Society

Pork prices in China further dropped in April due to over supply and falling demand, analysts said on Friday.

Statistics released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Thursday showed pork prices in major Chinese cities averaged 10.13 yuan per kg ($1.5) at the end of April, down 10.4 percent from the same period last year.

The decline led the proportion between pork prices and grain prices to stand at 6.18 to 1, the lowest point since May 2007, gaining on the threshold for hog breeders to earn profit set by the NDRC, which is 6 to 1.

The government will enforce subsidies for the pork production industry if the figure falls below 5 to 1.

Farmers had been raising more hogs since the pork prices began to climb in the first half of 2007. It may be the major reason for over supply and price drop since this year, Wang Xiao'e, economic researcher with Beijing Economic Information Center told Xinhua.

Pork prices were also affected by the falling demand in summer, when people tend to eat fewer pork products, said NDRC in a statement posted online late Thursday.

The A/H1N1 flu was also a factor that made people more cautious when choosing meat for meal, according to Wang.

The continuous price fall has already aroused concerns for further drop in CPI (Consumer Price Index) later this year, as the prices of pork, a major meat on Chinese families' dinner table, is a main drive behind CPI changes.

"It will impose large pressure on the country's CPI if the downward trend in pork prices continues," said Wang.

Food prices, a major component of China's CPI, fell 0.7 percent year-on-year in March, with pork prices down 23 percent.

March's CPI dropped 1.2 percent from a year earlier, falling for a second month this year. Figures for April is expected to come out next week.

China began Thursday to lay tracks for the first high-speed passenger line in its western region, which will ultimately shorten trips between the ancient capital of Xi'an and Beijing to four hours from the current 11.

The 500-km line linking Xi'an in northwestern Shaanxi Province with Zhengzhou in central Henan will run at up to 350 km per hour.

"When it becomes operational at the end of this year, a ride between the two cities will take less than two hours compared with the present six," said Li Hengman, deputy manager of the Zhengzhou-Xi'an Railway Company, operator of the 10.3-billion-US dollar project.

He said the track-laying would be completed by June 10 and the railway was scheduled to be operational on December 28.

Construction began in late 2005. It involved building tunnels in the craggy mountains and reinforcing the loose, sandy earth to support tracks and trains on the loess plateau.

The new route will connect to trunk railways including the north-south Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, while a trip from Shanghai to Xi'an will take only five hours compared with the current 15.

China's first inter-city express railway, the Beijing-Tianjin line running at more than 300 km/hr, opened in August. A trip takes 30 minutes.

Last month, China launched two 250-km-per-hour inter-city passenger lines, one connecting Hefei, capital of eastern Anhui Province, with Wuhan in central Hubei Province and the other, linking Shijiazhuang city near Beijing with Taiyuan in Shanxi Province.

The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will be completed by 2012 and halve travel time to about five hours.

Four Chinese nationals made it into Time Magazine's 2009 "100 Most Influential People in the World", including Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Alibaba.com founder Jack Ma, and pianist Lang Lang.

Among the others named are US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the co-founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and the world-famous golfer Tiger Woods.

Wang is "the man China's leaders look to for an understanding of the markets and the global economy" and "decisive and inquisitive," said his long-time friend and former US Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson.

Running one of the world's biggest B2B online marketplaces, the soft-spoken Jack Ma "did so well that in 2006, eBay shut down its own site in China," the magazine writes.

If Jack Ma influences the world through his business instinct and acute vision, Lang Lang, who has been playing the piano since he was around 2 years old, is influencing others through his humane sensitivity and prodigal talents.

"You hear him play, and he never ceases to touch your heart," according to Time. It also calls him "the new phenomenon".

"The Time 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it's not a list of the smartest people in the world, it's a list of the most influential people in the world," says Executive Editor Rick Stengel.

"They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers, they're leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries.'"

First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the Time 100 has become an annual event since 2004.

A Beijing man was awaken and handcuffed by the police after falling asleep while waiting to kidnap his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Du, in mid-April. Police said the man, Liang Yi, confessed he had plotted to kidnap her for revenge ransom after he spent about 100,000 yuan( $14,650 ) on Du, only to be dumped. Liang talked a pal into joining the plot, but the two fell asleep in Du's home after breaking in and waiting a very long time for her. When she returned and found two men snoozing on her bed, Du called police who woke them up effortlessly.