China Beidou (Compass) GPS-style system begins operational service...

The China Daily has reported China's homegrown Beidou Navigation Satellite System began providing initial positioning, navigation and timing operational services to China and its surrounding areas from 27th December.

Beidou is being developed to rival the United States-developed Global Positioning System (GPS), the European Union's Galileo and Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System, and is aimed at allowing travelers, drivers and military officials to accurately know their locations.

The system will provide service with high precision and credibility for industries and sectors including mapping, fishery, transportation, meteorology and telecommunications.

To date, China has launched 10 satellites for the Beidou system, with the tenth being lifted into orbit earlier in December. Ran Chengqi, director of the management office of the China Satellite Navigation System, told a press conference 6 more satellites will be launched in 2012 to further improve the Beidou system and expand its service coverage across most parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

China began building the Beidou system in 2000 with a goal to break its dependence on the US GPS and so creating its own global positioning system by 2020. 

The Beidou system is compatible and interoperable with the world's other major global navigation satellite systems, according to Ran. He also encouraged enterprises at home and abroad to join the research and development of application terminals compatible with Beidou, saying a beta version of the system's Interface Control Document (ICD) could be accessed online starting 27th December.

The onset of Beidou's operations expands China's reach beyond its borders and has profound implications in sectors like maritime trade and military development across the Asia Pacific space. 

China Ningxia wines tops French Bordeaux in Beijing wine challenge...

In a blind winetasting competition in Beijing on December 14, five wines from Bordeaux and five wines from Ningxia - all priced in the range 200 - 500 yuan (RMB) - were wrapped in black cloth, tagged with a number, and served to ten French and ten Chinese wine judges. When the results were announced: the top four wines were Chinese!

The Ningxia vs Bordeaux Challenge was organised by Jim Boyce with website TasteV, wine club Zun, and Grape Wall contributors.

The wines were opened, tested for quality, bagged and tagged, in the presence of several reporters, under the supervision of Philip Osenton, who works with distributor Globus and is former head sommelier at Ritz London and restaurant manager for the Savoy. He and others, including the media, witnessed computation of the scores.

“Sacrilège,” screamed the headline of the French business daily, La Tribune. But the top French dailies, Le Monde and Le Figaro, seemed to suppress the news, quite understandably. The people have enough to worry about.

OK, French wines have been beaten with some regularity ever since the Judgment of Paris on May 24, 1976, when, to the utter and never fully digested shock of the French wine establishment, a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay beat their Bordeaux counterparts - and put California on the international wine map.

The judges were asked to rank the wines from first to tenth based on quality. First place was worth one point, second place worth two points, and so on. The wines with the lowest total scores were the winners. The judges had spent 40 minutes tasting and ranking the wines and another 30 minutes discussing them.

The top five:

1. Grace Vineyard Chairman’s Reserve 2009                  34 points  (RMB 488)

2. Silver Heights The Summit 2009                                  42 points  (RMB 416)

3. Helan Qing Xue Jia Bei Lan Cabernet Dry Red 2009       44 points (was RMB220, now pending)

4. Grace Vineyard Deep Blue 2009                                  46 points  (RMB 288)

5. Barons de Rothschild Collection Saga Medoc 2009          54 points  (RMB 350)

The Chinese judges:

• Ma Huiqin, professor at China University of Agriculture and wine marketing expert (head judge)
• Frankie Zhao, owner of Pro-Wine Consultancy
• Fiona Sun, senior editor at China edition of Revue du Vin
• Jin Yang, wine teacher who spent five years studying in Bordeaux wine programs
• John Gai, of wine distributor and bar operation Palatte

The French judges:

• Nicolas Carre, sommelier and wine consultant (head judge)
• Jerome Sabate, long involved as wine maker with Dragon Seal in Beijing
• Nathalie Sibillet, oenologist, journalist and teacher
• Thomas Briollet, seven years experience in China wine distribution
• Edouard Kressman, wine maker with experience in Bordeaux, California and Argentina

Of course, wine competitions can be criticized. The French wines were handicapped by an import tax of 48% (another detail of why China has a huge trade surplus with the rest of the world). But then, Chinese wines got hit with consumption and value-added taxes that reduced the gap to 20%, according to Boyce. And the most expensive Bordeaux retailed for RMB 350 while the winning Ningxia retailed for RMB 488. Quite a price difference.

For now, the big takeaway is that Chinese wines have again - not for the first time, shown they can compete on a global level. The reality check: these wines represent a smidgeon of the China market and the industry as a whole still has a long way to go.

But who could have imagined a few years ago spending US$77 on a bottle of good Chinese wine to be shared over a romantic dinner? The French must have had similar thoughts about California wines in the aftermath of May 24, 1976.

More upheaval in the old world order...

China's 2011 holdings US Treasuries debt cut again in October

China trimmed its holdings of US Treasury debt by US$ 14.2 billion in October, driving its holdings to the lowest level this year.

This move to cut the US debt holdings indicated an attempt by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) to increase its cash holdings of dollars in order to shore up the value of the yuan.

The yuan has been faced with increasing downward pressure as investors sold the currency seeking a safe haven in the US dollar amid a grim outlook for the global economy.


China held a total of US$ 1,134 billion of US Treasury debt as of October 2011. According to the US Treasury Department, China accounted for approximately 24% of total foreign holdings of US debt. Despite this latest cut, China remains the largest foreign holder of US treasuries.

Analysts advocate China should continue to accelerate the diversification of its US$ 3.2 trillion foreign-exchange reserves, amid growing global financial uncertainty. Currently, about one-third of China's foreign-exchange reserves is invested in US Treasury bonds.

The PBOC has been reported it's planning to create a fund worth US$ 300 billion to invest the country's foreign-exchange reserves in the US and European markets. The fund will reportedly seek to invest in real assets and company shares, rather than government securities.

Gao Xiqing, vice-chairman of China Investment Corp, the country's sovereign wealth fund, said recently that the fund is actively looking for investment opportunities in infrastructure projects in countries including Britain, the US, and Brazil.

Stockmarket volatility...biggest historic moves in the Dow Jones index

The five largest one day percentage and points up moves in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial average all occurred during a bear market.

It does appear odd. Surely the biggest up moves should happen in bull markets, not bear markets. Right?

Do remember that the market continually tries to fool as many people as it can. In bear markets, everyone is looking to buy the bottom, whereas in bull markets, everyone is looking to sell the top. Bull and bear markets can't happen without this phenomenon coming into play.

That's tantalising...with the current Eurozone woes and United States' unresolved fiscal deficit  issues, volatility is here to stay.

2011 China grain harvest rises for the eighth consecutive year

The China National Bureau of Statistics office released in a statement on Friday the country achieved another bumper agricultural harvest this year, the eighth consecutive year of growth for grain output and a record for food production.

Agricultural experts said the bumper harvest will help ease the country's food price hikes, facilitating the government's efforts to combat the stubbornly high inflation rate (official October CPI was +5.5% ). However, China's robust demand means the increased grain production is unlikely to check the country's growing imports, particularly for corn.

Bumper yields this year saw food output rising to a record 571 million tons, registering a 4.5 percent increase year-on-year. The production volume has already reached the government's grain output target for 2020, the bureau said.

Major Crops    Tonnes (millions)    Annual increase
Rice                          200                        + 2.6%
Wheat                       118                        + 2.4%
Corn                          192                        + 8.2%
Sub-total                   510
Others                         61
Total                          571                        + 4.5%

As China's urbanization process deepened, Chinese families consumed more meat in their daily diet, generating extra demand for corn as animal feed.

Meanwhile, industrial demand for starch and ethanol also increased, imposing upward pressure on corn imports. During the first nine months of this year, China imported 645,000 tons of corn according to data from grain.gov.cn, a website operated by the China National Grain and Oils Information Center.

In July, China ordered 533,000 tons of corn for delivery after August from the United States, according to the US Department of Agriculture, exceeding US estimates for Chinese's corn imports for the whole year.