IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Economy

Premier delivers pledge on reforms

Premier Li Keqiang has vowed to continue focusing on reforms and creating fresh growth engines, displaying unusual tolerance for slower economic growth.

As long as the economy is kept within a reasonable range of growth, the government will be able to make a more focused effort on reform and generate new power for growth in the long run, he said on July 9.

His comments came a day before the announcement of a surprise drop in June exports. The decline adds to fears the economic slowdown will worsen.

Exports fell 3.1 percent in June to $174.3 billion (133.3 billion euros), the lowest level since October 2009, the General Administration of Customs said on July 10. Imports slid 0.7 percent to $147.2 billion last month.

But when Li met provincial governors from western China in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, he said the economy is still proceeding within a reasonable range, without the growth rate falling too low and inflation running too high.

Internet

IT push aims to boost domestic demand

China is to promote consumption of IT-related products and services as it seeks to spur domestic demand and push economic upgrading.

It will speed up work to issue licenses for the fourth generation (4G) mobile network this year and accelerate development of broadband Internet access, according to a statement released after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The nation is aiming for annual average growth of 20 percent in the information consumption industry from 2013 to 2015, the statement said.

The meeting demanded implementation of the Broadband China strategy, stepped-up efforts to construct and upgrade network infrastructure, pushing forward the FTTH (Fiber To the Home) project and improving Internet speed.

China, which has the largest number of mobile phones in the world at 1.2 billion, is already building 4G trial networks in major cities.

China Mobile, its largest telecom carrier, is promoting the homegrown Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) 4G standard and hopes to start commercial 4G rollout as soon as possible.

Corruption

Pharma giant in bribery scandal

Senior executives at Britain's largest drugmaker, GlaxoSmithKline, allegedly accepted cash rake-offs and paid bribes to officials and doctors to boost sales and prices of its drugs in China, police said on July 15.

The company allegedly used at least four travel agencies to funnel more than 3 billion yuan ($489 million; 374 million euros) in bribes since 2007, said Gao Feng, an economic crimes investigator with the Ministry of Public Security.

Some travel agencies had offered sexual services to senior executives at GSK for four years to maintain business contacts, police said.

Insiders believe this case, a focal event for the industry, will act as a wake-up call for China's pharmaceuticals sector.

The company said in a statement on July 15 it was "deeply concerned and disappointed by these serious allegations of fraudulent behavior and ethical misconduct by certain individuals at the company and third-party agencies".

Healthcare

Regulator to improve public organ donations

A new government organization set up this week will make it easier for the public to donate organs.

The 200-plus coordinators at the National Organ Donation Management Center will be evaluated and licensed, said Gao Xinpu, a division director at the center.

"A team of at least 2,000 coordinators will be set up across the mainland. Their main job will be to identify potential organ donors, approach their families and inform them of a possible donation, and handle issues like the donor's funeral," he said on July 15.

Gao said many coordinators will come from medical institutions, including transplant hospitals, which encounter potential donors.

When a donation is secured, the coordinators "will enter information on the donor and donated organ into a computerized registry, and inform a designated organ procurement organization for further distribution," he said.

The registry system will be launched in September or October, Gao said.

Health body to ensure fairness in organ system

The top health authority has vowed to ensure compulsory use of a computerized system for the distribution of donated organs, thus ensuring fair allocation of organs to those in need.

A national computerized system, the China Organ Transplant Response System, was launched in 2010, but many hospitals have been slow to make use of it, relying instead on less systematic methods.

Deng Haihua, spokesman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, announced the plan to enforce use of the system on July 10 in response to media reports that questioned the fairness and transparency of the current system.

"All organ procurement organizations and transplant hospitals nationwide will be required to use the system for fair organ allocation," Deng said.

Nationwide, China has 164 organ procurement organizations, which operate within government-recognized organ transplant hospitals.

However, to date only 38 of these organizations have received donations via the official computerized system.

Law

More foreign companies involved in IPR cases

China's top court saw an increase in intellectual property lawsuits involving overseas companies in the first five months of the year amid economic globalization and rising domestic awareness.

From January to May, judges nationwide announced verdicts in 24,544 intellectual property rights cases, up by 36.6 percent year-on-year, according to the Supreme People's Court.

About 2 percent of those cases, or 504 lawsuits, involved overseas litigants. Last year, 1.7 percent of 83,850 such lawsuits nationwide were foreign-related, according to the top court.

"With fiercer global competition, as well as a tendency for trade protectionism in certain countries, we have seen a remarkable increase in cross-border IPR conflicts," said Kong Xiangjun, president of the top court's intellectual property tribunal.

Manufacturing

Local governments face financing woes

Burdened by overcapacity in manufacturing, local governments are finding the current downturn more difficult to cope with than the 2008-09 crisis.

Many of their investment projects are hard to sustain with economists urging the central government to refrain from baiouts with easy credit.

Central government officials have also expressed their commitment to leading the economy away from its investment-reliant, credit-driven growth model.

"If local governments succeed in persuading the central government to bail them out, the task of cutting overcapacity can never be accomplished," said Guan Qingyou, assistant dean of the Minsheng Securities Research Institute.

"We experienced the same situation in 2008-09. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again."

Experts said the challenge for the central government is to resist the intense lobbying from local governments, while pressing on with reforms that would gradually generate sustainable demand.

On July 10, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei signaled Beijing's greater tolerance of an economic slowdown, saying the GDP growth rate this year is expected to be 7 percent.

The economy expanded by 7.8 percent in 2012, and the government set a target of 7.5 percent for this year.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/19/2013 page2)