Society

The Chinese government plans to connect the telecommunications network, TV and radio network and the Internet in the near future, said a statement issued by the State Council in Beijing on Wednesday.

Connecting the three networks would boost the development of the information and cultural sectors, said the statement issued after a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.

China now had the basic technology, network infrastructure and market space to merge the three networks, the statement said.

Pilot projects should be carried out to connect telecommunications, TV and radio networks from 2010 to 2012. Based on the pilot projects, other projects should be established to connect the three networks comprehensively from 2013 to 2015, it said.

China National Gold Group had more than 1,200 tons of gold as reserve as of Dec 31, 2009, and its asset injection into its listed arm, Zhongjin Gold Co, is expected to raise its annual profit by 200 million yuan ($29 million), China Business News reported on Thursday.

Song Xin, deputy general manager of China National Gold, told the newspaper that the company added 92.4 tons of gold in 2009 to its reserve, which had increased by four times compared with the end of 2006 and was the largest in China by the end of 2009.

Also, the company is trying to obtain the mining rights of a gold mine in the northwestern province of Gansu, which, if successful, can add more than 80 tons of gold to its reserve, Song said.

According to Li Yueqing, secretary of the board of Zhongjin Gold, China National Gold Group injected assets into six enterprises under the listed subsidiary and bought a gold mine in 2009. "These measures boosted Zhongjin Gold's profit by more than 200 million yuan," Li said. "The group company will also inject the principal business of gold mining into the listed company, which is a long-term job."

China's gold output as of November 30, 2009 had surpassed the total of 2008, and was expected to hit 310 tons, according to Zhang Bingnan, vice president of the China Gold Association. China's gold outputs in 2008 ranked first in the world with 282 tons and sales ranked second with 396 tons.

China Huaneng Group, China's biggest power producer, will build two 600MW power units in the far western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, an executive at its Xinjiang subsidiary said Saturday.

Liu Xinmin, general manager of the Huaneng Xinjiang Energy Development Company, said the regional development and reform commission, the local economic planner, gave the green light to the initial phase of its Turpan power plant Saturday.

The plant will help to meet rising power demand in Turpan and southern Xinjiang and also is a major power source for the country's west-east electricity transmission project, Liu said.

Huaneng planned to start construction this April. The units, which cost about 4.8 billion yuan ($703 million), are expected to be put into operation at the end of 2012, he said.

Huaneng also planned to add another two 600MW power units to the Turpan power plant before 2015 to take advantage of the rich coal resources and the region's position as a power-grid hub, the executive said.

The power grid in Turpan will be connected this year to a national one that helps transmit power from the west to the east.

China's fast-growing rural market is fuelling the country's economy with record growth in 2009, driven by farmers' rising incomes and a slew of stimulus policies.

Growth in rural consumption expanded around 15.5 percent in 2009 and outpaced that in urban areas (15.2 percent) for the first time, said the Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

The total amount of rural consumption is estimated at 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion), the ministry said.

The growth is partly driven by the government's stimulus policies. To expand domestic consumption, early last year, the government launched a series of incentives for farmers ranging from purchases of agricultural machinery to home appliances and electronics.

However, the root cause of the growth can be attributed to the rising income of Chinese farmers, said Xu Xiaoqing, a rural economics expert of the Development Research Center of the State Council.