Hongkong trip

...just finished eating some junk food in Hongkong...will be leaving soon to Nanning

China buys at least $1 billion every day to keep the dollar strong and its own renminbi weak

China may be worst protectionist ever: U.S. analyst - Yahoo! News

 

) - China's massive intervention in currency markets could qualify it as the most protectionist nation in history, a leading U.S. economist said on Friday.

"China has intervened massively in the foreign exchange markets for at least five years, buying at least $1 billion every day to keep the dollar strong and its own renminbi weak," Fred Bergsten, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in the text of a speech.

"This is by far the largest protectionist measure adopted by any country since the Second World War -- and probably in all of history," Bergsten said.

Bergsten estimated the China's renminbi, also known as the yuan, is currently undervalued by at least 20 percent against the U.S. dollar as a result of China's currency intervention.

That "is the equivalent of a subsidy of 20 percent on all China's exports and an additional tariff of 20 percent on all China's imports," Bergsten said.

Bergsten, who served in various White House and Treasury positions between 1969 and 1981, has long been a critic of China's exchange rate policies.

His latest broadside comes amid signs Beijing could let the yuan rise more rapidly to contain inflation.

Meanwhile, U.S. government data on Thursday showed the bilateral trade deficit with China grew nearly 12 percent in the first half of 2011 to $133.4 billion, which could stir Congress to act on currency concerns.

Bergsten again urged the U.S. Treasury Department to formally label China a currency manipulator, something it has refused to do five times under President Barack Obama.

Treasury's next semi-annual report on the foreign exchange trading practices is due on Oct 15. Labeling China a currency manipulator would require the department to launch negotiations with Beijing to remedy the situation.

Bergsten also suggested other U.S. policy responses, such as filing a case at the World Trade Organization against China for currency manipulation and then sharply limiting its access to the U.S. market if the case prevailed.

Or "we could initiate 'countervailing currency intervention,' buying Chinese renminbi to offset the effect on our exchange rate of their massive purchases of dollars," Bergsten said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

 

China buys at least $1 billion every day to keep the dollar strong and its own renminbi weak

China may be worst protectionist ever: U.S. analyst - Yahoo! News

 

) - China's massive intervention in currency markets could qualify it as the most protectionist nation in history, a leading U.S. economist said on Friday.

"China has intervened massively in the foreign exchange markets for at least five years, buying at least $1 billion every day to keep the dollar strong and its own renminbi weak," Fred Bergsten, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in the text of a speech.

"This is by far the largest protectionist measure adopted by any country since the Second World War -- and probably in all of history," Bergsten said.

Bergsten estimated the China's renminbi, also known as the yuan, is currently undervalued by at least 20 percent against the U.S. dollar as a result of China's currency intervention.

That "is the equivalent of a subsidy of 20 percent on all China's exports and an additional tariff of 20 percent on all China's imports," Bergsten said.

Bergsten, who served in various White House and Treasury positions between 1969 and 1981, has long been a critic of China's exchange rate policies.

His latest broadside comes amid signs Beijing could let the yuan rise more rapidly to contain inflation.

Meanwhile, U.S. government data on Thursday showed the bilateral trade deficit with China grew nearly 12 percent in the first half of 2011 to $133.4 billion, which could stir Congress to act on currency concerns.

Bergsten again urged the U.S. Treasury Department to formally label China a currency manipulator, something it has refused to do five times under President Barack Obama.

Treasury's next semi-annual report on the foreign exchange trading practices is due on Oct 15. Labeling China a currency manipulator would require the department to launch negotiations with Beijing to remedy the situation.

Bergsten also suggested other U.S. policy responses, such as filing a case at the World Trade Organization against China for currency manipulation and then sharply limiting its access to the U.S. market if the case prevailed.

Or "we could initiate 'countervailing currency intervention,' buying Chinese renminbi to offset the effect on our exchange rate of their massive purchases of dollars," Bergsten said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

 

Carson Block, Andrew Left, John Hempton, John Bird, Rick Pearson to expose accounting fraud of Chinese companies

I found the article below is very interesting and useful because it tells me about the accounting shenanigans of some Chinese companies listed in the US and Canada stock market. In my opinion, if anyone of you are interested in investing in Chinese companies, you have to be careful due to the fact that those companies are fraudster.  They run 'ponzi-scheme" business. I was thinking that the same practice also has been done by Indonesia companies listed in Bursa Efek.

So, I think we need those kind of the "shorts" who will be able to expose the accounting fraud of  any companies listed in Bursa Efek, both in Jakarta or Surabaya.What I mean with the "shorts" refers to the five people whom Reuters has identified as the players to successfully expose the wrongdoings of Chinese companies made.Who are they? They are :

1. Carson Block  (http://www.muddywatersresearch.com)

2. Andrew Left (http://www.citronresearch.com)

3.John Hempton (http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/)

4. John Bird (http://www.waldomushman.com)

5. Rick Pearson (TheStreet.com http://www.thestreet.com/author/1160762/rick-pearson/all.html )

You can read more about their info below.

Special report: The "shorts" who popped a China bubble - Yahoo! News

 

They are a rag-tag bunch, often working from home or tiny offices scattered round the world, from rural Texas to Beverly Hills and a suburb near Australia's Bondi Beach.

Some have never even been to China; most don't speak or read Chinese. And yet in the past nine months, this small group of "short sellers" has published research exposing accounting fraud at a series of Chinese companies listed in the United States and Canada, and made as yet unproven allegations against a whole bunch more.

As a result they have scuttled a once hot sub-sector of the American capital markets.

In a number of cases they claim to have made a killing by shorting those stocks - placing a bet that the shares would fall in value - before publishing the research. They insist they operate independently but are clearly influenced by one another's ideas and tactics.

Altogether, they have been the catalyst that has wiped more than $21 billion off the market value of Chinese companies listed in North America. The sell-off has led to big losses for some very prominent investors, including hedge fund manager John Paulson and former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.

In the aftermath, a series of companies have been delisted by U.S. exchanges, auditors have quit at a number of others, investors are filing class action lawsuits, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing investigations.

To their supporters, the short sellers are doing the regulators' work for them by exposing fraud. They argue that many of these companies, which are often legally domiciled in offshore havens such as the Cayman Islands, should never have been allowed to list in America in the first place.

To their detractors, the short sellers have leveraged a handful of correct calls on accounting shenanigans into a campaign that has tainted many legitimate Chinese companies. Some accuse them of conspiring with big hedge funds to take short positions before they publish their research.

Many have jumped into the Chinese short selling game; Reuters has identified the five below as among the most prominent players.

CARSON BLOCK AGE: 35 LOCATIONS: Hong Kong and the U.S. West Coast WEBSITE: http://www.muddywatersresearch.com

Carson Block has been punching above his weight in China, judging by the impact of the reports issued by his firm, where he is the only full-time employee.

Toronto-listed Chinese timber company Sino-Forest Corp, perhaps the largest target for short-sellers, has lost more than 60 percent of its value, or more than $2.5 billion, since Block accused the company of a massive fraud in early June.

His published research has also sparked plunges in shares of the following companies: Orient Paper, RINO International, China MediaExpress and Duoyuan Global Water. He also issued an open letter to the CEO of Spreadtrum Communications, citing concerns about its financial reports, though the stock has recovered from an initial dive.

About $1.7 billion has been wiped off of the aggregate market value of these U.S.-listed companies since the reports from his firm, whose name stems from the Chinese proverb, "muddy waters make it easy to catch fish."

Before starting Muddy Waters, Block ran a Shanghai-based self-storage company called "Love Box Storage." He previously worked as an attorney at Jones Day in Shanghai and as an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

His lack of a Wall Street track record has been questioned by his critics. Block, who still owns Love Box but isn't involved in day-to-day operations, says these experiences "gave me a trench level view of business in China" where he "learned about the good, the bad and the ugly."

Block says his interest in shorting Chinese stocks came after his father, Bill, president of W.A.B. Capital - which introduces small, public Chinese companies to institutional investors - asked him to examine Orient Paper for a possible investment on the long side.

The report brought a great deal of attention to Muddy Waters, and Block received tips for new companies to focus on. Orient Paper said an internal probe didn't find any fraud, but in March it said it would re-audit its fiscal 2008 results. The stock trades well below pre-report levels.

"We realized the company was a complete fraud, and I assumed at the time that there would be other likely frauds out there," Carson Block said. "I didn't have a business plan in mind when I set up Muddy Waters and wrote the report; I just figured I'd see what happened next."

Block's firm currently only takes short positions, bets that a stock will fall in price, though Block has said he may go long in the future. He declined to disclose how much the firm has in assets under management.

Block says he sends experts into China to examine factories and offices to confirm company claims, with Block often attending. He uses legal and accounting consultants as well as private investigators in his work.

The research gets posted on the firm's website. Some have accused Block of acting unethically by sending research to hedge funds, for a fee, before it is published. Block declined to comment, but his research notes contain a disclaimer that says investors should assume Block, his "clients and/or investors" already have short positions in the subject of the report.

Block says his success has made him and his wife a target for threats. He recently moved his main base to the West Coast - though he won't say exactly where - from Hong Kong. Block had already increased security measures, including removing the Muddy Waters phone number from its website. (The firm used to list a false address to increase its camouflage, a move that drew brickbats from its critics.) "I felt that the sort of attention I was getting wasn't the kind we want," he said.

JOHN HEMPTON AGE: 44 LOCATION: Sydney, Australia WEBSITE: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/

John Hempton looks more like the public servant he used to be rather than the millionaire hedge-fund manager he has become, dressed in an olive cable-knit sweater over collared shirt and tie, jeans, docksiders and large, round spectacles.

He is reading a book on his Kindle at a beachside cafe near his home in Bronte, an affluent seaside suburb on Sydney's eastern shore. He had cycled from his home on a hybrid electric bike. His wife drives a 14-year-old car. An economics graduate, he started his career in Australia's Treasury department trying to unravel tax-avoidance schemes.

"I really do understand fraud and esoteric accounting issues, and strangely enough that comes from my days at Treasury," he said. "I was given all the gnarly avoidance problems ... I cut my teeth on stuff that was deliberately complex and a little nasty. It was a good place to learn how nasty accounting works."

Hempton said he had "semi-retired" at the age of 39, after making a personal fortune on the flotation of fund management firm Platinum Asset Management, where he was a junior partner and analyst covering financial, media and utilities stocks. He says he once managed A$20 billion (US$21.15 billion) in investments.

He started his new career by writing a blog on his favorite topic: the sickness at the heart of international banks.

Hempton then struck up a partnership with an old friend, Simon Maher, formerly the head of an Australian utility. They formed Bronte Capital with a small office near the famous Bondi Beach, and initially managed their own money.

After spotting his first alleged China fraud - Universal Travel Group - Hempton says there was no turning back.

"They are so obvious that this is like shooting fish in a barrel. It's not going to remain that way. We are already finding it's tougher to find them in the U.S., and the ones that are really obvious are already mostly exposed. We are looking a little in Hong Kong now."

He has written on a series of Chinese stocks that have blown up: Universal Travel Group, China Agritech, Longtop Financial Technologies, and China Media Express. His latest target is Hollysys Automation Technologies, which hit a 52-week low on Thursday.

On a recent holiday at a Thai beach resort, Hempton says he took along the accounts of financial software company Longtop Financial - which is now in the process of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange - instead of a novel.

"I spent a very enjoyable week on the beach, drinking pina coladas and reading Longtop's accounts."

He wouldn't provide data on the size of gains or losses.

Hempton often wakes around 5:30 a.m. local time to catch the New York market close. In the summer he's often surfing or hiking during the day.

Bronte Capital holds short positions in about 50 names, a mixture of shares from China and elsewhere.

"Do we do this, that is, shorting Chinese stocks, all the time? No. But here we have seen a bundle of names with a market cap in the $300 million to $400 million range. There were so many of them, stupid frauds that were easy to see," Hempton said.

JOHN BIRD: AGE: 62 LOCATION: MANOR, TEXAS WEBSITE: http://www.waldomushman.com

John Bird does not speak Chinese, has never been to China and expresses little interest in going. Instead, he makes his bets against Chinese small-cap stocks from his 130-acre home in the Texas countryside outside of Austin where he lives with his wife of nearly 40 years and a dozen Arabian horses.

Despite his lack of direct knowledge of China, Bird is confident there is widespread fraud, and said recently that for those shorting Chinese stocks, "this is harvest time".

A little under a third of Bird's active portfolio is in short positions. He said he began shorting Chinese stocks in 2009 after seeing a note from veteran short seller Manuel Asensio saying that drugs company China Sky One Medical Inc might have problems.

China Sky, which he started to look at in spring 2009, is one of his most notable positions. He has sued the company's auditor for not acting on information that China Sky's financials might contain errors.

"It's not a matter of whether they are fraudulent companies, it's just a matter of who they are cheating," Bird told a conference in June. As a joke, he passed out a children's' toy - a Chinese finger trap -- to everyone in the audience. The trick of the toy is that it's easy to put your fingers into the trap's woven cylinder but it's much more difficult to pull them out.

Bird is long on some oil, gas and pipeline stocks but said he never goes long on Chinese companies. At 62, the white-haired investor has had years of financial experience - and his share of flops.

Public filings show several state tax liens and state tax lien releases against properties Bird owned in Texas. He describes the liens as "collateral damage" to his mid-1980s bankruptcy that came about because of a property bust.

Bird declines to describe the nature of the businesses he was associated with. Public records show companies with names like "Wishlist", "Magnetic Clone" and "Golden Fried Chicken of America". He says he was a "junior league venture capitalist" who gave money to people with good ideas.

Bird and other investors have been urging the SEC to compare reports filed with the SEC in the U.S. with those filed with the State Administration for Industry & Commerce in China. Bird says discrepancies in these documents are a good place to start looking for trouble.

Bird says he currently has about 30 short positions worth around $10 million targeting Chinese stocks. Those have recently included Harbin Electric Inc, China-Biotics Inc and Deer Consumer Products Inc.

He, too, says he gets threats via e-mail and message boards. "You get a little bit thick-skinned," he says.

While Bird says he is in touch with other short sellers, he denies they work together. "The idea of trying to picture us as a cabal is crazy," he said. "The short sellers end up trading notes, but we are all independently running our own money, because quite honestly we don't trust anybody else, including other short sellers -- in particular other short sellers."

ANDREW LEFT AGE: 41 LOCATION: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA WEBSITE: http://www.citronresearch.com

Andrew Left has come a long way from a shuttered Florida-based commodities brokerage to making waves and money highlighting accounting inconsistencies at Chinese companies with listings in the U.S.

Left was broke and living with his family after college and answered an ad offering the chance to make $100,000 a year for a commodities brokerage called Universal Commodity Corp.

"They give you a phone and a script and some lead cards...and I'm like 'Really?'" he said. "I didn't know what a boiler room was when I was 23," he said, using the term for a high-pressure brokerage firm where salespeople cold call individuals and push questionable investments.

Left departed after 9 months, in March 1994. The Florida firm was cited in December 1995 by the National Futures Association for failure to supervise employees engaged in fraudulent practices. Left was sanctioned by the NFA as part of a wider probe into the firm. The firm was closed down in December 2008 after another infraction, the NFA says.

Left devoted himself to the late 1990s IPO boom, later switching to shorting the stocks at a friend's suggestion. "It was like a friggin' light bulb went off in my head," he said.

About 10 years ago he started writing about his research on a website called Stocklemon, later renamed Citron Research.

"Pretty much the main theme of Citron is to encourage investors to use their brains. Don't listen to an analyst all the time. Don't listen to the company. Does it make sense to you? Do your homework. And that is pretty much it," he said.

Left says he does not sell his research nor work for a hedge fund. He describes himself as an independent investor, not just a short-seller.

He's written about Chinese reverse takeover stocks for the last four years, though he's never been to China except for a couple of days in Hong Kong a decade ago.

"Lately the action has been in China. Two years from now I doubt I'll be writing about Chinese stocks anymore," he said.

In the meantime, he's hired a Chinese-speaking finance PhD. student from UCLA, to translate, read documents and make phone calls. He also hires investigators in China.

Of his Chinese positions, his biggest loser was New Oriental Education. "I wrote about it, shorted it and realized I was wrong, so I got out very quickly. It is up 100 percent since then," he said.

Left, who grew up in a Detroit suburb, won't discuss his net worth, saying only that he lives "in a nice house" in Beverly Hills.

Dressed in grey golf pants, white shirt and sockless sneakers, Left was recently in New York meeting hedge funds to talk about how they missed the dubious business practices at these U.S.-listed Chinese companies.

On the China-related shares, he published on a number of companies, including China-Biotics, China MediaExpress Holdings, Deer Consumer Products, Longtop Financial Technologies and Harbin Electric.

Harbin was hit after his reports on the viability of a loan agreement for a pending buyout. Shares recovered following his report, yet it still trades well below the $24 buyout offer price. He hasn't backed away from his position on Harbin, he said.

He says his best trade wasn't a short position and had nothing to do with China. At the depths of the market downturn in April 2009 he went long U.S. banks.

"It was the end of the world and I decided to take my daughter to Disneyland... The world was going to hell on CNBC and I'm waiting on line, not even for a ride," he said.

Seeing how crowded Disney was convinced him the economy wasn't so terrible. He returned home and covered his short bets, then went long by shorting the ProShares UltraShort Financials ETF-- a leveraged short play on financial stocks.

"(I) loaded up on things like that and just held on. Thank you Disneyland!"

To watch an interview with Andrew Left: http://link.reuters.com/veg59r

RICK PEARSON AGE: 39 LOCATION: BEIJING, CHINA WEBSITE: Columns for TheStreet.com http://www.thestreet.com/author/1160762/rick-pearson/all.html

Rick Pearson is one China specialist who actually knows the country: He studied finance and Mandarin at the University of Southern California and began traveling to China in the early 1990s, spending six years there all told.

He says he his familiarity with the country has been a double-edged sword: It helped him gain access to factories and management, but the closeness may have made him too credulous.

The former Deutsche Bank convertible bonds banker, who is currently living in Beijing, says he lost a lot of money on long positions in Chinese stocks. He won't say exactly how much, but described his long position in Orient Paper Inc as particularly "painful."

He was long when Muddy Waters released a report on the company. He then bought more shares because he thought the report was wrong only to see the stock plunge further.

After that experience, Pearson grew more critical of Chinese companies and disclosed short positions in China-Biotics, China ShenZhou Mining, Gulf Resources, Harbin Electric and Longtop Financial in an occasional column he writes for TheStreet.com.

Pearson said in June he began to realize that some Chinese stocks were "a giant Ponzi scheme."

Still, Pearson resists being grouped with other shorts, arguing he would rather be long Chinese stocks and expressing concern that the moniker will impede his access in China.

He says he thinks the China small-cap short trade may be close to an end as a viable strategy. "There's too many stocks whose share prices are already too low. There's too many stocks that have already been attacked by people. In my opinion it doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense to go shorting a $3 stock."

Pearson recently got out of all of his investments - he had some long positions in Chinese Internet stocks - because of concerns about the U.S. debt ceiling debate.

His intelligence-gathering methods are varied: taking people for coffee or karaoke, ferreting out executives' cell phone numbers, contacting sales representatives through Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba, and coming back to visit factories at unscheduled times. Pearson also counts employees and the number of vehicles in parking lots, looks at the age and condition of factory equipment and contacts customers and checks information in SEC filings with a company's China staff.

Pearson said he does not work with other investors, but he does occasionally keep in touch. One of the things that he says he learned from Texas-based short seller John Bird is the importance of filings with the Chinese authorities. When Pearson showed up to meet Bird for what he said was the first time in Los Angeles in June, he came wearing a T-shirt that stated, "John Bird was right."

(Reporting by Daniel Bases, Ryan Vlastelica and Clare Baldwin in New York; Mark Bendeich in Sydney; Editing by David Gaffen, Martin Howell)

 

Guangzhou_Hongkong Train Travel Guide

Guangzhou Train Guide - Train Schedule & Ticketing Info for Guangzhou

Here you will find useful information on Guangzhou Rail travel, including guide for Guangzhou Railway Stations (location, website address, how to get there), ticket booking hours, advance ticket reservation period, Guangzhou train schedules, and hotel information.

Guangzhou Railway Stations Guide

There are four passenger railway stations in Guangzhou city, naming Guangzhou Railway Station, Guangzhou East Railway Station, Guangzhou South Railway Station and Guangzhou North Railway Station respectively. Guangzhou Railway Station and Guangzhou East Railway Station are located in the urban area while Guangzhou South Railway Station and Guangzhou North Railway Station are located in the outskirt area. Passengers choose Wuhan Guangzhou High Speed Railway (Wuguang Railway) should take their trains at Guangzhou South Railway Station or Guangzhou North Railway Station. Passengers take Guangzhou Kowloon Through Train to Hongkong should depart from Guangzhou East Railway Station.

Addresses

 

• Guangzhou Railway Station: No. 159, Huanshi West Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou 510010, People's Republic of China.
• Guangzhou East Railway Station: Lin He Zhong Road, Tianhe District, Guangzhou 510610, People's Republic of China.
• Guangzhou South Railway Station: Shibi Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510150, People's Republic of China.
• Guangzhou North Railway Station: Xinhua Street, Huadu District, Guangzhou 510800, People's Republic of China.

Transportation Guide

 

Guangzhou East Railway Station to Guangzhou South Railway Station:

• By Bus

No. 302A bus connects Guangzhou East Railway Station with Guangzhou South Railway Station directly. Passengers can take it at the Central Bus Station of Guangzhou East Railway Station. Operating hour is from 6:30 to 23:30. Distance is 28 kilometers and Journey time is about 70 minutes.

How to Get to Guangzhou Railway Station from the Airport:

• Option 1. by Airport Express

Taking No. 1 Line Route (5 to 15 minutes per) at the Airport's B Car Sitting Area for the Air-ticket Office Station. Guangzhou Railway Station is just 160 meters away from the Air-ticket Office Station. Journey time is about 45 minutes and the fare is RMB 20 Yuan. The first airport express departs at 7:00 am and the last one follows up the schedule of the last flight.
• Option 2. by Taxi

The distance between Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Guangzhou Railway Station is around 32 kilometers. Taxi fare is about RMB 80 Yuan (For reference only!)

How to Get to Guangzhou South Railway Station from the Airport:

• Option 1.

Taking Airport Express to Guangzhou Railway Station. In its neighbourhood you can find Guangzhou Bus Station, there are rapid buses at Guangzhou Bus Station to Guangzhou South Railway Station directly.
• Option 2. by taxi

The distance between Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and Guangzhou South Railway Station is around 48 kilometers. Taxi fare is about RMB 150 Yuan (For reference only!)

How to Get to Guangzhou East Railway Station from the Airport:

• Passengers should take No. 6 Line Route at the Airport's B Car Sitting Area and then change buses (No. 884, No. 501, No. 808) or taxi at CITIC Plaza station. Journey time is about an hour from the airport to CITIC Plaza station and ticket fare is about RMB 20 Yuan. The distance between CITIC Plaza and Guangzhou East Railway Station is about 740 meters.

How to Get to Guangzhou North Railway Station from the Airport:

• The best way is to take taxi. The distance between Guangzhou North Railway Station and Baiyun International Airport is less than 20 kilometers and taxi fare is RMB 50 - 60 Yuan.

Guangzhou Train Ticket Booking Guide

 

Ticketing Hour:

Ticket windows of Guangzhou Railway Stations open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Ticket Reservation Period in Guangzhou

Railway advance reservation period for Guangzhou is 11 days, including the date of journey. That means, passengers can reserve tickets on September 6 if they want to start the rail travel on September 16.
Advance reservation period for D train and Wuhan-guangzhou high speed train is 21 days.
Railway advance reservation period may be shortened to 3 - 5 days during the holiday season.
China has world's busiest railway network. If you buy the ticket on the date of journey, you will most likely get disappointed as tickets may be sold out. We recommend you to book your ticket in advance to make sure your journey will not be delayed.

Telephone Bookings

Passengers can booking train ticket in Guangdong through calling number wizard 95105105 or 96020088. Chinese Citizen ID is required to successfully book tickets from them.
As an expatriate, you are suggested to book tickets at the railway station's ticket windows or through ticket booking agencies.

Railway Rules and Regulations You Should Know

the Chinese rail industry has its own characters and railway rules and regulations are different with any other country in the world. Getting familiar with these rules will make your rail travel in China more successful and happy!

Luggage Rules:

• Inflammable and explosive dangerous goods, animal and pet are not allowed to take on the train
• Luggage weight requirment:luggage weight should be under 10kg for of child passenger, luggage weight should be under 30kg for diplomatic personnel and luggage weight should be under 20kg for other adult passenger.
• Luggage size requirment: Total length of the luggage ( length+width+height) should be under 200cm.

Requirements for Child Tickets

Instead of age, China railway has special requirments on height to buy child ticket. Requirments on child ticket can be summarized as the follows:

• Children with the height under 110cm can enjoy free rail travel and don't need to pay.
• Children with the height between 110cm - 150cm have privileges to buy half-price train tickets.
• Child with the height above 150cm should buy full-price train tickets.

 

Chinese Visa Information

Tourist / Family Visit (L) Visa

Tourist / Family Visit (L) Visa

"L" Visa is issued to an applicant who comes to China for sightseeing or visiting family members/friends.

Requirements:

1.Valid & original passport with at least one blank visa page and valid for at least 6 months beyond the date of application

2.One complete filled out Visa Application Form with one passport photo (only color photo with light background like light blue and white is acceptable). US passport holder needs two photos and two Application Forms.

3. An applicant born in China who is applying for a Chinese visa with his or her new foreign passport is required to submit his or her Chinese passport .

The visa application form shall be filled out completely, correctly and legibly, otherwise this can cause a delay in processing or the refusal of the requested visa.

How to apply

1.You must come to the visa office of the Chinese Embassy or Consulate -General in the consular jurisdiction in which you live to submit the application; or

2. If you cannot come in person, you may entrust someone else or a travel/visa agent to come to the visa office of the Chinese Embassy or Consulate -General in the consular jurisdiction in which you live for the application process.

No visa application can be done through mail. No appointment is required.

If the visa application form is not filled out completely, correctly and legibly, this can cause a delay in processing or the denial of visa.

Visa processing time

The regular processing time is 4 working days. Same day pickup requires express service and is charged for additional fee of RP 300,000. (applications presented before 11:30am may be picked up between 3:00pm-4:00pm on the same day, the air ticket for the same day or the next day is needed). Next or Third day pickup will be charged for additional fee of RP 200,000.

Please pay by cash(Indonesia RP) when collect visa.

Visa Validity and Duration of Stay

Usually the validity of a Single Entry or Double Entry "L" visa is 90 days or 180 days from the date of issue. This means the holder of the visa shall enter China no later than 90 days or 180 days from the date of issue, otherwise the visa is expired and is null and void. The duration of stay of a "L" visa is 30 days, which means the holder of the visa may stay in China for up to 30 days from the date of entry. The visa officer may extend the Duration of Stay if the applicant needs and requests a stay in China for more than 30 days.

Additional information

Any person suffering from a mental disorder, leprosy, AIDS, hepatitis, venereal diseases, contagious tuberculosis or other such infectious diseases shall not be permitted to enter China.

| Mail Online : Microsoft's Chinese workforce, too tired to stay awake Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see. Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks. For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company. This photo and others like it were smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China, as part of a three-year investigation by the National Labour Committee, a human rights organisation which campaigns for workers across the globe. The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room. They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC. The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed. The organisation said that one worker was even fined for losing his finger while operating a hole punch press. Microsoft is not the only company to outsource manufacturing to KYE, but it accounts for about 30 per cent of the factory's work, the NLC said. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus also use KYE Systems. Microsoft, which exports much of the hardware made at the factory to America, Europe and Japan, said that it is taking the claims seriously and has begun an investigation. One employee told the NLC: 'We are like prisoners. It seems like we live only to work - we do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work.'The NLC's report included an account from one worker whose job consisted entirely of sticking selfadhesive rubber feet to the bottom of Microsoft computer mice. But the monotony of sitting or standing for 12 hours, applying foot after foot to mouse after mouse, was not the worst of the worker's testimony. It was the militaristic management and sleep deprivation that affected the worker most. 'I know I can choose not to work overtime, but if I don't work overtime then I am stuck with only 770 Chinese yuan (£72.77p) per month in basic wages,' the worker said.

'This is not nearly enough to support a family. My parents are farmers without jobs. They also do not have pensions.

'I also need to worry about getting married, which requires a lot of money. Therefore, I still push myself to continue working in spite of my exhaustion. 'When I finish my four hours of overtime, I'm extremely tired. At that time, even if someone offered me an extravagant dinner, I'd probably refuse. I just want to sleep.'

Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the NLC, said: 'It sounded like torture - the frantic pace on the assembly line, same motion over and over for the 12 hours or more of work they did.' Microsoft said it was committed to the 'fair treatment and safety of workers'. A spokesman added: 'We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation.

'We take these claims seriously and we will take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of misconduct.'