News in review

Monday November 6

China's food-delivery market surges

App-based food-delivery companies in China now account for 10 percent of the catering industry's annual sales, up from 7.4 percent last year.

According to the China Internet Network Information Center's China Internet Development Report, 295 million people used online food-delivery services in the first half of this year. Food and beverages will have been delivered more than 350 million times this year, up from 256 million times last year, according to the China Cuisine Association (CCA).

CCA director Jiang Junxianattributed the rapid growth of the food-delivery market to reliable telecom infrastructure, nifty smartphones, imaginative apps, mobile-payment tools and enhanced logistics capacity of delivery firms. Chinese consumers' growing impatience with time-consuming restaurant visits, and their reluctance to cook at home due to work pressures, are also key factors.

New launch upgrades satellite navigation system

China launched the first satellites in the third generation of its Beidou Navigation Satellite System in the first step of establishing a vast positioning and navigation network with global coverage.

Two third-generation Beidou satellites, the first of their type, were lifted atop a Long March 3B carrier rocket at 7:45 pm on Sunday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province and have been placed in orbits thousands of kilometers above the Earth.

They will be at work for at least 12 years in space, according to the China Satellite Navigation Office.

Beidou is the fourth navigation satellite system in the world, following the United States' GPS system, Russia's GLONASS and the European Union's Galileo. (Photo 1)

Tuesday November 7

Alibaba drones deliver packages to island

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced on Tuesday that it has used drones to deliver packages over water for the first time.

Three drones carrying six boxes of passionfruit with a combined weight of around 24 pounds flew from Putian in East China's Fujian province to nearby Meizhou Island on Oct 31, the company said. The drones took nine minutes to make the three-mile crossing.

The drones were jointly developed by Alibaba's delivery arm Cainiao Network, the company's rural shopping platform Rural Taobao, and a domestic technology firm.

Alibaba plans to use drones to deliver high value-added products such as fresh food and medical supplies over water in the future.

The company has prepared extra drones ahead of the upcoming Nov 11 "Singles Day" shopping festival.

JD.com robots to deliver at Beijing universities

China's B2C e-commerce giant JD.com plans to hand over its parcel delivery at more than 100 universities in Beijing to robots starting next month, said its founder Liu Qiangdong.

The robot is a small "driverless vehicle" that delivers parcels from a JD-pai, an on-campus logistics and experience center, to a location where a student could pick up a parcel after receiving a text message.

Liu said that he hopes JD's development of artificial intelligence will not make its employees lose their jobs but make them do "better jobs", in addition to enabling each industry to improve efficiency, cut costs and improve consumer experience.

JD has built an unmanned B2C warehouse in Shanghai, which can handle tens of thousands of orders on a 24-hour basis.

(Photo 2)

Wednesday November 8

Three jailed over smuggling butterfly specimens

A court in East China has sentenced three people to jail terms for smuggling 2,800 butterfly specimens into China, half of which are rare and protected species.

According to the court, since October 2015, the three had purchased 2,800 butterfly specimens online from countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines, had them posted to China and framed before selling the specimens online at a profit.

Among the 2,800 butterflies, more than 1,200 are listed as protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and under state protection in China.

The three were given jail terms of five, seven and 10 years respectively, according to the Intermediate People's Court of Jinan, capital of Shandong province.

They were also ordered to pay fines ranging from around $3,000 to $7,500, the court said.

City does trial run on flexible work schedule

The city government in a southwestern province plans to have some civil employees work a more flexible schedule.

The trial run of the program in the city of Qingzhen was launched on Nov 1 and will end on May 31. Employees have two options: work consecutively for 22 days and rest for eight days, or work 11 days and rest for four days.The total number of working days in a month cannot be lower than 22.

"The adjustment aims to benefit the majority of customers who usually work during weekdays. By using this rotating schedule, we can improve efficiency by ensuring our offices are open every day except holidays," said Li Zhengfei, a city official.

Thursday November 9

Bid for Qualcomm may face scrutiny

Chipmaker Broadcom Ltd's $105 billion proposal to buy its US rival Qualcomm Inc is likely to face intense regulatory scrutiny in China, given the deal's huge size and potential impact on Qualcomm's joint ventures in the country, analysts said.

Wang Junlin, an antitrust lawyer at Beijing-based Yingke Law Firm, said the alliance, which could create a $200 billion-plus behemoth in the semiconductor sector, will be closely watched by regulators around the world.

He said that it is highly likely for regulators to add conditions to the deal, or allow Broadcom to acquire only part of Qualcomm's business, so that the two won't form into a giant that has tremendous bargaining power.

Qualcomm is the world's largest maker of smartphone chips. In 2015, Qualcomm was fined $975 million in China for unfair and excessively high royalty payments it collected from local smartphone makers. (Photo 3)

Hilton aims for 1,000 hotels in China by 2025

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc aims to have 1,000 hotels in China by 2025, driven mostly by expansions in its mid-market brands, including Hampton by Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn.

By the end of September this year, the US hospitality group had 117 hotels in the country and 295 hotels in the pipeline here.

The Chinese market represents about 4.5 percent of Hilton's global revenue, half of which comes from the Asia-Pacific region, according to Christopher J. Nassetta, president and CEO of the company. He said that they expect to raise China's contribution to 10 to 15 percent by 2025.

Last year, China's HNA Group acquired about 25 percent equity interest in Hilton, which has more than 5,000 properties and more than 825,000 rooms in 103 countries and territories.

(Photo 4)

Friday November 10

China, US police team up to stop fake luxury goods

Chinese and US police have jointly smashed an international criminal network that made and sold fake luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex and Cartier, the Ministry of Public Security announced.

The fake luxury goods were produced in Chinese factories, sold via e-commerce and shipped to the United States and other countries and regions.

Chinese police so far have detained 36 suspects and destroyed seven production plants, confiscating more than 3,000 counterfeit items, including leather products, suitcases, glasses, watches and jewelry. Sales had reached $15.1 million, according to the ministry.

US law enforcement agencies are investigating buyers who placed orders for the goods in the US.

China's English language ranking improves

The English proficiency of people in China has reached its highest level since 2011, according to a report.

The proficiency ranking rose three places to 36th among 80 countries and regions, according to the 2017 English Proficiency Index of the Swedish education company Education First, which has produced the report for seven years.

Proficiency in English among residents of Shanghai has ranked first in China for four consecutive years, followed by Hong Kong and Beijing, the report said.

The report is based on the EF Standard English Test results of more than 1 million people from 80 non-English-speaking countries and regions around the world.

Nine out of 10 people who took the test, which was developed by the company and consists of reading and listening, were not clients of Education First. The median age was 26; 48 percent were women.

(China Daily USA 11/10/2017 page12)