Where to buy in Shanghai

    BEIJING, June 25 -- Shop until you drop on China's premier shopping street Nanjing Road, or head for the Yuyuan Bazaar for Chinese crafts and jewelry not far from the Bund. Nanjing Road is a long street. The more famous part lies in the east near the Bund (Nanjing Road East), with a 1-km long pedestrian boulevard (Metro line 2 at Nanjing Road East station, formerly called Henan Road station) lined with busy shops.

    The wide boulevard is often packed with people on weekends and holidays. The shops are often targeted to domestic tourists, so the prices are surprisingly reasonable. Local people often look down on Nanjing Road and shop at Huaihai Road (another busy shopping boulevard with more upscale stores) instead. For the high end boutiques, go to the west end of Nanjing Road West near Jing'an Temple. Several large shopping malls (Plaza 66 aka Henglong Plaza, Citic Plaza, Meilongzhen Plaza, and others being built) house boutiques bearing the most famous names in fashion. No. 3 on the Bund is another high-end shopping center featuring Giorgio Armani's flagship store in China.

    For those interested in boutique shopping, head to the French Concession Streets Xin Le Road, Chang Le Lu and An Fu Lu starting from east of Shan Xi Road (nearest metro station is South Shan Xi Road on line 1). This section of low rise building and tree-lined streets bustles with small boutiques of clothing and accessories, where young Shanghainese looking for the latest fashions shop.

    The infamous Xiangyang Market was finally shut down for good in June 2006. The biggest "replacement" market is in the metro station (Line 2) at the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum. The most common name for the market is "A.P. New XinYang Fashion Market." There are a number of variations, and the name really doesn't even matter. The easiest way to get there is by metro and there you can purchase all your knock-off products. The place is much more overrun by foreigners than Qipu Lu (below), and as such the prices are much higher.

    The horrendously crowded Qipu Lu clothing market is a mass of stalls jammed into a warehouse sized building which would take the casual stroller most of a day to look through. You'll find the cheapest clothes in the city here, but even the trendiest styles are clearly Chinese. Bargain hard, in Chinese if you can and make friends with the shop owners. Many of them have secret stashes of knock-offs in hidden rooms behind the stall "walls." Avoid this place on weekends at all costs.

    Another option is the Pearl Plaza located on Yan'an Xi Lu and Hongmei Lu as well as the unassuming shopping center located on the corner of Nanjing Xi Lu and Chongqing Lu. Haggling can be fun for those who are accustomed to it, but those sensitive to the pressure might want to steer clear. Not only can it be stressful to haggle, but just walking in to the buildings can bring a horde of people upon you trying to sell you bags, watches, DVDs and all assortment of goods.

    But rather than pursuing knock-offs of Western brands, one of the more interesting things to do in Shanghai is to check out the small boutiques in the French Concession area. Some of these are run by individual designers of clothing, jewelry etc and so the items on sale can truly be said to be unique. Visitors from overseas should expect the usual problem of finding larger sizes.
    Shanghai Foreign Languages Bookstore (Shanghai Book Traders) at 390 Fuzhou Road (near People's Square) offers a lot of books in English and other major languages, especially for learning Chinese. Just around the corner at 36 South Shanxi Road you will also find a small but well-stocked second-hand foreign-language bookshop. Fuzhou Road is also a good street to wander around and find Chinese calligraphy related shops.

    Those interested in DVDs of movies and television shows have a wide variety of options. Aside from the people selling DVDs out of boxes on street corners you can also find a good selection of movies at many local DVD shops in most neighborhoods. Perhaps the best way to score a deal with a shop is to be a regular. If you provide them repeat business they are usually quite happy to give you discounts for your loyal patronage. Typically DVDs can cost anywhere from ￥5 for standard disks to ￥10-12 for DVD-9 format disks.

    However, if you are short on time in Shanghai and don't have the means to form a relationship with a shop, many people recommend the Ka De Club. An expat favorite for years, they have two shops: one in 483, Zhenning Road and the other one in 505, Da Gu Road (a small street between Weihai Road and Yan'an Road). While the selection at the Ka De Club isn't bad the downside of this store's popularity is that with so many foreigners giving them business, you tend to get somewhat higher prices than at local shops and haggling and repeat customer bargains are pretty much non-existent.

    Antiques, jade and communist China memorabilia can be found in Dongtai Road Antiques Market, where you must bargain if you want to get a fair deal. Yuyuan Gardens is another good option for antiques as well as all manner of cheaply made and priced souvenirs (teapots, paintings, "silk" bags, etc.). There are two basement markets. You will have to hunt for them, but they are worth the effort. As with any market in China, don't be afraid to bargain to get a fair price.

    Xujiahui metro station is the place to go if you're after game consoles (the Wii is available here in relative abundance), computers, computer accessories, or the like. You'll find pretty much everything electronic there, but the cellphone selection is a bit lacking.

    If you're after a new cellphone, go to the Shanghai Railway Station. You can find good deals on secondhand phones as well as new phones (the selection is a mixed bag; you'll find Chinese off-brands mixed with reliable big-name brands like Samsung and Nokia as well as cutting-edge Japanese phones; if you live in North or South America be careful about buying the off-brand phones as most do not support the necessary frequencies for use there. Also, in the secondhand section of the market some of the phones are of dubious origin; CDMA phones may have their ESNs blacklisted in their home countries, but for GSM/3G phones the only issue is an ethical one. Be careful about prices that are too good to be true.

    Bu Ye Cheng Communications Market, (Shanghai Railway Station, exit 4 from line 1 side, turn left and it's the large gold building). 10am-6pm. This is the one of the best-known open-style market for cellphones in Shanghai. 1F/2F for new phones (two-way radios too), 3F for various collectibles. They have pretty much everything under the sun from new Japanese phones to Chinese no-names or knockoffs. Any reputable vendor that sets up shop here will allow you to try before you buy- if they don't, leave. Best way to get a good (or uncommon) phone for cheap.

(Source: china.org.cn)

British central bank continues to keep interest rates at record-low

LONDON, April 8 -- The Bank of England, Britain's central bank, decided Thursday to hold short-term interest rates at their record low and maintained the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at 200 billion pounds.

The Bank of England (BOE) said in a brief statement its Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5 percent.

The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issue of central bank reserves at 200 billion pounds.
The decisions come at a time when the British economy is recovering slowly from a deep recession.

The British government reported late last month the economy increased by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 over the previous quarter, the first increase since the beginning of 2008. However, UK gross domestic product declined by 4.9 percent in the year.

The BOE cut its interest rates to 0.5 percent in March 2009 in an attempt to boost the recession-hit economy.

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Bank of England focuses on economic recovery despite inflation fears


Consumer price inflation in Britain drops to 3% in February

Toyota exec warns on defect: "We need to come clean"

by Rob Welham

BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhuanet) -- A senior Toyota Motor Corp executive in the United States had warned in January that the company needed to "come clean" over problems associated with stuck accelerators.

An email from Irv Miller, then Toyota's top U.S. spokesman, was sent five days before the automaker launched a recall for about 2.3 million vehicle to fix the sticky accelerator pedals.

"We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet," Miller said in his email. "The time to hide on this one is over. We need to come clean."
A copy of the document was obtained by the news agency Reuters on Thursday. Its release comes as Toyota considers whether to appeal a proposed 16.4 million U.S. dollar safety fine by safety regulators.

Toyota has said it would not comment on Miller's email. "We have publicly acknowledged on several occasions that the company did a poor job of communicating during the period preceding our recent recalls," Toyota said in a statement.
"We have subsequently taken a number of important steps to improve our communications with regulators and customers on safety-related matters to ensure that this does not happen again."

Automakers are legally obligated to tell U.S. safety regulators within five days if they determine that a safety defect exists.

Greenspan defends his role in financial crisis

WASHINGTON, April 7 -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan Wednesday denied his policies causing the global financial crisis, and warned that regulators can't fully prevent future crisis.

"The house price bubble, the most prominent global bubble in generations, was engendered by lower interest rates, but... it was long-term mortgage rates that galvanized prices, not the overnight rates of central banks," he told a panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis.

Greenspan has been criticized for the low interest rates led to the housing bubble, which eventually burst in 2008 and caused the economy into a deep recession.

"The recent crisis reinforces some important messages about what supervision and examination can and cannot do," Greenspan said in written testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. "History tells us they cannot identify the timing of a crisis, or anticipate exactly where it will be located or how large the losses and spillovers will be."


Regulators cannot successfully use "the bully pulpit" to manage asset prices, and they cannot calibrate regulation and supervision in response to movements in asset prices, said the former Fed chief.
"Nor can they fully eliminate the possibility of future crisis, " he added.
Greenspan admitted there were "an awful lot of mistakes" in his two decades as Fed chief, but that he was right 70 percent of the time.
"I was wrong 30 percent of the time, and there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years," he said.

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Bernanke says U.S. economy recovering but not yet out of the woods

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. economy seems to be recovering but it is "far from being out of the woods," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.

In prepared remarks to business people in Dallas, Bernanke said that the financial crisis, the worst one since the Great Depression of 1930s, looks to "be mostly behind us."Full story

U.S. consumer credit falls 11.5 billion dollars in February

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. consumer credit dropped by 11.5 billion dollars in February as Americans cut their borrowing in the economic uncertainty, reported the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.

The Fed said that total borrowing dropped by 1.8 billion dollars -- far less than the revised 10.6 billion dollars for November. It also was well below the 9 billion dollars analysts had expected.Full story

Wall Street falls on concerns over rate hike, European economic recovery

NEW YORK, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street fell on Wednesday as concerns over interest rate hike and the strength of economic recovery in European countries weighed on the market.

Major indexes followed European stocks lower after data showed Europe's economy unexpectedly stagnated in the fourth quarter.Full story

Oil halts six-day rally amid growing supply

NEW YORK, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices halted a six-day rising streak and retreated to below 86 U.S. dollars a barrel on Wednesday as growing fuel supply signaled a still weak demand.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery fell to as low as 85.75 dollars a barrel before settling at 85.88 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, trading down 96 cents.Full story

Oil dips on crude inventory increase, strong dollar

NEW YORK, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices retreated from nearly 18-month-high on Wednesday as the dollar strengthened and U.S. crude inventory increased for the 10th consecutive week.

Crude halted a six-day rising streak on Wednesday as the dollar rose against a basket of currencies on Wednesday. Usually a strong greenback limits the appeal of commodities like crude as an alternative investment.Full story

Gold surges to nearly three month high

CHICAGO, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Gold futures on the COMEX Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange surged to its highest level in nearly three months on Wednesday, fueled by physical demand and technical buying despite a strong dollar, Sliver and platinum both jumped.

The most active gold contract for June delivery rose 17.0 U.S. dollars, or 1.5 percent, to finish at 1,153.0 dollars.Full story

Chinese Vice Premier meets U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner

Special representative of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Vice Premier Wang Qishan (R) meets with special representative of U.S. President Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in Beijing, April 8, 2010. 

BEIJING, April 8 -- Special representative of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Vice Premier Wang Qishan met with special representative of U.S. President Barack Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner here Thursday.

The two sides exchanged views on China-U.S. economic relations, the world economic situation, and issues relating to the upcoming economic -track dialogue of the second China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue to be held this May in Beijing.

China unveils stock index futures in Shanghai

SHANGHAI, April 8 -- A ceremony was held Thursday in Shanghai to mark the debut of stock index futures on the Chinese mainland, which observers believe was a step forward in the city's efforts to develop itself into a risk management center for the whole Asia-Pacific region.

Official trading in the stock index futures, which is the first financial futures product on the mainland, will begin in eight days at the China Financial Futures Exchange in Pudong of Shanghai.

Previously investors could not hedge their interests when stock prices fell, Zhu Yuchen, general manager of the financial futures exchange, told Xinhua Thursday.
However, industry analysts believed traders would keep a wait-and-see attitude towards the high-risk financial product.

Yong Zhiqiang, senior derivatives analyst with Haitong Securities, told Xinhua that the Chinese mainland had learned from overseas financial futures markets and its' own commodity futures markets before it built the mechanism.
"The mechanism will ensure healthy development of the stock index futures," Yong said.