China Direct

The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow - Michael Pettis

 

'There is increasingly a consensus in Beijing that China’s excessive reliance on surging debt in recent years has made the country’s growth model unsustainable. Aside from the economy’s current path, there are only four other paths China can follow, each with its own requirements and constraints.'

To review this assessment by Professor Michael Pettis, please download his article here which can be found on the Carnegie Endowment for Peace Website.

Our thanks to the Carnegie for kindly sharing this article.

 

 

Foster + Partners reveals Shenzhen skyscraper for China Merchants Bank

 

CBI member, Foster + Partners has unveiled its design for a 350-metre-tall skyscraper in Shenzhen that will serve as the headquarters for China Merchants Bank. The tower will be the first building in the city’s new ‘Super Headquarters District’, a new economic hub being built in the city to help it reach its goal, as set out in the 13^th Five-Year Plan, of becoming a ‘super economic centre’ housing 13,000 banking staff.

Foster + Partners’ design features a tower with structural supports running along the outside on the east and west sides, meaning that every office floor – together amounting to 310,000 square metres – will be open and column free.

Grant Brooker, head of studio at Foster + Partners said: “The tower’s design represents a significant step in the evolution of the workplace, which we have evolved in close partnership with the client to create a highly flexible floorplate that can be adjusted to their fast-changing needs and provide an excellent working environment for their staff. The building will be a symbol of the bank’s premier status in the industry, embodying its strong legacy while looking firmly towards the future.”

Foster + Partners’ design also features a quadruple height glazed atrium at the top of the building, which will be open to customers of the bank, and will house a gallery, event spaces, meeting rooms and dining areas. A separate art gallery and fitness facility for employees will be included in the building’s lower levels.

The design firm is also designed an accompanying 180-metre high hotel and office tower, along with shops and other amenities close to the China Merchants Bank Tower.

Young Wei-Yang Chiu, partner at Foster + Partners said: “The tower forms part of a new complex that will connect with the next phase of the Shenzhen Bay development, featuring a well-connected urban square linked with the metro, retail, cultural spaces and Shenzhen Bay’s amazing waterfront.”

 

China Outlook 2018 - KPMG Report - Future opportunities & BRI

 

Dear Members and partners,

Please find information relating to CBI member KPMG's recent China Outlook 2018 Report below.

The interactive dialogue covered future investment opportunities in China and with China (including across the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)) alongside expert analysis of the economic transformation and industrial upgrading during the period of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan and beyond.

All of which can be studied in detail within the China Outlook 2018 report, with a summary of the key messages available on KPMG's website.

With our thanks to CBI member KPMG for sharing this important report.

Arup wins top award for Shenzhen Energy Mansion

CBI member Arup was recognised with the Grand Award in Mainland/Overseas projects category at the HKIE Structural Excellence Award for its work in engineering the Energy Mansion in Shenzhen, China.

Shenzhen Energy Mansion is an office development comprising two towers, 220m and 110m tall, with forms that are sympathetic to the elongated site and plot layout.

Designed by the world renowned architect Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the project features a unique folded façade that both passively and actively reduces the energy consumption of the building. Limited by the long and narrow site layout, the structure is very slim in the east to west direction. To accommodate the aesthetic shape of both towers, the columns follow and incline along the façade envelope. The number and location of the columns were carefully determined to provide maximum floor efficiency and views to the outside.

Arup supported BIG to deliver this landmark building since the design competition, providing structural, MEP, building sustainability and fire engineering services. This has been the fifth consecutive year that Arup has won this prestigious annual award which honours excellence in structural engineering and achievement by structural engineers in Hong Kong.

Please read more here.

China's revolutionary government overhaul - the new era

Xi Jinping emerged from the 19th Party Congress with a mandate to push China into a ‘new era’. To support this agenda, the Party has proposed a scheme to retool the machinery of government.

Passed at the NPC 17 March, it is the most ambitious restructuring in decades, creating seven new ministries and adjusting the structure of nearly every national agency.

It will change how government works with the Party, the market and the outside world. It could deliver streamlined governance, but risks enormous growing pains as the system copes with a disruptive change. This report explains each of the 26 changes to state structure included in the reform document: what’s changing, why and what to expect.

Liu He 刘鹤 Politburo member describes the plan as a ‘revolutionary’ reform that will touch every part of the state. It attempts to overcome endemic problems of policy implementation by creating cradle-to-grave accountability for policy goals, entrusting new, specialised ministries with singular missions.

Leaders have warned for years that ‘vested interests’ and inefficiency pose an existential threat to the Party-state. The roots of these problems were planted in the Mao era: ministries were created to meet production targets in ‘sectors’ 行业 of a planned economy.

But the biggest worry is no longer production, and those sectors are a bad fit for contemporary policy.

Former finance minister Lou Jiwei 楼继伟 joked ‘frogs in the river are governed by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA); frogs on the shore are governed by the State Forestry Administration’.

As it attempts to pivot toward meeting what Xi calls the ‘ever-growing needs of the Chinese people’, the Party needs a government fit to regulate a demand-driven economy. The new integrated system addresses the question of oversight and accountability and designs new, purpose-built agencies.

China Direct would like to thank China Policy for sharing this wide-ranging Report with our readers.

For more information please contact: Ekaterina Kuroedova: ekaterina.kuroedova@policycn.com

Download China Policy-A revolutionary overhaul

Atkins-designed Hari Hotel underway in Hong Kong

Construction work has commenced for the CBI Member Atkins-designed The Hari Hotel in Hong Kong.

Due to open in early 2020, the 210-room luxury hotel builds on the success of Harilela family’s signature hotel in London. It will be the first hotel in Hong Kong and Asia to be operated under the family’s own signature brand. Atkins, a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group, was appointed by Origin One Ltd of the Harilela Group as the lead consultant to design and deliver this project. SNC-Lavalin acquired WS Atkins plc on July 3, 2017.

Please read more here.

China National People's Congress 2018 - A Summary

 

Dear CBI members and partners,

Please find attached a useful summary of China's National People's Congress which concluded earlier this week.

Download CPW No. 173

Our grateful thanks to China Politics Weekly for sharing this issue.

(CNPC image above courtesy of www.scmp.com)

 

Foster + Partners, ‘City Visions: A Sustainable Future’ Exhibition opens at the Big House, Wuhan

 

City Visions: A Sustainable Future, a major exhibition about the urban design work of CBI member Foster + Partners, has opened at the Big House in Wuhan.

The show features a wide range of the practice’s work over several decades highlighting the variety and depth of projects that have sought to improve the urban environments of cities world-wide.

New urban planning projects for Wuhan city are explained through models, photos and videos including projects for Wuhan Aomen Road Masterplan, Sanyang Road District and Yuexiu Global Financial City.

The exhibition offers visitors a unique insight into the workings of the studio and the urban design process, in which architects and urban designers work closely together to design prosperous, socially enriching projects capable of evolving to meet future needs.

Foster + Partners’ urban design philosophy has always been underpinned by the acknowledgement that the design of the built environment must be generated by the needs of people, be respectful of the existing built fabric, cater to the local economy, and above all, be sustainable.

Please read more here.

European Chamber podcast on E.U.-China trade and economic relations

 

 

 

In a podcast with Paul Haenle, Director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy, Joerg Wuttke, President of the E.U. Chamber of Commerce in China, discusses what he thinks the E.U. can expect in the coming years regarding its economic presence in China.

 

Mr. Wuttke notes that the main story in E.U.-China relations in 2015 was not simply an increase in trade but rather a complete shift in investment flows as China invested US$22 billion in the E.U. He expects this level of Chinese investment into Europe to continue, but he reasons that European investment in China may slow due to lower growth rates and other constraints.

 

Mr. Wuttke also comments on emerging international initiatives that China has put forward, such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road.

 

Please read more here.

University of Nottingham Ningbo China secures RMB 5.6 million for eco-friendly and “smart” building technologies

CBI member The University of Nottingham announced that the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) had secured RMB 5.6 million to help the Chinese construction industry use eco-friendly and “smart” building technologies.

China’s building industry currently lags behind many other industrial nations, with low production efficiency and high energy usage affecting many new-build properties. The current situation could delay the progress of Chinese “smart” cities, which aim to reduce resource consumption and cost and use digital technologies to benefit their citizens.

In a bid to tackle the issue, UNNC’s Department of Architecture and Built Environment is now leading a “GIS-BIM Based Green Smart Building Technical Innovation Team”, with support from the Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau.

The innovation team comprises 22 researchers from UNNC (from Built Environment, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, and Geographical Sciences), local design institutes, and Building Information Modeling (BIM) consulting companies in Ningbo.

The team will also invite the Ningbo construction industry’s governing body to provide resources, pilot projects, and platforms to inform the research. Over the next three years, the innovation team will explore the potential of Geographic Information System (GIS) and BIM technologies and how they can be integrated into local construction practices in Ningbo. GIS is a technical system to implement the collection, storage, management, calculation, analysis, display, and description of geospatial information data.

The results help to understand what is happening in geographical space, which can increase efficiency in building planning and design. BIM is a growing technology used in the building industry worldwide. It uses digital technics to create and use intelligent 3D models to communicate building project decisions.

In 2015, China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced suggestions of BIM implementation. Shanghai even set a clear timeline for the promotion of BIM, which would be started in pubic-funded projects. UNNC’s team aims to devise a platform to handle database management, modelling management, smart operation management, and lifecycle monitoring management.

Information extraction, storage, transfer, and modifications will be completed quickly on the platform and updated in the network cloud system to synchronise with smart terminals. At the end of the project, the team plans to pilot the platform on construction projects in Ningbo and to share BIM development recommendations with relevant government departments to benefit the Ningbo-based construction industry and support the future of its smart cities.

Please read more here.