Tencent buys 5% stake in Tesla

Tencent Holdings' investment in electric carmaker Tesla Inc, which was announced on March 28, highlights the internet giant's strategic focus on artificial intelligence, especially smart vehicles, experts say. The Chinese internet conglomerate scooped up 5 percent of Tesla's shares for around $1.78 billion to become its fifth-largest shareholder, according to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Tencent is bullish on Tesla's new technologies - "including electric cars, assisted driving and shared vehicles" - according to a company statement on March 29. The company said its success is partly due to its record of providing capital backing for entrepreneurs, and that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the archetype for such entrepreneurship. The move comes as Tesla raised $1.4 billion (1.3 billion euros; 1.1 billion) in a separate offering of stock and debt, increasing its liquidity to mass produce its new, cheaper Model 3 sedan.

US asked to abide by global rules

A Chinese commerce official urged US authorities on March 29 to abide by World Trade Organization rules in the ongoing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation concerning Chinese aluminum foil. The US Department of Commerce launched an investigation after the Aluminum Association Trade Enforcement Working Group accused Chinese aluminum foil producers of using improper subsidies and selling at unfair prices. The aluminum industries in both countries are complementary, according to Wang Hejun, head of the Ministry of Commerce's trade remedy and investigations bureau. The US started to reduce production of low-value-added aluminum foil and focus on high-end products more than 20 years ago; therefore, the falling output is not a result of Chinese imports, Wang said.

China responds to WTO tariff report

The Ministry of Commerce released its response to a World Trade Organization report on an EU poultry tariff dispute. China welcomes the expert panel's support for its core consultation request, which says the EU duck meat tariff quota broke WTO rules, the ministry said in an online statement. China regrets, however, that the expert panel did not support China's proposal on the quota, the ministry said. China has urged the EU to respect the WTO ruling, quickly rectify the quota on duck and build a fair international trade environment.

Courier volume increases by 51.4%

China continued to lead the world in courier delivery volume in 2016, a report by the State Post Bureau said on March 28. The country had more than 40 percent of global express deliveries last year, contributing about 60 percent to the sector's growth, the report said. The total number of packages delivered increased by 51.4 percent year-on-year in 2016 to more than 31 billion. Last year, couriers delivered over 4 trillion yuan ($581 billion; 535 billion euros; 463 billion) worth of retail products purchased online, accounting for 12.5 percent of total retail sales, the report showed.

Continental launches expanded Heifei plant

Continental AG, the German tire and automotive components giant, began operations at its expanded factory in Hefei, Anhui province, on March 28. After completion of the third phase, the Hefei plant has seen a combined investment of 570 million euros. Annual capacity will be increased to 14 million tires in two years from the current 8 million. The number of employees will also double to more than 2,700. As Continental's only factory in China, the Hefei plant, which mainly produces passenger and light-truck tires, is different from the company's other Asian plants in that its products mainly stay in China.

Minsheng targets senior care groups

China Minsheng Investment Group, one of the country's biggest private investment funds, said it is seeking to acquire elderly care groups around the world. Chairman Dong Wenbiao said in an interview in Boao on March 24 that the Shanghai-based fund was in talks to acquire the largest senior care group in Europe, and had plans to buy a separate elderly care company in the United States. Dong didn't name any specific targets for purchase, and a spokesman later declined to comment on whether the European company was Orpea, the biggest European senior care provider by market value.

UPS adds six container stations

United States logistics delivery giant UPS announced on March 28 that it would add six more stations to its multimodal container rail service between Europe and China, saying it was responding to rising demand for deliveries along the route and that railway freight services had proved more cost-effective than other solutions. UPS said it made the decision as Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises pushed to sell their products globally and the Chinese manufacturing industry continued its shift from coastal to interior cities. The six new stations will be in Changsha, Chongqing, Suzhou and Wuhan (all in China), and in Duisburg, Germany, and Warsaw, Poland. They will be added to the existing Chinese mainland stations in Zhengzhou and Chengdu, and the European stations of Lodz, Poland, and Hamburg, Germany. UPS said the additional stations aimed to help companies strike a balance between supply chain costs and transport efficiency by offering more options.

(China Daily European Weekly 03/31/2017 page24)