Countries including the United States and India should not politicize outbound investment by Chinese enterprises or abuse investment protection tools to shield their own industries and jobs from the financial crisis, the Ministry of Commerce said.

Such abuse will sour trade and investment relations with China, as well as dampen the confidence of the country's outbound direct investment (ODI) and slow down ODI growth for the rest of the year, the ministry said.

Banks are positioning themselves at the forefront of China's twin ambitions of modernising its maritime industry and transforming Shanghai into an international shipping hub. That is the view of insiders close to a new leasing company that was set up in Shanghai last week. It aims to open up the city to more involvement from foreign shipping players.

Foreign-funded enterprises’ production and operation enjoy national treatment in China, and the facilitation policies for trade and investment will continue, Liu Yajun, an official with China’s Ministry of Commerce, said on July 15.

More and more Chinese are hooking into the Web on the move, with nearly two-thirds of Internet users going mobile.

China is experiencing a "slight slowdown" in growth but remains on track to achieve a 9.5% rise in GDP this year, a prominent government economist said in remarks published.

Despite the many challenges facing China's manufacturing industry, the country will remain king of manufacturing competitiveness over the next five years, consulting firm Deloitte said in a recent report.

The nation's chief auditor warned that local government debt will pose risks to the Chinese economy amid concerns that the debt could trigger a European-style financial crisis.

Pressures that foreign companies may face in China for pay rises will not dampen their confidence about investing in the country, with the nation set to welcome a new wave of foreign direct investment (FDI) this year, according to a think-tank of the Ministry of Commerce.

China's exports surged by nearly 50% in May but analysts warned Europe's debt crisis is likely to hurt the recovery in trade.

Exports rose 48.5% in May, while imports were up 48.3%, the Chinese customs agency said. The figures exceeded most analysts' forecasts and produced a monthly trade surplus of $19.5 billion.

The thinking and behavior of investors gives shape to the bottom of the market and its recovery. Markets react more quickly to economic developments because they efficiently aggregate the changing emotions of millions of investors. Fundamental data and economic reports rely on less efficient data collection methods and the result is a delayed understanding of changing market conditions. Markets, and market behavior, are leading indicators of changes in the economy.

On June 22, 2010, the Ministry of Finance of P. R. China and the State Administration of Taxation of P. R. China jointly issued the Notice on the Cancellation of Export Drawback on Some Commodities, indicating that as of July 15, 2010, export drawback on commodities under 406 HS Codes including part of steels and nonferrous metal building materials shall be cancelled.

In accordance with China's national standard B5296.3-2008 of Instruction for Use of Consumer Products-General Labeling for Cosmetics, from June 17, 2010 (excluding June 17, 2010), the imported cosmetics shall be veritably labeled with the names of all their ingredients on their visible appearance, the ingredients with proportions more than 1% be listed in descending order. And the characters written in the labels shall be normative simplified Chinese characters (other forms of characters allowed in concurrent use) except those in trademarks registered according to laws.

The first half of this year, China's national economy maintained good momentum rebound, sea transport to the good production overall. According to Ministry of Transport and Shipping Bureau of Statistics on June 25 newsletter, this year in January to June, China's main port cargo throughput is expected to complete the 3.14 billion tons, up 17.7%. Among them, the container throughput record highs, is expected to complete the 64.4 million TEU, up 22.7%.

Waterway Transport Secretary SONG star, said recently that China's port cargo throughput in the initial stages to grow to 10 million tons of 7.657 billion tons at present, the port cargo throughput of more than 100 million tons by the year 2008 16 to 20 for 7 years remain in the world. China is now an annual increase of port capacity 500 million tons, equivalent to create a new Shanghai.

The main plan, led by the National Development and Reform Commission, aims to boost China’s logistics industry, which has been in a slump since 2008.

Turnover tax rate reform, an important issue for the industry as a whole, is expected to come into effect in 2010 as the country attempts to unify the turnover tax rate for sub-sectors of the industry at 3%, Wang said.

Currently, the turnover tax rate for transportation, loading and unloading stands at 3%, while that for the services sector – including warehousing and distribution - is 5%.

The differentiated tax rate has hampered industry integration as both transportation and services are interlinked with logistics.

Besides, it also makes it difficult for some sub-sectors like warehousing to survive, where average profit margins of 3% lag behind the 5% turnover tax rate, an industry insider told the 21st Century Business Herald.

The NDRC is currently running a trial program ahead of the widespread implementation of the plan, involving 487 logistics firms. More are expected to join the trial at a later date.

The plans cover logistics for coal, grain, cold chains for agricultural products, logistics parks, emergency logistics and commerce logistics.

Under the plans, the NDRC will speed up efforts to build logistics channels and form a strategic logistics network across different provinces to promote the transportation of grain from North China to southern provinces.

Other relevant authorities will also engage in the implementation of the plan. The Ministry of Finance, for instance, will provide specific funding to promote rural logistics.

In the first quarter of 2010, the domestic logistics industry saw a 20.8% growth in total revenues from a year earlier as business picked up, while industry added-value grew 24% year-on-year to RMB 596.1 billion.Development officials are drawing up six plans this year in an effort to implement the Logistics Industry Adjusting and Rejuvenation Plan that was approved last March, according to Wang Ming, deputy director of the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

On June 10, 2010, Director General of the Department of Asian Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce of China (MOFCOM), Mr. Lu Kejian said at a press conference of MOFCOM, from July 1, 2010, China will apply zero tariff to 4,721 kinds of commodities from Bangladesh within the framework of Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement.

The trade surplus for May is expected to far exceed the $1.68 billion mark of April, triggering speculation that an impending reform of the foreign exchange policy is on the cards.

May 31, the Ministry of Transport held in Tangshan in Hebei resource-saving and environment-friendly experience of the port construction site exchange.

The number of Chinese in their 80s or older neared 19 million last year and would grow by an additional one million annually, a government report said.The number of people aged 60 years and above, increased by 7.25 million to 167.14 million last year, or 12.5% of the Chinese population, the Office of China National Committee on Aging said.

Nearly 73% of Taiwan's young men and women who graduated from universities or colleges this summer would not mind crossing the Taiwan Strait to work in China, the 1111 job bank quoted the results of a recent poll as indicating.

The 2010 wage guideline in Beijing was released, stating an average salary jump of 11%. The wage guideline, which includes an average, upper and lower level, is an annual requirement from the government to enterprises to raise employee salaries. It stated that all enterprises in Beijing in 2010 must raise wages by between the lower and upper limits of 3 and 16%.

China International Intellectech Corp, a human resources firm, said companies in Shanghai have raised their employees' salaries by 6.5% on average from last year, or 2 to 3 percentage points higher than in 2009, after conducting a survey covering over 300 corporations.

About 40% of the firms in China raised the number of posts available, and 20% provided more jobs to graduates, due to a recovering economy.

Reference: Shanghai Daily

Companies on the Chinese mainland will continue to boost their recruitment, with 65% saying they would do so in the third quarter of this year, a rise from 64% in the second quarter, a survey showed.

More than 100 million young rural migrant workers rushing to Chinese cities are straining social stability, China's official trade union said in a report.

Fresh graduates whose parents are jobless or retired posted the lowest employment rate among their peers last year due to the lack of social resources and job information, a survey covering 220,000 respondents revealed.

Some foreigners and people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan staying in the city for more than six months will be included in China's Sixth Census, which starts November 1.

Robust growth of the private sector has made it China's major provider of new jobs, contributing 90% of new positions, Minister of State Administration for Industry and Commerce Zhou Bohua said.

China's exports for June hit a record high since July 2008 and the trade surplus also surged to the highest this year, but economists insisted such strong momentum cannot be sustained and there is little possibility that the yuan will gain by large margins, as widely expected worldwide.

The exchange rate regime reform China is carrying out will have limited impacts on the country's exports, an official from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said here.

Shanghai showed further signs of a cooling economy in May, with moderating growth rates in industrial production and investment. However, exports lifted and consumer prices continued to rise, making a call on policy changes difficult.

China's fiscal revenue in April rose 34.4% year on year to 792.6 billion yuan (116.03 billion U.S. dollars), boosted by rising tax revenues and domestic prices, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced.

The Shanghai World Expo provided a boost to the city's efforts to transform itself into a global financial center, a leading Shanghai-based economist said in an interview with Xinhua.