TO THE POINT: The final week of March was extremely buoyant in many senses. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbed to record highs continually throughout the week, a seldom seen occurrence. The booming stock market was buoyed by the robust economy and the Shanghai Futures Exchange launched zinc futures trade on March 26. In retrospect, Chinese processing trade in 2006 comprised 48.6 percent, the largest share of the total foreign trade volume. Among total processing trade, 75 percent are made up of mechanical and electrical products and the Intel Corp.'s new chip factory in Chinese Dalian City will certainly help boost this figure. In the first two months, the actual paid-in foreign capital grew 13.01 percent compared with the same period last year despite the corporate income tax law readjustment. Intel plans to invest $2.5 billion into the Dalian project and expects the factory to be completed by 2008. Moves within the automobile industry are worth noting as Japanese cars topped domestic carmakers as the first choice for Chinese consumers in 2006. Whether Japan will maintain its dominance in the Chinese market this year is still anyone's guess. And finally, real estate sales revenue in China was estimated to reach a record high $9 billion, and the Chinese real estate market has become an arena for cross-border investors.

Record Highs Becoming Cliché

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index of the Chinese stock market has been greeted with a number of "record highs" since March 26. Stock traders said that for the first time in history, they can actually be comfortable with the news of yet another "record high." Every day seems to be a new high. Ho hum.

From March 26 to 29, the Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3122, 3138, 3173, and 3197. Though stock bubble theory still haunts some, more investors prefer to believe that the Chinese stock market was in effect undervalued in the past few bearish years. The "record highs" are spurred by the return of blue chips, the almost finished split share reform of state-owned enterprises, and above all, the robust domestic economy driven by the Beijing 2008 Olympics and the World Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Up to March 28, 513 A share listed companies had published their 2006 annual reports, demonstrating a total net profit of 123.267 billion yuan, a 56.01 percent climb compared with the previous year.

According to statistics from China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), in the first two months of this year, the number of new investors soared to 4.692 million. This comes on news that the total number of investors reached nearly 82 million by the end of February this year.

The "get rich overnight" fairy tales of stock markets last year have raised Chinese citizens' awareness of the existence of the stock market. When trading stocks becomes a part of life, the stock market might rejuvenate.

Intel Sweeps In

The world's biggest chip manufacturer Intel Corp. decided to cash in its chips by investing in a 160,000 square meter manufacturing plant in Dalian worth $2.5 billion.

"This project confirms and further enhances the strategic importance of China in our global strategy and in the IT industry around the world," said Intel Corp.'s Chief Executive Paul Otellini. Construction of the factory will commence before the end of this year.

The northeast port city of Dalian succeeded in a fierce bidding brawl between several candidate cities worldwide, winning the favor of Intel. It will be Intel's first wafer fabrication factory in Asia, which will help boost Intel's presence in Asian markets just as the company faces challenges from upstarts like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

According to Intel's annual report, sales revenue from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan surpassed $12.1 billion, accounting for over 34 percent of its global sales.

The 12-inch (300-millimeter) integrated wafer plant in Dalian will have a monthly capacity of 52,000 chips. Intel now operates similar factories in the United States, Ireland and Israel.

Otellini said Intel's decision to build a factory in China hasn't confronted any difficulties or pressures from the U.S. government, and many officials believed the cooperation would become a new milestone of technology cooperation between the United States and China.

Auto Makers Hit the Road

The booming automobile trade has triggered fierce competition in China, with Japanese cars taking the lead by a hair.

According to a report from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), Japan sold over 983,600 cars in China, making up 25.69 percent of the car market, followed closely by Chinese cars at 25.67 percent. The best of the rest include Germany, the United States, South Korea, France and Italy.

For a long time cars were generally associated with luxury and social status. But now they have become a necessity for many, an everyday mode of transportation. Another report from CAAM shows that private cars accounted for 74 percent of all cars sold in China by the end of 2006.

Cheng Meiwei, Chairman and CEO of Ford Motor (China) Ltd., said China is the fastest growing emerging market and half of the new cars of the world will be sold in China in the next 20 years.

Industry observers warn that too many lines of cars may not be a good idea. For one thing, each new line takes substantial research and development expenses. For another, the production of too many models retards large-scale development and sales of each model will be small. Rather, automakers should work on select models and build customer loyalty. For instance, the car 300C manufactured by German-U.S. DaimlerChrysler is selling well in China in spite of the fact that Chrysler is actually suffering an operational conundrum and is rumored to be on merger block soon.