Annuity for military firms

Taiping Pension Insurance Co, a professional annuity management institution, is striving to tap the pension business for military firms.

Taiping, together with the Fortis Haitong Investment Management Co Ltd, recently held a seminar to discuss ways to set up an annuity scheme for military enterprises.

"Annuity schemes play an important role in attracting and maintaining talents for military enterprises," said Yang Fan, general manager of Taiping Pension. "And it is a good opportunity to set up an annuity plan right now, since the stock market is expected to warm up in the second half of 2009."

The Shanghai-headquartered company, established in 2004, is the country's first batch of professional pension companies. And Taiping Pension is also a subsidiary of China Insurance (Holding) Co Ltd, a state-owned insurance enterprise based in Hong Kong which offer business solutions covering insurance services, pension fund services, asset management, industrial investment, securities brokerage, financing and fund management.

Chinese electric car rolled out

Chinese automaker BYD Co last week launched the world's first commercial dual-mode electric car, giving it an edge in the green car race over rivals like Toyota Motors and General Motors Corp.

The new car, known as the F3DM equipped with both pure and hybrid electric driving systems, is priced at 149,800 yuan.

Toyota and GM, the two other global competitors in the electric car market, had planned to launch similar models in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

The launch of F3DM comes at a time when China is encouraging domestic companies to develop environmentally friendly cars to both curb oil imports and cut carbon emissions.

Wang Chuanfu, president of the Hong Kong-listed BYD, said the firm's expertise in batteries, especially the invention of Fe Battery is essential to the commercialization of electric cars.

"We plan to launch a pure electric car at the end of 2009," he said.

Lian Yubo, vice-president and chief engineer of BYD, said the Fe battery, which is highly safe and cheap, could support a range of 100 km for each charge of electricity, compared with 25 km of the industrial competitors.

China Mobile tops Vodafone

China Mobile, China's biggest cell phone operator has overtaken its British rival Vodafone to become the world's largest mobile telecom carrier in terms of brand value, a research report said.

The Chinese mobile phone carrier had already surpassed Vodafone in terms of subscriber numbers and market value.

The brand value of China Mobile has hit $30.79 billion, ranking first among the top 100 mobile telecom carriers worldwide, while Vodafone comes second with a brand value of $22.13 billion and US operator Verizon ranks third with $20.38 billion, according to the report issued by Mobile Communications International, a trade journal in the US.

The research was conducted by Intangible Business, a US-based brand assessment consulting institute. "Brand value takes various factors into account in a comprehensive manner," said Will Grobel, marketing director of Intangible Business. "Therefore, it evaluates a brand and its business better than any other single indicator."

China Mobile has around 400 million users, also the highest in the world.

Baidu cutting revenue target

Baidu.com Inc, China's leading search engine, is cutting its projected revenue by up to 15 percent after it dropped some advertisers because of a scandal over unlicensed companies selling medical products.

Fourth-quarter sales are expected to be 890 million yuan to 900 million yuan, down from the previous forecast 1.025 billion yuan to 1.055 billion yuan, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission recently.

Baidu said the revenue reduction was due to China's economic slowdown and the removal of listings for medical advertisers that failed to provide licenses and some other "questionable" advertisers. It gave no indication it expects a long-term impact.

Baidu was jolted in November after Chinese state television reported that it allowed unlicensed medical suppliers to use its paid-search service, which lets customers pay for higher rankings on its results page. The company's US-traded shares fell 30 percent in the first trading session after the report.

Commemorative coins

China Gold Coin Inc, the only professional company under the People's Bank of China dealing in gold and silver commemorative coins, has just distributed a set of gold and silver coins to commemorate China's 30-year anniversary of the reform and opening-up.

The package of coins issued by the central bank and produced by Shanghai Mint, comprises 30,000 gold coins, with a face value of 100 yuan each, and 80,000 silver coins, with a face value of 10 yuan each.

The head of each coin will have the national emblem and the Chinese words "To commemorate China's 30-year anniversary of reform and opening-up".

Due to the sluggish stock market, more traditional investments such as gold and collection, have begun to catch on among investors.

(China Daily 12/22/2008 page7)