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China Economics Trend Watching

China, Technology, Innovation & the Environment: Shanghai close to record as the world’s biggest port

Chen Xuyuan, president of Shanghai International Port (Group) Co, said Shanghai would hold on to its record as the world’s biggest port this year after it handled 7.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first quarter of 2011 […]

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China Economics Innovation Trend Watching

Watch Martin Jacques’ “Understanding the rise of China” talk at TED

Speaking at a TED Salon in London, economist Martin Jacques asks: How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise? He examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become […]

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China Economics Trend Watching

Education in China: First graders early adopters of e-book in Shanghai

In the e-book era, local students will soon be reading digital textbooks: the Shanghai Education Commission has set an ambitious plan to make all primary school grade one pupils use e-textbooks within five years […]

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China Consumer Behavior

Internet in China: A glimpse at the Chinese Parallel Cyber Universe, where Users Prefer Clones of Popular Global Websites

The Straits Times (Singapore) has an interesting article the contrast between the popular global Social Networks and the local websites in China […]

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China Economics

Investing in China: Shanghai to launch plan to use yuan for foreign trading

Shanghai is set to be among the first to implement a pilot program to settle overseas trade using the Chinese RMB yuan to consolidate its international financial hub position, the Shanghai Financial Services Office said recently. Using the yuan as a settlement currency for international trade is a step forward to internationalizing the currency and will also boost Shanghai as an international financial hub. The city is a magnet for overseas financial players, home to the China headquarters of giants such as HSBC and Citigroup. The city also holds the mainland’s bigger stock market, biggest futures market, gold, currency and interbank markets…

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Design Information Technology

Autodesk Maya Software Serves as Animation Platform for New Star Wars “The Clone Wars” Animated Feature Film and TV Series

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Lucasfilm Animation are using Autodesk® Maya® software to create the upcoming television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, just as they did to create the feature-length animated film that is now in theaters. Lucasfilm Chief Technology Officer Richard Kerris said, ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars brings an entirely new look and feel to Star Wars by moving it into animation. We wanted to use technology that would live up to the high standards of Lucasfilm, and selected Autodesk Maya as our animation platform for both the film and TV series…’

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China Consumer Behavior Trend Watching

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: India, China, and Brazil sees highest jump in millionaires

India, China, and Brazil saw bigger growth in the millionaire population last year than anywhere else, and wealth in the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow nearly 8 percent a year to 2012 despite a slowdown in the world at large, a survey showed. The number of millionaires in the Asia-Pacific grew 8.7 percent from a year ago to 2.8 million people and their combined wealth soared 12.5 percent to $9.5 trillion US dollars, excluding the value of their homes and consumables, Merrill Lynch and Capgemini said at a news conference in Singapore recently…

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China Trend Watching

Internet in China: More Searches from China, but Koreans Search more often

South Korea’s Internet searchers conducted an average of 104 searches in April/2008, nearly twice as many as Malaysians, who clocked in at 54 searches per searcher; according to Comscore’s latest findings; Asia ’s largest number of searches, not surprisingly, came from the 82 million Chinese Internet users doing 6.2 billion searches in April/2008. That is an average of 75 searches per Chinese searcher […]

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China

Living in China: Shanghai heads list of expats’ favorite cities

Shanghai maintains the highest quality of life on Chinese mainland for Asian expats, but environmental pollution problem is still a concern, according to the latest survey. The Location Ranking Survey, conducted by one of the world’s largest human resources organizations, ECA International, ranked Shanghai in 11th place in Asia and 78th in the world in terms of expat living conditions. The city retained its top spot among the 13 cities in Chinese mainland that included Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xiamen […]

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China Trend Watching

Shanghai the 8th most expensive Asian city for expats

The cost of living in Shanghai is catching up with more expensive locations in the region such as Hong Kong and Taipei, according to the latest global cost of living survey. The ECA cost of living survey listed Shanghai in 100th place among the top 300-plus most expensive cities in the world, up 23 spots from last year. Shanghai was also one position higher than Singapore among Asian cities, which ranked at 122nd place globally, according to the report.