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Sand from Naiman Banner has turned the desert region into an exporting hub with high-tech industrial products

A worker at Naiman Banner Huaxin Silicate Products carries bricks inside the company’s factory.

Sand from Naiman Banner has turned the desert region into an exporting hub with high-tech industrial products

You might have just walked on “magic bricks”.

If you stroll outside Beijing’s National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube, on a rainy day, you will notice something very different.

The water instantly drains through the paving stones, or bricks, before traveling through the drainage system below.

“Our bricks have been used in more than 500 projects in 13 municipalities and provinces,” said Ye Haoqian, general manager of the Inner Mongolia Renchuang Ecology Environmental Protection Industry Co Ltd, which makes the paving stones. “They effectively solve the problems of urban flooding and disperse rainwater.”

Inner Mongolia Renchuang Sand is based in Naiman Banner of Tongliao city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The high-tech enterprise turns silica sand into a coated substance, widely used in sectors such as oil exploration, construction and casting as well as paving stones.

Naturally, the price increases from about 300 yuan ($44.1) per metric ton for untreated sand to up to 6,000 yuan per ton for the coated product that has liquid-permeability properties.

This allows water to pass through without destroying the bricks or turning them into mush.

“With patented technologies, we are now planning to export our products to the United States, with annual productivity of 600,000 tons of specially-treated industrial sands,” Ren said.

Still, the company is just one of 38 businesses involved in the industry in Naiman Banner.

Around one million tons of sand a year come from the region.

But then, the area is famous for it with the industry employing 2,000 workers, while annually revenue tops 2 billion yuan, according to local government data.

There are numerous grades of products, including building material sand, mechanical precision casting sand and glass making sand.

Since Naiman Banner is located at the heart of the Kolqin “Sand Land” that is hardly surprising. Up to 62 percent of the region is desert and it used to be one of the poorest areas in China.

Every year, villages used to be buried in sand, whipped up by the constant wind forcing residents to move out.

But in the 1980s scientists made an exciting discovery?Naiman Banner was rich in the finest silica sands with reserves of 50 billion tons.

With the building blocks of an industrial-scale production line, the government decided to develop the sector by rolling out the Angnai Sand Mine in 1984.

“Relying on the large reserves of silica sand, local government has developed the industry and turned what many saw as waste into wealth,” said Zhu Zhenmin, deputy director of forestry bureau in Naiman Banner.

So far, there are six industrial parks and three of them are built on sand.

“We do not take over arable land when it comes to industrial development,” Zhu said. “Sand has become a specific character in attracting investment.”

Major Chinese companies, including Renchuang Sand, the largest in the sector, moved there from Beijing.

“By attracting well-known enterprises, we have introduced technologies and solved the problem of financing,” Zhu said.

The central government has also helped to cultivate high-tech businesses by setting up research and development organizations.

Naiman Banner Huaxin Silicate Products Co Ltd has developed 21 new products and obtained 12 patents. It manufactures lime-sand bricks.

“Our annual sales revenue hit 30 million yuan last year with total asset exceeding 60 million yuan,” said Pan Taiyan, general manager of the company.

Lotte to sell loss-making stores

A Lotte Mart in Beijing, Feb 28, 2017.

Lotte Mart, the retail arm of South Korea’s Lotte Group, is expected to sell some of its loss-making stores in China, a South Korean newspaper reported.

But it is finding it hard to sell the stores at a decent price or even find a proper buyer at a time when the hypermarket format is no longer attractive to local consumers.

The South Korean retailer is in negotiations with potential Chinese buyers to sell 20-30 of its loss-making stores. At present, 90 percent of its 74 hypermarkets are no longer in operation, according to Aju Business Daily.

Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, said Lotte is seeking buyers for its struggling stores but will keep its profit-making outlets.

“Lotte doesn’t have many advantages. Its best option is to sell its business to local retailers in China, which are likely to be interested in Lotte’s regional presence if they want to boost their dominance in specific regions.”

“It is hard for Lotte to sell at a good price given that the hypermarket business model is struggling for survival and consumers favor smaller formats such as convenience stores and online shopping,” said Yu.

“Lotte’s main problem is it failed to keep pace with the profound changes in China’s retail environment,” said Yu.

According to the Korea Herald, South Korean retail group Shinsegae Group has decided to close its chain of discount supermarkets in China. Shinsegae Vice-Chairman Chung Yong-jin told reporters that the company’s E-mart chain will be leaving the Chinese market after 20 years.

According to a Shinsegae spokesman, the E-mart stores will be closed at the earliest possible date, depending on local contract conditions for each store.

Despite aggressive investment, the chain failed to gain traction and underwent massive restructuring. At the end of 2010, the chain had 26 stores, but it now operates just six.

“Failure to adapt to the changing demands of Chinese consumers and retaining the same business model for years were held as the major reasons for the exit of E-mart in China,” said Yu.

In the first quarter of this year, hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores grew only 0.3 percent, according to Kantar’s report.

Some traditional retailers have met the challenge of change in the nation’s consumer market by improving their offerings in fields such as fresh and imported food, and tie-ups with e-commerce.

For example, Wal-mart Stores Inc moved onto the platform of JD.com Inc on May 25, to make the best use of JD’s massive logistics system and Wal-mart’s global merchandise supply.

China to increase momentum in smart manufacturing

China will focus on smart manufacturing by integrating the strategy of “Made in China 2025” with the Internet Plus Initiative as well as entrepreneurship and innovation to upgrade the country’s traditional industries and help advance economic restructuring.

The decision was made at a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday when a report on the strategy’s implementation was delivered to participants.

Since implementing the strategy in 2015, the country has seen a steady progress in industrial capabilities, smart manufacturing, innovation, and product quality and branding. A recent case in point was the passenger jet C919 that took its first test flight earlier this month.

The meeting decided to focus on smart manufacturing and further deploy new technologies such as the industrial internet to make manufacturing a smarter and greener sector that offers better services and products.

Average productivity was up by 38 percent for China’s first 109 pilot projects of smart manufacturing, while operating costs dropped by 21 percent, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The premier said “Made in China 2025”, as a crucial part of the supply-side structural reform, is vital to moving the country’s economy up the value chain. The key is to exploiting advantages of China’s domestic market and human resources, as well as further promotion of basic research and innovations, he said.

“Implementation of the strategy has introduced strength to the real economy, especially the equipment manufacturing. However, we should also keep aware of our weak links as much of the industry is at the medium and lower end of global supply,” Li said.

“Made in China 2025” was first unveiled in the Government Work Report in March 2015. Two months later, the State Council released a guideline, which focused on five key projects, including smart manufacturing, and 10 key fields such as new materials.

Key technologies will be on top of agenda, including independent research and development. Innovative development in fields such as new materials and robots will be accelerated.

As of Wednesday, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has approved pilot regions for the strategy, namely 12 cities such as Ningbo in Zhejiang province and three city clusters in provinces such as Jiangsu. Some of them will be designated as the country’s demonstration areas, which will get favorable policies in investment, financing and other fields.

The premier urged to establish demonstration areas, where small and medium-sized enterprises can develop with large companies for collaborated growth and greater global competitiveness.

The meeting also decided to cultivate a new model of incorporating the manufacturing sector with the Internet Plus Initiative. The country will strengthen cooperation with other countries to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

The country will introduce advanced management, raise quality standards and guide companies to put quality as their top priorities. More efforts will be made to attract and recruit talents from home and abroad. More items for governmental approvals will be streamlined with lower threshold for market access and improved oversights to nurture an excellent business environment. Greater financing supports will be given to the real economy to increase resources for industrial upgrading. Intellectual property rights will also be given greater emphasis to safeguard legitimate rights of market entities.

China toughens auditing of overseas investment by state-owned companies

Chinese authorities will introduce an improved, rigorous system of auditing overseas investment by state-owned companies as the pressure of cross-border capital flow remains.

The auditing system focuses on decision-making by state-owned companies on overseas investment and joint ventures, and their financial management and internal control, in addition to capital security, operating benefits and risk control of overseas state-owned assets.

Major methods of auditing include domestic inspection, auditing and analysis of documents and inquiries into relevant parties.

If necessary, regulators will go overseas for on-site verification and evidence collection in accordance with international practices and laws of the countries in which state-owned companies invest.

Outbound investment has grown rapidly in recent years and played an important role in deepening mutually beneficial cooperation between China and other countries as well as promoting domestic economic restructuring.

However, irrational speculation, illegal transfer of assets, and fake transactions all disrupt China’s foreign exchange and financial markets, causing state-owned asset losses and hurting national interests.

A recent report released by China’s foreign exchange regulator unveiled some cases in which companies had illegally transferred assets overseas under the guise of outbound investment.

Some newly established firms, which had produced nothing, were providing large sums of outbound investment. Some heavily indebted companies borrowed more to acquire companies overseas. These are just a few of the examples listed by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Risks are inherent in any investment and cannot be avoided. Given growth in overseas state-owned assets, regulation of those assets has been a new challenge facing Chinese authorities.

In support of the country’s “going out” strategy for investment, businesses of state-owned companies, especially centrally administered ones, have expanded to more than 150 countries and regions with over five trillion yuan (about 725 billion U.S. dollars) in overseas assets, earning global fame for high-speed train, nuclear power and ultra high voltage projects.

Compared to foreign multinational giants, Chinese state-owned companies lack experience in overseas operations and risk control.

With more companies “going out,” China’s overseas investment has been exposed to complicated problems in culture, human resources and corporate management. Some enterprises have paid high prices for those problems.

“The first step is to roll out measures to regulate overseas investment, the second is to stipulate company operations strictly, and the third is to develop a system of accountability,” said Xiao Yaqing, head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

Noting an irrational tendency in outbound investment, Chinese authorities have set stricter rules and advised companies to make their investment decisions more carefully.

Since the beginning of 2017, SASAC has introduced negative lists and designated investment redlines for both domestic and overseas investment by state-owned companies.

“There is no doubt that a more comprehensive and stringent auditing system will help standardize China’s overseas investment and contribute to maintaining and increasing the value of state-owned assets,” said Li Jin, chief researcher with the China Enterprise Research Institute.

China’s outbound direct investment fell by 64 percent year on year to reach 20.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter, thanks to increasingly rational market players and guidance by relevant government departments.

Last year, the country’s outbound direct investment surged over 40 percent from a year earlier, the result of an increasingly globalized Chinese economy and also stemming from some irrational or illegal acts.

China’s trade surplus widens in April

China’s foreign trade surplus widened in April as import growth decline outpaced that of exports, customs data showed Monday.

Exports in yuan-denominated terms rose 14.3 percent year on year to 1.24 trillion yuan (179.8 billion U.S. dollars), down from the 22.3-percent increase in March.

Imports expanded 18.6 percent to 979.1 billion yuan, compared with a 26.3-percent increase a month ago.

That leaves a trade surplus of 262.3 billion yuan, up 0.6 percent year on year. The surplus widened from 164.3 billion yuan seen in March.

In the first four months, total trade volume added up to 8.42 trillion yuan, up 20.3 percent year on year.

While the April trade growth fell short of expectations, customs data reflected improved trade structure.

In the first four months, general trade expanded 21.6 percent year on year to 4.75 trillion yuan, accounting for 56.5 percent of the total trade volume.

Trade of private enterprises grew 21.7 percent to 3.17 trillion yuan in the first four months, accounting for 37.6 percent of the total, and 0.4 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

Despite rising protectionism and anti-globalization sentiment, China’s imports and exports with major trade partners remained strong.

During the first four months, trade with the European Union gained 15.5 percent year on year to 1.24 trillion yuan, accounting for 14.8 percent of the total. Trade with the United States expanded 20.3 percent to 1.18 trillion yuan, making it China’s second largest trade partner.

Customs data also showed that a leading indicator for China’s exports rebounded from 40.2 to 40.7 month on month in April, signalling positive potential in exports.

WeChat to make payment service available in U.S.

WeChat is already one of China’s most popular mobile payment methods. Now the social media app, owned by Internet giant Tencent, is teaming up with Silicon mobile payment startup Citcon to take its services to the U.S. market.

Through WeChat accounts, users will be able to pay for whatever they need in Chinese currency RMB without cash, just as they do in China.

For four consecutive years, China has been the world number one outbound tourism country, accounting for over 13 percent of the total tourism revenue globally. The United States has been one of the most popular destinations for Chinese travelers.

“Last year, over 100 million Chinese people traveled outside of China. Once they see this place can accept WeChat Pay, they can use their mobile phones. They certainly receive much warmer welcomes? from foreign countries,” according to Chuck Huang, CEO of Citcon.

Mobile payment is the new frontier of commerce, and China is leading this trend. By providing an easy-to-use mobile payment and cross-border marketing solution, WeChat is empowering global merchants to connect with millions of Chinese consumers.

Currently, WeChat Pay is available in 15 countries and regions, for payments in 12 foreign currencies.

Tencent has now joined Apple and Google-parent Alphabet in the ranks of the world’s biggest firms by market capitalization, with a value of more than 302 billion U.S. dollars. Shares in the tech company hit a record high on Tuesday.

It’s the only firm outside the U.S. among the world’s top 10 most valuable companies.?

Alibaba’s Yu’ebao becomes world’s largest money market fund

Alibaba’s Yu’ebao is now the world’s top money market fund with 1.2 trillion yuan (170 billion U.S. dollars) of assets in the first quarter this year. However, growth in interest rates hasn’t been expanding along with the size of the fund.

Data from Alibaba shows registered users of Yu’ebao reached 300 million as of the beginning of this year, and Yu’ebao’s total assets now exceed the size of the money market fund run by JP Morgan.

The annual return Yu’ebao is now paying is only around 3.9 percent, however, notably less than it has paid historically.

Still, as the returns are both stable and better than those offered by commercial banks, many investors are sticking with it.

Other factors leading to the popularity of Yu’ebao are that it is easy for users to manage, and that it has a low investment threshold with only one yuan.

An increasingly important point, however, is that the annual interest Yu’ebao pays is nowhere near as high as when it was launched.

The current interest rate on a Yu’ebao investment is down by almost 40 percent from its 2014 peak. Some customers are becoming skeptical.

However, the lower interest rates don’t necessarily mean that a Yu’ebao investment has no risks.

The main risks of money market funds come from interest rates and the liquidity risk. Once money market funds go into deficit, investors will want to cash out. Similar cases happened in 2008 financial crisis.

In fact, the overall size of China’s money market funds is falling.

Total assets of money market funds in China was 3.9 trillion yuan in the first quarter this year, down by 7 percent quarter-on-quarter.

Robots replace human labor beyond manufacturing bases

A robot arm writes calligraphy.

The smart technology leading to an explosive growth of robotic replacement for human labor has begun to flourish beyond the traditional manufacturing bases, but also in China’s service industry.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, robots have replaced humans in manual work in 5,000 industrial programs over the past four years in Zhejiang Province, involving investment totaling 500 billion yuan (US$72.5 billion).

Ling Yun, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Economic and Information Technology Commission, said that, by 2015, the usual manual labor pool has slimmed down by some two million workers.

Moreover, Anhui, Guangdong and Shandong provinces are pressing ahead with robotic substitutes in their cutting-edge industries where manual jobs for both men and women are being substantially reduced.

According to the Beijing Morning Post, jobs better suited to robots comprise the assembly of intelligent vehicles, firefighting and medical care, which all benefit from the employment of industrial data analysis, information technology and 3D auxiliary design.

The workshop of Shenzhen Rapoo Technology, facing a labor shortage of labor from 2005, purchased 75 robots in 2011, with immediate benefits in declining labor costs.

Nowadays, one of its computer keyboard assembly lines needs only five workers responsible for monitoring the automatic processing by the robots that have replaced an estimated 100 workers previously employed there.

The replacement has continued to prevail by moving from assembly lines to banking and logistics.

In 2015, China Construction Bank installed a number of robots to replace staff in its call center. Currently, STO Express, one of China’s leading privately- owned logistic companies, has adopted 320 robots to categorize deliveries in Linyi City, Shandong Province.

The robots can deal with 18,000 parcels weighing a maximum of five kilograms each every single hour at a high rate (often 100 percent) of accuracy. As a result, the labor force in the Linyi branch was cut by 80 percent from 150 to 30.

Despite the expansion of robots into the job market, experts have assured human workers not to overact to the smart automatic fashion as the trend can free them from the shackles of mundane toil for more complicated techniques and meaningful endeavor.

Wang Yamin, an employee from Guangdong Changying Precision High-Tech Co Ltd, said, that when the work she was doing was temporarily taken over by robots, she attended a two-month training enabling her to get a promotion to be a technician with increased salary.

“Currently, the robots, whose sensors remain weak, can only run in a certain framework,” said Ding Han, dean of the Mechanical Science and Engineering School of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

“The special robots have to complete their missions with remote controls,” he added.

According to NEKKEI’s Chinese news web, more and more young people receiving high education in China are not interested in repetitious manual jobs, which, in addition to the rising labor costs, are challenging the manufacturing competence of the country.

The advent of robots, which can be used for at least 10 years, helps the country, an economic locomotive in the world, sustain the momentum of economic growth.

Finance, real estate industries offer highest executive pay

Executives in the finance and real estate industries have the highest pay among 1,894 listed companies that announced their annual financial reports in 2016, said China Economic Weekly.

On average, executive pay packets hit 7.09 million yuan ($1.02 million) in 2016, up eight percent year-on-year, higher than the rate of China’s GDP and per capita disposable incomes, which were 6.7 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. Yet disparities are clear among sectors and companies.

Among the 18 sectors categorized by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, financial executives ranked the highest with annual pay of 27.36 million yuan, followed by real estate executives at 11.18 million.

The average pay for executives in educational companies was the lowest, just over 2.8 million yuan and about one tenth that of their counterparts in the financial sector.

The quickest growth in executive pay on average came from the hotel and catering sectors, at 47.58 percent. But top managers at companies in the fields of scientific research and technology services saw their pay decrease by 4.2 percent.

Executives at leading Chinese insurer Ping An snatched the highest pay at 108 million yuan, about 158 times higher than executives working for Puyang Huicheng Electronic Material.

Twenty-four companies reported their executive pay as being lower than one million yuan, and 1,033 companies put the figure between one million and five million. Ten companies announced that their executives were paid more than 50 million yuan.

Seven executives received pay above the 10 million yuan threshold. Lin Yong, an executive assistant at Haitong Securities, scored the highest pay packet at 15.49 million yuan. Ping An’s Chief Investment Officer Chen Dexian and Yin Ke, the former executive director at CITIC Securities, received pay packets of 12.86 million and 12.08 million respectively.

Wang Jie, the general manager of a Beijing-based investment company, said the higher pay for executives in the financial and real estate industries shows the imbalance in development in China.

Buyers’ interest spurs clean energy market innovation

As Chinese people are showing a growing interest in new energy vehicles, industry insiders are urging carmakers to make technological progress to remain competitive and calling for change in sales and after-sales policies to boost consumption.

Automakers are presenting 159 new energy cars at the ongoing Shanghai auto show, representing about 11 percent of all exhibits at the event.

According to a recent report from measurement company Nielsen, the popularity of clean energy vehicles is rising among Chinese consumers due to improvements in the cars’ performance and mileage.

The report, based on a survey of 2,307 respondents from the country, said 27 percent of car-buyers are considering purchasing purely electric cars and 25 percent are interested in plug-in hybrids.

This is the first time that electric cars have attracted more fans than plug-in hybrids since the annual survey launched in 2012.

Nielsen said electric cars available in the country had an average mileage of 164 kilometers in 2016 and the number has grown to 252 km this year.

However, the survey revealed that people expect on average a range of 374 km from electric cars.

The company said such expectations would push traditional carmakers to improve their research and development.

“It is one of the best times as a new sector develops; it is also one of the worst times as competition is extremely fierce. Carmakers must do their best,” said Olive Zhang, vice-president of Nielsen China.

Some traditional carmakers have released concrete plans.

German carmaker Volkswagen said electric models based on its current platform can achieve a range of 300 km and those on its MEB platform will double the figure. “Cars based on the MEB platform are scheduled to be localized in China by 2020,” said Jochem Heizmann, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group China.

New players continue to join the race. Within a year the authorities have approved 13 new energy carmakers’ plans to build their plants. Their combined investment stands at 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) and their combined annual capacity will reach 760,000 vehicles.

Electric car startup NextEV is showcasing 11 models at the Shanghai auto show in the hope of getting a slice of the growing market.

China has been the world’s largest new energy car market since 2015. Last year, it sold 507,000 electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell models, 53 percent growth year-on-year.

The rise in their sales could prompt car dealers to change how they run their business, said Shen Jinjun, president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, at a new energy car meeting in Shanghai.

He said such cars differ from gasoline ones in that they need little daily maintenance, which is now a major source of revenue for gasoline car dealers. Shen suggested that the companies could consider shifting the focus of their business from car sales and maintenance to building experience centers.

Nielsen’s report shows that 60 percent of potential buyers would undertake online research, while about a quarter go to brick and mortar stores to see new energy cars and test-drive them.

Shen’s organization has been pushing for changes to the current car warranty policy, which was tailor-made for gasoline cars.

The warranty covers major components such as the engine and the gearbox, which electric cars do not have.