The CBRC, the China Banking Association and commercial banks will cooperate to solve complaints lodged by consumers in the main host city of Beijing and five mainland co-host cities — Qingdao, Tianjin, Shanghai, Qinhuangdao and Shenyang — CBRC officials told Xinhua.

Banks in the six cities will open around-clock hotlines and e-mail addresses for consumers’ complaints.

Consumers can lodge complaints with banks and if these complaints aren’t handled to their satisfaction, they can file complaints to local banking associations or banking regulatory commissions, the officials said.

CBRC ordered local commissions, banking associations and bank branches to record consumers’ complaints carefully and closely cooperate to respond in a timely fashion.

This approach will better protect consumers’ legal rights and help banks learn more about consumers’ demands and improve their services, the CBRC officials said.

The five biggest commercial banks have set up hotlines for complaints: 95588 for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, 95599 for the Agricultural Bank of China, 95566 for the Bank of China, 95533 for China Construction Bank and 95559 for the Bank of Communications.

AMD, a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing industry, yesterday said it would establish a “joint technology laboratory” in Shanghai with Shanghai Supercomputer Center (SSC), to consolidate their cooperation and promote technology application in high performance computing in China.

The new laboratory is designed to work as a platform to enhance the international exchanges and promote the technology application in high performance computing.

The establishment of the new joint laboratory is widely believed to serve as a bridge connecting AMD industrial experts from the US and Canada with their counterparts in SSC.

It is also expected to help nurture more professionals in high performance computing, and will also be a boon to the extensive development of more high performance solutions for AMD native quad-core Opteron processor.

Industry experts said the “joint technology laboratory” would extend the cooperation between AMD and SSC from product level to technology development and application level.

Experts also said they believe the combined efforts made by AMD and SSC has set an example of the process in learning and digesting international advanced technologies to create self-developed innovation.

Such a process is considered by industry experts as having great importance in developing China’s high-performance computing industry.

SSC, since it was established in 2000, has provided mass applications processing to a wide range of industries and met their diverse needs.

The United Nations Environment Programme official predicted a strong and fast growth of clean energy investment in China, with fund flows favoring the wind and solar sectors.

“China has a huge potential in market demand and in recourses, prerequisites of the rising inflow of international investment,” said Zhang Shigang, coordinator of UNEP China office at the launching ceremony of the Global Trends in Substantial Energy Investment 2008.

The report, jointly published by the UNEP and UK-based New Energy Finance, said that globally, investment between now and 2030 is expected to reach $450 billion a year by 2012, rising to more than $600 billion a year from 2020.

Last year new investment in sustainable energy surpassed $148 billion, a 60 percent rise from 2006, transactions mainly fuelled by the wind sector.

Although most money still flows to Europe and the US, China, India and Brazil are drawing increasing investor interest.

In China, investment in renewable capacity increased by 91 percent in 2007 to $10.8 billion and wind capacity doubled to 6 gW.

Li Junfeng, secretary-general of Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association said: “Most of these investments have gone to mini-hydro, solar water heating, and wind power projects. Around $6 billion to $10 billion has also been invested in large hydropower annually.”

Currently, renewable energy accounts for 8.5 percent of China’s primary energy supply and 16 percent of its electricity supply.

By 2020, these are expected to reach 15 percent and 21 percent respectively, or even higher.

Michael Liebreich, chairman and CEO of NEF, said: “It has been another year of impressive developments for the Chinese renewable energy industry.

“We should expect to see China take the lead in more and more sectors of the renewable energy industry in the next few years.”

China’s economy slowed down for a fourth straight quarter as inflation eased in June, official figures showed on Thursday, giving more ammunition to advocates for a looser monetary policy.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 10.1 percent in the second quarter after rising 10.6 percent in the first three months, said Li Xiaochao, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics at a press conference in Beijing. China’s economic growth has been on a steady decline since peaking in the second quarter of 2007.

NBS chief economist Yao Jingyuan said the double-digit GDP growth indicated China’s economy was still growing at a steady and relatively fast pace.

“The cooling of GDP growth indicated the government’s macro-economic policy to prevent the economy from going overheated has paid off,” said Yao. The slowing world economy and weaker demand on international markets also adversely affected the Chinese economy.

Another widely watched indicator, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — an important measure of inflation, moderated to 7.1 percent in June after rising 7.7 percent in the previous month thanks to easing food prices.

The combination of economic slowdown and easing inflation may give rise to louder calls for an ease in the monetary policy.

Analysts said that the tight monetary policy put in place at the end of last year has brought about great difficulties for many firms, especially private ones. Thousands of small and medium enterprises have gone bankrupt in the coastal areas as they could hardly get loans from banks, reports said. Fast appreciating yuan value, rising cost of labor and raw materials are also key reasons for the situation.

As the world’s largest developing country, China needs fast economic development to maximize employment.

However, any ease in monetary policy will be a tough call, in face of inflation pressure.

“In spite of falls in the consumer prices in the last two months, the prices are still running at a relatively high level,” Li Xiaochao said. “We will continue to prevent prices from rising too fast and curb inflation.”

Adding to the price pressure, the Producer Price Index (PPI) continue to jump, rising to a three-year high of 8.8 percent in June over a year earlier after increasing 8.2 percent in the previous month.

The PPI measures the prices at the factory gate level and is usually used to predict future CPI level, as retailers or manufacturers will eventually pass the rising cost to consumers.

Inflationary expectation is also a major concern. “With the rapid price increases in the global market, the public will have expecations for further price rises, ” according to Li.

If consumers expect prices to rise, they will ask for pay increases, or rush to buy products, thus exerting further upward pressure on prices.

Li also cited the recent petrol and electricity price increases, as well as post-quake construction which will increase the demand for building materials.

These concerns may be part of the reasons why the finance committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, pledged on Wednesday to maintain its tight monetary policy for the rest of the year.

However, watchers sensed a softening of words in its description of the fight against inflation. The committee said curbing price pressures would be a “prominent task” in the months ahead, instead of “top priority,” phrasing that economic leaders repeated in the early months of 2008.

Analysts believe policy makers are trying to find a balance between inflation and economy growth and are gradually shifting towards preventing a major economic slowdown.

BEIJING — China’s Ministry of Public Security on Thursday issued a manual to help citizens survive terrorist attacks as the country was tightening security in the last-minute preparation for the Olympic Games.

Chinese police invited experts in this field to work out such a manual to teach citizens how to discover possible terrorist attacks, to take proper actions in face of such attacks and minimize damages.

The book included 39 scenarios of terrorist attacks including explosion, arson, kidnap, shooting and even attacks of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

It teaches people how to identify suspicious substances, for instance, a bomb, and how to help themselves and each other in such dangerous conditions as being kidnapped by terrorists.

“What to do after being abducted? Please try your best to stay calm. Don’t fight back, don’t meet kidnappers’ eyes, don’t talk, move slowly and try your best to hide your communication devices,” the manual said. “Lie face down on the ground when the police attack the terrorists.”

“The book is practical. If correctly following its instruction, citizens are very much likely to escape and even stop a terrorist attack,” the statement said.

Beijing and other Olympic co-host cities are stepping up security measures. Airports in these cities will adopt twice security checks from July 20 and passengers are required to show their IDs to buy bus, train and ship tickets to these cities. The police have set up checkpoints along the highways in and out of Beijing.

The police also announced awards ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 yuan (1,449 to 72,463 US dollars) for people providing useful tips to stop serious crimes during the Games.

International speculative funds, or hot money, may swoop into the A-share market in the second half of this year and boost the sagging stock index, according to a recent report from Bank of China (BOC).

The report, compiled by BOC’s global financial market department, categorized hot money into two kinds. One aims to profit from interest rate gaps or currency appreciation, while the other bets on higher profit from the capital market.

The report estimated that the latter type of funds ballooned in China as early as 2005. Some funds retreated last year after the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, but returned in April this year when the credit crunch eased. Given their huge existing amount and continuous influx, the funds have a large impact on domestic financial system, according to the report.

Meanwhile, following closely the performance of FTSE/Xinhua China index futures traded in Singapore, researchers found it a good leading indicator of domestic A-share market. They then perceived that the premium rate of the December contract versus the spot FTSE/Xinhua index stabilized in the middle of March, when the Shanghai Composite Index ran between 3,500 points and 3,000 points. This phenomenon suggests a similar value of domestic A shares is acceptable for foreign investors.

Therefore, the report presumed that the hot money will probably dive into the A-share market at current prices, propelling a stock rally in the second half of the year.

The mainland stock markets fell some 50 percent since the beginning of this year amid economic uncertainties and weak international markets. Share prices of many firms were halved without major profit changes, also posing some potential chances for long-term investors.

The research, jointly conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics and the State Council Leading Group Office on Poverty Alleviation and Development, showed people who have enough food and clothing but were still with low income declined from 62.13 million in 2000 to 28.41 million in 2007.

At an International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) training course here on Tuesday morning, Chinese officials and experts exchanged experiences with their counterparts from Central Asia countries on poverty alleviation, and briefed them on China’s achievements in this regard.

According to the statistics, the living conditions and social development in the country’s poor areas made remarkable improvements.

In 2007, 82.8 percent, 96.5 percent, 92.2 percent and 85.2 percent of the total natural villages in key counties with national special support on poverty reduction had access to highways, electricity, radio and TV programs and telephone services respectively.

About 95.3 percent of children aged from seven to 15 in these counties are studying in schools. Illiteracy rate among the work force of rural families dropped to 11.5 percent. Villages that have doctors or paramedics accounted for 75.6 percent of the total. Altogether, 73.5 percent of rural households in these counties have safe drinking water.

China’s poverty reduction have contributed a lot to the global course, and China is willing to cooperate and share its experience with other countries, said IPRCC director Zhang Lei at the opening ceremony.

The number of people getting rid of poverty in China between 1990 and 2007 accounted for more than 70 percent of the global figure. The country also reached the goal set by the UN Millennium Development Goals of halving its poor population ahead of schedule.

Since its establishment in 2005, the IPRCC has provided training programs for 239 officials from 63 developing countries across the world.

The training course opened on Monday was for relevant officials from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. They will made an on-the-spot investigation of poverty reduction programs in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.