Recruiting in China

Chengdu High-Tech Zone, known as one of China's best, has begun construction as the first national innovation demonstration zone in western China, after gaining State Council approval in June.

The new development for the next decade aims to reach an annual GDP of 1.5 trillion yuan ($235.7 billion), gather together 20,000 technical companies, and build three to five new industrial clusters each with an annual output of 100 billion yuan by 2025, taking a lead in the high-end industries and acting as a magnet for the development of the western region.

Wan Gang, minister of Science and Technology of China, said the approval of Chengdu as a national innovation demonstration zone provides Sichuan province with new development opportunities.

He encouraged Sichuan province to take the chance to cultivate a group of innovative enterprises with global influence, and offer good examples and fresh experience for the development of western China.

Founded in 1988 as one of the country's earliest, the zone has attracted more than 1,000 foreign companies, of which 104 are Fortune Global 500 ones. Multinationals including Intel, TI, Dell, Phillips and Siemens have all set up manufacturing bases there. Last year, it ranked third among national high-tech zones for innovation, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Google Inc is in search of China business again, five years after its abrupt departure from the lucrative market.

The world's largest Internet search provider is aiming to bring its online mobile application store Google Play to the Chinese mainland as soon as this month, multiple sources said.

If it succeeds, it will mark a return of sorts for Google to the mainland market after 2010.

The company, which owns the world's most-used smartphone operating system Android, is working on a "special" version of Google Play in the country, and the app downloading platform will be available for Android devices for sale in China, according to technology news site the information.com.

A Beijing-based app developer on Monday confirmed the story with China Daily, saying the US company has been preparing a China launch for a while.

"It will be a tailored version, meaning the content of the apps will be subject to Chinese regulations and video products, such as movies, will not be available," said the person, who asked not to disclose his name because the details are yet to be made public.

Another source, who also asked for anonymity, said Google is also likely to bring along a number of local companies to provide localization services while launching the app store.

Google refused to comment, when contacted for the story.

Earlier this year, Sundar Pichai, product chief at Google and the company's next CEO, told Forbes magazine that China is important for the company and it will be "a privilege" to serve Chinese users.

Industry data show Google has already missed out the highs of the country's smartphone market. Smartphone shipments in China ended a six-year growth streak in the first quarter, research firm International Data Corp said.

China's smartphone sales are reaching a peak, as shipment growth is being powered by existing users buying new devices, rather than first-time buyers, the IDC said.

In the absence of Google Play, homegrown app stores dominated the market, with 11 stores taking a double-digit market share as of May, according to the Big Data Research Center at the Chengdu-based University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Baidu Inc, Qihoo 360 Technology Co and Tencent Holdings Ltd have all set up Android app stores targeting mainland users, with Xiaomi Corp, Lenovo Group Ltd and other hardware vendors following suit. The 360 store, the largest on the market, handles more than 160 million app downloads each day, according to the company.

But China's demand for mobile apps is set to grow.

With China set to account for a huge chunk of app downloads and purchase payment in the near future, Google needs to include it in its own app store.

Although a good number of Google products, including its search engine and map services, are unavailable on the Chinese mainland, the 17-year-old company had never moved out of China completely. It has been promoting its online advertising business to Chinese companies which are looking to expand overseas.

Google representatives, including Chairman Eric Schmidt and lower-level employees such as the head of Google Doodle team, have visited China even in its lowest moment, visiting smartphone retail marketplaces and making public speeches on graphic design and company culture.

An aerial view of Shanghai Disney Resort.

(ECNS) -- A total of 153 industrial enterprises surrounding Shanghai Disney Resort are scheduled to be shut down by the end of next year, accompanied by industrial structure adjustment in the area, Jiefang Daily reports.

Most of these enterprises struggle with high-energy consumption, heavy environmental pollution, and low production efficiency.

The adjustment will involve an area of some 10 square kilometers. Following the move, ecological reclamation and public service facilities will become priority.

Shanghai has accelerated progress in industrial structure adjustment in several key areas this year. According to an unnamed director with the municipal Economic and Information Commission, when such adjustments end, some 2 square kilometers of land will be set aside and 40,000 tons of standard coal reduced annually.

Richard Yu, head of consumer businesses at Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, presents its new smartphone, Mate S, ahead of the IFA electronics show in Berlin, September 2, 2015.

Company's latest smartphone offering plans to take on competition with innovative features

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has inched close to Apple Inc in the high-end smartphone market - at least in terms of pricing.

Huawei's latest $780 flagship smartphone, Mate S, is the most expensive handset the Chinese tech giant has yet produced and is set to compete with the next-generation iPhone that Apple plans to reveal next week.

The company's previous flagships were priced in the $500-$650 price range. The lowest retail price for the iPhone 6 Plus, also a pamphlet, is about $750.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer businesses, said the Mate S deserves its price tag and will put pressure on Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

"Samsung is facing great downward pressure and Apple seems to have hit a ceiling in innovation. It is the right time for Huawei to be on the offensive," Yu said at a product launch event in Berlin on Thursday.

Huawei is increasingly becoming a threat to Apple and Samsung after it notched up the highest sales growth rate of 46.3 percent in the second quarter, thanks to strong overseas sales and 4G smartphone sales in China.

By June, Huawei was the largest local handset vendor in China, the world's biggest smartphone market, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

But its 7.8 percent market share lags far behind Apple and Samsung, which took more than a third of the total shipments.

Huawei is striving to put on market more higher-end devices with fancy features so that it can edge out the two overseas giants someday.

In Mate S, the Shenzhen-based company has incorporated a 5.5-inch high-definition display, fingerprint security and the Force Touch display technology which allows the handset to tell the difference between a tap and a hard press on the screen.

Apple is also likely to use a similar technology for its new iPhone model, as the US company is in desperate need of innovative breakthroughs to boost sales. The model is expected to make an appearance during the company's annual product release on Sept 9 in San Francisco.

"The phone redefines how we incorporate touch technology into our smartphones, taking a revolutionary approach to touch-screen control and ushering in a new era for human-machine interaction," Yu said.

Xiang Ligang, an independent smartphone analyst and founder of telecom website cctime.com, said Huawei hopes more female buyers will be attracted by the new model's elegant design and cool features.

"It is a good attempt for Huawei to bond technology with elegance and fashion as it walks into the premium market," Xiang said.

The Mate S will be available on the Chinese market later this month, according to Huawei. The retail price in its home market could be slightly cheaper than in Europe and the United States, based on previous practice.

The performance of China's manufacturing and services firms weakened in August, with activity in state-owned industrial companies contracting for the first time in six months and that in private manufacturers falling to a 76-month low, according to surveys released yesterday.

The official Purchasing Managers' Index, a comprehensive gauge of operating conditions in large state-owned industrial companies, landed at 49.7 last month, down from 50 in July and 50.2 in June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

A reading above 50 is expansion, and below it contraction. The latest figure was the first contraction since February after marginal growth in the past six months.

The Caixin China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, a similar indicator slanted toward private and export-oriented companies, landed at 47.3 for August, down from July's 47.8 and the worst since March 2009.

The figure has been below 50 for the sixth straight month after a brief rebound in February.

Zhao Qinghe, an analyst at the bureau, said domestic demand remained weak and the manufacturing sector had insufficient growth impetus.

"The slowdown was in part related to China's enhanced efforts on industrial upgrading," Zhao said. "High energy-consuming companies reported faster deterioration in PMI, while the bad weather in summer, including those hot, rainy and windy days, hampered industrial production and exaggerated the weakness as well."

The PMI's component indexes showed industrial production lost 0.7 points from a month earlier to 51.7 in August, while new orders dropped by 0.2 points to 49.7, falling below 50 for the second consecutive month.

Liu Ligang, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Co Ltd, said the readings reflected faltering sentiment amid sluggish economic growth and the stock market turmoil.

"China's manufacturing activities remained weak ... We now expect China's growth to expand 6.4 percent year on year in the third quarter," Liu said. "As more easing measures are expected, growth could rebound to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter."

China's economic performance surprised the market with a 7 percent increase in the second quarter, compared with market expectations of a 6.8 percent rise.

But the data in the past two months, including trade, industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment, all moderated.

China's service firms also reported less vibrant activities. The official non-manufacturing PMI retreated to 53.4 in August from July's 53.9, while the Caixin Services Business Activity Index posted 51.5 in August, down from 53.8 in July and signaled the slowest increase in the current 13-month sequence of expansion.

He Fan, chief economist at Caixin Insight Group, said the expansion of service activities was not strong enough to offset the contraction in manufacturing.

Earlier figures showed net earnings of manufacturing companies contracting for the second straight month in July.

"In the face of continued pressure on growth, macroeconomic stabilization policies must continue and fresh reform measures must be introduced," He said.

"Fine-tuning should go hand in hand with speedier implementation of structural reform to release the full potential of growth and lead the market to confidence," He said.

China's factory activity continued to lose steam in August, suggesting the world's second largest economy faces prolonged downward pressure, official data showed Tuesday.

China's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) came in at 49.7 in August, down from 50 for July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The August reading was the lowest since August 2012.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while that below 50 represents contraction.

The production sub-index posted at 51.7 last month, still expanding, but lower from 52.4 for July.

The sub-index for new orders came at 49.7, down from 49.9 for July, indicating grim challenges in demand.