Monthly Archives: January 2008

The total number of billionaires in China has risen to second place in the world, just behind the US, Yangcheng Evening News reported recently: The 2007 top 500 Chinese magnates list was recently released in Hong Kong, the combined wealth of the 500 magnates exceeds 4,342.6 billion yuan (US$ 587 billion). The number of Chinese magnates with more than one billion dollars in assets has reached 146, compared to 85 last year [...]

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) published the ‘2007 China Blog Survey report‘ recently. The report showed that, by the end of November 2007, China blog spaces have totaled 72.82 million, and the number of bloggers reached 47 million. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) surveyed 1,862 Internet users in late November. Extrapolating from this group, CNNIC calculated that 47 million Chinese have blogged, more than one fourth of the 180 million people who have surfed the net in China. But many blogs have gone blank: only a persistent 36 percent kept their sites updated [...]

Yan Xiaohong, vice-minister of the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), said on Thursday at a press conference that the authorities shut down 339 illegal websites, confiscated 123 servers and imposed fines of more than 870,000 yuan (about 120,000U.S. dollars) on violators. Despite repeated crackdowns on online piracy, it is still a challenge to protect intellectual property rights: ‘Internet copyright infringement is still very prevalent in the country’, Yan told a press conference held by the State Council Information Office recently, noting that illegal downloading of movies, software and music is the most common form of online piracy…

Wang Ziqiang, director of the Copyright Management Division of National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), announced that China would officially issue its national intellectual property rights strategy in 2008 to define the principles, development directions and achievements in intellectual property rights protection. Wang said that the year of 2008 would be a significant year for China, because China’s intellectual property right protection would enter a new period of receiving supervision from all the WTO members under the principles of WTO now that the interim period for China’s copyrights was going to conclude…

Shanghai trademark watchdogs have investigated 3,032 trademark violation cases involving 99.72 million yuan (US$13.66 million) worth of goods since the city’s working plan for intellectual property protection was enacted two years ago: officials have paid special attention to small commodities markets, promotion sales of international brands, and stores in hotels [...]

National Geographic Channel made a documentary about the car revolution in China. In the video introduction, it says that ‘Cars are racing into China supercharging its economy, and delivering dreams of a better life. But China’s cars are clogging its highways and spewing out clouds of pollution. The rest of the world better watch out, because some Chinese automakers have plans to flood the world markets with cheaper Chinese cars be they made by GM or Chinas own Geely Automotive [...]

According to a recent report by the Ministry of Information Industry, at the end of November/2007, the number of China’s mobile phone users had increased by 78.3 million compared with the number at the end of last year. There are 7.1 million more users each month and now a total of 539 million mobile phone users. One-way phone charges are being carried out nationwide, and the mobile phone fees are dropping. As a result, there has been a drastic increase in mobile phone use

Autodesk®, Inc has established a new research and development center in Shanghai with 1,500 employees, the biggest R&D center among multinational firms in China. The center will combine the operations of Autodesk and Hanna Strategies — acquired in November — and will be named the Autodesk China Research and Development Center (ACRD). The new name, ACRD, reflects the substantial design and development of Autodesk software products in China, according to Carl Bass, president and chief executive of Autodesk. [...]

China is likely to overtake the United States to become the world’s largest Internet market by Web population size: its web population will hit 244 million by the end of 2008 from last year’s 182 million, an increase of 34 percent, said an Internet Society of China report issued recently. The report’s findings are based on data collected from a survey of 50,786 mainland Internet users and 270 companies across the country, as well as from seminars and interviews with industry experts [...]