Maker of fake products

China will substantially increase the cost for breaking the law in the crackdown on intellectual property right infringements* and counterfeits, an official with the national market regulator said on Monday.

“We will make the manufacturers and sellers of fake products pay the price until they are bankrupt,” Zhang Mao, head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session in Beijing. They will also be exposed to the public and “have no place to hide under the sunshine,” Zhang said.

Rate issues

China and the United States discussed exchange rates and reached consensus on many key, important issues in the latest round of economic and trade talks, the country’s central bank governor said on Sunday.

The two parties discussed how to respect the autonomy* of each other’s monetary authorities in determining the monetary policy, Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, told a press conference.

Tax cuts

China will further value-added tax (VAT) reform in 2019 to ensure taxes are cut rather than increased, Minister of Finance Liu Kun said at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session in Beijing on Thursday.

The total taxes and fees to be cut this year may exceed the governmental target of 2 trillion yuan (US$298 billion), according to Liu. The VAT rate will be lowered from 16 percent to 13 percent for the manufacturing sector, and from 10 percent to 9 percent for transportation and construction sectors, Liu said.

Long March rockets

With a Long March-3B rocket putting a new communication satellite “ChinaSat 6C” into orbit on Sunday, the Long March carrier rocket series has completed 300 launches, having sent more than 500 spacecraft into space since 1970.

“This is a milestone for China’s space industry development,” said Wu Yansheng, board chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC). The Long March carrier rocket series, developed by the CASC, is responsible for about 96.4 percent of all the launch missions in China.(SD-Agencies)