Chinese Economics Thread

[Jura The idiot]

now I read
China has 12,100 tonnes of proven gold reserves
Xinhua| 2017-10-02 15:17:45

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China's proven gold reserves reached 12,100 tonnes at the end of 2016, making it the world's second largest gold holder after South Africa.

Zhang Yongtao, vice chairman of the China Gold Association (CGA), revealed the figure at a press briefing.

Last year, total gold transactions in the Chinese market, including trading at gold exchanges, futures exchanges and the over-the-counter gold in commercial banks, reached 70,000 tonnes, said Zhang, who expected the volume to exceed 100,000 tonnes by 2020.

China has been the world's biggest gold producer for 10 years and the largest gold consumer for four years. It aims to increase its annual gold output to 500 tonnes by 2020 from around 450 tonnes currently.

In the first half of this year, a total of 207 tonnes of gold were produced, down 9.8 percent from a year ago, according to the CGA.

Meanwhile, gold consumption rose nearly 10 percent year on year to 545 tonnes in the six-month period, with consumption of gold bars up more than 50 percent.

 

[manqiangrexue]

now I read
China has 12,100 tonnes of proven gold reserves
Xinhua| 2017-10-02 15:17:45

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Why is this so different from everything else I've read?

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According to this, as of June 2017, China's gold reserves were at 1842.6 tons, in 5th place, well behind the US, at 8133.5 tons. South Africa is nowhere on the top 10. Did China just reveal that it's number is actually 6x more than its previous estimate or I missing something?

 

[taxiya]

Why is this so different from everything else I've read?

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According to this, as of June 2017, China's gold reserves were at 1842.6 tons, in 5th place, well behind the US, at 8133.5 tons. South Africa is nowhere on the top 10. Did China just reveal that it's number is actually 6x more than its previous estimate or I missing something?

One possible explanation is that the figure you quoted is gold held by Central bank ONLY. The article specifically mentioned the German central bank's gold holding (3,374.1) which is the same on the chart. So I believe the numbers of China is holding of PBOC ONLY.

The total gold reserve figure in the Xinhua article may include other state bank's vaults whose total can be even bigger than PBOCs, for example ICBC is the largest bank of the world by value, it may have lots of its assets in the form of gold.

Although these commercial banks' gold is not strictly national reserve (only the central bank's is), but as they are all SOEs essentially a branch of PBOC or MoF, their holdings are in practice national reserves.

 

[taxiya]

Seems @Jura is reading Xinhua more often than most of the Chinese members here. I respect and appreciate that. Next time if there is an argument, it will be hard to say "how do you know?"

 

[taxiya]

Thanks

I asked my nerdy brother who contracts/works for a Canadian Software Company in Japan. and the only reply i got was

'Your question is too open ended'
'You have to make assumptions"

'I cant give you an answer because your question is actually asking how long is a piece of string'

'Based on the lack of specifics, brute force is the only way to go.'

Your brother is right.

It really depends, the time of brute forcing can be from a second to infinite depending of the computing power of the computer.

I did once brute-forcefully cracked a Windows NT4's password using the same machine (CPU Intel 486) in the late 1990s. Windows NT password is combination of any ASCII letters and numbers. It took two days to get the password. That is only that case.

If the brute force program is luck to try the right combination in its first loop, it will be less than one second, but if it is unlucky, it may try that combination in its last loop that will be months or more depending on the CPU power. A Taihulight may take few hours. Don't take the time I said here too serious, they are to give you the idea of the scale.

The most probable time that brute-force takes is half of the longest time (last loop finding).

 

[antiterror13]

Why is this so different from everything else I've read?

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According to this, as of June 2017, China's gold reserves were at 1842.6 tons, in 5th place, well behind the US, at 8133.5 tons. South Africa is nowhere on the top 10. Did China just reveal that it's number is actually 6x more than its previous estimate or I missing something?

You are talking about gold reserve hold by Central bank. The article above talking about proven gold reserve in the country (which means hasn't been mined)

 

[Jura The idiot]

since

... Facial Recognition by itself has a long ways to go before it can be practically used for truly identifying specific individual twins etc.

you might want to check Yesterday at 9:33 PM

now I read
China develops technology to recognize people by posture only
Xinhua| 2017-10-02 15:22:46

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[Jura The idiot]

now I read
China hosts 461 mln domestic tourists during holiday
Xinhua| 2017-10-04 21:20:28

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Some 461 million Chinese tourists traveled around the country in the first four days of the National Day holiday, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) said on Wednesday.

The figure represents an increase of 11.4 percent year on year, the CNTA said.

Domestic tourists spent 385.6 billion yuan (57.55 billion U.S. dollars) in that period, up 13.6 percent from the same period a year ago.

The National Day holiday, which runs from Oct.1 to 8, sees a surge in passenger flows as leisure travel has become a major holiday entertainment due to improving living standard, a CNTA official said.

Outbound travel gained steam with the number of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) trips outnumbered that of the group travel.

According to Ctrip.com, a leading travel service provider, outbound trips are expected to exceed 6 million during the holiday.

One of China's two "Golden Weeks", this year's National Day holiday has been extended by one day as the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Oct.4.

Travel demand appears to be stronger this year, possibly because the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family reunion.

 

[Figaro]

China's innovation rate

China's output innovative rate to surpass U.S. in 18 months: expert
(Xinhua) 10:21, October 05, 2017

NEW YORK, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- A close China watcher said here Tuesday that if China keeps its current pace in innovative industrial development, the innovative activity share in its total output will likely surpass that of the United Statesin about 18 months.

Daniel Rosen, founding partner of Rhodium Group, said at a forum at Asia Society that in the second quarter of 2012, innovation accounted for 30 percent of total Chinese output, while today the share has come up to around 34 percent.

"It seems like a small difference, but was in fact very significant," he said.

The innovative industry share in industrial value-added of the United States has been stable at about 34.5 percent over the past few years, while that of European Union and Japan stand at roughly 37 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

The study comes from an interactive online dashboard called The China Dashboard: Tracking China's Economic Reform Program, a newly designed program by Asia Society Policy Institute and Rhodium Group that assesses the ongoing impact of economic reforms on Chinese growth potential.

Next week the dashboard will be made live, and an analysis of the data in the 10 areas will be published, which range from fiscal policy to domestic financial system reform to cross-border investment reform, Rosen said.

He previewed the dashboard and chose innovation as an example of the 10 areas that the program tracks, noting that China's innovative activities have been increasing fast, especially over the past two years.

The analysis will look at the details of the growth rate of this innovative share to find out if it is really sustainable, or if it is just a cycle that might come down and need a longer time to get to the U.S. levels. There is also discussion of could something go wrong, it could permanently impair China's progress toward that innovation share of the economy, he said.

He compared some of China's critical economic indicators in 2000 and 2015 to show its share growth in global economy. For example, in 2000, China accounted for about 3.9 percent and 3.4 percent of global exports and global imports. In 2015, they rose to the vicinity of 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively. More shocking is China's outbound investment, which rose from 0.1 percent of the global outbound flows in 2000 to just shy of 9 percent in 2015.

He stressed that as a nation of about 1.4 billion people and about 12 trillion U.S. dollars of economic activity, China's economic policy reforms in the coming years will have massive consequences and implications not only for China itself, but also for the world as a whole.

 

[Jura The idiot]

now I read
Facial recognition ensures smooth travel during the National Day holiday
Xinhua| 2017-10-05 15:44:54

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During the National Day holiday, many Chinese travelers are enjoying smoother travel experiences thanks to pilot programs using face recognition to replace IDs checks at railway stations, hotels, banks and restaurants.

At the entrances to Jinan railway station in the capital of Shandong Province, passengers put their ID cards and tickets on the gate machines and infrared cameras scan their face before allowing them into the station.

The station no longer has staff checking the tickets and ID cards of passengers. Queues at the entrances moved smoothly using the new system.

"It only takes three seconds for passengers to pass through the gate using the new facial recognition system. It saves manpower and avoids errors in manual checks," said Cheng Xiaowei, a staff member at the station.

Many hotels in Jinan have also adopted a facial recognition system to check guests' identities. The system takes just 10 seconds to confirm the identity of the guest. Even if a hotel guest does not have their ID card, the system can still confirm their identity.

At three Agricultural Bank of China branches in the city, customers no longer need to insert their bank cards to withdraw money from ATMs. The machine scans the account holder's face to access their account. The bank has limited the daily withdrawal amount to 3,000 yuan (452 U.S. dollars).

Facial recognition is also being used in hotels and railway stations around the country, including those in the capital Beijing.

"Young people prefer facial recognition and it has great potential. More applications of the technology will come to our lives as it continues to improve," said Feng Wei from Shandong University.