Dai said that the ACFTA is the largest free trade zone among developing counties and in accordance with their basic and long- term interests. It brings more opportunities, larger market and optimized resource allocation to these countries, aiming at mutual benefits, win-win results and common development.

Speaking at the ASEAN Secretariat in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, he said that Chinese people were willing to join hands with people in Southeast Asia to push forward the rise of Asia and regional integration.

“China and ASEAN should treat equally and deepen their mutual trust, take each other as a reliable and equal partner, seek mutual benefits and win-win results, support the development of ACFTA elaborately, unite and help each other while facing challenges in terms of climate change, food security and natural disasters, and seek common ground while reserving differences, and deal with disputes properly to avoid influencing the cooperation,” he added.

When introducing China’s development, Dai said that China is still a developing country, with its GDP per capita ranking 104th in the world. He said that China’s realizing modernization still required deepening reforms, expanding opening-up, learning advanced experiences from abroad, and improving mutual benefit with other countries including ASEAN countries. He added that China was glad to see the United States making constructive efforts to improve the stability and development of Asia.

Dai also reiterated that China would never seek hegemony. He said that China had no history of military aggression and expansion and need a peaceful and steady international environment. “China was willing to be good friend, good neighbor and good partner of ASEAN and all Asian countries forever,” he added.

The American pavilion will feature an exhibit on “The Chinese in America.” To build the exhibit, the Committee of 100 is asking everyone of Chinese descent across America to submit their photos to create the wall.

The committee donated 3 million dollars to help build the American pavilion and has been a strategic partner for the effort in Shanghai.

On Friday, the committee launched its “Join the Wall” website to help Chinese in America to submit their photos for the wall.

The wall will feature Chinese names classified by their last names such as Chen, Wang, Li, Ma and Zhang, etc.

The names will include well-known Chinese such as Yo-Yo Ma, but the majority will be ordinary Chinese to demonstrate that “We are Family.”

Lily Lee Chen of the Asia Pacific-USA Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Committee of 100, said the Expo will be the first to be held in China.

The Chinese Americans, she said, are grateful for the U.S. to give them the opportunity to realize their dreams. But as Americans of Chinese origin, she said, they also love their mother country and feel proud of their Chinese roots.

Chen said the Wall of Chinese in America will provide an opportunity for the Chinese in America to show their pride, their contributions and their love for both countries.

Stewart Kwoh, president of Asian Pacific American Legal Center and a member of the Committee of 100, said the Expo is an important way for the Chinese to celebrate their relationship with the rest of the world.

He welcomes all Chinese in the U.S., whether they are U.S. citizens or not, to submit their photos if they have a Chinese family name.

It looks easy to build a wall with the photos of Chinese in America , but actually it is not so simple. Some Chinese women have married Americans and their last names have changed. The third or fourth generations may have difficulty finding where their parents or grandparents come from.

The Committee of 100 encourages the younger generations to use the opportunity to find their origins.

Also, immigrants use different ways to spell their family names. For example, Zhang is also spelled Chang, Li is spelled Lee, Lin is spelled Lim. They will find out their real Chinese last name first before their names are organized on the wall.

Even the same Chinese family names have simplified and traditional ways to write. While mainly in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese names are also acceptable on the Wall.

The Chinese in America Exhibit has the support of many organizations, such as East West Bank and China Sprout. The Chinese Daily News, the leading Chinese language newspaper in the U.S., promised to provide free advertising to promote the event.

Submiting photos to the Wall of Chinese in America is free. Chinese Americans can just go to www.jointhewall.org and upload their photos.

The Committee of 100 also called on the Chinese community to donate to become a Master Builder of the Wall and be recognized with a brick at the USA Pavilion with their names on it. All the money will go to help build the pavilion.

Founded in 1989 by prominent Chinese Americans, the Committee of 100 is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit and membership organization composed of Chinese American leaders in a broad range of professions.

The guideline was issued Friday by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) two weeks after the State Council, the Cabinet, gave green light to pilot the business on a trial basis.

Timetable indicating when margin trading would begin was not yet given. But publication of the guideline meant that securities companies might be able to start applying for the business soon.

The CSRC required securities companies must use their own fund and securities for running the margin trading business, according to the guideline.

Applicants should also have developed transaction settlement systems for margin trading, and pass the review by the Securities Association of China.

China’s State Council approved “in principle” the launch of index futures and gave nod to the margin trading business on Jan. 8.

Margin trading allows securities companies to lend stocks and money to investors.

Stock index futures are agreement to buy or sell an index at a preset value on an agreed date. Index futures would give investors a mechanism to profit from declines in stock prices, allowing them to hedge risks and helping ease fluctuations in market.

The 263 autos included two of 307 CC produced between July 21 of 2006 to March 19 of 2007, 215 of C4 coupe manufactured between July 29 of 2006 to March 19 of 2007, and 46 of C5 made between July 17 of 2006 to March 20 of 2007, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement on its web site Friday.

The defection with radio software would lead to radio malfunction after CD ejection. It would also cause continuous running of radio after auto engine stops working, which would exhaust auto battery and result in failure in starting engines.

Authorized service centers will contact owners by letter to arrange software upgrading after the recall was launched Friday, according to the statement.

“It looks beautiful and has large space. I bought it to replace my old car, a small Chery QQ,” said the 27-year-old IT practitioner.

“Cars with displacement of 1.6 liters, like the Mazda 3, are cheaper with reduced purchase tax,” she added.

Shen’s Mazda is one part of the mushrooming auto fleet that expands by 1,500 new vehicles every day in Beijing, a city that already has 5.7 million drivers and over four million automobiles.

The young white collar represents a consumer group that is pushing China, the newly-crowned world’s top auto maker and market, to become a even larger auto market in the coming years.

China’s auto sales rose 46.15 percent year on year to 13.64 million units last year, and output went up 48.3 percent to 13.79 million units in the same period, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

YOUNGER, EASIER AND FASTER

Shen Lu can still remember how she envied her classmates whose families had cars when she was still a school girl, and now she had already bought her second car.

“Car has become a part of my life,” she said.

“It is more convenient to go shopping or go out on picnics with a car. Most of my friends have cars or are planning to buy one,” she explained.

To some urban Chinese, especially the young white collars, cars were no longer luxuries, but commonplace consumer goods, said Xie Liang, a senior editor of an auto magazine in Beijing.

“In China, it has become easier for people to find vehicles to their taste, and they are quick to decide,” he said.

Lin Meiying, an accountant who worked in Hangzhou, southeastern China, said it only took her a month from planing to actually buy a car, a Mitsubishi Lancer.

“It (buying a car) is not a small expense, but to buy one is not a very big deal nowadays,” she said.

The thriving auto market is seen as a result of an increase income and relatively stable prices of auto vehicles, said Xie.

“Urbanization and favorable tax policies on cars also contributed to the booming,” he said.

To spur the use of clean and fuel-efficient cars, the government cut the purchase tax to 5 percent on vehicles with a displacement of less than 1.6 liters last year. The tax cut incentive has been extended to this year, with purchase tax being raised to 7.5 percent.

According to Jia Xinguang, an independent auto industry analyst, to follow the fashion was also a reason that more and more young people bought cars.

“These young people like fancy looking, cheap cars that look like racers or SUVs. For some of them, to look fashionable is the main reason of purchase,” he said.

“And more parents, who might not be able to afford a car at a early age, are willing to buy cars for their children as gifts,” Jia said.

VAST RURAL MARKET

Another notable phenomenon in China’s expanding auto market is that China’s rural residents have begun to cast their eyes on cars.

According to the Foton Chinese Index for Mobility of 2009, an annual survey jointly conducted by the Beijing-based Beiqi Foton Motor Co Ltd and Horizon Research Group and aimed at offering an insight into Chinese people’s mobility, rural demands for cars increased.

According to the survey, 12.4 percent of interviewees in small towns and 11.5 percent of interviewed villagers have expressed interests in buying a car.

Last year, China had started to subsidize vehicle buyers in rural areas with 10 percent of price of the vehicle.

Boosted by the stimulus policy, sales of light truck, which are widely used in rural areas, increased by 17.35 percent to 1.13 million units year on year in the third quarter last year, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association.

According to the Foton Chinese Index for Mobility, of all the farmer interviewees that planned to buy a car in the next year, 17.4 percent of them had moved up their plans because of the subsidizing program, while 11.5 percent of them had decided to have cars because of the program.

Data from the Ministry of Finance showed that by the end of 2009, China had provided 8.7 billion yuan (about 1.27 billion U.S.dollars) of subsidies to rural auto purchases, covering 5.83 million auto vehicles.

Shao Qihui, honorary chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, said that in 2009, vehicles in rural areas could only meet 30 percent of the total demand for rural transportation.

Relatively low income in the rural areas compared with cities hampered rural vehicle consumption, and trucks, tractors and even horse carts were used to for passenger transport in the countryside, he said.

“However, as inhabitants in rural areas accounted for almost three fourths of the country’s population, the potential of the rural market can not be overlooked,” he said.

NEW ENERGY CAR

New energy cars has also brought fresh impetus to China’s auto market with cheaper prices and low emission.

The Foton Chinese Index for Mobility showed that 23 percent of the interviewees were willing to buy automobiles of hybrid power, the figure for electric vehicles was 10.1 percent.

Up to 36.5 percent hope that the government would subsidize new energy car purchases, said the survey.

Jia said that the government should promote new energy cars, and develop low speed ones.

“In cities, a car with an average speed of about 25 miles per hour is enough for people to go back and forth between homes and work places,” Jia said.

He is quite confident in the future development of the new energy car market. “Low speed new energy cars are cheap and power saving. They are environmental friendly and has huge market potential.”

The ministry released an annual report based on monitoring results of agricultural products, saying 96.4 percent of vegetables had met safety standards in 2009, up 0.1 percentage points year on year.

The rate was 99.5 percent for domestic animals, up 0.8 percentage points, and 97.2 percent for aquatic products, up 1.5 percentage points.

The monitoring of fruits, mushrooms and tea, for the first time in 2009, found 98 percent, 95.2 percent, and 94.8 percent of products in the three categories met standards.

In 2009, the inspections became more detailed, covered more categories, and were carried out in 259 large and medium-sized cities, compared with only 36 major cities previously, the ministry said.

The ministry said it would step up the control over the use of prohibited pesticides and veterinary drugs in 2010 in order to further improve the quality and safety of agricultural produce.

The government should incorporate speeding up the transformation of the development mode into maintaining steady and relatively fast economic development, Wen said at a plenary meeting of the State Council, or Cabinet.

At the meeting, a draft government work report, to be delivered at an annual national session of the country’s parliament, was discussed.

The government must strengthen macro-economic control and carefully handle the relationship between maintaining steady and relatively fast economic development, adjusting economic structure and managing inflation expectations in a bid to create favorable conditions to transform the development mode, he said.

The government would stick to the policy of expanding domestic demand this year to boost public consumption and optimize the investment structure, he said.

Wen said the country should make “substantial progress” in transforming the economic development mode by continuing to push forward renovation of key industries, fostering strategic emerging industries, promoting accelerated development of the service sector, and improving the overall quality and competitiveness of the national economy.

The government would comprehensively implement its strategy of reinvigorating the country through science, education and expertise, and enhance its efforts to turn China into an innovation-oriented country so as to give technological and personnel support for the transformation of the development mode, he said.

The government should also make efforts to improve the people’s living standards and deepen reforms of “key fields” to establish a system which was conducive to the transformation, he said.

At the meeting, Wen also outlined key work to be done in the first quarter of this year, a period which he said was crucial for China’s economic and social development this year.

He said the government must correctly judge the situation and make its macro-economic control policy more effective.

He also urged the government to optimize credit structure and maintain a good rhythm of credit supply to guard against financial risks.

A key task in adjusting the economic operation was to ease the supply and demand imbalance of electricity, coal, gas and transportation, he said.

He urged relevant authorities to lose no time to implement policies already introduced, “increase commercial residential building supply”, and “contain speculative purchases of homes” to promote steady and healthy development of the real estate market.

Wen also called for enhanced efforts to ensure work safety and maintain social stability.

The participants of the meeting agreed to issue the draft government work report to central and local government organs to solicit opinions.

Business revenue of the SOEs grew 5.9 percent year on year to 22.5 trillion yuan, the ministry said in a statement.

SOEs directly controlled by the central government reported a year-on-year profit growth of 10.3 percent in 2009, totaling 944.5 billion yuan. Profits of local SOEs grew 8.4 percent to 394.7 billion yuan.

The figures for December alone were not given in the MOF statement, but it said profits of SOEs were 23.8 percent higher compared with December, while business revenue was up 16.3 percent month on month.

In 2008, China’s SOEs experienced a steep 25.2 percent drop in profits, as the impact of the global financial crisis started to weigh on the country’s economy with falling enterprise output and profitability.

The SOEs covered by the ministry statistics included 130 enterprises administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (on behalf of the central government), enterprises affiliated to 82 central departments, and those administered by provincial, regional and municipal governments, but excluded state-owned financial institutions.

It is the first time that China invites international expertise to advise on goals and policies of its key Five-year Plan, according to officials and experts attending an international seminar hold by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

They said it was very important for China to consider its development strategy more from a global perspective as China has been increasingly incorporated with the world economy.

China has started the work on formulating the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015), said Xu Xianping, vice minister of the NDRC, the country’s top economic planning body.

The seminar invited distinguished thinkers from near and afar to focus discussions on how China’s 12th Five-year Plan can be designed to rebalance economy, environmental and social performance, and to reflect a global perspective, said C. Lawrence Greenwood, vice president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), co-sponsor of the seminar.

“One Chinese thinker of the past said ‘Rocks from other mountains may be used to carve jade’,” Greenwood said. The old saying means one can correct his own defects by learning from advice or experiences of others.

“China is already a major developing country with a very high degree of openness, and is closely linked to the global economy.” said Li Shantong, a senior researcher with the Development Research Center of the Chinese State Council, or the cabinet.

Li said the development of China was no longer just affected by domestic factors, but also by factors from outside world.

The new five-year plan, regarded by many experts as needing more thorough considerations as both domestic and global environments have become more “complicated”, would be critical for China to realize a sustainable growth of economy.

Experts say after 30 years of fast growth, the country badly needs to make substantial progress in shifting its development pattern by improving policies and deepening reforms.

“Readjustment should be a key word of China’s 12th Five-year Plan,” said Wang Jian, vice president of China Society of Macroeconomics. He said the country must address many challenges such as overcapacity, economic restructuring, and further expansion of domestic consumption.

Dwight Perkins, a Harvard University professor, told the seminar that China should further facilitate the role household consumption plays in GDP growth by raising per capita income and encouraging more spending rather than saving.

Perkins said China was also faced with the daunting challenge in the coming 20 years of solving housing problems for as many as 200 million rural migrant workers in cities.

A green path of development should also be the highlight in the new five-year plan, Greenwood said, noting that low-carbon economy has become a key development area globally.

He said China’s future prosperity would be closely linked to the level of green economy and how it would deal with climate change issues.

China’s future development plans should also focus on shared prosperity, the gap between the rich and poor, and balanced economic development, he said.

Subinay Nandy, Country Director in China of the United Nations Development Programme, said the seminar was a big improvement in China’s decision-making mechanism, which was more open and transparent.

“The openness is helpful both way,” Nandy said, adding that not only China can learn from advice of international agencies and think tanks, more and more developing country can also learn from China’s growth model.

The expanded plant, when completed in 2012, is likely to reap 10 billion yuan, Wednesday’s China Daily reported, quoting the company’s officials as saying.

The Lanzhou plant’s capacity will go up to 120,000 units by then from 50,000 units now, according to the newspaper.

“We are looking to being the leader in the northwestern markets and are significantly enhancing our production lines, sales, technologies and services,” Geely Chairman Li Shufu was quoted as saying.

Analysts say Geely’s strategy to focus on Lanzhou would be beneficial in the long run as the reduced logistics cost will help increase its market share in the region.

“Geely’s target is to produce and sell 2 million cars by 2015, with half in China and half abroad,” said Li.

The company, which plans to establish 15 overseas production bases by 2015, has set up manufacturing bases in Russia, Ukraine and Indonesia, while the Malaysian plant may start production soon, according to the company’s officials.