Around Asia Pacific & Oceania [12.22.14]

China

China - Overall Economy

• China data revision lifts GDP by $308bn [IBNMoney]

China - Oil, Gas, Coal

• China Invests in XinJiang, Region Rich in Oil, Coal [New York Times] 

"China is ramping up energy production here, turning the northwestern Xinjiang region into a national hub for oil, gas and coal, 

residents, a plurality of whom are Uighurs, a largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking population.

A statue of a Uighur sits above a pond filled with oil in Karamay, where Uighurs make up a plurality of residents but often are not hired by oil companies.

"The foundation of Xinjiang’s energy economy is oil. Xinjiang has an estimated 21 billion tons of oil reserves, a fifth of China’s total, and major new deposits are still being found. This month, a state-owned oil company announced its greatest discovery of the year here, a deposit estimated to have more than one billion tons of oil on the northwestern edge of the Dzungarian Basin, not far from Karamay’s fields. Xinjiang is expected to produce 35 million tons of crude oil by 2020, a 23 percent increase over 2012, according to the Ministry of Land Resources.

Xinjiang also has the country’s largest coal reserves, an estimated 40 percent of the national total, and the largest natural gas reserves. Those three components form an energy hat trick that China is capitalizing on to power its cities and industries.

Uighur farmers live in a slum where homes lack indoor toilets. The oil companies employ some Uighurs, but not many."

China - Business & Market

• China’s SmartPhone Maker Xiaomi Valued at More Than $45 Billion [Wall Street Journal] 

China - Housing

• Top Schools Heat Up Beijing Property Market [Wall Street Journal]

"prices of homes in Beijing’s coveted school districts are red hot. And parents go to great lengths to get one.

Two kinds of competition, for housing and top public schools, are converging in China’s capital."