No.369 April 17, 2009
Special Issues  
  USITO Website Upgrade On The Go
 
USITO To Host China's U.S. Purchasing Delegation in SF
 

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Top Story

China's State Council Releases "Electronic Information Industry Restructuring and Rejuvenation Plan"

On April 15, China's government website www.gov.cn officially published the long-awaited stimulus plan for the electronics industry. The plan, titled "Electronic Information Industry Restructuring and Rejuvenation Plan", contains five parts, which are respectively about the status quo of the current situation, guidelines, principles and objectives, primary tasks, policy measure and implementation, etc.; it depicts nine ICT sectors to be especially encouraged: computer, electronics components, video and audio products, Integrated circuits, display components, software, communications equipment, information services, and information technology application. The plan will be effective during the period of 2009-2011.

The Plan begins with a paragraph describing the difficulties that China's ICT industries are now encountering. It says China's electronics and IT products sales surged at an average annual rate of 28% from 2001 to 2007, but started sharp decline since the second half of last year due to the world economic downturn, and the industry faces "severe challenges". The Plan lists ambitious goals for the next three years, including the technological breakthroughs in strategic domains of integrate circuits, as well as new-type displays and software; growth shall be especially cultivated in such fields as digital TVs and the new generation of mobile communications and Internet. In addition, China will vigorously promote the overseas commercial use of China's homegrown 3G standard TD-SCDMA standard.

USITO has immediately coordinated the translation of the Plan (by working with SIA), now available for members to download. MEMBERS PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD. For the original Chinese text of the official document, please check this link: (http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2009-04/15/content_11191634.htm). The translated version may NOT be accurate, it is only for USITO/SIA member reference and any redistribution without permission is prohibited.

USITO Notes: We heard as early as February that MIIT has submitted to the State Council the ICT industry stimulus plan for proposal. Though the state media alleged it was soon approved on 2/18/2009, the Plan kept unavailable to the public until this Wednesday. The delay of the official promulgation, according to experts, was mostly due to a few controversial terms and phrases, debated intensely amongst the senior officials.

The stimulus plan embodies quite a few quantitative objectives, such as ICT industries will in the next three years create 1 million new jobs for college graduates; revenues from software and information service sectors will take up 15% of the industry's total from the current 12%; among other figures. Compared with the February version, an important update in the final one is the relatively low key on the preference for domestic products, e.g., the terms in the early version are crossed out that call for buying local software products whenever possible. But a big theme in the plan remains to be the pledge to encourage "indigenous innovation".

Nonetheless, the Plan is positioned to function as an industry guideline, so it is jammed with statements on general objectives while lacks identifiable implementation measures. To give an example, it is easy said than done to recruit 1 million college students to the electronics industry, it looks rather difficult given the current downturn; so it needs deliberate enforcement approaches to reach that goal. It is reported the government ministries like MIIT and their research arms and think tanks are now working on the details to interprete the Plan.


New Rule Mandating Preference of Domestic Products in Government Procurement

On April 10, 2009 Friday, the General Office of the State Council of China issued its No.2009-35 Circular ¨C ˇ°Opinions of the General Office of the State Council about Strengthening Government Procurement Managementˇ±. A key message out of the new circular is the call to further promote domestic products in government procurement practices, such as the Article IV states: "The procurement of imported products shall be strictly examined; if domestic products can meet the procurement needs, no imported products shall be considered".

Given the importance of the circular, USITO has translated it, available in USITO's new website for download (LINK). For the original official document (Chinese), please check this link: http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2009-04/13/content_1283914.htm.

USITO Notes: Government procurement issue has increasingly affected USITO member companies' business in China. We have received a number of valuable feedbacks from our members on this issue after sending out a separate email notice about this circular this Tuesday. The next meeting of USITO Trade & Investment Work Group will take this issue as a priority for discussion, we would contintue to welcome any prior member input (wenjie@usito.org). The notice of the meeting will be sent out soon through a separate email.

More Chinese Companies Publish CSR Reports

More than 190 companies in China, including some foreign-funded firms, have published their annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports -- compared with 19 in 2006. Detail

China Launches 2nd "Compass" Satellite

On April 15th, China successfully launched its second navigation satellite, as part of the country's independent global satellite navigation system. The system, code named "COMPASS", is a crucial part of the country's space infrastructure for providing navigation and positioning services. Detail

China Electronics Fair 2009

The 73rd China Electronics Fair was held in Shenzhen this week. This is an annual top level electronics expo in China, please click here for the photo gallery.

Selected Chinese Media Reports

3G Mobile Communications

China Telecom Launches 3G Service in 120 Cities

On April 16, China Telecom officially kicked off its nationwide 3G business offering in 120 Chinese cities. The company held a large ceremony in Beijing, and launched a large scale pitch compaign across the country. According to its press release, the company plans to extend the service to 300 cities after three months. Chinese Text

China Mobile Launches 29 Netbook Models

On April 12, China Mobile began official sales of it TD-SCDMA netbooks in Guangzhou . The batch of netbooks were embedded with TD-SCDMA modems. So far the company has launched 29 models, supplied by leading Chinese laptop vendors like Founder, Hai'er and Tongfang. It is reported that larger scale promotion will take place within a few days. Chinese Text

China Unicom to Complete WCDMA Network Construction This Week

According to a report in Communications Weekly, China Unicom plans to complete the construction of its WCDMA network before April 17th, 2009. The network will be ready for business offering before May 17th. Chang Xiaobing, Chairman of China Unicom, said to the media that China Unicom plans to officially offer WCDMA service in 55 Chinese cities on May 17 th the World Telecommunications Day, which is only a month away. Chinese Text

OPhone Mobile Phone To Debut

China Mobile has been developing its own mobile phone operation system OPhone for quite a few years. Sources said the company will bring to the market the first batch OPhone mobile phones in May. OPhone is based on Google's open source platform "Android". Chinese Text

Regulations

Unicom Introduces Six Measures to Protect Subscriber Privacy

China Unicom's Guangdong Branch has recently introduced six measures to protect the personal information of its subscribers. The measures include the strengthened management flow of customer information, prohibited copy of related data, among other things. The company will also introduce a responsibility system for the drive. Chinese Text

Vice Premier Vows More Support for TD

Zhang Dejiang, China's Vice Premier, during a tour to China Mobile's Beijing Branch has reiterated his support for TD-SCDMA. He said that various government organs should formulate relevant policies and regulations to foster TD-SCDMA, and create a better environment for the TD industry. Chinese Text

  

Trade and Investment

MOFCOM Surveys Export Situation

In the margins of the Canton Fair 2009 (or China Import and Export Fair), Minister of Commerce Chen Demin convened a meeting with the heads of provincial Commerce Bureaus in the morning of April 16, during which he discussed with them the import and export situation of Chinese firms. A day earlier, under Chen's direction, MOFCOM began the survey of Chinese firms' export situation. Chinese Text

John Chambers Visits China

CISCO CEO John Chambers is scheduled to visit China on April 17. This will be his 7th visit to China. CISCO sources says the visit will be aimed to facilitate the $16 billion investment that CISCO committed in Nov.2007, and set up a joint lab in Tshinghua Uni. Chinese Text

Digital Media

China to Accelerate Network Convergence

According to the ˇ°China Human Rights Action Plan 2009 -2010ˇ±, China is now pushing the network convergence work, which involves the three networks: national terrestrial digital TV network, satellite direct broadcast network, and mobile multimedia broadcasting network. The Action Plan also calls for strengthening IPR protection. Chinese Text

Five DTV Companies Call for Indigenous Innovation

According to a report in Sina.com, five Chinese digital TV companies jointly called for enhancing indigenous innovation in China 's digital TV industry. They alleged that domestic products and standards should be encouraged and favored by the government, and only with the stronger domestic digital TV industry can the Chinese enjoy a better prospect for the future. Chinese Text

Internet

Baidu.com Enters Japanese Mobile Search Market

Li Yinan, CTO of China's largest search engine Baidu.com, disclosed to the media this week that Baidu.com will launch mobile search service in Japan this month. This is a key step of Baidu's market expansion plan in Japan . Li Yinan said the traditional Internet is now on the way of converging with mobile Internet, and the latter one will be the trend. Japan as a country with the most advanced mobile phone market will be greatly potential market for Baidu. Chinese Text

China Boasts the World's Largest IPv6 Network

China has built the world's largest next generation backbone IPv6 Internet network, and introduced a series of IPv6 applications, according to Hu Qiheng, Chairwoman of China Internet Society. She said China started next generation Internet research in the late 1990's, and began the construction of the pilot project CNGI in 2003. By now the country boasts the world's largest IPv6 network. Chinese Text

USITO selected and translated the news summaries above. If you are interested in learning more details about the above Chinese language links, you are welcome to contact us (wenjie@usito.org) to sponsor the translation of that report.

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