MANAGING VEGETABLE PRICES: A worker at an agricultural product wholesale market in Dalian, north China's Liaoning Province, weighs vegetables. The Dalian Municipal Government adopted a price adjustment fund to keep vegetable prices low during the Spring Festival holiday (February 2-8) (LIU DEBIN)

Anti-Dumping Tariff

China has levied an anti-dumping tariff on X-ray security scanners made by European companies, according to an announcement from the Ministry of Commerce.

China will impose a tax ranging from 33.5 percent to 71.8 percent on such imports for the next five years, effective January 23.

The ministry said an investigation showed the makers of European X-ray scanners have "dumped" products into the Chinese market by selling them at a price lower than what is charged in their own markets, and that Chinese manufacturers have suffered actual damages as a result. There has been a causal relationship between the dumping and the actual damage to Chinese manufacturers, according to the investigation.

Design Exchange

Beijing is planning to build China's first design exchange to offer a platform for design trading and boost the country's burgeoning creativity industry.

"China enjoys a tremendous market for both manufacturing and consumption, and sees a growing demand for the design industry and an increasing supply in this regard," Song Weizu, Vice Secretary General of the China Industrial Design Association, said on January 23.

In Beijing alone, there are about 1,000 state-owned design companies and 20,000 privately run ones. But there is no public platform in China for design suppliers and those in need to find each other.

Huawei Sues Motorola

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., on January 24 asked a U.S. District Court to prevent Motorola from illegally transferring Huawei's intellectual property to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), staff of Huawei said to Xinhua in Sydney, Australia on January 25.

As a leading player in providing next generation telecommunications network solutions, Huawei took this action as NSN seeks to complete its $1.2 billion acquisition of Motorola's wireless network business.

Since 2000, Huawei and Motorola have had a cooperative relationship in the radio access network and core network businesses, where Motorola has resold Huawei wireless network products to customers under the Motorola name. During this period, Motorola was provided with products and confidential intellectual property developed by Huawei's team of more than 10,000 engineers.

Since the July 2010 announcement by NSN of its purchase of Motorola's wireless network business, Huawei has tried to ensure that Motorola does not transfer this confidential information to NSN.

But Motorola was sued for failure to adopt measures sufficient to ensure that Huawei's proprietary information remains confidential.

Banking Overseas

The world's largest bank by market value, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), inaugurated its first Italian subsidiary in Milan on January 21 and its Madrid branch in Spain on January 24.

"Currently there are nearly 400,000 Chinese citizens coming to Italy every year and there are over 2,500 Italian enterprises investing in China," said Jiang Jianqing, President of ICBC.

ICBC's Madrid branch is to provide a wide range of financial services to 166,000 Chinese nationals living in Spain.