“Ningbo Week” in Nottingham
This May, Nottingham celebrated its unique link with the Chinese city, Ningbo, in style, dedicating a week to its Sister City, “Ningbo Week”, and inviting Chinese businesses, educationalists, artists and performers to Nottingham, showcasing Chinese culture and establishing new opportunities for collaboration in education, local government and business.
“Ningbo Week” took place during the first week in May and saw over 50 visitors from Ningbo come to Nottingham to take part. The highlight of the week included a spectacular, colourful performance on Nottingham’s Old Market Square featuring Chinese acrobats, drummers and dancers, martial arts demonstrations, Chinese opera and traditional music.
One of the most important outcomes from the event included the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the cities of Nottingham and Ningbo, based on the well-known “Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change”. In this exciting new agreement, Nottingham committed to supporting Ningbo to develop plans and strategies to progressively address the causes and the impacts of climate change, whilst Ningbo committed to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its operations.
Ningbo Week concluded with a business-matching event at the Albert Hall in Nottingham, where Chinese businesses and companies from Nottingham had the chance to meet and network and explore opportunities for collaboration.
“Ningbo Week” was a great success and resulted in a great deal of new opportunities for cooperation between Nottingham and Ningbo in the future. Nottingham City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhood Regeneration, Councillor Alan Clark, said: "We are proud of the special relationship that Nottingham has with Ningbo – “Ningbo Week” was an excellent chance to further our strong cooperation with China, to bring Chinese culture to Nottingham's streets, and to develop new collaborative opportunities for the businesses, schools, colleges and people of Nottingham and Ningbo."
Aerospace technology has been applied in developing the Olympic Torch. Mr. YAN Guoyuan, General Manager of Ningbo Xingjian Aerospace Machinery Factory, said with great pride that Ningbo people contributed to the Olympic Torch.
“The torch is burning without dying out because a valve, the core part inside referred to as the 'Heart of the Torch', keeps the air stable. The valve is made by our factory, and it is high technology. ” Said Mr. Yan.
Source: China Ningbo Website, 1 Apr. 2008
Source: Ningbo Port, 19 Mar. 2008
Ningbo Part Group is considering IPO in both Mainland and Hong Kong stock exchange markets this year. The Group will add investment of RMB 30 billion to develop in the following three to five years. Besides China Merchants Group, other 6 companies will acquire some share of the Group. They are Shanghai CITIC Port Investment, Ningbo Xingning Group, Ningbo Transportation Investment, Ningbo Urban Construction, Ningbo Development and ZHoushan Port Group. The money is planned to invest in Indian, Southeast and African ports.
Source: Ningbo Daily, 7 Mar. 2008
On the afternoon of 6 Mar. Akzo Nobel Chemicals (Ningbo) CO., Ltd. lay a foundation in Ningbo Chemical Zone, and will build one of their largest global manufactures. Mr. Zhao Jungui, Vice Secretary of China Petrol Association, and Vice Mayor Wu Hemin attended the ceremony.
Headquartered in Holland, Akzo Nobel stands amongst Top 500 in the world. They plan to build a multi-chemical product manufacture base in Ningbo with the area of 500,000sqm.
Source: South East Business, 26 Feb. 2008
Outlets - A collection of Global Famous Brands. Outlets is going to open in Ningbo. Shanshan Group is taking a capital strategy to collaborate with domestic and international companies to build over 20 outlets in China. The Ningbo Outlets is going to establish this year.
Ningbo Outlets is located in Shanshan Modern Industry Park in Yinzhou District, an crossing of Hangzhou-Ningbo, Ningb0-JInhua and Ningbo Outer Ring Roads. There will be over 150 international brands in fashion, cosmetics, shoes, accessories. Other facilities include catering and entertainment. The total project investment are around RMB 400-500 million, amongst which Shanshai Group will take out RMB 300 million. It is planned to complete in 2009.
Source: South East Business, 26 Feb. 2008
It is learned from Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Trade and Economic Cooperation (BOFTEC) that Long Yuan Construction Co., Ltd, a Ningbo listed company, has signed an Memorandum of Understanding with Malaysia Sabah Economic Development Co., Ltd. valued RMB 16.761 billion to be contracted to build Sabah Development Corridor (SDC). The project set up a new record in Zhejiang province of the largest contracted value.
Southeast Asia is a key market for Ningbo construction companies that have received business from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Philippines. Long Yuan has business in Malaysia before to build commercial malls and hotels.
SDC project is actually the fourth Special Economic Zone in Malaysia.
According to the MoU, Long Yuan is responsible for construction (including hotel, dwarf, commercial centre, new town development, entertainment and infrastructure) and Sabah to provide capital and site.
Source: Ningbo Daily, 3 Mar. 2008
Mr. Ed Cunningham, President of AEG Asia has visited Ningbo recently, hoping to invest sports and entertainment projects in Ningbo.
AEG is the largest sports investor and promoter. It has 11 professional teams. After visiting New City in the East, Yinzhou District and Hangzhou Bay New District, Mr. Ed Cunningham expressed that AEG was selecting 12 cities to invest sports centres and introduce major competitions. Ningbo is one of the strong cities.
Source: South East Business, 4 Mar. 2008
1 Mar. Bird Share Holding announced that it was going to transfer all the shares of Ningbo Bird Sagem Electronics (Joint Venture) to French Sagem Mobile Company. Professionals think the action showed Bird’s strategy to reduce its mobile business.
Sagem Electronics was established in Nov. 2002 between Bird and Sagem, with the registered capital of USD25.4 million. Both have 50% of the shares.
The total value of the transfer reached RMB 159 million. After the transfer action, Sagem will still rent factories and Bird will maintain Suizhou Bird Electronics as mobile manufacturing base. The main business of Bird was unchanged. The action needs approval by the Board of Directors.
The shareholder of Ningbo Bird is Ningbo Electronics and Information Industry Group that has 21.71% shares. A relevant officer said that the transfer was first put forward by the French company. Bird has invested RMB 300million for 3G new business, and wanted to focused on it through the strategic transfer.
A pack of 4,676 sets of porcelain kitchen utensils made by Ningbo Changqing Arts & Crafts Co., Ltd. has been exported to Finland, after checked by Ningbo Beilun Inspection and Quarantine Bureau. This is the first time of Ningbo companies to have exported daily-use porcelain products.
Both US and EU have set up strict standard of metal solubility because daily porcelain goods has direct touch with food and human. Ningbo Changqing Arts & Crafts Co., Ltd. verified by China State Quality Inspection Bureau, has obtained the first qualification certificate in Ningbo to export US, and registered in the US afterwards, and thus become the first in Ningbo that is qualified to export porcelain to US and EU.
Source: Ningbo Daily, 18 Feb. 2008
It was learned from Ningbo Development and Reform Committee that Donglan Digital Co., Ltd., an IT company in Ningbo, has recently successfully been listed in London Exchange market. It is the first Ningbo and second Zhejiang company in AIM.
Its code in AIM is CESG. It issued 69,462,000 shares in total, each face valued 5 pence, and the total market value is around 18 million pounds. On the list day, the opening price jumped to 26. 5 pence.
Established in 2004, Donglan Digital specialise in IT BPO for petroleum and electric power industry. Donghai Lanfan Co., Ltd. its subsidiary, is a leading software company in Ningbo. The major clients of Donglan include Sinopec, CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation), Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company and BP. The business volume reached RMB 130 million.
Mr. ZHU Zhaofa, CEO of Donglan, explained that in all the major global exchange markets, only London Exchange Market doesn’t require the company to gain profits but it needs the latest three year business reports. London Exchange Market is the second largest in the world. It set rather low threshold for companies – no minimum market value, no direct verified by London Stock Exchange Market, and only careful recommendation and no objection to announcement.
Mr. Zhu also compared Hongkong Exchange Market with London, that the former is easy to step into but more difficult to finance later, while the latter is the opposite because London Exchange Market values company growth more.
Source: Southeast Business Newspaper, 19 Feb. 2008