China’s overseas investment in renewable energy projects jumped last year by 60 percent to a record US$32 billion, marking its leadership in the global market for clean energy, a report said on Friday.
Last year, China finalized 11 foreign deals worth more than US$1 billion each and is expected to pick up the pace this year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
On Thursday last week, China announced that it would sink at least US$361 billion into “renewable” energy resources by 2020, key to the country’s transition away from polluting coal power.
“Renewable energy will be the pillar for China’s energy structure transition,” Chinese National Energy Administration deputy head Li Yangzhe (李仰哲) said, Xinhua news agency reported.
Overseas investments last year ranged from lithium battery makers in Australia and Chile to an electricity distribution deal in Brazil and the building of a solar cell factory in Vietnam.
China now owns five of the six largest solar module manufacturing firms in the world, according to the report.
On the domestic front, the world’s second-largest economy had already emerged as a “renewables” powerhouse, outstripping the US.
China poured more than US$100 billion in domestic renewable energy — wind, solar, hydro — and related sectors in 2015, more than double the US investment, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“The US is already slipping well behind China in the race to secure a larger share of the booming clean energy market,” IEEFA director Tim Buckley said in a statement. “With the incoming [US] administration talking up coal and gas, prospective domestic policy changes don’t bode well.”
US president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to restore the US’ flagging coal industry and has appointed several fossil fuel executives and lobbyists to key posts in his administration.
China’s emerging dominance of the clean energy sector also extends to jobs.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that China holds 3.5 million of the 8.1 million “renewable” energy jobs globally, compared with less than 800,000 in the US.
The Chinese National Energy Administration said the nation’s “renewables” sector would generate at least 13 million jobs by 2020.
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management professor Ulf Moslener said that China has emerged as “the world leader on renewable energy,” with clear advantages over rich-nation competitors, such as the US and Germany.
“Standard solar modules are no longer rocket science,” he said. “It will be really hard to compete with China on the cost side.”
The same applies to wind energy.
However, US and European entrepreneurs “should still have an advantage” when it comes to high tech, he added, pointing to thin-film solar and cutting-edge engineering services as examples.
Last year, China boosted its overseas influence by establishing the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.
It is also funneling billions of dollars into the New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. All the bank’s initial loans were for “renewable” energy projects.
Add in its established overseas investment banks and “China is clearly building the financial capacity to drive global mergers and acquisitions,” the report said.
In 2015, China overtook the US as the largest market for electric vehicles and today two Chinese firms — BYD Auto Co Ltd (比亞迪汽車) and battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (寧德時代新能源) — are challenging Tesla Motors Inc for leadership of the sector.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained