The Seas’ Economic Contribution

China’s seas generated 2.09 trillion yuan, or just over 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) last year, according to a report on the country’s marine economy in 2006.

The report, issued by the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), said last year’s output value of marine industries, including fishing, transportation, oil and gas exploitation, tourism and shipbuilding, rose 13.97 percent year on year. The growth rate was 3.3 percentage points higher than that of the country’s economy as a whole.

The main pillar supporting the rapid growth of the marine economy was the development of a regional economy along the coastline, said the SOA.

The gross production of the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai-rim Area each grew more than 650 billion yuan, with the regions’ combined output values accounting for about two thirds of the national total.

Trade Surplus Declines

China’s trade surplus shrank in the first quarter of this year compared with the latter half of 2006, said Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Wang Xinpei on April 11.

The country’s trade surplus stood at $46.44 billion in the first quarter of this year, showing a downward trend over the third and fourth quarters of last year. The trade surplus in March declined to $6.87 billion, falling below the $10 billion mark for the first time since March 2006, according to official figures.

Wang attributed the narrowing trade surplus to lowering export rebates since last September.

Rising Stock Market Ranking

The Shanghai Stock Exchange may rank among the world’s top 10 bourses in terms of market value, as more giant Chinese firms return to list on the mainland.

The total market value of the Shanghai Stock Exchange was 10.71 trillion yuan as of April 9, with yuan-denominated A shares valued at 10.64 trillion yuan and hard-currency B shares at 70.86 billion yuan.

The market value of the Swiss bourse, ranked 10th according to a November 2006 ranking, was 9.25 trillion yuan, less than that of Shanghai.

Shanghai is expected to see its market value grow further with large blue-chip enterprises such as China Mobile, PetroChina and CNOOC listing there.

Yahoo Space Launches

Yahoo China, operated by the nation’s largest e-commerce firm Alibaba.com Corp., has launched its social networking service, ahead of the Chinese version of MySpace, which aims to enter China later this year.

Yahoo Space combines such existing services as an online photo album and instant messenger with new functions such as video and audio chatting.

“Yahoo China has taken a further step toward making it a community-oriented site,” said Zeng Ming, Yahoo China’s President.

The new package will help produce more user-generated content such as discussion and interest groups to allow more interaction, while content will be accessible through its search engine.

Zeng believes the community-oriented service will increase users’ loyalty and the number of users through word-of-mouth promotion. Since a public trial in February, Yahoo Space has drawn more than 1.3 million users.

CRI Goes Mobile

China Radio International (CRI), the country’s only multi-language broadcaster, has begun providing mobile phone TV services.

China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television awarded the country’s third national mobile phone TV license to CRI. Shanghai Media Group and CCTV have the other two.

With its “License of Video and Audio Program Transmission Through Information Network,” CRI has set up a subsidiary to conduct mobile phone TV services in cooperation with China Unicom.

CRI is also in talks with China Mobile for mobile broadcast cooperation, company sources said.