Russia's government may delay an agreement to supply crude oil and gas to China through pipelines because of domestic opposition, a Standard & Poor's report said.
Russian people are concerned that Chinese imports are threatening local industries and Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to be seen to be increasing China's influence over his country, S&P's analysts, including Bei Fu in Hong Kong, wrote in a report on Wednesday.
China needs to secure oil and natural gas supplies to meet energy demand in an economy that grew 9.9 percent last year. Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) wants an US$11.5 billion oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific port of Nakhodka to include a spur to China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer.
The report said that, "Finding diverse and stable energy supplies such as from Russia, is critical for China over the long term."
Russia agreed in March to build two pipelines from the country's Pacific coast to China.
"Russia's new energy agreements with China are vague," the S&P report said. "No route or cost estimates have been given for the gas pipelines and only a sketchy timetable has been provided."
OAO Gazprom, Russia's largest gas producer, may export as much as 80 billion cubic meters a year of natural gas to China through the two new pipelines, Gazprom chief executive officer Alexei Miller said on March 21.
China National Petroleum Corp (
Under the agreement, the first pipeline will run 3,000km from western Siberia to China's western region, and the second from eastern Siberia to northeastern China, the S&P report said.
China in December raised factory prices for natural gas and changed its pricing mechanism of the fuel to move in line with demand in the local market.
By increasing prices, Beijing hoped to encourage companies to invest in gas plants, ensuring steady supply.
Prices for natural gas used by industries and city-gas distributors increased by between 50 yuan (US$6.19) and 150 yuan per thousand cubic meters, according to the Beijing-based National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, on Dec. 26.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day