ENSURING POWER SUPPLY: Staff members from a local power company examine transmission lines in Tianjin to check for adequate electricity supply during the summer, a traditional peak season for power demand (CHEN JIN)

Software Center

American IT heavyweight Hewlett-Packard (HP) signed an agreement with Jining City, east China's Shandong Province, on July 16 to build international software training centers with an investment of $2 billion.

Under the deal, a software talent training center, software-testing outsourcing service facility and an IT resource service base will be built.

The project will be situated in the Jining National High-tech Industrial Development Zone. The talent training center will train up to 10,000 IT professionals each year.

The centers will equip students with skills and training on HP software that companies need to make the most of their IT investments, said HP.

Land Prices Surge

The second quarter of this year witnessed hefty rises in land prices, as developers pinned their hopes on surging house prices, official data showed on July 16.

According to the Ministry of Land and Resources, an abnormal price increase had been found in 115 land deals during the April-June period, with the premium rates averaged at 142 percent above the base price for bidding, 22 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.

Land prices in major cities monitored by the ministry stood at 3,226 yuan ($520.32) per square meter, with commercial land priced at 6,044 yuan ($986), residential land at 4,799 yuan ($783) and industrial land at 684 yuan ($112).

Prices have been climbing for three consecutive quarters and have entered a relatively high range, according to the ministry.

The more developed Pearl River Delta region in south China posted the most drastic price increase, compared with the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster.