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Carbon tax likely, expert forecasts...

China may start levying a carbon tax and further boost prices of fossil fuel for the next five years as a crucial incentive to cut greenhouse gas emissions and help realize green targets, Xinhua reported, citing a government-affiliated expert forecast.

"We expect China will start to levy various taxes only if they are helpful in mitigating greenhouse emissions and developing a low-carbon economy," Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher with the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, was quoted as saying.

"I think a carbon tax is likely to be levied during the 12th Five-year plan (2011-15) period," said Jiang. The National Development and Reform Commission is a Cabinet department responsible for the country's mid- and long-term development plan.

Apart from a carbon tax, Jiang said the government may begin to levy environmental and resource taxes, and the country will greatly boost subsidies to support low-carbon technology research and development.

At a weekend climate change forum organized by the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, Jiang said that the government is serious about realizing its target of cutting carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels and the government will implement "tougher measures" in the coming five years to realize the green goal.

Jiang said the taxation and fiscal incentives are just part of a portfolio of possible policy changes, which may turn into reality when China implements its low-carbon development pathway.

"We can possibly surpass the United States between 2020 to 2025 in terms of research and development investment," said Jiang. "If this comes true, we can start to dream of becoming a low-carbon technology leader in the world."

However, Jiang is pessimistic about the coming 10 years. China's total 400-billion-yuan ($59 billion) investment in scientific research and development, Jiang said, "is only about one sixth of the US's total, or only equal to what the US invests in clean energy research."

In clean technology research, Jiang said: "If we don't strive for radical efforts, we will still be left behind by the US, Europe and some other countries and regions."

China's April trade surplus dips...

Picked this up from GCTL8.com's China Watch Blog that China posted a trade surplus of $1.68 billion in April, down 87% from a year earlier.

The report quoted a Xinhua report, citing the General Administration of Customs (GAC), as saying that China's exports in April totaled $119.92 billion, up 30.5% from a year ago and 6.3% from March. While imports reached $118.24 billion, up 49.7% year-on-year.

Combining imports and exports, China's April external trade rose 39.4 percent year-on-year to $238.16 billion.

Taking the first four months together, China's January-April external trade increased 42.7 percent from a year earlier to $855.99 billion.

From January to April, China's exports rose 29.2% year-on-year to $436.05 billion while imports grew 60.1% to $419.94 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $16.11 billion in the first four months, sharply down 78.6% from a year earlier.

According to the GAC figures for the January-April period, the European Union remained China's largest trading partner, with China-EU bilateral trade topping $137.77 billion, up 34.6% from the same period last year.

January-April trade between China and the United States, the country's second largest trading partner, increased 25 percent year-on-year to $107.18 billion.

Japan outpaced the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as China's third largest trading partner in the first four months, revealed the GAC statistics.

January-April trade between China and Japan gained 37.5% to $88.66 billion, up 34.6% from a year ago. In the first four months, China's trade deficit with Japan more than doubled to $17.72 billion.

China also recorded a trade deficit of $5.87 billion with ASEAN from January to April, compared with $830 million of trade surplus with ASEAN in the same period last year.

Think tank urges widening of yuan band...

China should widen the yuan's daily trading transaction band and return to the exchange rate mechanism that was in place before the global financial crisis, the Business Post reported, citing a government think tank's report.

We picked this report up from China Watch Blog, which said it learnt that Beijing allowed the yuan to gradually rise 19% against the US dollar, after a 2.1% revaluation in July 2005, before freezing it near 6.83 to the dollar in July 2008 to provide stability during the worldwide credit crunch.

"In response to constantly growing pressure for renminbi (yuan) appreciation, we should consider appropriately expanding the currency''s floating band," said the State Information Centre (SIC), a research outfit under the National Development and Reform Commission, the powerful economic planning agency.

The People's Bank of China now lets the yuan rise or fall by 0.5 percentage point a day against the US dollar from a midpoint it sets each morning. In practice, the full width of the band has rarely been used.

In a report published in the official China Securities Journal, the SIC recommended that moves in the yuan should be gradual and "controllable" - the long-standing formula used by mainland policymakers.

"With expectations of yuan appreciation gradually building in the international community, it would be better to time the widening of the yuan's band before more hot money rushes into China," it said.

The think tank also said economic growth was likely to slow moderately this quarter, while inflation would accelerate. Gross domestic product growth from a year earlier would ease to 10.% form 11.9% in the first quarter, the SIC forecast.

Consumer inflation is expected to rise 4.2% in the first three months, owing to rising import prices, a low base effect from 2009, and the impact of bad weather. Private economists also expect inflation to rise and growth to slow down this quarter.

Exporters, retailers struggle over biz...

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce's attempts to encourage struggling exporters to seal supply deals with local retailers as a way of offsetting a slump in overseas shipments do not appear to be working, according to a Business Post report. The difficulties of selling products to local stores, intellectual property theft, unattractive payments terms and the small orders involved make the domestic market unattractive even for companies still riding out the economic slump. Exporters signed deals worth US$34.4b with overseas buyers during the spring session of the Canton Fair, which closed on May 5, 2010, up 12.6% from the trade fair's previous sessions six months ago. The volume of deals was reportedly 10.3% behind the pre-financial crisis level in early 2008, the Ministry of Commerce said. But it did not disclose figures on how much business the manufacturers had secured from domestic buyers. That was despite an announcement that 8,000 large and medium-sized supermarket chains will be purchasing from manufacturers at the twice-a-year event. It had said 70% of the exhibitors were interested in the trade-matching.

China Practical Mobile Phone Economy Index

As a frequent visitor to China, yours truly would like to state that the country should consider having a practical way to measure the economy, like perhaps the number of mobile phones and house telephones.

News of Future (www.newsoffuture.com ) published a news report citing Chinese economist Lin Yifu who estimates that there will 1 billion mobile phone users in China by year 2020, up from 449 million users in October 2006.

So, we think the mobile phone should be used as an index to measure the economic health of the country. By doing so, all countries in the world can similarly use this same index, which we propose to call China Practical Mobile Phone Economy Index. Below is the report:

1 Billion Mobile Phone Users in China

January 5, 2020 - China will this month reach the 1 billion mark for mobile phone users, three times as many as 15 years ago. The market for mobile phones in China is bigger than Europe, US and Japan combined and about 80% of the Chinese population now has a mobile phone.

The worldwide use of mobile phones will most likely reach another significant mark later this year, when passing 5 billion mobile phone users, about 65% of the world’s population.

India is still the country adding most users in the world each month and will most likely pass China in total number of mobile phone users within the next 10 years, from their current 910 million.

China also has the most Internet users in the world, 400 million, and their impact on the Internet has been noticed significantly over the last years. One reason for this, a part from the number of users is the number of English-speaking Chinese, which has increased to almost match the native English speakers in the world.

Censorship Index update

Simon Singh today won a crucial ruling on meaning and fair comment at the Royal Courts of Justice. Simon Singh has spent two years and £200,000 on this case in defending himself. The pre-trial appeal ruling on meaning in the case of BCA v Singh was presided over by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, and Lord Justice Sedley — one of the most high-powered panels of judges ever to preside on a single case.

Singh is being sued for defamation by the British Chiropractic Association’s (BCA) for comments in a 2008 article for the Guardian newspaper in which he criticised chiropractic and claimed the BCA promoted “bogus” treatments, DESPITE THERE not being “a jot” of evidence of their effectiveness. In May 2009 the High Court gave a negative ruling on the meaning of Singh’s article, when Mr Justice Eady ruled that the author’s use of the word “bogus” implied that the BCA deliberately endorsed treatments they knew to be questionable.

The judges today rejected Eady’s interpretation and voiced concern that the case ‘has almost certainly had a chilling effect on public debate which might otherwise have assisted potential patients to make informed choices about the possible use of chiropractic.’

In a ruling of immense significance that will free scientific debate from the chill of libel action, they recommended that scientific controversies should be settled by methods of science rather than legal action and recommended that the defence ‘fair comment’ be replaced with ‘honest opinion’, as a more robust defence to the right to free expression.

‘If the BCA continues in its pursuit of suing Simon Singh after such a damning judgment,’ said Jo Glanville, Index on Censorship. ‘It may soon be in need of chiropractic treatment itself. The ruling today is a significant victory for the defence of freedom of speech. It’s essential that scientists and academics are allowed to criticise and question treatments, medical practice and research – and today goes a significant way towards lifting the chill on freedom of expression.

The Libel Reform Campaign is calling for a Libel Reform Act, for further information go to www.libelreform.org

For further comment contact
Jo Glanville, Editor, Index on Censorship jo@indexoncensorship.org +44 (0) 20 7324 2531
Padraig Reidy, News editor, Index on Censorship, padraig@indexoncensorship.org +44 (0) 20 7324 2526

The Libel Reform Campaign is a coalition of English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science. The campaign has over 44,500 signatories to its petition to reform England’s libel laws and for a Libel Reform Bill in the next parliament.