China's First Information Process Plan

2004-06-13 15:07

The Information Process Priority Projects Plan under the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001 - 2005) for the national economic and social development has recently been approved for publicizing. Relevant authorities of the State Development Planning Commission stressed on October 18, 2002 that the Information Process Plan is one of the ten major priority projects plans defined by the 10th Five - Year Plan for the national economic and social development, as well as China's first national information process plan and a guidance document for the regulated construction of information process in the country.
The Plan has proposed the policy, development targets, major tasks and measures for promoting the national economic and information process in the 10th Five — Year Plan period.
The Plan points out that during the 10th Five — Year Plan period, the information process of national economic and social development shall ascend to a new height with the following targets: 1) the added values from telecommunication business and electronic information products manufacturing shall take a proportion of 7% or more in China's GDP; 2) network and volume shall rank the world first place, basically meeting the needs of information process development, increasingly improving universal service capability, and creating fine conditions for the participation in the information process by the middle and western regions and vast rural areas that are of poor network infrastructures and middle and low income classes; 3) information service industry shall maintain its fast growth trend; 4) electronic information product manufacturing industry shall further improve its level and expand its scale. The industry shall continuously restructure its system in the direction of the combination of manufacturing and operation and service, combination of hardware and software, combination of matter production and knowledge production and combination of equipment manufacturing and system integration. The added value produced by the electronic information products manufacturing shall take a percentage of 3.3 in China's GDP; 5) information process shall become an important means to improve the quality of Chinese people as well as the important means strengthening the socialist civilization construction, improving education quality and level and prospering the nation's culture; and 6) information process shall bring out a continuously strengthened expertise team.

400 Million into Diary R & D
On October 18, 2002, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Agriculture jointly signed an agreement on launching the national priority project dedicated to diary industry in the 10th Five - Year Plan period, announcing that RMB 400 million will be invested to address six key technology research and development projects and establish 8 modem production demonstration bases.
The dedicated project will enjoy the investment of RMB 150 million from the National Key Technologies Program with the remaining RMB 255 million from the local government and industries. The Project will encourage the joint efforts of research institutions and manufacturers to work on the six major key issues related to the development of diary industry such as reproduction of fine high yield cow -species and high quality feed with optimized recipe. Meanwhile, the Project will establish 8 modern diary production and demonstration bases with diversified technology integration, developing a number of proprietary and patented technologies in breeding high yield cows, new vaccine development, and working out several technical standards for cow breeding and diary farm epidemic prevention. In addition, the Project will train 1000 technicians of diary technologies and 100,000 person/time on milk collection. The implementation of the Project will accelerate the overall development of China's diary industry by 2% to 3% and raising the S&T contribution to the development of diary industry from the current 30% to the future 50% or so.

State Equity Allowed to Foreign Investors
Upon the approval of the Chinese State Council, the Chinese Stock Exchange Watchdog Committee, the Ministry of Finance and the

State Economic and Trade Commission have recently jointly published the Circular on Issues Related to Transferring Listed State Shares and Legal Person's Shares to Foreign Investors, which for the first time turned the green light for transferring listed state shares and legal person's shares to foreign investors and imposed regulated management on such activities.
The Circular provides that any listed state shares and legal person's shares, when transferred to foreign investors, shall be in line with the requirements defined by the Guidance Catalog for Foreign Invested Businesses. Any listed state shares and legal person's shares, when falling under the category of prohibition, shall not be transferred to foreign investors; any listed state shares and legal person's shares under the category calling for the majority equity holding or relative majority equity holding by the Chinese party shall be made under the precondition that such status shall not be changed when the transfer is made.
The Circular points out that transferred listed state shares and legal person's shares to foreign investors, when related to industrial policies or enterprises restructuring, shall be subjected to the verification of the State Economic and Trade Commission. Such a transfer, when related to the state equity management, shall be subjected to the verification of the Ministry of Finance. Major transfer cases shall be submitted to the State Council for approval. Transferring listed state shares and legal person's shares to foreign investors shall be in line with the regulations published by the Chinese Stock Exchange Watchdog Committee on listed company acquisition and information disclosure.
The Circular also adds that transferring listed state shares and legal person's shares to foreign investors shall in principle be made on public bidding basis. Any localities or governmental agencies shall not presume the approval of transferring listed state shares and legal person's shares to foreign investors on their own. After transferring its listed state shares or legal person's shares to foreign investors, the listed company shall keep implementing relevant policies that it did in the past and will not be allowed to enjoy the preferential treatment that only foreign invested businesses are entitled to. The revenues accrued from such transfer shall be managed and used in accordance with relevant state regulations.