BizChina

Contracts valued at 2 billion yuan (about 300 million U.S. dollars) had been signed by Monday at the Central China Expo here in Anhui Province, its second day.

Organizers said that despite the global downturn, the number of attendees was about twice that of last year's event.

The fourth Central China Expo targeted six central provinces -- Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Shanxi -- and attracted about 16,000 participants from about 300 multinational companies such as Carrefour and IBM.

Jean Luc Lhuillier, vice president and general manager for Carrefour's operations in central and western China, said he had discussions about new stores with an official from Zhoukou City, Henan Province.

"I will make an appointment with him for an on-the-spot visit to see whether we can open a new store," he said.

The first foreign company to open stores in the capitals of central provinces like Hubei in 1998 and Anhui in 2002, Carrefour will further explore the central China market, he said.

"This year we will open at least one store in Anhui, two in Hubei, one in Henan and one in Hunan," Lhuillier said.

Chinese equities fall for a third trading day in a row Tuesday, after losses in heavyweights led by PetroChina and Ping An Insurance dragged the market down.

Both companies said late Monday that their profits slipped in the first quarter.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed the day at 2,401.44 points, down 3.91 points, or 0.16 percent. The Shenzhen Component Index edged up 0.24 percent to 9,082.22 points, up 22.08 points.

Gainers outnumbered losers by 591 to 238 in Shanghai and 502 to208 in Shenzhen.

Combined turnover shrank to 137.42 billion yuan (20.2 billion U.S. dollars) from 155.41 billion yuan on the previous trading day.

Singapore led the world in industrial competitiveness while China rose five places up from the 31st in 2000 to the 26th in 2005 in the rankings of the competitiveness industrial performance (CIP) index, according to the Industrial Development Report 2009 released on Monday by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

The Industrial Development Report 2009 said China's CIP has overtaken the Philippines and is approaching Thailand. In 2000, China ranked 31st by scoring 0.387 points in CIP index value. The value rose to 0.418 points in 2005, when data collection ended.

The UNIDO said the CIP index, which measures the ability of countries to produce and export competitively, was used to help assess national industrial performance in the global economy.

The CIP index combines four main dimensions of industrial competitiveness: industrial capacity, manufactured export capacity, industrialization intensity and export quality, it said.

The report said the CIP ranks changed little between 2000 and 2005, and countries at the top and bottom tended to maintain a relatively stable position.

According to the rankings, developed countries congregated near the top, countries with economies in transition and East Asian countries around the upper middle, low-income dynamic countries in the lower middle range, and low-income countries and the least-developed countries at the bottom.

Singapore led the rankings, by scoring 0.887 points of CIP index value in 2000 and 0.890 points in 2005. Ireland and Japan followed, along with Switzerland, Sweden and Germany.

The United States was the only mature industrial power that has seen a deterioration in its relative position, down from the 9th place in 2000 to the 11th in the 2005 ranking. This was the result of the improved performance of the Republic of Korea and China's Taiwan, which ranked the 9th and 10th position in 2005, respectively.

The other two Top 10 countries in the 2005 ranking included Finland and Belgium, according to the report.

The 2009 report was first released this February in Vienna, Austria, where the UNIDO is based. Since then, the UNIDO had been making a worldwide tour of presentations to disseminate information of the report.

The UNIDO first introduced the CIP index in the Industrial Development Report 2002-2003, which was released in late 2002. In that report, China's rankings jumped from the 61st position in 1985 to the 37th in 1998.

Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province announced Thursday it would provide 250 million yuan (US$36.6 million) in subsidies to support dairy farmers whose business was hurt by last year's adulterated milk scandal.

Dairy farmers can get 500 yuan for each dairy cow they raise that can be bred, said Jin Jibin, deputy Secretary-general of the Heilongjiang government. He didn't say when the subsidies would be given.

"The priority is to stabilize the breeding of dairy cows, protect the interests of farmers and boost their confidence to continue raising cows," he said.

With 2.2 million dairy cows, the province produces one sixth of China's milk. But 75 percent of the farmers are losing money because consumer confidence hasn't recovered from the scandal, which resulted from the addition of the industrial chemical melamine to raise the apparent protein content of the milk.

"The entire dairy market is in depression although milk from Heilongjiang is melamine-free. I'm on the verge of bankruptcy because the milk price is dropping while the feed price is rising, " said Zhao Hongxing, who raised 14 cows. "I hope to get the subsidies as soon as possible."

The government will also provide funding to allow students to buy milk at half-price, another measure to boost dairy consumption, Jin said.