介绍:
Welcome to Biz Buzz, where we look at the emerging trends in the business world. I'm Luo Yu in Beijing.
Hi 大家好，欢迎收听中国财经，我是罗煜。
Coming up, we will talk about Chinese investors buying property in New York.
We will discuss the initial insurance losses from the Tianjin blasts.
We will also hear about Xiaomi launching three major products.
That's all coming up in this edition of Biz Buzz.
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(Report 1) Chinese investors buying NYC property
Anchor:
Chinese investors have been snapping up real estate in New York for years but 2015 has seen an explosion in demand.
Cash spent on US properties has already exceeded the amount put down during the whole of last year at a time when China’s economy appears to be stuttering.
And as William Denselow reports, many in China now see New York as a safer foundation for their money.
Report:
Another building under construction in Manhattan…and yet another property owned by Chinese investors.
Just a few blocks from New York’s iconic Times Square, 7 Bryant Park’s 30-story concave glass design cuts a distinct figure.
Costing the Bank of China in the region of $600 million- economics professor Ann Lee says they’re not the only ones paying huge prices for prestigious properties.
“The Chinese, because they don’t know any better, are kind of paying top dollar for the name, the brand name, and the status of owning certain properties. Whether or not that makes any economic sense is besides the point for them right now.”
Spending billions of dollars on properties like the General Motors building and the Waldorf Astoria in recent years has literally put Chinese investors on the map.
And while China is not new to the US property market- 2015 is already a record year when it comes to spending.
With some estimates putting investment up at 4.3 billion dollars- smashing last year’s total of 3.3 billion dollars.
And analytics director at Real Capital Analytics Yi Wang says poor real estate return rates in China, regulation easing and a desire to diversify portfolios are why many Chinese investors are sending their money overseas.
With New York seen as a safe destination.
Yiqun Wang, Analytics Director, Real Capital Analytics
“The fundamentals of the market are very strong. The occupancy is very high, vacancy is very low and there is very good rent growth prospect for investors.”
And while there’s a range of Chinese investors, Wang says this current boom is being driven by insurance companies.
Yiqun Wang, Analytics Director, Real Capital Analytics
“Those insurance companies are very well funded and are interesting in diversifying their portfolios so this why insurance companies are very popular for putting US as a destination.”
But with market volatility in China combined with a devaluating currency- question linger over whether this growth can be sustained.
And with this devaluation suddenly US property has become more expensive.
But while analysts think this could hurt investment in the short-term, many argue the stability of the US dollar will keep New York as an attractive destination for the foreseeable future.
I’m William Denselow in New York.
You can get in touch with us via email with any questions at newsplus@cri.com.cn. Visit newsplusradio.cn to know more.
你也可以订阅荔枝FM260715,收听中国财经英文版。
(JINGLE)
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Hello, you are listening to Biz Buzz, a weekly business program coming to you from our studio in Beijing. Now let’s move on the next story.
(Q&A) Chinese investors buying NYC property
Industry observers are suggesting the insurance claims connected to the Tianjin explosions could reach close to a billion US dollars.
China's insurance watchdog has already been calling for insurance companies to step up and settle claims as quickly as possible.
Emergency response plans have been activated among China's major insurers, including Ping'an, China life and Sunshine insurance.
China Pacific Insurance has already prepaid 2 million yuan to a local logistics firm to help it restart its production line.
International insurance companies such as Zurich Insurance Group and Allianz have also received insurance claims.
For more on the insurance compensation in the aftermath of the Tianjin blasts, Zhao Yang spoke with Victor Gao, Chairman of China energy security Institute and Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Director, Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations, Shanghai Jiaotong University.
(JINGLE)
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Hello, you are listening to Biz Buzz, a weekly business program highlighting the top business news, reports, and interviews form the Chinese capital. Now let’s move on the final story.
(Report 2) Xiaomi Launch three new products
Anchor:
China's number 1 smart phone manufacturer, Xiaomi Corporation, has announced three major new products. What are these new products? Sam Duckett brings us the answers.
Report:
Xiaomi recently launched their new mobile operating system, smart phone and router at a conference in Beijing.
Xiaomi founder and CEO, Lei Jun started the conference by talking about the new MIUI 7 operating system. It hosts an array of exciting new features such as Baby Album and Pet Album.
"After we took a lot of pictures we realized it was really difficult to share these photos with relatives. We used face recognition to find all the photos of your babies and put them into the baby album so your family can see. You can also set the album to your lock screen so you can see the baby pictures every time you use your phone."
This new feature will give users specialized albums on their smart phone that use face recognition to detect the child or pet's face. Using a cloud like service these albums will then be available to the entire family providing they have a Xiaomi device.
Another major feature of the new operating system was themes. Users will now be able to purchase specific themes for their phone, which will offer them exciting lock screen features such as sports updates, entertainment news, playable games and more.
"Today we are unveiling the Theme function for MIUI. So what's great about the MIUI, well, it's very easy to operate. It does not need to be programmed and has a lot of strong features. This gives our designers the freedom to make better themes. I will demonstrate the power of our themes, as soon as I open my phone I can play this game called, Xiao Xiao Le."
Other features on the new operating system include enhanced battery preservation and the new "Big Mac" text option, which is a text size bigger than all of its competitors.
Through its unique design it manages to sacrifice a limited amount of content displayed.
"When setting the standards for our phone we had four text sizes, small, standard, large and super large. When I got my friends and colleagues to test the phone out they said the text size was not big enough and asked if we could make it larger. I thought at the time that Xiaomi screen is 5.7 inches so if we have a bigger text size we would only be able to fit two to three characters on the screen. I went to talk to the designers and asked them what is bigger than super big and they came up with the 'Big Mac' text size."
Xiaomi's second announcement was for their Redmi Note 2 smart phone, with a base price of just 799 yuan. It has been advertised as a young persons phone. It hosts the super fast Helios CPU, with CEO Lei Jun boasting that it would make the Redmi Note 2 faster than its competitors at snatching virtual red packets.
The other major feature announced for the phone was the night screen.
"We also support the night screen, if at night, you adjust the brightness to the lowest setting it will still be very bright. We have adjusted the brightness setting so when you read at night, it will not hurt your eyes."
The night screen feature requires users to adjust the phone's brightness to the lowest setting, which will allow them to use it in the dark without hurting their eyes and still being able to see texts clearly.
Just when audience thought the conference was over, Lei Jun pulled his final announcement out of his back pocket.
Xiaomi's new 'super mini' youth router was advertised as the smallest on the market. Lei Jun explained how the average router wastes a lot of space and despite the tiny device of this product it would work as efficiently as its full sized counterparts.
"In the living room, bedroom and bathroom, the Xiaomi youth router had a better signal than two standard routers it was tested against. I am sure everyone has had experiences of not being able to connect to the internet. Why does that happen? Because your router is working 24 hours a day. When we tested Xiaomi against two mainstream competitors it had a stronger and more stable connection than both of them. This is because it has a new computer chip and more importantly we used a third party PCB antenna. They are normally only used in high profile devices and dramatically improved the products connectivity."
The new router was priced as 79 yuan.
All three of Xiaomi's new products were met with a massive applause and already available for purchase and download.
That's Sam Duckett with the report.
And that's all we have time for on this episode of Biz Buzz. Remember you can get in touch with us with any questions or comments at newsplus@cri.com.cn or visit our website newsplusradio.cn. Biz Buzz is aired every Saturday and Sunday on FM91.5 and AM846 in Beijing and other overseas stations. I'm Luo Yu, until next week.
我是罗煜，感谢您收听本期中国财经，每周日和你相约FM91.5和AM846。除了发送邮件至newsplus@cri.com.cn，你也可以订阅荔枝FM260715，收听中国财经英文版。
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