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suitability of the natural environment as an isolated region against epidemic pig diseases.
About 1.08 million pigs are expected to be sold on the international market a year.
The State Council has decided to cancel 24 of Beijing's 174 scheduled construction projects and postpone 9 in a bid to slow the ever-growing pace of capital construction in the city.
According to the People's Daily at least 800 million yuan (about $US215 million, or $HK1.68 billion) is expected to be saved as a result of the decision, as the current cost of construction in the city is about 1,000 yuan per square metre.
The 24 cancelled projects included hotels, apartment buildings, sanatoriums and office buildings.
The People's Daily said too many expensive projects have been carried out in recent years and this is where the construction policy has become divorced from the reality of China's economic development and people's living standards.
Meanwhile, Premier Li said the Chinese Government will reduce the amount spent in receiving foreign guests in a bid to fight extravagance and waste.
* The joint agreement by 17 international banks and finan- cial organizations to provide a loan to the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station was signed recently in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.
The loan amounts to $HK1.6 billion (about $US200 million) for a term of 10 years. These international banks and financial organizations include China National Con- struction Finance (Hongkong) Ltd, US Chase (Asia) Ltd, Banque Nationale De Paris, Midland Bank of Britain and Mitsubishi Bank Ltd of Japan.
The construction of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station, one of China's largest power projects, started in April 1984. The project requires a total investment of $US3 billion.
* North China Heavy Vehicle Company Ltd, a joint ven- ture managed by the Inner Mongolian Number 2 General Machinery Plant and the British Terex Equipment Company Ltd, was set up a short while ago in Baotou, a major city in Inner Mongolia. This is China's first Sino- foreign joint venture in the heavy vehicle industry. According to the contract, Terex will provide the com- plete production line and the Chinese side will supply other production equipment to jointly produce, assemble
and market heavy-duty dump trucks.
The designed annual output is 300 heavy-duty vehicles, each with a loading capacity from 33 to 77 tons.
Indonesia
A $US107-million ($HK834.6 million) joint venturebe- tween Pentagon Bavaria Proyektfan Gmbh of West Germany and P.T. Griya Dharma Lestari of Indonesia will build and operate a 546-room hotel in Jakarta. The hotel is to be operational in September 1990. The joint venture is to be called P.T. Griya Lestari Bavaria. P.T. Liberty Garmindo is a $US1.1-million ($HK8.58 million) joint venture between Hongkong's Treble Trad- ing Company Ltd and Indonesia's P.T. Liberty Garmindo Murni. The venture is for the manufacture of cloth, vinyl, and leather jackets in Jakarta.
United Kingdom
* Swire Bottlers Ltd of Hongkong has awarded a contract for modifications to 3 of its Coca-Cola bottling lines to a British company, MCG Techno Pack Ltd of Walsall in
the West Midlands.
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The contract, worth 65,000 pounds ($HK905,000), will result in the 3 existing glass bottle lines being able to handle the company's PET plastic bottles. A British engineering company has signed a contract worth 25 million pounds ($HK350 million) to design and supply equipment for a 100mw gas turbine power station in Chongqing, China.
The contract was signed in China by Wang Defang, president of Huaneng International Power Development Corporation of China, and Eric Parker, chief executive of Trafalgar House Group on behalf of its subsidiary, John Brown Engineering.
The project is John Brown's fifth power station project in the country obtained in the past 18 months.
* A British engineering company specialising in plant for flour mills has received a contract worth 3.5 million
pounds to equip an 800-tonne-a-day milling complex at Luhe, near Beijing.
30.
Henry Simon Ltd, is to supply, install and commission equipment for two 400-tonne flour mills. This is the largest capacity flour milling plant to be ordered by the Chinese from a foreign supplier since Simon built the original Number 3 Mill in Shanghai in 1929. This still has a daily output of 1,365 tonnes.