China Business and social news collection: ******************** China's individual, private businesses top 40.

0.6m BEIJING -- China's individually-owned businesses and private enterprises topped 40.6 million around January end, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC). They are providing jobs for about 80 million people and report 2 trillion yuan ($321.03 billion) in capital. Most businesses, or 90 percent, are working in the tertiary or service sector, and only 8 percent are in the second industry and 2 percent in the primary industry. Half of the businesses are located in the eastern regions and only 30 percent are based in the central regions and 20 percent in the western areas. Individually-owned businesses and private enterprises have been growing rapidly into a key source for China's economic growth, fiscal revenue and employment. The country registered only 140,000 such private businesses in 1978 before the number hit a high of 31.6 million 1999. The SAIC started clearing the "dead" members in counting from 2000 on, leading to five-year declines in the total number.It hit a bottom low of 23.5 million in 2004, but started to grow again rapidly. China plans $19b transport infrastructure investment BEIJING -- The Chinese government plans to allocate 120 billion yuan ($19.11 billion) to fund local transport infrastructure construction in 2013, the Ministry of Finance has announced. According to the budget target set by the central government, the fund will be allocated from vehicle purchase tax incomes and mainly used to improve highway networks of trunk lines and rural roads. Authorities have increased efforts to boost infrastructure investment over the past few months in a bid to bolster the slowing economy. They approved massive construction projects worth about a trillion yuan in the second half of last year. External economic woes and domestic tightening to tame inflation have bit into the world's second-largest economy, which last year saw growth drop below 8 percent for the first time since 1999. More workers say they are over-educated Over-education has become increasingly common in developed cities and regions, which may hinder career development and accelerate an outflow of domestic talent, professionals and industry analysts said. "The average occurrence of over-education is now significantly higher than in some developed economies, such as the United States and some European countries, in spite of overall insufficient education nationwide," said Lai Desheng, dean of Beijing Normal University's School of Economics and Business Administration.

Over-education means someone's education level is above what his or her occupation requires. The trend is getting worse, mainly because of rapid expansion of higher education and imbalanced regional development in the labor market over several decades, Lai said. This trend is normal in a society of free labor flow because workers are attracted to developed regions and industries with better public services, pay and social welfare. According to Lai, the problem is particularly bad in China because "over-education is narrowly focused among some specific industries, regions and cities". His conclusion was based on a report on the country's labor market in 2012, which showed the average occurrence of over-education is about 43 percent, higher than the peak of 42 percent in the US in 1976. Meanwhile, 8.9 percent of China's population has received a college education or above, much lower than the 35 percent in the US, according to the report. In Beijing, nearly half of 1,693 respondents surveyed for the report, which included employers and employees, said they feel they are over-educated or believe this happens to workers in their industries.Denise Chu, general manager of CJOL, a Shenzhen subsidiary of Asia-Pacific's top online recruiters JobsDB, said over-education occurs in a rising number of industries."At present, educational requirements for most jobs on the Chinese mainland are at least a junior college degree or bachelor's degree. But some jobs actually can be done by high school graduates," she said. Over-education is especially common among jobs involving sales in the finance and insurance industries and manufacturing workers. Workers in jobs such as shopping guides for high-end brands, receptionists, and machinists are often over-educated, according to CJOL. An area manager for North China for a French clothing brand who asked to be identified only as Li said some top international brands prefer to hire university graduates as salespeople, especially in large and developed cities. "Some employers hire salespeople that are highly educated only because they want to look good," he said. "I believe sales experience is more important than people's educational background." In October, a recruitment notice for 457 sanitation workers released by Harbin's human resources and social security bureau in Heilongjiang province attracted 7,186 candidates. The applicants were attracted to the perks that came with the job, including hukou, or household registration. Of the candidates, 29 had graduate degrees while the others had at least a junior college degree or bachelor's degree. The average education level among candidates was much higher than authorities had expected, according to media reports. Analysts said over-education will ultimately have a negative impact, waste educational resources and lead to widespread employee discontent. ***********************************

Part 2 :

China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation By Bloomberg News - Feb 10, 2013 China surpassed the U.S. to become the worlds biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show. U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. Chinas customs administration reported last month that the countrys trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion. Chinas growing influence in global commerce threatens to disrupt regional trading blocs as it becomes the most important commercial partner for some countries. Germany may export twice as much to China by the end of the decade as it does to France, estimated Goldman Sachs Group Inc.s Jim ONeill. For so many countries around the world, China is becoming rapidly the most important bilateral trade partner, ONeill, chairman of Goldman Sachss asset management division and the economist who bound Brazil to Russia, India and China to form the BRIC investing strategy, said in a telephone interview. At this kind of pace by the end of the decade many European countries will be doing more individual trade with China than with bilateral partners in Europe. U.S. Leadership When taking into account services, U.S. total trade amounted to $4.93 trillion in 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The U.S. recorded a surplus in services of $195.3 billion last year and a goods deficit of more than $700 billion, according to BEA figures released Feb. 8. Chinas 2012 trade surplus, measured in goods, totaled $231.1 billion. The U.S. economy is also double the size of Chinas, according to the World Bank. In 2011, theU.S. gross domestic product reached $15 trillion while Chinas totaled $7.3 trillion. Chinas National Bureau of Statistics reported Jan. 18 that the countrys nominal gross domestic product in 2012 totaled 51.93 trillion yuan ($8.3 trillion).

It is remarkable that an economy that is only a fraction of the size of the U.S. economy has a larger trading volume, Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in an e-mail. The increase isnt all the result of an undervalued yuan fueling an export boom, as Chinese imports have grown more rapidly than exports since 2007, he said. Biggest Exporter The U.S. emerged as the preeminent trading power following World War II as it spearheaded the creation of the global trade and financial architecture. Protectionist policies in the 1930s had exacerbated the global economic depression. At the same time the U.K., the leading trading nation of the 19th century, began to dismantle its colonial empire. China began focusing on trade and foreign investment to boost its economy after decades of isolation under Chairman Mao Zedong, who died in 1976. Economic growth averaged 9.9 percent a year from 1978 through 2012. China became the worlds biggest exporter in 2009, while the U.S. remains the biggest importer, taking in $2.28 trillion in goods last year compared with Chinas $1.82 trillion of imports. HSBC Holdings Plc forecast last year that China would overtake the U.S. as the top trading nation by 2016. China was last considered the leading economy during the height of the Qing dynasty. The difference is that in the 18th century, the Qing Empire -unlike rising Britain -- didnt focus on trade. The Emperor Qianlong told King George III in a 1793 letter that we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and I have no use for your countrys manufactures. Finished Products While China is the biggest energy user, has the worlds biggest new car market and the largest foreign currency reserves, a significant portion of Chinas trade involves importing raw materials and parts to be assembled into finished products and re-exported, an activity that provides only modest value added, Eswar Prasad, a former International Monetary Fund official who is now a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in an e-mail. Last month Chinas trade expanded more than estimated, with exports rising 25 percent from a year earlier and imports increasing 28.8 percent, government data released Feb. 8 showed.Chinas trade figures in January

and February are distorted by the week-long Lunar New Year holiday that fell in January of last year and started Feb. 9 this year. Data Questioned Economists from banks including UBS AG and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. recently expressed skepticism about Chinas export data after the customs administration reported an unexpected 14.1 percent export gain in December. The General Administration of Customs defended the data last month, saying all statistics are based on actual customs declarations, and the Ministry of Commerce said the jump was caused by exporters who hurried shipments before a waiver of inspection fees expired at the end of the month. The U.S.s bilateral trade deficit with China, which peaked in 2012, could remain a flashpoint of tension between the two countries, Prasad said. This trade imbalance is not representative of the amount of goods actually produced in Chinaand exported to the U.S., but this perspective tends to get lost amidst the heated political rhetoric in the U.S, said Prasad. According to ONeill, the trade figures underscore the need to draw China further into the global financial and trading architecture that the U.S. helped create. One way or another we have to get China more involved in the global organizations of today and the future despite some of their own reluctance, ONeill said, mentioning Chinas inclusion in the IMFs Special Drawing Rights currency basket. To not have China more symbolically and more importantly actually central to all these things is just increasingly silly. Hu Says West Is Trying to Divide China by Using Ideology, Cultural Weapons By Bloomberg News - Jan 3, 2012 The West is using cultural means to divide China (PRCH), which needs to be alert to this threat, President Hu Jintao said in a Communist Party magazine. International forces are trying to Westernize and divide us by using ideology and culture, Hu wrote in an article in Qiushi. We need to realize this and be alert to this danger.

Many countries, especially Western powers, are attempting to expand their influence through cultural hegemony, and China must deepen and promote its own values of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Hu wrote in the article, which was published on the governments website on Jan 1. China needs to strengthen its cultural values as it faces possible challenges from the West, he said. Hus comments are part of a wider push by the party to reassert its influence over Chinese culture and society, including in television and the arts. Chinas leaders are grappling with the best way to manage Twitter-like social-media sites such as Sina Corp (SINA).s Weibo service that are hard for government censors to control. The Communist Partys Central Committee said it will supervise the worlds biggest online community more closely, promote constructive websites and punish the spread of harmful information, according to a communique from its Oct. 15-18 meeting released by the official Xinhua News Agency. Members of the partys Politburo visited web companies after a deadly train crash in July. Internet users criticized the governments handling of the crash and spread commentary and photos of the accident at odds with the official line. Competitive Edge The Central Committees communique also focused on television, with the Communist Party vowing to promote more fine literary and artistic works in fields such as television, movies and photography. That coincided with an announcement that new limits would be imposed on the number of overly entertaining and vulgar reality and talent shows aired on television. Starting this year, the nations 34 satellite channels must limit themselves to two such programs every week, according to an Oct. 25 statement on Chinas State Administration of Radio, Film and Televisions website. In a globalized world in which people are exposed to many ideologies and values, the country with the most cultural influence will gain a competitive advantage, Hu wrote. Beijing Bans Warhols Mao Portraits from China Exhibition By Frederik Balfour - Dec 17, 2012

Andy Warhols famous images of Chairman Mao wont be part of the biggest ever traveling exhibition of his works when they go to China next year, an organizer said. The show includes more than 300 paintings, photographs and films, featuring Warhols iconicCampbells Soup cans, Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe as well as 10 Mao paintings which Chinese authorities have decided to exclude. If mainland fans of Warhol want to see silkscreens of the Great Helmsman, they will have to catch the Hong Kong leg of Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal which opened yesterday. They said the Maos wont work, Eric Shiner, director of The Andy Warhol Museum inPittsburgh, said in an interview in Hong Kong. This is disappointing because his imagery is so mainstream in Chinese contemporary art. A person familiar with the show, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the issue, confirmed the Mao works had been rejected by the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs didnt immediately respond to faxed questions seeking comment today. The exhibition which opened first in Singapore, and runs through to March 31 at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, will then travel to Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo, as part of a 26-month Asian tour to mark the 25th anniversary of Warhols death. Nixon Visit Warhol decided to create the Mao paintings after U.S. President Richard Nixons historic 1972 visit to China, employing the same technique of acrylic and silkscreen-ink on canvas that hed used to create portraits of celebrities including Monroe, Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor. According to the Christies auction website, Warhol chose Mao as the ultimate star, using an image of him taken from the portrait photograph reproduced in the Chairmans so-called Little Red Book. He wasnt being disrespectful, Shiner said. Ten years later, Warhols own visit to China in 1982 was documented by Christopher Makos, some of whose photographs are included in the Hong Kong exhibition.

The show has already been a huge success, said Shiner, who said that 175,000 people visited the exhibition in Singapore, more than the 120,000 annual visitors to the Pittsburgh museum. Even without the Maos, he is hoping for as many as two million attendees in China. The Shanghai leg will be held at the Power Station of Art, the citys new contemporary art museum that opened on Oct. 1. Shiner said hes still finalizing details on the Beijing location. Muse highlights include Jorg von Uthmann on Paris art and Elin McCoy on wine. *************************************************

Part 3:

A Chinese Oil Company May Buy Exxon's Iraq Stake January 17, 2013

A little more than a year after President Barack Obama declared the end of the war in Iraq, Chinese companies are top players in the countrys oil sector. China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is jointly operating three fields in the south producing 1.4 million barrels a daymore than half Iraqs output. China and Malaysia have the largest share of international contracts, says Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, an official in the Iraqi Oil Ministry. We are very much satisfied with the work of Chinese companies, says alAmeedi, who is in charge of petroleum contracts and licensing. Now a Chinese oil major may purchase ExxonMobils (XOM) position in the West Qurna 1 field, which has reserves worth $50 billion. Derek Scissors, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who specializes in Chinas state-owned enterprises, spoke in December with a Chinese oil executive whose company was negotiating with the Iraqis over Exxons stake. The Chinese executive warned it was not a done deal, says Scissors. The Iraqi Oil Ministry and Exxon wouldnt comment on a possible agreement. The Iraqi oil industry is abuzz with rumors that CNPCs Hong Kong-listed subsidiary, PetroChina, is the leading bidder. PetroChinas spokesman did not return phone calls and e-mails. A stake in West Qurna 2, a nearby field, could go to the Chinese as well. Russias Lukoil operates that field, but its partner in that project, Statoil of Norway, has pulled out. An attractive partner for us would be China, where there is stable demand growth, Lukoil head Vagit Alekperov told reporters in Russia on Jan. 15. Iraq, which pumps 3 million barrels of crude a day, is expected to reach 8 million barrels by 2035, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. By then, 80 percent of Iraqi production will go to China. Baghdad to Beijing is the new Silk Road of the global oil tradeoil from Baghdad and capital investment from Beijing, says Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA. Chinese construction of power plants has cemented the relationship. It helps that the Chinese develop fields at lower costs than their rivals, says Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta who studies Chinas energy industry. Chinese managers and engineers usually earn a quarter the wages paid by Western companies, estimates Jiang.

With Iraq offering foreign operators as little as a couple of dollars per barrel produced, its hard to earn money, says Trevor Houser, an energy and natural resources expert at China-focused consultancy Rhodium Group. Some companies, Exxon included, are turning to the Kurds, whose terms are more generous. China may have little choice but to accept the terms offered by the Iraqi Oil Ministry. Foreign oil meets almost 60 percent of Chinas needs today. That will likely rise to 80 percent by 2035, says Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University. Its not that China likes going to Iraq, says Lin. But not that many places are left.

The bottom line: Chinese oil companies are bulking up fast in Iraq, which may eventually sell 80 percent of its crude output to China.