CHINA EXECUTIVES JOIN PRESIDENT XI'S TRIP TO THE U.S.

Top bosses join Xi express to US

Jennifer Li and agencies
Friday, September 18, 2015



A historic line-up of China's business heavyweights will join President Xi Jinping on his first state visit to the United States next week.
They include Jack Ma Yun of Alibaba, Pony Ma Huateng of Tencent Holdings (0700), Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo Group (0992) and chairman Jiang Jianqing of ICBC (1398).
On the second day of the four-day visit starting from September 22, Xi will attend an entrepreneurs' forum in Seattle, meeting with 15 senior executives of China's firms and 15 big names, including Warren Buffett, Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Amazon chief Jeff Bezos.
His itinerary also includes visits to Boeing and Microsoft.
"China is totally able to maintain a mid- and high-speed economic growth in a long term," Xi said yesterday, after Beijing unveiled three collaborative projects with the US.
A state-owned consortium and XpressWest Enterprises will form a joint venture to build a high-speed railway linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the first Chinese-made bullet-train project in the US.
The consortium involves China Railway Group (0390), CRRC Corporation (1766), China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation (3969) and China State Construction Engineering.
Construction of the 370-kilometer Southwest Rail Network will begin next September, according to the Communist Party's leading group on financial and economic affairs. The project comes after four years of negotiations and will be backed by US$100 million (HK$780 million) in initial capital. The deal is a milestone in China's efforts to sell its high-speed rail technology in advanced economies.
A US$3 billion energy conservation fund will also be co-founded by Chinese and US firms to invest in mainland energy-efficient projects.
Mainland infrastructure shares rose on the news. CRRC Corporation (1766) rose 1.33 percent to HK$9.93; CRSC ended 1.31 percent higher to HK$6.21; CMEC rose 0.15 percent to HK$6.90.