Construction Completed

Attendees power on Huayang and Chigua lighthouses on Huayang Reef of China’s Nansha Islands in the South China Sea at a ceremony on October 9.

The two lighthouses, as the first civil aids to navigation in the Nansha waters, will greatly improve navigational conditions and reduce navigational risks and accidents by providing route guidance, safety information, emergency rescue and other public services to passing vessels, according to China’s Ministry of Transport.

Construction of the 50-meter-high cylindrical Huayang Lighthouse and cone-cylindrical Chigua Lighthouse began on May 26. They have reinforced concrete structures, a light range of 22 nautical miles and a glowing cycle of 8 seconds.

Deflationary Pressure

The latest official data have showed Chinese consumer inflation running at low levels and factory product inflation remaining in negative territory, triggering worries about sluggish market demand and deflationary pressure.

China’s consumer price index (CPI) rose by 1.6 percent in September, down from 2 percent in August, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on October 14.

On the other hand, China’s producer prices continued to fall in September, signaling prolonged weakness in aggregate demand. The producer price index (PPI), a measure of costs for goods at the factory gate, fell 5.9 percent year on year, unchanged from the rate seen a month earlier.

The reading also marked the 43rd straight month of decline.

Falling commodity prices and weak domestic demand are mainly responsible for the weak PPI reading, according to HSBC research.

Low prices amid the economic downturn mean monetary policies need to further ease, said Bank of Communications analyst Liu Xuezhi.

Minsheng Securities Co. Ltd. reckons the index will stay in negative territory in the foreseeable future, as China still has a long way to go in digesting its overcapacity in upstream industries.

The downcast PPI and slowing CPI highlighted deflationary pressure for China, Minsheng Securities said, projecting a high possibility of further cuts in interest rates and the bank reserve requirement ratio in the fourth quarter.

FDI Data

Non-financial foreign direct investment (FDI) onto the Chinese mainland expanded 9 percent from a year earlier to $94.9 billion in the first nine months, said the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

BIKE SHOW

Visitors view a smart bicycle at the 2015 Asian Bicycle Exposition held in Kunshan, east China’s Jiangsu Province, from October 9-11

Among all sectors, hi-tech services continued to shine, attracting $6.16 billion of foreign investment in the first nine months, a 57.6-percent surge year on year.

Hi-tech manufacturing saw investment inflow accelerate to a 10.4-percent growth during the period, reaching $7 billion.

FDI in the service sector in general rose 19.2 percent to $58 billion, while that in manufacturing edged up 0.7 percent to $29.8 billion, according to the MOFCOM.

More foreign firms invested in China through mergers and acquisitions, which accounted for 16.1 percent of the total FDI in the January-September period, up from 5.8 percent in the same period of last year.

Foreign Trade

China’s foreign trade dropped 11.4 percent year on year in September to $350.77 billion, less severe than the 9.1-percent contraction in August, data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed on October 13.

Exports dropped 3.7 percent to $205.56 billion, and imports decreased 20.4 percent to $145.22 billion. The trade surplus totaled $60.34 billion.

For the first three quarters of the year, foreign trade dropped 8.1 percent year on year to $2.9 trillion, with exports down 1.9 percent to $1.66 trillion and imports down 15.3 percent to $1.24 trillion. The trade surplus totaled $424.09 billion.

GAC spokesperson Huang Songping attributed the drops to the sluggish global economy, high costs and slumping commodity prices.

Trade prospects in China are set to remain favorable during the fourth quarter after exports fell less than expected in September, Huang said.

Huang said the GAC remains confident that exports during the fourth quarter will overtake the figures for the third quarter as the structural reforms and steps by the government to boost foreign trade yield results.

“In the absence of any major economic or political risks, we remain confident and positive on prospects for exports in the fourth quarter,” he said.