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China releases details of charges against Qualcomm
China’s top economic planning agency released its official antitrust ruling on chipmaker Qualcomm on Monday.
In a ruling posted to the website of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the company was found to have had a dominant position in the licensing of patents in wireless communication.
The ruling also found that the chipmaker had misused its market position by charging unfairly high patent fees.
Qualcomm was hit with a US$975 million fine for violating China’s antimonopoly law in February.
NDRC officials met with executives from Qualcomm 28 times during the prolonged negotiation process.
Policy breakthrough on market reforms in next five-year plan
China will push ahead with plans to give the market a decisive role in the allocation of resources reports the Economic Daily.
The paper cites ‘exclusive knowledge’ of plans to push ahead with thre reforms as part of China's next five-year plan.
Song Xiaowu, the former head of the NDRC's Academy of Macroeconomic Research and an adviser to the China Society of Economic Reform, said that even though commodities are already allocated through market mechanisms, the use of the market in the allocating key resources such as labour, land and capital is still relatively limited.
According to the article, the upcoming five-year plan will no longer focus on nominal economic growth numbers.
The 13th five-year plan will cover the period from 2016 to 2020 and will likely be published later this year.
Survey: Income expectations wane
Expectations of salary increases over the coming year have begun to wane in China, according to a survey of 100,000 households across 104 cities jointly released by China Central Television, the National Bureau of Statistics and China Post yesterday.
Expectations about future incomes sank to 67.6 per cent from last year's 75.4 per cent, a four-year low.
Reports on the result of the survey also said that people are changing the areas in which they invest, with funds less popular this year and wealth management products topping the list.
Summaries of the survey have also highlighted the result that younger people are more willing to invest than older respondents.
Only 40 per cent of households surveyed responding that they felt 'happy'.
Over a third of respondents listed air quality as their top environmental concern.
China aims to reduce coal use 80mn tonnes by 2017
China aims to reduce coal use by over 80 million tonnes by 2017, according to an internal "clean plan" jointly authored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance.
According to a Beijing News report, the plan aims to encourage the more efficient use of coal over the period from 2015 to 2020.
The report sets a goal of reducing coal use by more than 80 million tonnes by 2017 and also includes various other emissions targets.
The plan also seeks the involvement of local-level authorities and is said to include financial resources to help companies to reduce air pollution, improve technology and deal with out-dated equipment and overcapacity.
The paper quotes an unnamed MIIT official as saying "we're currently fighting for specialised funds to support the implementation of this plan."
China’s environment ministry collects 7.2 million yuan fines this year
China’s Ministry of Environment Protection Ministry managed to collect only a paltry sum of 7.23 million from polluters during the first two months of the year, signaling the weakness in the country’s environmental protection and enforcement regime.
According to a China National Radio report, Vice Minister Pan Yue says enforcement mechanism receives a much-needed boost this year since the introduction of new Environment law this year. Polluters will be fined on daily basis this year.
Mr Pan says a Jiangsu court has issued a judgment that demands six polluters to pay 610 million yuan in environmental recovery fee.
Chinese companies pay 40 to 50% taxes, says leading business leader
One of China’s most influential private sector entrepreneurs Zong Qinghou says Chinese companies need to handover 40 to 50 per cent of their profits to tax collectors.
Apart from the heavy tax burden, he also voiced grievances about the high cost of social security costs for employees. According to his company’s estimate, it needs to 400 to 500 types of various fees.
Zong, who founded the country’s largest beverage company, also complains about China’s high cost of borrowing and especially for private sector businesses. He says the average cost of a loan is more than 10 per cent and the median profit for businesses is only around 6.04 per cent.
He has urged the government to set aside 20 per cent of total bank lending to small and medium sized businesses and reduce rental costs for industrial estates.
