Global Times - 02.09.2019

B2 Monday September 2, 2019

BIZUPDATE

The China (Hebei) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) is officially launched in Xiongan, North China’s Hebei Province

on Friday. The FTZ spans four areas including the Xiongan Area, Zhengding area in Shijiazhuang, the Caofeidian

area in Tangshan and the area around Beijing Daxing International Airport, covering a total of almost 120 square

kilometers. The State Council, China’s cabinet, announced a plan on August 26 to set up six new FTZs, with Hebei

being one of them. Photo: VCG

 Sinopec, SAIC and Huawei among top 500 Chinese enterprises

High technology manufacturing remains expansive

By Yang Kunyi

In a list of the top 500 Chi-

nese enterprises for 2019 un-

veiled on Sunday, manufactur-

ing companies had the largest

share, with 244 entries.

The figure shows the key

position in the economy of this

sector, which experts said is at a

crucial point in its reform and

innovation.

China Petroleum & Chemi-

cal Corp (Sinopec), China Na-

tional Petroleum Corp and

State Grid Corp of China held

the top three spots on the list,

jointly released by the China

Enterprise Confederation and

the China Enterprise Directors

Association at the Top 500 Chi-

nese Enterprises Summit 2019.

The list has a threshold of 32.3

billion yuan ($4.51 billion) in

terms of revenue.

The two bodies also released

a list of the top 500 Chinese

manufacturing enterprises,

with an 8.9-billion-yuan thresh-

old.

Sinopec led this list with

2.74 trillion yuan of revenue,

followed by SAIC Motor Corp

with 902.1 billion yuan and

Huawei Investment & Holding

with 721.2 billion yuan.

The rest of the top 10 on the

top manufacturing list were

Dongfeng Motor Corp, FAW

Group, China Minmentals,

Amer International Group,

BAIC Group, North China In-

dustries Group and China Na-

tional Chemical Corp.

The top 500 manufacturing

enterprises made total revenue

of 34.9 trillion yuan in 2018, up

9.7 percent from the previous

year. The profits stood at 980

billion yuan, an increase of 19.4

percent year-on-year.

The concentration of manu-

facturing companies on the list

shows that this sector, especial-

ly traditional manufacturing is

still a core industry in China’s

economy, but the trend of high

technology is slowly catching

on, Xu Hongcai, deputy di-

rector of the economic policy

commission at the China As-

sociation of Policy Science in

Beijing, told the Global Times

Sunday.

“Apart from the traditional

manufacturing companies in

heavy industries such as auto-

mobiles, it is worth noting that

companies in technology like

Huawei are going strong in the

economy,” Xu said.

On Saturday, the official

manufacturing purchasing

managers index (PMI) for Au-

gust was released. Overall, the

sector slipped to 49.5 points

from 49.7 in July.

The contraction of the man-

ufacturing sector is partly due

to the pressure of the trade war,

but the general trend shows sta-

bility in the sector and a poten-

tial for structural reform, said

Dong Dengxin, director of the

Financial Securities Institute

at the Wuhan University of Sci-

ence and Technology.

“The large proportion of

manufacturing companies in

China’s top 500 enterprises

shows that the sector is still

going strong,” Dong told the

Global Times Sunday.

He added that “as PMI in

August suggests, the demand

for traditional manufacturing

is shrinking and the sector has

entered a crucial stage of re-

form.”

Zhengzhou commodity

exchange to beef up

overseas cooperation

By Song Lin

China’s Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (ZCE)

signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)

on Sunday with Russia’s Moscow Exchange,

which is one of the world’s leading comprehen-

sive exchanges and a backbone of the capital mar-

ket in Europe and the world.

Experts noted that in line with China’s finan-

cial sector opening-up policy, the MOU could

enhance bilateral communication and expand

cooperation fields under the framework of the

China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

As major countries in the BRI, “China and

Russia possess relatively high levels of comple-

mentarity in different industries, including en-

ergy sources, agriculture and others,” Li Qiang,

director of the research center under Xinhu Fu-

tures, told the Global Times on Sunday.

“A risky situation persists due to current geo-

political problems, and the MOU could benefit

both countries and hedge economic risks to some

extent,” Li said.

China’s commodity markets and industries

are becoming more and more internationalized

in recent years, which, in turn, require a corre-

spondingly sound and internationalized capital

market, including the futures market, Li said.

He noted that a sound and advanced system

is a critical element for commodity exchanges,

which require years of efforts to become a world-

class one.

The ZCE has been striving to provide more

items for overseas trading, and the number of

foreign investors has reached 115 so far, with the

average daily trading volume of foreign traders

accounting for about 8 percent of the total, Wang

Yamei, deputy general manager of the ZCE, told

the 2019 China International Futures Forum,

which is being held in Zhengzhou, capital of

Central China’s Henan Province.

ZCE on Sunday also signed an MOU with the

Multi Commodity Exchange of India.

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DATA

MARKETS

Hebei Pilot FTZ unveiled

Nation to strengthen Party’s role in rural economic affairs

China announced guidelines to

strengthen the leadership of the

Communist Party of China (CPC) in

rural economic construction through

deepening agricultural supply-side

structural reform, the Xinhua News

Agency reported on Sunday.

The Party is expected to play a vital

role in consolidating the basic posi-

tion of the agriculture industry in the

country, and in trying to implement

the food and crop production strategy

based on farmland management and

technological applications, read the

guidelines, which took effect on Au-

gust 19.

It is also a task for the CPC to se-

cure the basic self-sufficiency of grain

and absolute safety of provisions, the

report said, noting that agricultural

supply-side reform should continue

to be driven through efforts such as

establishing modern rural industrial,

production and operating systems.

Such efforts aim to boost the rural

collective economy, promote farmers

to continue to increase their incomes

and help eliminate poverty for more

rural residents.

The guidelines also encouraged

the Party to intensify its role in rural

social construction via improving liv-

ing standards and further advancing

education, healthcare, physical train-

ing and other social networks.

It also highlighted the fact that

more work is needed to enhance ru-

ral public infrastructure and basic

public service conditions to improve

the quality of life in rural areas, ac-

cording to the report.

There should be teams of experts

devoted to rural construction, the

guidelines said, adding that the qual-

ity of teachers and doctors in rural

areas is expected to largely improve.

Also, the CPC is expected to en-

courage more farmers to master tech-

nology, and improve operations and

management in a bid to benefit more

rural talent.

Global Times

POLICY