major communications equipment manufacturers -- Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, and ZTE -- all had research institutes there. Among them, Huawei research institute will gather over 10 000 engineers to focus on TD-LTE's research and development in line with China's 4G standard. In the communications chip area, Freescale, Fujitsu, MediaTek, and Marvell are all in Chengdu; meanwhile, in mobile terminals, Foxconn, Dell, Lenovo, and TCL have successively located here. At present, 50% of all laptop computer chips are tested in Chengdu, and 20% of all computers worldwide, as well as 70% of Apple iPads will be produced here.

To share the technology innovation of mobile communication, build the exchange platform of industry information, and discover the future market opportunity of industries, Chengdu hi-tech zone and Chengdu Tianfu Software Park have organized two of China's professional summits, Connected World Forum in December of 2010 and 2011, focusing solely on next-generation mobile communications technology and business trends. The ideas and views generated at these summits have been leading the development of next generation mobile communication industry.

Chengdu, the emerging city of mobile communication, with a large talent pool and a booming industry environment, has gradually become the third city of China's telecommunication industry.

About Chengdu Tianfu Software Park

Chengdu Tianfu Software Park (TSP) is Asia's largest professional software park and one of China's 10 largest software industry bases. It has a planned construction area of 2.2 million square meters and a developed construction area of more than 1.3 million square meters. Officially opened in 2005, TSP is now the fastest-growing professional software park in China, attracting more than 300 famous domestic and international enterprises, including IBM, SAP, NEC, GE, NCS, Huawei, Ubisoft, Alibaba, Maersk, Siemens, Ericsson, Tencent, Wipro, DHL and Manulife Financial, 40% of which are foreign-funded enterprises and 25 Fortune Global 500 companies, with a total population of nearly 35,000 employees. The park has successfully promoted industrial clusters of business software, ITO, digital entertainment, telecommunications and BPO/back office service centers and has become the first choice for leading domestic and international software and service outsourcing enterprises in their China strategic layouts.

2011 China (Chengdu) Internet of Thing....

admin — 2011-12-16 15:16:05

This year's Internet of Things Forum, held from Nov 23 to 24, came to a conclusion in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Under the theme, "Perceive Chengdu, a city of wisdom," the forum included an executive summit, a variety of forums, a project signing ceremony, economic and trade negotiations, and an exhibition to show the city's achievements.

More than 500 representatives from IBM, the US Measurement Specialties Inc, Chunghwa Telecom, Qisda, Lenovo, Hewlett Packard and other foreign and domestic leading enterprises and trade associations attended the forum.

The Internet of things generated the third wave in the world's information industry, following the computer and Internet. It is a strategic high ground to seize the new round of economic and technological developments.

In 2010, Chengdu formulated the Chengdu Internet of Things Development Plan, striving to develop the city in the Internet of things industry and to offer advanced, first-class deliveries.

The Internet of things industry in the city's new and high-tech development zone yielded an output valued at more than 6.5 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) in the first half of 2011. A total of 20 billion yuan is expected to be achieved in Chengdu's Internet of things industrial chain throughout 2011.

Chengdu tech park welcomes influx of f....

admin — 2011-12-16 15:15:48

CHENGDU - Philips (China) Investment Co Ltd announced plans on Thursday to invest more than 25 million euros ($32 million) in the next four years to build a plant to make light-emitting diodes in the Chengdu High-tech Industrial Development Zone.

It was the latest in a stream of technological investment that has flown into this Southwestern Chinese city, once perhaps best known for panda bears and spicy cuisine.

"In the future, we will build a second regional headquarters and make more investments in the central and western regions," said Patrick Kung, chief executive officer of Philips Greater China.

Philips (China) Investment Co Ltd is the latest technological company to follow Intel Corp, a maker of computer chips and other components, which announced plans in August 2003 to invest $375 million to build a chip-assembly and testing plant in the Chengdu High-Tech Industrial Development Zone.

Intel continued to spend money there after its plant started production in September 2005. The same year, it announced plans to build a microprocessor-assembly and testing center and a state-of-the-art training and conference center at the site.

The expansion brought Intel's total investment in Chengdu to $525 million.

Seeing the success of that expansion, more technology companies have turned their eyes to Sichuan.

On Oct 17, Siemens AG, a giant electronic and electrical-engineering company, announced it had chosen the Chengdu high-tech zone as a base for automated manufacturing and research (R&D)and development.

When it begins operations in the first half of 2012, the base will be the third R&D center for the company's industrial automation business.

Since 2008, nearly $20 billion in foreign investment has found its way to Sichuan, surpassing the total sum of foreign investment the province had seen in the past three decades, according to Zhang Gu, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Investment Promotion.

Most of the foreign investment has gone into the Chengdu high-tech zone.

All year round, potential investors have visited the zone to assess if they can start a business there. Because so many have shown an interest, the zone is very strict in screening investment projects and usually accepts only large proposals, according to officials with the administrative committee.

A total of 166 Fortune 500 firms from overseas have invested in Sichuan, which is more than have gone into any other province in central and western China. Fifty of them have invested in the Chengdu high-tech zone.

Chendu's appeal stems largely from its position as a center of transport, telecommunications, shipping, commerce, trade and finance in southwest China.

In 1992, the State Council designated the city as a hub for those activities.

In recent years, the city has accelerated work to build a network of railways, flights and expressways. February saw operations start for the first phase of an air cargo terminal at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, which will be the largest of its kind in central and western China.

Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, which will become the first with two runways in central and western China, is used by 25 million passengers a year. It has 19 direct international routes to destinations such as Amsterdam and Bangalore.

In October 2010, the US-based magazine Forbes announced which cities it believed will become the fastest-growing economies in the next 10 years.

New highways, railways and an air network connect Chengdu with different parts of China and international cities, the magazine noted.

Because of its improved transport system, Chengdu has become more attractive to international corporations, which are often eager to avoid the high land prices, high production costs and traffic jams often found in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other coastal cities, the magazine said.

Chengdu is also one of the cities with the greatest concentration of institutions of higher learning and of scientific research institutes in the southwest of the country.

It is also home to nearly 600,000 science and technology workers. Each year, the city furnishes businesses with more than 100,000 college graduates and about 80,000 skilled workers, said Chengdu's Mayor Ge Honglin.

Since 2001, the city government has cancelled 1,059 of the requirements companies must meet to gain official approval to conduct business, or 91 percent of its requirements.

A business that submits a complete application to the city will only have to wait three and half hours to receive an approval, so long as it meets the city's requirements, said Sun Ping, Chengdu executive mayor.

Chongqing, a city bordering Sichuan province to the east, has also witnessed a sharp increase in the amount of foreign investment it attracts.

In 2000, it had attracted fewer than $300 million from overseas. By this past year, though, the figure had increased to $4 billion.

More than 180 Fortune 500 firms have invested in the city, and that number is expected to surpass 200 by the end of the year, according to Chongqing's Mayor Huang Qifan.

Like Chengdu, Chongqing has become an alternative location for multinational corporations desperate to avoid the high land and production costs found in China's coastal regions.

The influx of these companies has brought jobs and higher incomes to the people of Southwest China.

In 2010, Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, one of the largest electronics manufacturers in the world, announced plans to invest $5 billion to build a production base in Chengdu. The company alone has brought about 100,000 jobs to Sichuan.

Du Juan contributed to this story.

A Chinese Panda in Edinburgh

admin — 2011-12-15 20:43:07

Visitors to a Scottish zoo can soon look forward to some Yuletide cheer, courtesy of Mother Nature. And China.

Having arrived last week via the Panda Express, Yang Guang and Tian Tian are shaking off the jetlag and settling into life at Edinburgh Zoo.

They��ve had a few changes to get used to. As well as chilly surroundings, the pair of giant pandas will need to familiarize themselves with the accents of their Scottish zookeepers, which no doubt differ slightly from that of their carers back in Sichuan Province.

(PHOTOS: Giant Panda People)

But although male Yang Guang has hit the ground running, already becoming acquainted with the new keepers and enclosure, his lady friend Tian Tian has kept appearances to the bare necessity and spends most of her waking hours resting out of sight.

The pair was unveiled to the media on Monday, and paying visitors will be allowed to see the giant pandas for the first time on Friday.

And having come with a hefty price tag, the Edinburgh Zoo is hoping Yang Guang and Tian Tian will prove a big draw for crowds. The zoo is paying China the equivalent of $1 million a year for the decade-long loan and will have to return the pair, as well as any cubs they produce, at the end of this period.

But the zoo��s chief executive, Hugh Roberts, believes the bamboo-loving bears will cover their costs in gate fees alone, predicting visitor numbers to swell by as much as 70% in the first year. And even if they don��t, Edinburgh officials insist finance doesn��t come into the equation, as the bears are part of an international conservation effort.

So while the rest of Europe sweats over an economic apocalypse, it seems the monochrome mammals have been given carte blanche to put their paws up and chew some bamboo. Anyone know where NewsFeed can buy a panda costume?

Australian ambassador visits Chengdu

admin — 2011-12-15 20:38:58

Chengdu, Sichuan province and Perth, in Australia are sister cities. Two giant pandas of Chengdu are living in an Adelaide zoo. Four Australian universities are launching cooperative programs with its Chengdu counterparts.

Francesco Adamson is familiar with Chengdu. On Nov 29th, the first female Australian Ambassador to China said in her second trip to Chengdu that she knows it well. She often tells Australians from all walks of life that, "China not only has Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou but it has Chengdu, too."

As an Australian Ambassador to China, Adamson says her most important task is to deepen investment relations and promote social friendly exchanges between the two countries.

"Australia welcomes Chinese companies to invest in our country as China is our largest trade partner and we are China's seventh largest trade partner. We hope the two countries will enhance mutual understanding," said Adamson. Australian companies are skilled in the service sector, including clean energy, renewable energy, city planning, education, financial service and legal service. "We hope to help China to better implement the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) with our expertise."

"Sichuan province and Chengdu are famous in Australia," said Adamson. In March of 2009, Adamson paid her first visit to Chengdu, looking into reconstruction efforts in the earthquake struck areas. Two years later, she revisited Chengdu and saw that post-disaster reconstruction had basically been completed. Sichuan and Chengdu maintain sustainable and rapid economic growth.

"Australia and China have kept friendly exchanges among the people. I wish Australian cities could have direct flights with Chengdu for more convenient communications," said Adamson.

Adamson said that the two countries have sound cooperation in the artistic and cultural sectors. In the Spring Festival period next year, Chengdu Art Delegation will visit Australia.

Speaking of the sisterhood between Chengdu and Perth, Adamson said, "I talked with the mayor of Perth who believed the two cities are keeping close ties. Adelaide, my hometown, has also scored special relations with Chengdu. Wang Wang and Fu Ni, two giant pandas, are living in the Adelaide zoo. Chengdu is famous in Australia."

Adamson said that Xihua University has an Australian research center, and four Australian universities are keeping cooperation projects with Chengdu.

In the end, Adamson said in Chinese "I expect to take a trip to Chengdu with my husband and children, a trip having nothing to do with work, but simply with enjoying life."

Etihad Airways commences historic flig....

admin — 2011-12-15 20:38:34

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, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, today commenced scheduled services between its hub in Abu Dhabi and Chengdu in southwest China.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, will be served by four non-stop, return services per week.

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James Hogan said the new route had special significance as the first and only direct flight link between Sichuan province and the United Arab Emirates.

"This is a day of celebration for the airline and the communities at both ends of the route.

"The new services will open convenient new gateways for travel to and from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and stimulate growth of trade between the UAE and China, already the Emirates' third largest trading partner."

Mr Hogan said forecast demand from the passenger and cargo sectors was strong and the airline expected to go daily when commercially viable.

"The Chengdu Municipal Government and airport authorities have been great supporters and we look forward to working together to make the route a commercial success."

The Mayor of Chengdu Mr Honglin Ge said: "The Chengdu Municipal Government and airport authorities have been great supporters from the very beginning and we look forward to working together to make the route a success."

"The commencement of Etihad AirwaysEtihad AirwaysEtihad Air

services to Chengdu is an exciting event for the people of Chengdu and we are delighted to welcome them joining us to promote the development of an air transport hub in Chengdu."

will operate a two-class Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the sector with 22 Pearl Business class and 240 Coral Economy class seats.

In other major developments this week, Etihad AirwaysEtihad AirwaysEtihad Airways signed a codeshare agreement with Hainan Airlines applicable to flights from Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu to Abu Dhabi and Khartoum, and exchanged a Letter of Intent with Sichuan Airlines Co Ltd covering broad areas of commercial cooperation.

In China, it's panda census time

admin — 2011-12-13 10:49:54

SANHE, China -- If pandas weren't so darn cute, we wouldn't be up in the clouds at the edge of a mountain ravine slick with moss and mud, clinging for life to shoots of bamboo.

And get this: There is almost zero chance that we'll actually see a panda. We keep our eyes on the ground, not just to keep from falling, but because the best we can hope for is to discover panda droppings (and even the chances of that aren't so hot).

"To be honest, I've been working in these mountains for 20 years and I've never seen a panda in the wild," says Dai Bo, 43, a wildlife biologist with China's Forestry Ministry who's wearing a camouflage jacket and hiking boots and has a zoom-lens Canon around his neck - just in case.

Dai is leading a six-person team through the fog-shrouded mountains of Sichuan province to conduct the first census in a decade of China's endangered panda population. Although Dai's specialty is predatory birds, all wildlife researchers are being pressed into service whether they love pandas or not - and one does sense a certain panda fatigue.

"If you're in Sichuan province, you've got to study pandas," Dai says with resignation.

The last survey, conducted in 2000-2001, showed just 1,596 pandas living in the wild in China.

Since then, China's breakneck growth and construction of roads, railroads and utility lines have driven the panda population into isolated mountain enclaves, where they are vulnerable to inbreeding and starvation.

Over the next year, more than 100 people will fan out across 12,000 square miles of treacherous mountain passes in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, stalking the giant panda or its droppings.

On a recent day, a handful of the census workers convene 120 miles southwest of Chengdu in Sanhe, a mountain village where corn hangs drying from the rafters of wooden houses and women carry baskets of mountain herbs on their backs.

After a night in an unheated guesthouse with concrete floors, the workers divide into groups. Dai's team takes off in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, bouncing down a dirt road to the base of a mountain called Daping, part of the Xiangling range.

A 72-year-old villager, a stocky man carrying a sickle to cut through the underbrush, serves as a guide. He scrambles uphill like a goat, pausing from time to time to roll and smoke a cigarette, looking down with contempt at the scientists and journalists laboring to catch up.

Underfoot, the ground is dense with moldering wood and moss. The slopes are lush with firs, cedar, palm and ficus and plenty of good things to eat: wild kiwis, hazelnuts and fire berries from the pyracantha bush. But pandas prefer bamboo, which they consume in copious quantities.

Panda droppings are pale green and look a little like bundles of twigs. When the team finds them, a junior researcher accompanying Dai does a maneuver that any U.S. dog owner would recognize, grabbing it with his hand inside a plastic bag that he then turns inside out and ties shut. With a handheld GPS device, the team also records the precise locations where excrement is found.

Each panda's droppings are a signature, varying according to how thoroughly the animal chomps the bamboo. Back at the lab, researchers extract and measure the stalks of bamboo. By studying the samples and their locations, the scientists can get a rough idea how many pandas are in a particular area. For this census, they will also conduct DNA analysis of the poop.

"It's much harder to do a census of pandas than of people. With a human census, people talk to people. You have no other way of communicating with the pandas," says Hong Mingsheng, one of the researchers.

On Daping mountain, the bamboo grows as thick as a man's thumb and is closely spaced like the bars of a cage. The guide swings his sickle to clear a path, but it's no use: Runners wrap around our feet and prickly branches grab at our hair.

"The bamboo is too dense here. No good for big animals," says the villager, Yang Pingfang.

It turns out to be a frustrating day. Over nine hours of hiking, the team finds no panda droppings, only the excrement of a black bear, which looks like spilled coffee grounds.

"Anybody who has experienced our work knows it is not that glamorous. It is sometimes boring and lonely," says junior researcher Yang Yi, 30, who estimates he will cover nearly 900 miles over the next year for the panda census.

The results won't be published until 2013 at the earliest. The scientists hope to find that the population has rebounded thanks to intensive conservation efforts.

Since the 1980s, the number of nature reserves where hunting, trapping and logging are banned has increased from 13 to 60. A 2006 survey by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found 66 pandas in the Wanglang reserve in Sichuan province, double an earlier estimate.

At nightfall, waiting for the jeep to pick them up, the scientists chat with villagers, who during the day had said they seldom see pandas in wild. Their stories seem to grow more fanciful with the consumption of baijiu, the strong white alcohol favored in the Chinese countryside.

"Oh yes, I saw a panda sitting in a tree. It fell down right in front of me," says Feng Quanwu, 50. "We see pandas more often now, so we think there must be more than in the 1980s."

The first organized census of pandas in the 1970s counted about 2,500 in the wild. In the 1980s, the population dropped to 1,114.

Sarah Bexell, director of conservation research at the Chengdu Research Base, where pandas are bred in captivity for reintroduction into the wild, says this type of census is "at best a guesstimate" and that she doubts the numbers are increasing.

"There is no way it could have gone up," says Bexell, who is also a research scholar at the University of Denver. "The Chinese government is trying so terribly hard to protect their national treasure, but until humans globally get our population under control and our consumption habits under control, it's impossible to save wildlife."

She's not optimistic about the future of the panda and says that even captive breeding facilities are "just a game, waylaying the reality."

The panda is often called a living fossil, having inhabited the planet since the days of the saber-toothed tiger. It lives a hermit-like existence in adulthood, avoiding other pandas except during breeding.

One reason the panda is so vulnerable is that bamboo dies off periodically after blooming and pandas so dislike people that they would starve rather than cross an inhabited area to find a fresh source of food.

When Sichuan residents see pandas, it is usually at the reserve, which on a weekday morning teemed with excited schoolchildren. The base occasionally hosts students from mountain villages.

"They have pandas in their backyard," Bexell says, "but they come here so they can actually see them."

China's third major telecommunications....

admin — 2011-12-11 0:31:53

China's information and communication businesses have leapfrogged their way to the front of their respective fields, thanks in a large part to the reforms and opening up that began in the late 1970s, and have even become internationally recognized competitors.

In the north, Beijing, as the country's political and cultural center, is home to a large number of enterprises in these sectors, from different parts of the world. In the south, the coastal city, Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, has always been at the forefront of the reforms and opening up, and has two industry leaders, Huawei and ZTE.

However, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, has managed to become a sort of third leg of this information and communication transformation.

Chengdu has a large pool of talent for research and development. In the 1950s, China's State Council decided to set the city up as a communications technology R&D base to meet national defense demands. Then, in 1956 it established the Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology to provide a large pool of qualified communications technology personnel for research and development.

By now, Chengdu has more than 70 research institutes, 30-plus enterprise technology centers, 50-plus state-level research labs, and around 40 institutes of higher education, which provide IT related programs.

These include Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology, Sichuan University, Southwest Jiaotong University, and Chengdu University of Information Technology.

According to the latest statistics, there are 2.27 million technicians and engineers working in the city, 220,000 of which work in the software industry. Chengdu's labor market is stable and has turnover rate of only 8 percent, much lower than for similar cities in China.

'Go West', an IT industry trend

When the financial crisis hit the global IT industry in 2008, a series of transfers began to take place. Chengdu, with its sound infrastructure, preferential policies, low operating costs, plenty of human resources, and good services, became one focus of this global IT industrial transfer. As of November 2011, it had 207 Fortune Global 500 firms, including IBM, Alcatel, Siemens, GE, Cisco, Ericsson, SAP, and Accenture. Of the world's top 20 software firms, 11 had a presence there.

In October 2010, the US' Forbes magazine put Chengdu at the top of its list of The World's Fastest-growing Cities over the next decade. In July of this year, Fortune magazine called Chengdu one of the best emerging business cities in the world.

A senior economist from the Asian Development Bank has noted that inland cities, such as Chengdu, have the conditions to attract firms from coastal metropolises who are trying to escape high land, production and traffic costs.

Chengdu has a large number of world-class enterprises, mainly in three areas of the communication industry. By November of this year, some of the world's major communications equipment manufacturers - Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, and ZTE - had research institutes there.

The Huawei Research Institute is expected to pull in more than 10,000 engineers, focusing on TD-LTE research and development, in line with China's 4G standard. In the communications chip field, Freescale, Fujitsu, MediaTek, and Marvell have a presence.

In mobile terminals, it has Foxconn, Dell, Lenovo and TCL. Meanwhile, 50 percent of all laptop computer chips are tested in Chengdu, while 20 percent of all computers worldwide, and 70 percent of Apple iPads will be made here.

For the purpose of sharing technological innovations in mobile communication and provide a place for industrial information exchanges, as well as to discover future market opportunities, the Chengdu hi-tech zone has organized two editions of the Connected World Form, in December 2010 and 2011.

They focused solely on next-generation mobile communications technology and business trends, and attracted major telecommunications personnel from China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Docomo, and Korea Telecom.

The ideas that were generated in these submits have helped propel the development of the next generation of the mobile communications industry.

Chengdu is clearly emerging as a mobile communications center with a large pool of talent and a thriving industrial environment, and has in fact become China's third city in the telecommunications industry.

Chengdu has ambitious plans for an old....

admin — 2011-12-11 0:30:26

In a county next to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, an old aviation center has plans to turn itself into a large industrial zone with hundreds of millions of yuan in potential output value. The only question is, how to make the best use of such a large area.

"For years, the airport has contributed a lot to the economy of western China, but now we've got a more ambitious plan to build an international high-tech industrial hub, as part of China's western development plan, and take full advantage of its convenient location and modern facilities," explained Gao Zhijian, the county's Party chief.

Airport economy

Chengdu got the idea about expanding the old 5.1-square-kilometer Shuangliu Airport and logistics park in 2010. It wanted to build a much larger 38 sq km area, as one of 13 industrial zones directly under city government administration.

But, just how to do it was a tough question for Shuangliu county decision makers. After a lengthy series of discussions, they hit upon a reasonable way to manage the problem.

The group of officials contacted Netherlands Airport Consultants BV and the Chengdu Planning and Design Institute to handle the strategic research and overall planning of the project, and the job was done by the end of 2010.

Some of the planning concepts involved high-level industries, city-airport integration, establishing a traffic hub, and a garden-like environment, while making best use of available resources, including the airport, airline companies, and subways.

Once the planning problem was solved, the next issue was how to manage an international complex of this type.

So, a new company was set up in September 2010, with 500 million yuan ($78.4 million), to handle the overall design and construction work.

At the same time, some traditional industries, manufacturing in particular, were finding the Shuangliu plan attractive. In all there were 38 projects, 12 of them now in operation, involving a total of 5 billion yuan.

A second runway and cargo center were added. The existing streets and roads were well suited for logistic and other facilities and made transportation convenient.

In 2011, the zone is expected to have 3.5 billion yuan in fixed assets investment, 41.2 billion yuan in sales, and pay 1.8 billion yuan in taxes.

By the end of 2015, it hopes to increase its assets to 8.7 billion yuan, sales to 100.3 billion yuan, and taxes to 4.5 billion yuan.

Over the next five years, the Chengdu international airport complex expects to become a major traffic hub for western China, and a new force in the city's economy.

Panda Cub experiences first snow at Sa....

admin — 2011-12-11 0:29:22

SAN DIEGO-- There was snow at the San Diego Zoo on Thursday morning. Animal care staff arranged a winter wonderland for two of its pandas, Bai Yun and her two-year-old son, Yun Zi. This is the first time that the young panda had ever seen snow. He came out of his bedroom, tested the snow to see if he could walk on it, and then made his way from one corner of the exhibit to the other.

Zoo horticulture staff constructed a 5-foot holiday tree from two types of bamboo - oldhamii and vivax - that was shaped to resemble a pine tree. They used a large block of ice for the tree stand but it was no match for Yun Zi. He approached the tree, swiftly knocked it over and nibbled the slices of fruit and vegetables that were hung as ornaments.

Yun Zi then climbed up the icy tree stumps in his exhibit and napped above the winter wonderland. His mother, Bai Yun, stuck to her usual habits and sat in the middle of her exhibit munching on her morning bamboo, seeming oblivious to the snow around her.

Guests who are unable to visit the Zoo can still see the pandas live - and now in high definition at - www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam. The Zoo just completed an upgrade to its Panda Cam, allowing online visitors to watch the black-and-white beauties more clearly. The four new high-definition cameras provide viewers with several vantage points in the exhibit as well as activity in the den. The Zoo has more than 200,000 online visitors to its Panda Cam each month.

The special snow day comes just days before the Zoo starts its 3rd annual Jungle Bells celebration. Starting Saturday through January 1, 2012, families can put a wild-animal twist on familiar holiday traditions during the Zoo's 2011 Jungle Bells celebration. The Zoo will stay open until 8 p.m. each night except Dec. 24 - when it will close at 5 p.m. - and guests can expect a flurry of whimsical d��cor and holiday-themed activities including performances by the acrobatic Jumpin', Jammin' Elves and musical trio, Angels with Strings.

The festivities start nightly with a tree-lighting ceremony at the Zoo's living conservation tree. The entrance to the Zoo is filled with the melodic sounds of an English hand bell choir and throughout the evening there are numerous opportunities to meet wintery animals up close. Jungle Bells is free with paid admission to the San Diego Zoo. Most activities occur in late afternoon and early evening.

And just outside the Zoo, the Balboa Park Miniature Railroad, adorned with holiday lights, will be chugging down the tracks from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. during Jungle Bells (except on Dec. 24, when it closes at 4 p.m.)

In China, it's panda census time

admin — 2011-12-8 10:31:36

Reporting from Sanhe, China�� If pandas weren't so darn cute, we wouldn't be up in the clouds at the edge of a mountain ravine slick with moss and mud, clinging for life to shoots of bamboo.

And get this: There is almost zero chance that we'll actually see a panda. We keep our eyes on the ground, not just to keep from falling, but because the best we can hope for is to discover panda droppings (and even the chances of that aren't so hot).

"To be honest, I've been working in these mountains for 20 years and I've never seen a panda in the wild," says Dai Bo, 43, a wildlife biologist with China's Forestry Ministry who's wearing a camouflage jacket and hiking boots and has a zoom-lens Canon around his neck, just in case.

Dai is leading a six-person team through the fog-shrouded mountains of Sichuan province to conduct the first census in a decade of China's endangered panda population. Although Dai's specialty is predatory birds, all wildlife researchers are being pressed into service whether they love pandas or not, and one does sense a certain panda fatigue.

"If you're in Sichuan province, you've got to study pandas," Dai says with resignation.

The last survey, conducted in 2000-'01, showed just 1,596 pandas living in the wild in China.

Since then, China's breakneck growth and construction of roads, railroads and utility lines have driven the panda population into isolated mountain enclaves, where they are vulnerable to inbreeding and starvation.

Over the next year, more than 100 people will fan out across 12,000 square miles of treacherous mountain passes in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, stalking the giant panda or its droppings.

On a recent day, a few census workers convene 120 miles southwest of Chengdu in Sanhe, a mountain village where corn hangs drying from the rafters of wooden houses and women carry baskets of mountain herbs on their backs.

After a night in an unheated guesthouse with concrete floors, the workers divide into groups. Dai's team takes off in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, bouncing down a dirt road to the base of a mountain called Daping, part of the Xiangling range.

A 72-year-old villager, a stocky man carrying a sickle to cut through the underbrush, serves as a guide. He scrambles uphill like a goat, pausing from time to time to roll and smoke a cigarette, looking down with contempt at the scientists and journalists laboring to catch up.

Underfoot, the ground is dense with moldering wood and moss. The slopes are lush with firs, cedars, palms and ficus and plenty of good things to eat: wild kiwis, hazelnuts and fire berries from the pyracantha bush. But pandas prefer bamboo, which they consume in copious quantities.

Panda droppings are pale green and look a little like bundles of twigs. When the team finds them, a junior researcher accompanying Dai does a maneuver that any U.S. dog owner would recognize, grabbing it with his hand inside a plastic bag that he then turns inside out and ties shut. With a handheld GPS device, the team also records the precise locations where excrement is found.

Each panda's droppings are a signature, varying according to how thoroughly the animal chomps the bamboo. Back at the lab, researchers extract and measure the stalks of bamboo. By studying the samples and their locations, the scientists can get a rough idea of how many pandas are in a particular area. For this census, they will also conduct DNA analysis of the poop.

"It's much harder to do a census of pandas than of people. With a human census, people talk to people. You have no other way of communicating with the pandas," says Hong Mingsheng, one of the researchers.

On Daping mountain, the bamboo grows as thick as a man's thumb and is closely spaced like the bars of a cage. The guide swings his sickle to clear a path, but it's no use: Runners wrap around our feet and prickly branches grab at our hair.

"The bamboo is too dense here. No good for big animals," says the villager, Yang Pingfang.

It turns out to be a frustrating day. In more than nine hours of hiking, the team finds no panda droppings, only the excrement of a black bear, which looks like spilled coffee grounds.

"Anybody who has experienced our work knows it is not that glamorous. It is sometimes boring and lonely," says junior researcher Yang Yi, 30, who estimates he will cover nearly 900 miles over the next year for the panda census.

Chengdu: homeland of panda for a reason

admin — 2011-12-7 16:29:53

On Nov 19, Tan Kai, vice president of the Sichuan Provincial Leisure and Cultural Research Society, told stories of giant pandas and Chengdu to local residents. Chengdu lived up to its reputation as the "homeland of the panda".

He said the reputation as the "homeland of the panda" is owed to the city's geographical advantages and historical culture.

The habitat of the panda spreads from the Qinling mountains and the Minshan mountains in the north to Qionglai Mountain, the Daxiangling and Xiaoxiangling mountains and the Daliangshan and Xiaoliangshan mountains. Chengdu is located in the center of this "kingdom of pandas". Panda's habitats are also found in Dujiangyan, Pengzhou, Chongzhou and Dayi in Chengdu's administrative region.

On July 16, 2005, a giant panda walked into the downtown area of Dujiangyan and caused a sensation in the world, setting the foundation for the city's name of the "homeland of panda". On July 12, 2006, Chengdu was listed as the "Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary" on the World Heritage List. In addition, Sichuan is home to the largest artificial propagation panda species.

People in Chengdu love pandas so much, they made the city's mascot in the image of a giant panda. The "Panda Plaza" and "Panda International Shopping Mall" were built in downtown Chengdu. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is currently under extension. Chengdu is striding toward the goal of a forest city. The city is becoming more suitable for pandas to live and give birth to their offspring. Chengdu deserves the reputation of the "homeland of panda".

2011 China (Chengdu) International Sum....

admin — 2011-12-7 16:29:30

Having the theme of "Understanding Chengdu -- a wisdom city", the 2011 China (Chengdu) International Summit for the Internet of Things opened on the morning of Nov 22.

Liu Chao, a member of the standing committee of the Chengdu municipal CPC committee and leader of Chengdu's leading group of the development of the Internet of things industry, attended the summit and delivered a report on the development of the city's Internet of things industry.

On behalf of the Chengdu municipal government, Liu congratulated the success of the summit and introduced the city's economic and social development.

Chengdu has formed several advantageous industry clusters, including the electronic communication. The city's development prospect and investment environment attracted many domestic and international investors. Chengdu has accommodated 200 Fortune 500 companies, the number of which ranking the top among the central and western China.

Chengdu has prioritized the development of the Internet of things industry and considered it as an important measure to transform the economic development pattern and modify the city's industrial structure. Moreover, the plan to construct Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone and the Tianfu new area also provides a good opportunity to accelerate the development of the Internet of things industry.

This is the second time for Chengdu to hold the International Summit of Internet of Things, setting a communication platform for the city's Internet of things industry.

In 2010, the Chengdu municipal government planed to develop Chengdu as an international advanced and domestic leading highland in the industry of the Internet of things industry. Chengdu has also set up an industrial expert panel to establish a coordination mechanism to improve the industrial development administration.

Chengdu plans to build a 3.5-square-kilometer Chengdu Shuangliu Internet of Things Industrial Park, an Internet of things product manufacture base and a technology conversion center. Main roads in the park will be open to traffic by the end of 2011. Chengdu has also begun to build a scientific incubation park of the Internet of things, so as to accelerate the construction of the Internet of things industrial park in the city's high-tech industrial development zone.

Chengdu's high-tech industrial development zone and its Shuangliu county have singed 17 contracts on internet of things projects with an investment of nearly 13.1 billion yuan ($2.06 billion), involving more than 70 companies. Seven projects in the Internet of things industry obtained the national fund support in 2011 with a total investment of 17 million yuan.

Giant pandas arrive in Edinburgh

admin — 2011-12-5 12:53:58

Yang Guang (Sunshine) and Tian Tian (Sweetie) were welcomed to Scotland to the sound of bagpipes as their 'Panda Express' plane touched down at Edinburgh Airport.

The pair will spend 10 years on loan in the Scottish capital, a deal agreed after five years of high-level political and diplomatic negotiations.

Politicians are stressing their importance to relations between Britain and China, while Scotland is hoping for a tourism boost in austere times.

It is hoped the pandas will take advantage of a specially-built "tunnel of love" between their enclosures and breed new cubs that will help preserve the endangered species.

The animals were given an in-flight meal of bamboo, apples, carrots and a special "panda cake" on their journey from Chengdu in south-west China.

The duo were accompanied by two Chinese researchers who will help look after them until they adapt to their new life at Edinburgh Zoo.

On arrival at the airport, Tian Tian was the first to get a blast of the chilly Scottish weather and could be seen checking out her new surroundings through her clear-sided box.

As dignitaries stood by on the tarmac, the pair were loaded onto trucks for the short journey to Edinburgh Zoo, where more bagpipers played traditional Scottish tunes to welcome them.

Locals waved Scottish flags, while some even dressed in panda outfits to cheer their arrival.

"As panda-mania hits Scotland, and we extend a warm Scottish welcome to Tian Tian and Yang Guang, I am delighted to have the opportunity to personally thank the Chinese government," said Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, who is visiting China.

"The great gift of these giant pandas symbolises the great and growing relationship between Scotland and China."

The bears will spend a couple of weeks settling in before being put on public display, and Edinburgh Zoo has already reported a huge spike in ticket sales.

The zoo is paying about $1 million (750,000 euros) a year to the Chinese authorities for the pandas.

It has built two separate enclosures for the visitors, which are quite solitary, although they will be linked by a tunnel in the hope they will mate.

Each area contains an indoor section and a large outdoor enclosure containing lots of plants, trees, a pond and somewhere for them to shelter from the sun, a spokeswoman for the zoo said.

The pandas are expected to eat up to $105,000 (80,000 euros) worth of bamboo a year, with the zoo growing 15 per cent and the rest imported from the Netherlands.

As of December 16, visitors to the zoo will be able to look in on the outdoor enclosure, while internet users can follow Yang Guang on hidden "panda-cams".

Britain's deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said the pandas' arrival was "a reflection of the strength of our relationship with China.

"It shows that we can co-operate closely not only on commerce, but on a broad range of environmental and cultural issues as well."

China is famed for its "panda diplomacy", using the endangered bears as diplomatic gifts to other countries.

Just 1,600 remain in the wild in China, with about 300 others in captivity.

The agreement to loan the creatures was announced in January following five years of negotiations, and experts from the China Wildlife Conservation Association gave the final go-ahead after a visit to Scotland in October.

Animal welfare groups have condemned the agreement, saying that wild creatures suffer in captivity and serious efforts to help pandas would protect them in their native environment.

Pandas learn to paint, break hearts ev....

admin — 2011-12-2 14:36:15

WASHINGTON -- There is no shortage of cute things pandas will do -- roll around on the floor, snuggle with their moms, look confused yet elated at the same time.

Our black and white friends over at the National Zoo have taken up a new hobby that pushes the boundaries of cuteness: Painting.

As it turns out, many animals can paint, and do, as part of the zoo's behavioral enrichment program. The creatures employ non-toxic materials like the ones used by preschoolers, says the zoo.

Giant panda Tian Tian took a shining to his work, even "scent anointing" himself after finishing. The zoo explains that "pandas will often rub a particularly appealing scent around their ears" when they like something.

Chinese airline takes a shine to Ho Ch....

admin — 2011-12-2 14:34:55

China's Sichuan Airlines is planning to make its Chengdu-Ho Chi Minh City service non-stop and increase its frequency from the current twice-weekly to daily .

The flights now make a stop in Nanning in southern China where passengers have to transit.

The service, began more than six months ago, was doing well with a load factor of 70 percent, Hu Pingshu, a carrier sales official, said.

The airlines plans to increase the frequency to three or four flights a week next year, and to seven when the load factor tops 80 percent, Thoi Bao Kinh Te Saigon Online reported.

Hu was very sanguine about the route's potential.

But since most passengers yet were Chinese, the airlines was offering promotions to take more Vietnamese tourists to Chengdu.

The capital of Sichuan Province is one of the most important economic, transport, and communication hubs in Western China. It was recently named China��s 4th most livable city by China Daily.

Chengdu leads to some famous attractions like the Mount Emei Scenic Area and the UNESCO heritage site Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area.