BIZUPDATE
Wednesday August 7, 2019 B3Sunny outlook
A solar-powered automatic drone charger is seen in the Zhangjiang artificial intelligence (AI) island in Shanghai on
Tuesday. The Zhangjiang AI island, covering 100,000 square meters, is expected to be a cluster of AI companies,
projects and talent with Microsoft and IBM as the two major participants, media reports said. The island will focus
on high-technology sectors like big data, cloud computing and blockchain. Photo: IC Experts warn of danger to city’s wider economy, business confidence
Insurance sector hit by Hong Kong unrest
By Song Lin
Representatives of Hong
Kong’s financial sector, in-
cluding insurance companies,
are expressing deep concern
about rising unrest in the city
and calling for the restoration
of order to avoid an erosion of
investors’ confidence in local
economic growth.
“The revenue of our depart-
ment plunged 20 percent year-
on-year in July, which is sup-
posed to be a peak season in
the insurance sector,” Wendy,
a senior manager of an insur-
ance company located in Har-
bour City in Hong Kong, told
the Global Times on Tuesday.
“My personal performance
in July dropped 70 percent year-
on-year,” Wendy said. “If the
unrest persists, I will definitely
miss this year’s target.”
She said that four out of
five consultancy appointments
were cancelled recently by cus-
tomers from the Chinese main-
land, which never happened
before.
Nicole Lu, a Hong Kong-
based insurance agent and a
member of the Million Dollar
Round Table, told the Global
Times that her customers have
shown concern and some have
decided to postpone plans to
purchase insurance policies in
Hong Kong.
“Only a small group of peo-ple is trying to separate Hong
Kong from the motherland and
those violent protestors cannot
represent Hongkongers as a
whole,” Lu said.
Clients of insurance compa-
nies usually buy policies when
they travel to the city. A Beijing
resident surnamed Li told the
Global Times that she aban-
doned plans to buy insurance
policies in Hong Kong and
switched to local companies.
“I won’t risk my safety for sub-
stitutable services, even if their
products are better,” she said.
“As a vital pillar of Hong
Kong’s economy, the financial
services sector has taken a big
hit from the continuous cha-
os,” Cong Yi, a professor at theTianjin University of Finance
and Economics, told the Global
Times on Tuesday.
A stable and law-abiding
community is the foundation
for development of the services
sector. Continuous chaos will
not only hurt services but also
damage the whole economy,
and that can’t be reversed in a
short time, Cong noted.
Violent crimes including
attacking police and defam-
ing national flags should be
punished as soon as possible,
Wendy, the insurance agent,
said. She added that most resi-
dents of Hong Kong would not
surrender and will continue to
lead normal lives and continue
working, since radical protes-tors are trying to damage local
residents’ livelihoods by para-
lyzing transportation systems
and other disruptions.
According to a government
news site of Shanghai, pudong.
gov.cn, Swire Coca-Cola, whose
revenue was HK$40 billion
($5.1 billion) in 2018 and is
one of the world’s largest bot-
tling partners of Coca-Cola,
announced it would move its
headquarters for China op-
erations from Hong Kong to
Shanghai on Thursday.
“It sent a signal to Hong
Kong society,” Cong said. Peo-
ple will lose their confidence in
Hong Kong’s economic devel-
opment if the radical protests
continue.US plan to contain
China’s rise would end
in failure: experts
Nation to mass produce 400km/h high-speed trains by 2019
A committee of experts in China has
approved a design for high-speed
trains that could run at a speed of
400 kilometers an hour, which will
be in service before 2022 to serve
the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
An intelligent train linking Beijing
to Zhangjiakou, North China’s Hebei
Province, will use the train, a Chinese
official said on Tuesday.
This marks the first high-speed
train in the world that can run above
a maximum speed of 350k/h, said Ba-
yin Zhaolu, a senior official in North-
east China’s Jilin Province, at a press
briefing of the State Council, China’s
cabinet.The train, developed by local com-
panies in Jilin, will adopt China’s own
BeiDou Satellite Navigation System
for the first time and have “impres-
sive functions” in intelligent driving,
intelligent service and intelligent
maintenance, Bayin said.
The train is expected to be in mass
production by the end of the year.
Companies in Jilin are also devel-
oping a new generation of subways
that use international leading au-
tonomous operating systems, Bayin
said. “A subway train, made of carbon
fiber, could inspect, dispatch, drive,
stop, reverse and wash itself,” the of-
ficial said.
The windows in the train operate atouch-screen display system that will
allow passengers to watch TVs and
send texts and images, according to
Bayin.
The nation has also rolled out
plans to build a super-fast maglev
train between Chengdu, capital of
Southwest China’s Sichuan Province
to Southwest China’s Chongqing
Municipality that would run between
600k/hr to 800k/hr an hour, the Se-
curities Times reported in July.Global TimesFINANCE
ECONOMY
By Tu Lei
Washington’s plans to contain China’s economy
would end in failure and the price to be paid by
the US will far exceed its imagination as it pro-
vokes a trade war, Chinese experts warned on
Tuesday.
“We hope the US can reverse its wrong deci-
sion [of adding tariffs on $300 billion in exports
to the US], as we think there will be a series of
consequences such as lowering the living stan-
dards of Americans, dampening the confidence
of US companies and disturbing the normal in-
ternational trade order,” Jin Xu, chairman of the
China Association of International Trade, said at
a seminar in Beijing organized by the Chinese
Academy of International Trade and Economic
Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
“Adding tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese ex-
ports to the US violates the WTO non-discrimina-
tion principle. The behavior of the US is a loss of
trust and morality,” Li Gang, vice chairman of the
association, said.
Their comments came days after the US
threatened to impose 10 percent of tariffs on
another $300 billion worth of Chinese imports
starting on September 1. The surprise tariff an-
nouncement came after China and the US re-
started trade talks in Shanghai last week.
China on Friday vowed necessary countermea-
sures to safeguard its core interests and said that
the country will not accept any maximum pres-
sure threats or blackmail, nor “make any conces-
sion” on issues of principle. On Tuesday morn-
ing, the Ministry of Commerce said that Chinese
enterprises had halted new purchases of US agri-
cultural products.
Li said that international value chains, indus-
try chains, and supply chains are determined by
world trade patterns and this process should ben-
efit everyone, but the tariffs imposed by the US
have destroyed this balance.
Li added: “Any violation of market rules and
economic laws will not last long and will be aban-
doned by history.”
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