China's CPI to rise 2.5 percent this year

China's consumer price index (CPI) is expected to climb 2.5 percent in 2007, according to a forecast of the Ministry of Commerce.

CPI went up 1.5 percent year-on-year in 2006, slightly lower than the 1.8 percent a year earlier.

The high gasoline price is a major cause of the consumer price hike, said an official with the ministry's department of market operation regulation, which issued the forecast.

The People's Bank of China, or the central bank, said that the nation's grain price went up 9.1 percent in December last year, compared with the same month of the previous year.

Rising incomes of urban residents and increasing use of cars will fuel spending on health care, tourism, recreation, cosmetics, gifts and jewelry, it says.

Crackdown on fraudulent ads

Eleven Chinese Government departments have teamed up to crack down on fraudulent advertisements to protect the rights and interests of consumers.

Great efforts will be made to supervise various advertisements and serious offenders will be prosecuted, according to a meeting attended by 11 government departments including the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Information Industry, Ministry of Health and State Food and Drug Administration, among others.

According to the meeting, the crackdown will mainly target ads for medicines, medical services, foodstuff, cosmetics and beauty services.

Chinese industrial and commercial authorities handled 61,800 illegal advertisements last year, including 16,600 fraudulent ones, which provide false information on related products or exaggerate their quality and functions.

More patents go to foreigners

China approved 58,000 patents last year, with more than half being granted to foreigners, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) said recently.

Applicants from overseas filed 33,000, or 56.6 percent of all patents, said SIPO spokesman Yin Xintian.

The rising of patent applications from overseas shows that China's market is drawing the attention of other countries since China's entry into the World Trade Organization, said Yin.

SIPO Director Tian Lipu said although China has granted a large number of intellectual property rights (IPR), domestic IPR competitiveness and innovation capability is still far behind those of developed countries.

About 99 percent of Chinese companies never apply for patents, said Tian.

Research and development investment of large and medium-sized corporations accounted for 0.71 percent of their annual turnover on average, much lower than the average 5 percent in developed countries.

4G phones go on trial

The world's first fourth-generation (4G) mobile communication system was officially launched January 30 in Shanghai's Changning District after a field trial was conducted in October.

The home-grown 4G system provides speeds of up to 100 mbps in wireless transmission of data and images many times faster than that of current mobile technology.

The rollout of the trial, which has cost 150 million yuan, is a milestone in the development of China's 4G technologies.

China initiated the B3G (Beyond 3G)/4G research project in 2001 under the label Future Technology for Universal Radio Environment, or Future Project. The country has set a goal of conducting field tests of the 4G system and putting it into trial commercial use between 2006 and 2010.