Visitors examine an intelligent parking system at the 13th China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security in Beijing. The four-day event concluded on Oct 28. Wang Zhuangfei / For China Daily

British wine school creates branch in China

The United Kingdom's largest institution for teaching skills in the wine and spirits field is setting up its first-ever international branch in Hong Kong to support China's surging demand for wine knowledge. The London-based Wine and Spirit Education Trust said on Oct 25 that its Hong Kong office, opening in November, would allow Chinese students to have their exams marked locally. WSET currently offers classes to Chinese students through accredited schools. In the 2015-16 academic year, 13,141 candidates took its exams in China, a 38 percent year-on-year growth.

Bidding contracts signed for rail line to Laos

The China-Laos railway project saw its Phase II bidding contracts signed on Oct 24 in Vientiane, Laos. Eleven contracts were inked, including five civil engineering contracts, three construction supervision contracts and third-party testing contracts. That meant all the civil engineering contract signings for the China-Laos railway project was completed. The China-Laos railway project had its phase I bidding contracts inked in December 2015.

CapitaLand sets up $1.5 billion fund

Singapore-based real estate developer CapitaLand says it has closed a $1.5 billion private equity fund to invest in mixed-use developments in its core China market. CapitaLand will have a 41.7 percent stake in Raffles City China Investment Partners III, while the rest will be held by major investors from Asia, North America and the Middle East, including new and existing investors. "RCCIP III brings us closer to our goal of raising funds with a total AUM (assets under management) of up to S$10 billion ($7.18 billion; 6.58 million euros; 5.88 million) by 2020," CapitaLand's chief financial officer, Arthur Lang, says in an Oct 25 statement.

SUV production line to be unveiled in 2017

SAIC General Motors Co Ltd, a joint venture between China's SAIC and General Motors, plans to unveil a new production line for its fuel-efficient SUVs in the first half of 2017, company sources said on Oct 23. The facility, in China's central industrial city of Wuhan, will be able to produce 360,000 vehicles a year, bringing the combined capacity to 600,000 for SGM's Wuhan plant, one of the company's four major manufacturing bases in China. SGM said it has invested 7.5 billion yuan ($1.1 billion; 1 billion euros; 906 million) in the new production line, which has been under construction since January 2015 and is dedicated to producing a new generation of GM Chevrolet Equinox SUVs.

Tea, wine to be promoted in Romania

Yiyang, a dark-tea-producing city in Hunan province, will hold a trade promotion event with the Romanian Chamber of Commerce between Nov 9 and 12. The goal for the event is to introduce the city's dark tea and Romanian wine to each other's markets. The city hopes the event will further boost its trade volume with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, in particular with Romania. The East European country is seen as an important market for introducing Chinese dark tea to other parts of Europe.

Aussie govt approves pharma takeover

Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board on Oct 24 approved a Chinese takeover of pharmaceutical group Vitaco, in a deal said to be worth more than $235 million. Following the announcement of the planned sale in August this year, the Chinese bid by Shanghai Pharma and Primavera Capital was given the green light by the government after being approved by Chinese regulators earlier this year.

Uber, DiDi merging systems on back end

Uber China will launch a major upgrade to its mobile application and expand into 400 cities in China by the end of this year, the company announced. Uber China and domestic ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing jointly announced on Oct 25 that the upgrade is "the beginning of a renewed quest for product innovation across the two services". The top two ride-hailing companies in China closed their merger deal on Aug 2. The upgrade will enable "back-end integration" between Uber China and DiDi. The upgraded app will retain Uber China's popular settings, including its simple user interface and 24-hour in-app customer service, while introducing elements of DiDi's highly successful local design. Uber China and DiDi vowed to synchronize dispatching to qualified DiDi and Uber China drivers and boost efficiency, the statement said.

Australia has new best friend for wine exports

China became Australia's No 1 wine export market for the first time in 2015-16, after sales of Aussie wine to the mainland grew by 51 percent to more than $363 million. Wine Australia released its annual Export Report on Oct 20, which showed China had eclipsed the United States and the UK to become Australia's biggest wine export market, taking 21 percent of the country's total exported wine worth a total of $1.67 billion in 2015-16.

Drinks imports surge in Tianjin

Chinese consumers have a growing taste for foreign beer and wine, according to the latest trade data. The entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau of north China's Tianjin municipality found that the port city imported about 91.85 million liters of beer worth nearly $90 million from January to September. Volume rose by 152 percent year-on-year. Wine import volume increased 46 percent to 62 million liters worth more than $130 million.

BWI opens new plant in Czech Republic

Chinese group Beijing West Industries opened a new manufacturing plant in the city of Cheb in the Czech Republic on Oct 19. The car components manufacturer has already installed high-tech equipment in the new facility and has started producing shock absorbers for luxury car makers. Around 300 new jobs are being created in the area thanks to BWI's investment of around 750 million Czech crowns ($30.3 million; 27.7 million euros; 24.8 million).

Chinese mergers and acquisitions rise

The volume and value of outbound mergers and acquisitions by companies from the Chinese mainland hit a record in the first three quarters of 2016, a report of Pricewaterhouse Coopers said on Oct 20. It said deal volume reached a record of 671, nearly double that of the full year of 2015. Their deal value in the first three quarters totaled $164.3 billion, increasing 198.2 percent year-on-year.

Qualcomm builds tech center in Shenzhen

US telecom chip giant Qualcomm Inc has set up an innovation center in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in a move to deepen its business in the Chinese market by taking advantage of the country's innovation drive. It is the first innovation center the company has set up in the country. It will provide technological support to Chinese enterprises with a focus on the so-called internet of things, which the company thinks is a promising sector that will see explosive growth. The world's leading electromagnetic testing equipment, for example, will be included in the center's experimental lab, providing precise testing services for innovative companies to help them reduce research and development costs and increase international competitiveness.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/28/2016 page24)