A NEW BREED: A farmer mows grass in the farmland in which the phase-four super hybrid rice nurtured by Yuan Longping, dubbed the "Father of Hybrid Rice," is being grown (ZENG YONG)

Oil Exploration

China Oilfield Services Ltd. (COSL) completed the first phase of oil drilling and exploration off Zhongjian Island of the country's Xisha Islands on May 27, the company said in a statement.

According to a plan made by its client, the exploration operation has moved to another site for its second-phase work, the COSL said.

The operation, carried out by the HYSY981 drilling platform managed by COSL, started on May 2 and is expected to be completed by mid-August.

The waters for the first phase were 17 nautical miles from Zhongjian Island, completely within China's territorial waters, while they are as far as 130-150 nautical miles (241-278 km) from Viet Nam's coastline.

However, preceding the announcement, Viet Nam had carried out intensive disruptions of Chinese company's normal oil drilling since May 2.

Seeking Private Capital

The State Grid Corp of China, the nation's largest utility by sales, said on May 27 it plans to seek private capital investment to establish a distributed power network and charging stations for electric vehicles. It's a step toward mixed ownership in state-monopolized industries.

State Grid representative Wang Yanfang said the company supports private capital in investing in distributed power generation connection projects, as it will develop the industry.

At the end of April, the company's grid-connected capacity of distributed power had reached 1.28 million kilowatts, among which distributed solar power accounted for 1.21 million kilowatts, according to the company.

The Chinese Government has shown a clear intention to open up state-owned enterprises to private investment. Sinopec announced in February it will sell up to 30 percent of its retail oil business to private investors.

PetroChina just said it will sell 100 percent of its pipeline assets valued at $6.3 billion to private investors.

The assets include the first and second west-east gas pipelines, which carry natural gas from Central Asian countries and China's energy-rich region of Xinjiang to the nation's eastern cities.

Logistics Growth

The growth of China's logistics industry continued to slow in the first four months of 2014 due to shrinking demand amid an economic slowdown.

The total value of goods transported by logistics services increased 8.5 percent year on year to 64.2 trillion yuan ($10.4 trillion), according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

The growth rate was 0.1 percentage points lower than the first quarter and 0.9 percentage points lower compared to the same period last year.

NDRC said that the industry's efficiency has been improving as the growth of logistics expenditure was slower than that of the value of goods transported.

Combined logistics expenditure in the January-April period totaled 3.1 trillion yuan ($500 billion), up 8.0 percent from a year ago.

The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing forecast in mid-May that the logistics sector will improve later this year and the growth for the whole year will be around 9 percent.