Guizhou to oversee Apple’s data project GUIZHOU Province, where Apple Inc. has set up its first data center in China, plans to create a working committee to oversee the U.S. company’s iCloud facility. The provincial government of Guizhou said on its website that the Apple iCloud working committee would be made up of around 10 members, such as Guizhou’s Executive Vice Governor Qin Rupei, Deputy Secretary-General Ma Ningyu and other officials. “The provincial government has decided to form a development and coordination working committee to quicken the setting up of Apple’s iCloud project,” it said in a Chinese language statement Monday. JD.com loss widens on higher marketing costs JD.COM Inc., China’s second-largest e-commerce firm, Monday posted a wider net loss in the second quarter as marketing costs offset higher-than-forecast revenue growth. JD.com, China’s main rival to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said its net loss attributable to shareholders grew to 496.4 million yuan (US$74 million) from 252.3 million a year earlier. The firm expects third-quarter revenue of between 81.8 billion yuan and 84.2 billion, up 36 to 40 percent from the same quarter in 2016. CNPC to complete ownership reforms by November STATE-OWNED refiner China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) said it will complete mandatory mixed-ownership reforms before the end of November, as part of government efforts to make State firms more efficient and market-oriented. CNPC, parent of PetroChina Co., said Monday it has established a special working group to complete the reform process, which aims to restructure firms into limited liability corporations and cut direct government interference in their business operations. Top newspaper slams debt pile at firms CHINESE firms will face further pressure to deleverage, which has become the “new normal,” and conglomerates LeEco and Dalian Wanda Group were now bearing the consequences of their high borrowings, the People’s Daily newspaper said Monday. The paper said that recent leadership changes at LeEco and deals to sell Wanda’s hotels and tourism businesses showed that the era of relying on high debt to spur growth was over. China is trying to defuse what many analysts think is a debt time bomb and has stepped up a campaign to pressure some of the country’s biggest and most successful companies to reel in their borrowing and spending. |