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Local government debt continues to balloon
The amount of debt on the books of China's local government's has expanded dramatically since the last official accounting, which was calculated by the National Audit Office through to June 2013, according to information gleaned from interviews with delegates to China's National People's Congress and members of the CPPCC.
Local governments had been given a deadline of March 8 to provide updated details on the local government debt situation to the Ministry of Finance.
In 2015, at least 2 trillion yuan in local government loans will reach maturity, according to a report in today's Economic Information Daily
Against this background, some delegates told the paper that some regions could face liquidity risks and have called for the extension of the period to roll over debt and an increase in the amount of funds being set aside to deal with problem debt.
(Economic Information Daily)
Property tycoon says the golden age for real estate is over
China’s most powerful property developer, Wang Jianlin says the golden age for the real estate industry has ended and supply will exceed demand.
However, despite the gloomy outlook, he still believes the industry can maintain 10 per cent growth for the next ten years. He said in an interview with CNBC that it would be difficult for the sector to maintain 40 per cent.
Apartment sales and investment reached low ebb last year. All major cities apart from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Sanya have lifted their restrictions on buying property to boost the market.
(The Paper)
Baidu proposes artificial intelligence push
Robin Li, the founder and chief executive of online search giant Baidu, has proposed establishing a “China Brain” national project to spur artificial intelligence technology development.
The project will research human-machine interaction, big data analysis and prediction, automated driving, smart medical diagnosis, smart drones, and robotics technologies for both military and civilian uses.
Li made the proposal in his capacity as a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
The company said the platform should be kept open and competitive, and used to and push forward integration and innovation in traditional industries.
Last year, the company hired Andrew Ng - once head of Google Brain, the American firm's "deep learning" project.
(CCTV)
Scale of local government debt needs to expand: former PBoC advisor
Li Daokui, professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and a former adviser to the People’s Bank of China, has called for a restructuring of the financial system to better serve the real economy.
“Financing the real economy is difficult and at much higher cost in China’s current financial system. Most companies are forced to turn to loan sharks because they struggle to secure bank loans” Mr Li told a plenary meeting in Beijing.
Mr Li said long-term financing of infrastructure projects from commercial banks and trusts and secondly should be ruled out.
Establishing specialized investment fund for infrastructure projects would not not only reduce their sharing of credit resources in banking system, Mr Li said, but also make long-term financing of infrastructure projects independent from governments.
Mr Li also suggested the scale of local government debt should be expanded. Local governments should be allowed to raise funds for long-term construction directly from bond market to improve transparency and investment efficiency, he said.
(CCTV)
Private investment in aged care sector in need of better protection
Private investors seeking to profit from the recent opening up of China's aged care facilities are calling for an even playing field, according to a report in today's Economic Information Daily that quotes delegates to China's consultative conference.
Since China's State Council announced measures to open up the country's aged care sector to private capital investment in September 2013, they've been a flurry of policies aimed at encouraging investment in such facilities.
However, the public and private system operate according to different rules and this is posing problems for private investors, according to the article.
Investors say that position of private institutions is unclear and that they're having difficulty in making profits and will have trouble continuing to operate.
The paper quotes CPPCC delegates as saying that during the process of developing the aged care industry, policies must 'treat all players equally'
"Currently it's very difficult for private capital to invest in the aged care industry", according to Dai Hao, the chairman of Hezhong Life Insurance and CPPCC delegate.
Dai also noted that "as the market still needs more awareness, the rate of occupancy is not high enough and the operations of privately run aged care facilities are under extreme pressure."
(Economic Information Daily)