Police crackdown on peddlers, beggars at city subway stations
Yang Lifei and Dong Zhen 1 August 2008
SHANGHAI police launched an intensive campaign against illegal peddlers and beggars in subway stations this week in a move to ensure order during the Olympic Games.
The police authority did not say how many people were punished in the four-day operation that started on Monday. It did say that the distribution of illicit leaflets, peddling, begging and setting up stalls without a permit had been greatly curbed.
The key targets in the campaign were metro stations near Shanghai Stadium, where 12 Olympics soccer matches will be played.
“Plainclothes officers were patrolling carriages as well as stations. Once violators were caught, they were taken to different departments,’’ said a police official. “Illegal stall owners will be handled by the urban administrative department, beggars will receive aid from the civil affairs department, while other who were found disturbing social order will be punished by the police authority.’’
In the first six months of this year, metro police have solved 3,150 cases. Officers escorted 537 beggars to aid administrative stations and confiscated 85,600 maps and newspapers from illegal sellers.
Office building security ratcheted up on Nanjing Rd
Yang Lifei 1 August 2008
OFFICE buildings along downtown Nanjing Road E. will only be accessible to those with valid certificates from today to the end of this month.
The new policy is designed to beef up security during the Olympic Games, according to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, Eastday.com reported today.
The Website's reporters visited one office building yesterday and were told that whoever entered the building during the period should show a work and ID card when necessary. Visitors or express delivery personnel must register before they are taken into the building by those that work there.
"I will not let him in if anyone claims to have forgotten their work card," a security guard surnamed Wang told the Website. “But I do hope that tenants in the building can cooperate with our work and avoid unnecessary problems."
At least one office worker said they understand the temporary practice.
"This is what we can do to support the Olympic Games and ensure the safety of the great event," a female office worker surnamed Chen told the Website.
RECENTLY, the US Securities and Exchange Commission enacted new rules to curb naked short selling, on the grounds that it causes stock market turbulence. Short selling involves selling the shares of a company the seller does not currently own, hoping to profit from buying the shares when the price falls subsequently. The seller will usually borrow the shorted shares so that he is able to deliver the shares to the buyer upon settlement due date.
Eventually if he is proven right and the share price falls, he will actually buy from the market at the lower price and return the shares to the lender, making a tidy profit in between. Naked short selling, however, is outright selling of shares without borrowing from the broker or the bank. Rampant short selling, especially naked short selling, can wreak havoc on the stock market.
While regulation seems to be an easy response, it is no panacea for today’s sophisticated hedge funds and stock traders who use short selling to generate super-normal returns. In addition, excessive regulation may distort the self-adjusting mechanism of a free stock market.
In a free market, every player has a different view of a company’s prospects and expected share price movements. So long as it is a legitimate transaction between bona fide players, the market should be left to operate on its own. Short selling also injects liquidity into the market, thus facilitating the progressive development of a stock market.
SGX allows short selling, provided the seller borrows the shares before selling or unwinds his position within the same trading day. Otherwise, SGX will conduct a buy-in after settlement date.
To address the risk of naked short selling, I propose that SGX reduce the current share settlement period from T+3 to T+1. A longer settlement period perpetuates share trading execution risks for the market because buying and selling of shares may not match due to the existence of naked short selling, causing settlement risks on due date in the event that either party has no means to fulfil their contractual obligations. A properly functioning market should consist of genuine buyers and sellers who have the ability to fulfil their obligations even before their actual execution of a trade.
SGX has been mulling over shortening the settlement period from T+3 to T+1 since 2001. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange already operates on a T+2 settlement period and both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges have long gone the T+1 way.
Gone are the days when share trading is done with physical delivery of share scrips. The CDP processes all trade settlements through its clearing and settlement system. Funds can move swiftly across borders. There is now no reason not to expedite the completion (settlement) of a simple e-transaction in share trading. A shorter settlement period may be worth considering by SGX.
Huge New Natural Gas Field Strengthens China’s Energy Security
August 01,2008
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is dipping into a new natural gas field in Sichuan Province, with a total reserve estimated to be over 300 billion cubic meters.
PeotroChina is accelerating the exploitation of the new Longgang gas field, situated on the boundary between three counties: Yilong, Yingshen, and Pingchang. The company will officially reveal the exact reserve of the gas field to the public in October this year.
One CNPC senior manager refused to disclose the expected or confirmed reserve of the field, but admitted that it is a big one. Another told China Business News, “According to the most conservative estimate, the reserve will exceed 300 billion cubic meters, but the actual reserve may be 500 billion, or even 1 trillion cubic meters, equal to 1 billion tons of petroleum.”
Last summer, CNPC declared it had discovered a new oil field in Hebei Province with a total reserve of about 1 billion tons. The find was regarded as crucial for China’s energy security and economic development and was the most exciting moment in China’s petroleum exploration in the past 40 years. That same day the international oil price dropped by $1/barrel, and the H-share price of PetroChina, the Hong Kong exchange-listed sector of CNPC, leapt by 14%.
The exploration of Longgang gas field was launched in April 2006, when CNPC’s central Sichuan branch discovered that the area was extremely rich in natural gas.
On May 21, 2006, CNPC officially opened its first exploration well in Yilong County. After drilling down to over 6,500 meters, it estimated the daily gas production to be about 1.2 million cubic meters, and the sulfur content to be only about 30 grams per cubic meter. CNPC completed the second and third exploitation wells in November and December of that year, and declared afterwards that the exploration had revealed that a large natural gas reserve did exist in the area but that its exact extent was still unknown.
At a CNPC meeting, Xu Yongjie, genreral manager of Chuanqing Drilling Company, the CNPC subsidiary in charge of the Longgang field exploration, said the company would work hard to get exact numbers for the reserve to the public in October.
At present, China’s largest gas reserves are at CNPC’s Sulige field, with a proven 533.6 billion cubic meters, and the second largest is at Puguang gas field, discovered by Sinopec in the Sichuan Basin, with a proven 350 billion cubic meters as of February, 2007.
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Police crackdown on peddlers, beggars at city subway stations
Yang Lifei and Dong Zhen
1 August 2008
SHANGHAI police launched an intensive campaign against illegal peddlers and beggars in subway stations this week in a move to ensure order during the Olympic Games.
The police authority did not say how many people were punished in the four-day operation that started on Monday. It did say that the distribution of illicit leaflets, peddling, begging and setting up stalls without a permit had been greatly curbed.
The key targets in the campaign were metro stations near Shanghai Stadium, where 12 Olympics soccer matches will be played.
“Plainclothes officers were patrolling carriages as well as stations. Once violators were caught, they were taken to different departments,’’ said a police official. “Illegal stall owners will be handled by the urban administrative department, beggars will receive aid from the civil affairs department, while other who were found disturbing social order will be punished by the police authority.’’
In the first six months of this year, metro police have solved 3,150 cases. Officers escorted 537 beggars to aid administrative stations and confiscated 85,600 maps and newspapers from illegal sellers.
Office building security ratcheted up on Nanjing Rd
Yang Lifei
1 August 2008
OFFICE buildings along downtown Nanjing Road E. will only be accessible to those with valid certificates from today to the end of this month.
The new policy is designed to beef up security during the Olympic Games, according to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, Eastday.com reported today.
The Website's reporters visited one office building yesterday and were told that whoever entered the building during the period should show a work and ID card when necessary. Visitors or express delivery personnel must register before they are taken into the building by those that work there.
"I will not let him in if anyone claims to have forgotten their work card," a security guard surnamed Wang told the Website. “But I do hope that tenants in the building can cooperate with our work and avoid unnecessary problems."
At least one office worker said they understand the temporary practice.
"This is what we can do to support the Olympic Games and ensure the safety of the great event," a female office worker surnamed Chen told the Website.
Business Times - 01 Aug 2008
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Time for SGX to consider T+1 settlement
RECENTLY, the US Securities and Exchange Commission enacted new rules to curb naked short selling, on the grounds that it causes stock market turbulence. Short selling involves selling the shares of a company the seller does not currently own, hoping to profit from buying the shares when the price falls subsequently. The seller will usually borrow the shorted shares so that he is able to deliver the shares to the buyer upon settlement due date.
Eventually if he is proven right and the share price falls, he will actually buy from the market at the lower price and return the shares to the lender, making a tidy profit in between. Naked short selling, however, is outright selling of shares without borrowing from the broker or the bank. Rampant short selling, especially naked short selling, can wreak havoc on the stock market.
While regulation seems to be an easy response, it is no panacea for today’s sophisticated hedge funds and stock traders who use short selling to generate super-normal returns. In addition, excessive regulation may distort the self-adjusting mechanism of a free stock market.
In a free market, every player has a different view of a company’s prospects and expected share price movements. So long as it is a legitimate transaction between bona fide players, the market should be left to operate on its own. Short selling also injects liquidity into the market, thus facilitating the progressive development of a stock market.
SGX allows short selling, provided the seller borrows the shares before selling or unwinds his position within the same trading day. Otherwise, SGX will conduct a buy-in after settlement date.
To address the risk of naked short selling, I propose that SGX reduce the current share settlement period from T+3 to T+1. A longer settlement period perpetuates share trading execution risks for the market because buying and selling of shares may not match due to the existence of naked short selling, causing settlement risks on due date in the event that either party has no means to fulfil their contractual obligations. A properly functioning market should consist of genuine buyers and sellers who have the ability to fulfil their obligations even before their actual execution of a trade.
SGX has been mulling over shortening the settlement period from T+3 to T+1 since 2001. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange already operates on a T+2 settlement period and both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges have long gone the T+1 way.
Gone are the days when share trading is done with physical delivery of share scrips. The CDP processes all trade settlements through its clearing and settlement system. Funds can move swiftly across borders. There is now no reason not to expedite the completion (settlement) of a simple e-transaction in share trading. A shorter settlement period may be worth considering by SGX.
Ee Teck Siew
Group CFO
HLN Technologies Limited
Huge New Natural Gas Field Strengthens China’s Energy Security
August 01,2008
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is dipping into a new natural gas field in Sichuan Province, with a total reserve estimated to be over 300 billion cubic meters.
PeotroChina is accelerating the exploitation of the new Longgang gas field, situated on the boundary between three counties: Yilong, Yingshen, and Pingchang. The company will officially reveal the exact reserve of the gas field to the public in October this year.
One CNPC senior manager refused to disclose the expected or confirmed reserve of the field, but admitted that it is a big one. Another told China Business News, “According to the most conservative estimate, the reserve will exceed 300 billion cubic meters, but the actual reserve may be 500 billion, or even 1 trillion cubic meters, equal to 1 billion tons of petroleum.”
Last summer, CNPC declared it had discovered a new oil field in Hebei Province with a total reserve of about 1 billion tons. The find was regarded as crucial for China’s energy security and economic development and was the most exciting moment in China’s petroleum exploration in the past 40 years. That same day the international oil price dropped by $1/barrel, and the H-share price of PetroChina, the Hong Kong exchange-listed sector of CNPC, leapt by 14%.
The exploration of Longgang gas field was launched in April 2006, when CNPC’s central Sichuan branch discovered that the area was extremely rich in natural gas.
On May 21, 2006, CNPC officially opened its first exploration well in Yilong County. After drilling down to over 6,500 meters, it estimated the daily gas production to be about 1.2 million cubic meters, and the sulfur content to be only about 30 grams per cubic meter. CNPC completed the second and third exploitation wells in November and December of that year, and declared afterwards that the exploration had revealed that a large natural gas reserve did exist in the area but that its exact extent was still unknown.
At a CNPC meeting, Xu Yongjie, genreral manager of Chuanqing Drilling Company, the CNPC subsidiary in charge of the Longgang field exploration, said the company would work hard to get exact numbers for the reserve to the public in October.
At present, China’s largest gas reserves are at CNPC’s Sulige field, with a proven 533.6 billion cubic meters, and the second largest is at Puguang gas field, discovered by Sinopec in the Sichuan Basin, with a proven 350 billion cubic meters as of February, 2007.
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