F REIGN TRADE - 中国国际贸易促进委员会

Europe
12
TRADE
Volkswagen 2010 sales in China up 37%
Europe’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen AG, said January
7 that it had sold 37 percent more vehicles on the Chinese
mainland and Hong Kong in 2010, compared to sales in
2009.
With 1.92 million vehicles
delivered to its customers last year,
Volkswagen had performed beyond
expectation in the past year,
said the European automaker in a
statement.
The company also planned
to invest 10.6 billion euros (about
13.8 billion U.S. dollars) in China
through 2015 to expand its production
capacity and develop new
products, said Karl-Thomas Neumann,
president and chief executive
of Volkswagen Group China,
which operates car ventures with
Chinese state auto groups SAIC Motor and FAW Group.
Neumann also said he expected significant sales in the
country in the coming years and noted that the first Volkswagen
electric cars would hit the roads in China in 2011. (Xinhua)
German pork, egg imports halted
Germany’s dioxin contamination problems deepened
in mid January as China banned pork and egg imports and it
emerged that tainted meat may be in circulation.
A day after authorities ordered the slaughter of 140 pigs
at a German farm after discovering dangerous dioxin levels
in pork for the first time since a scare began early January,
China said its ban was effective immediately.
The country has banned imports of “German-produced
edible pork and egg products,” the country’s product safety
watchdog, General Administration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine, announced in a statement on its
website dated,
saying the move
was aimed at
safeguarding
the health of
consumers.
Authorities
also said
t h e y w o u l d
inspect goods
shipped from
Germany prior
to January 11 and would release them only if found to be safe.
“This is a scandal that is growing bigger and worse every
day,” Johannes Remmel, agriculture minister in the western
state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, told the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) daily.
Germany exported 7,000 tons of pork to China in 2009,
the German government said, worth some six million euros
($7.78 million).
Previously only South Korea had banned German pork
imports, while Slovakia had halted sales of German eggs and
poultry meat, despite Berlin’s repeated assurances there was
no immediate risk to human health. (Global Times)
China-Russia natural gas pricing agreement close
China may reach an initial agreement with Russia on
natural gas pricing - a subject of great contention for years -
by the middle of 2011, industry experts close to the matter
said.
“We’ve seen that the price gap has narrowed during the
past several months. And we’re cautiously optimistic that the
initial price disagreement will be solved in the first half of
2011,” said Wan Chengcai, director for the Russian Foreign
Relations Development Research Center under the State
Council.
The two countries signed a natural gas contact as early
as 2006, when they agreed to construct two pipelines to
transport a total of 70 billion cubic meters (cu m) of the fuel
annually from Russia to China.
The first pipeline is expected to become operational
this year. But disagreement on the pricing of natural gas has
stalled negotiations for several years.
China has strengthened its cooperation with Russia, the
world's largest energy producer since 2009, in terms of exploration
and supplies of crude oil and natural gas.
The first pipeline linking Siberia in Russia and China’s
Daqing oil field, in the northeast of the country, started operating
on Jan 1. The 16 billion yuan ($2.42 billion) pipeline is
expected to carry 15 million tons of crude oil annually from
Russia to China for 20 years.
“The operation of the oil pipeline is just the beginning
of the countries’ cooperation in the energy sector,
and a deeper and broader partnership can be developed
afterwards,” said Huang Xiaoyong, vice-president of the
Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Russia’s biggest natural gas export destination is Europe.
However a trend through 2008 and 2009 saw demand for the
fuel declining.
In the negotiations with China, Russia hoped to secure
a price similar to that paid by its European customers, but
China insisted on paying a lower price as it did with several
Asian countries such as Turkmenistan.
“China is exploring closer cooperation with Russia in
the field of natural gas. However, as the country’s consumption
power per capita lags far behind its counterparts in the
West, the natural gas price is much lower and cannot compete
with the West,” Huang said.
China is expected to more than double the proportion of
natural gas it consumes on an annual primary basis from the
current level of 4 percent by 2020.
The country may consume 300 billion cu m by then,
leaving a huge market for other overseas providers of the fuel
to tap into.
“We hope the two nations can reach an agreement in
the summer, and see more cooperation in the sectors of hydropower,
nuclear power and coal,” Wan said. (China Daily)