China Economic Review

In the first of a series of profiles of Chinese organisations, International Trade Research Institute (ITRI) outlines what it has to offer the international trader.

China is a nation of smokers, with an estimated 400 million Chinese lighting up 1,625 cigarettes a year. But while foreign brands still have a certain appeal for young urban Chinese, only three joint venture cigarette companies have been permitted to build factories in China, and 90 per cent of the smokers still buy domestically-produced cigarettes. We review China’s most successful industry.

In the first of our monthly series of profiles of China’s hotels, we talked to Marie Barrymore at the Jing Guang New World Hotel in Beijing ? the tallest building in China ? about what the hotel has to offer.

Western estimates suggest that 11 per cent of global textile output carries a "Made in China" label. We profile one of China’s most important foreign exchange earners the textile industry, in this special report.

Taiwan is establishing a huge manufacturing base in mainland China to take advantage of the mainland’s weak currency plus low land and labour costs. Yet, despite what you might hear to the contrary, direct official shipping and air transport links between Taiwan and China could be a long time coming as far away as the turn of the century, according to some well informed observers close to the action…