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Tuesday August 29, 2017

ZHANG YANG, a businessman from Chongqing in southwest-ern China, is searching online forums for fellow stout-hearted entrepreneurs willing to cast aside security concerns and join him on a scouting mission to Pakistan.

Zhang, 48, is one of a grow-ing number of Chinese pioneers sensing an opportunity across the Himalayas in Pakistan, where China has pledged to spend US$57 billion on infra-structure projects as part of its “Belt and Road” initiative.

Numbering in the thou-sands, this second wave of Chinese arrivals are following in the wake of workers on Belt and Road projects. Some are opening restaurants and language schools, while others are working out what products they could sell to a market of 208 million people, or what goods they could make less expensively in Pakistan to sell around the world.

“A lot of industries are already saturated in China,” said Zhang, who has worked in property, electrical appliances and household goods in China and said he wants to explore the potential for setting up factories or importing Chinese goods.

“Pakistan’s development is behind China, so it will hold better opportunities compared to home.”

But the new arrivals face dangers, creating a headache for Pakistani security offi cials.

Islamic State’s killing of

Chinese seek ‘Silk Road’ riches in Pakistan

DALIAN Wanda Group said yesterday that a report claim-ing its billionaire chairman, Wang Jianlin, was prevented from leaving the country was “groundless” and that it planned to take legal action.

Taiwanese news site Bowen Press reported Sunday that Wang, who was with his family, was stopped from leav-ing Tianjin airport Friday and had been detained for a few hours. It was not clear from the report if Wang’s family had also been stopped from leaving.

“That rumor fi rst appeared in mid-August,” Wanda said in a statement, adding it “was scotched” when it was shown that Wang had traveled to Lanzhou on the same day. The statement said the news report was issued with ill intent.

Bowen Press could not be immediately reached for com-ment.

Wanda, which has spent billions buying entertainment and sports companies in recent years, has become a target in China’s clampdown on capital outfl ows, and sources say Chi-

nese banks have been told to stop providing funding for sev-eral of its overseas acquisitions in order to curb its appetite for offshore deals.

Squeezed for fi nance, Wanda last month agreed to sell 77 hotels to Guangzhou R&F Properties for 19.9 billion yuan (US$3 billion) and 91 percent equity in 13 tourism projects to Sunac China for 43.8 billion yuan.

It also said last week it had scrapped plans to buy Nine Elms Square in London.

(SD-Agencies)

Wanda says report about chairman ‘groundless’Chinese top wealth gains

At a Glance

Manufacturing sectorTHE government should pro-vide more fundraising services to manufacturers, and roll out policies that support upgrad-ing the manufacturing sector, Premier Li Keqiang said.

Li said market entry barriers should be lowered, vocational training improved and intel-lectual property protection increased as China looks to improve the sector. Fund for SOE reformsTHE government has set up a fund dedicated to supporting mixed-ownership reforms by State-owned enterprises (SOEs), China Securities Journal reported yesterday.

The fund, launched by China Structural Reform Fund Co., will have an initial capital of 5 billion yuan (US$752.7 mil-lion) and will invest in SOEs. Rental housing supplyTHE government will launch pilot programs in 13 major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, to build rental housing in rural land, the land ministry said yesterday.

The programs are part of broad efforts to ease a housing supply shortage, the ministry said.

INSURANCE giant PICC Group is in talks to either acquire or buy a stake in several Southeast Asian insurers and expects some deals to close before the end of the year, a senior execu-tive said yesterday.

Xie Yiqun, vice president of the group, formally called People’s Insurance Co. (Group) of China (PICC), said he expects one or two deals to materialize this year with a few more to come in the next two or three years.

PICC’s overseas push is in line with China’s Belt and Road initiative. PICC plans to

set up offices and branches in certain Belt and Road coun-tries, while also looking for investment and acquisition opportunities, Xie said at an earnings briefing.

“Insurance regulations vary from country to country,” he said. “We have a map (of target markets). Our progress in each country varies as each has a dif-ferent level of openness.”

Although Chinese outbound deals are declining in the wake of increased scrutiny by the government, merger and acqui-sition deals by Chinese compa-nies in Belt and Road countries

are soaring, with investment for 2017 hitting US$33 billion by mid-August, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Executives for the insurer also said it was using Shang-hai-Hong Kong and Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect programs as a new channel for investment and had spent 8 bil-lion yuan (US$1.2 billion) to 10 billion yuan on that in the fi rst half of this year.

The company said fi rst-half net profi t rose 14 percent to 8.82 billion yuan, helped by growth in total written premiums.

(SD-Agencies)

Customers browse a supermarket catering to the growing Chinese population in Islamabad, Pakistan, in this fi le photo. SD-Agencies

two Chinese nationals in the restive Baluchistan province in June highlighted the risks posed by Islamist militants, who may see them as soft targets in their war with the state.

Islamabad does not release immigration data but a source in the foreign ministry said about 71,000 Chinese nation-als visited in 2016. A senior immigration offi cial added that 27,596 visa extensions were granted to Chinese that year, a 41-percent increase on 2015, suggesting more are staying in the country for longer.

China’s infrastructure splurge has helped revive Pakistan’s sputtering economy, and deep-ening ties between the two nations have turned Pakistan

into a key cog in China’s plan to build a modern-day “Silk Road” of land and sea trade routes linking Asia with Europe and Africa.

While the fi rst phase of the China Pakistan Economic Cor-ridor (CPEC), as the Pakistan leg of this new Silk Road is called, concentrated on infra-structure projects, the second part will focus on setting up special economic zones and integrating Chinese fi rms into the local economy to help Pakistan develop its indus-tries ranging from mining to agriculture.

China has also surged to become by far the biggest source of foreign direct invest-ment (FDI) for Pakistan, top-ping US$1 billion in 2016/17,

and is betting on its neighbor at a time when many Western companies are still put off by security concerns.

“Pakistan really needs for-eign investment and we are not going to miss out on this because of some idiots with a gun,” said Miftah Ismail, a spe-cial adviser to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. “We won’t let them mess with the Chinese.”

“It’s a big lesson for us,” said Derek Wang, referring to the Baluchistan killings.

Wang, deputy chief executive of Infoshare, an Islamabad-based consultancy assisting Chinese entrepreneurs and businesses, said security was the No. 1 concern of Chinese newcomers.

Visitors arriving at the capi-tals airport are handed fl yers written in Mandarin advertising a Chinese courier service, and in the city shop signs in the Chi-nese language are increasingly common.

Chinese restaurants are sprouting to cater for new arrivals. Pakistanis are fl ock-ing to study at new Chinese language schools.

Chinese businessmen who arrived before CPEC was unveiled in 2014 are capital-izing on their experience to launch consultancies.

A boom in business has prompted Ami Quin, a Chinese restaurateur and owner of a guesthouse for employees of Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE, to open a spa and a second guesthouse.

“More and more people are very interested to come to Pakistan after CPEC,” she said. “They are looking for partners all the time.”

In one of Quin’s restaurants in Islamabad, civil engineer Pan Denghao lamented the Pakistani heat but conceded the money and jobs on offer exceeded what young people like him could expect back home.

“Every year in China you have so many graduates from colleges and universities, but the opportunities and chances for jobs are limited,” said Pan, 25, whose company is building Islamabad’s new airport.

(SD-Agencies)

PICC in talks over Southeast Asian insurers

THE fortunes of the 40 Chinese billionaires on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index have surged 46.8 percent since the year-end, dominating the wealth gains of all nationalities and sending their combined net worth to US$417 billion.

Wang Wei, the 46-year-old founder of parcel delivery business S.F. Holding, saw his fortune rise the fastest of all 500 billionaires on the index with a 347.5-percent jump that’s made him the world’s 39th richest person with US$20.9 billion.

Measured in U.S. dollars, prop-erty magnate Xu Jiayin, 59, has gained the most, adding US$21.6 billion. He’s now the 28th richest in the world with US$29 billion.

Jack Ma, 52, founder of Alibaba and China’s wealthiest person with US$46.8 billion, rose US$13.5 bil-lion, a 41-percent jump.

Ma Huateng, the 45-year-old founder and chairman of instant messaging service Tencent Holdings, became the country’s second-richest person after his fortune jumped US$12.7 billion. He’s ranked No. 21 on the index with US$33.5 billion.

China is ranked second after the United States in total wealth tallied by the index. (SD-Agencies)