State Council approves Lhasa urban planning blueprint:

Lhasa’s urban planning blueprint for the period 2009-2020 has recently won the approval of the State Council. This is the third urban plan for the city, and by far the largest and most politically-sensitive, since the Communists took power in Tibet in the early 1950s.
The two-and-a-half year preparation of the blueprint was completed with the help of Jiangsu province, which put up Rmb26m and sent nearly 100 professional planners; the Lhasa government invested more than Rmb13m and sent its own team of planners.

Chongqing to build public transport transit hubs:

The Ministry of Transport has designated Chongqing as an experimental location outside Beijing for the building of transit hubs, according to Chongqing Daily on 23 April. The hubs are designed to link railway lines with bus stops, taxi stands and coach stations with a view to making travel easier for the public. The scheme will take three years to complete and the municipality is expected to provide a model for other cities to follow.

Nanjing Waterway to order more than 20 vessels this year:

Nanjing Waterway Bureau is ordering more than 20 new vessels, including 10 speed boats, to help raise its capability to maintain the waterway under its remit, according to officials from the bureau.
Separately, the Ministry of Transport agreed on 24 April that the guaranteed water level between Nanjing and Wuhu would be raised from 7.5 metres to 9 metres between June and September and from 6.5 metres to 7.5 metres between October and May. This 101km stretch of the Yangtze trunkline is the responsibility of the Nanjing Waterway Bureau, under the Yangtze Waterway Bureau, the government agency in charge of maintaining the waterway and delivering the guaranteed water level.

Yangtze cargo throughput up 1.1% in April:

Cargo throughput of the major ports along the Yangtze trunkline reached 85m tons in April 2009, up 1.1 per cent over the same period last year. Out of this total, 11m tons were foreign trade related, up nearly 3 per cent. Container throughput declined by 7.4 per cent to 550,000 teu.
Over the first four months, cargo throughput decreased by 2.8 per cent to 316m tons year-on-year. Foreign trade related cargo was up 3.7 per cent to 42.07 tons while container throughput fell by 9.1 per cent to 1.92m teu.

Chongqing records 9% GDP growth:

Chongqing recorded a first quarter 2009 GDP of Rmb103.22bn, up 9 per cent year-on-year. This was 2.9 percentage points above the national average, and ranked sixth among the country’s interior regions. Those ahead of Chongqing were Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Sichuan and Shanxi.
Within Chongqing, Pengshui, Wanzhou and Fuling recorded the largest growth rates.

No cheer for shipyards from Cosco:

China Cosco plans to cancel or postpone some of its ship orders, according to a report by the Financial Times. Some industry analysts had expected the state-owned shipping line to increase its order book to support China’s troubled shipyards.
The company said it was in negotiations with shipyards over delays and cancellations of dry bulk ships. The 58 ships that Cosco has on order would expand its dry bulk capacity by more than 20 per cent. In container shipping, it wants to delay until 2010 delivery of the largest three of the nine ships it is due to receive this year.
The company, the world’s biggest operator of dry bulk ships, made pre-tax profits of Rmb15.7bn in 2008, down from Rmb26.1bn in the previous year, on revenue up to Rmb131bn from Rmb112bn.

Pledge to upgrade central China’s airports:

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) will bolster the development of air transportation in central China, its deputy head Yang Guoqing said during the recent Expo Central China 2009 held in Hefei, Anhui province.
Airports in capital cities of all the six provinces in central China -- Shanxi, Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Anhui -- are to undergo renovation or expansion by 2010.
The railway network is also being upgraded. According to Lu Dongfu, vice head of the Ministry of Railways, new lines totalling 16,000km in length are to be built before 2020 to extend the region’s railway network to 34,000km. By then, railway density will increase from 175km to 331km per 10,000 sq km, twice the national average.

Chongqing aims to become regional financial centre:

Chongqing municipality said it would spend Rmb30bn to become a financial centre in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River by 2015. The claim was made by Luo Guang, deputy secretary-general of Chongqing government at a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the construction of the Chongqing Financial Centre in Jiangbeizui central business district.
Lu said the plan to build Chongqing into a financial centre is based on the city’s strong industrial base.
According to Chongqing Mayor Wang Hongju, the city will seek balanced development of banking, securities and insurance. However, it faces completion from the likes of Chengdu and Wuhan, which also want to become financial hubs in western and central China respectively.

SIPG posts 28 per cent profits fall:

Shanghai International Port Group’s net profit fell 28 per cent to US$108m in the first quarter of 2009 as a consequence of the global economic downturn, Shanghai Daily reported.
The company handled a total of 5.56m TEUs, a decline of 15 per cent from the same period last year. It attributed the drop in container turnover and dry bulk goods to lower foreign trade volume.

New Chongqing bridge opens:

Chongqing Chaotianmen Yangtze River Bridge was due to officially open to traffic on 29 April. The bridge, located at the meeting point of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, is 1,741 long. With a main span of 552 metres, it is among the longest arch bridges in the world, according to a municipal website.
The bridge has two levels, with the upper one consisting of a roadway and walkway and the lower one composed of a roadway and light rail line. It connects Danzishi in Nanan district and Jiangbeizui, and shortens the journey time between the two areas to less than 10 minutes.

Tunnel collapses affect Chongqing rail services:

Two collapses in a tunnel on the Yuhuai railway line between Tongren and Yangtou, both in Guizhou province, have caused a disruption to train services in the region. The collapses, which occurred on 24 and 25 April, forced train services between Chongqing and Chengdu and Chongqing and Dazhou, for example, to be diverted from their normal routes.
The Yuhuai line, which runs from Chongqing to Huaihua in Hunan province, was opened in late 2005.

Surge in fixed asset investment:

Fixed asset investment in China increased 28.8 per cent year-on-year to Rmb2,10bn in the first quarter of this year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The growth rate was 4.2 per cent higher than a year earlier.

Taiwan retailer to build Taizhou supermarket:

The Taiwan-headquartered supermarket group RT-Mart has signed an agreement to open a new supermarket in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, reported China Retail News. Construction is expected to start in October 2009 and it will open for business a year later.
With an investment of US$40m, the new RT-Mart will be located on the southern side of the Nantong Road in Hailing district, in the northern part of the city. A major renovation project has recently begun in this area.

Big profits fall for Wusteel:

Wuhan Iron & Steel, China’s fifth-largest steel maker, reported a net profit of Rmb263m for the three months to 31 March, just one-eighth of the total made in the same period last year. The company managed to stay profitable despite the recent fall in steel prices thanks to relatively strong demand for its core value-added product, silicon steel.
On the downside, as an inland steel smelter it faces higher logistics cost than coastal competitors such as Baosteel and Ansteel, said Luo Wei, analyst at China International Capital Corporation.