March 30th, 2009
One of the great names in wine-making, Domaines Barons de Rothschild, said Sunday it plans to develop a vineyard in China to take advantage of growing interest in wine here.
Chateau Lafite has a very high reputation on China and has partnered with CITIC, China’s largest state-owned investment company on 62 acres of vines on a peninsula in eastern China’s Shandong province.
“I am very pleased to develop a vineyard in a country where the interest in fine wines is increasing every year.”
March 5th, 2009
Cai Mingchao, a Chinese antique collector and an adviser to the National Treasures Fund, said he placed the winning bid for the two Qing bronzes auctioned in Paris last week and won’t be paying.
The National Treasures Fund is a group backed by the Chinese Ministry of Culture that pools donations to retrieve relics abroad.
Christie’s had proceeded with the sale of the Qing bronzes, severed from a water clock by marauding British and French troops from the Summer Palace in 1860, despite protests from China’s art advocacy groups, patriots and the foreign ministry.
March 4th, 2009
The Chinese Communist Party has told its members to embrace austerity after a series of embarrassing revelations about extravagant business trips.
The latest scandal came when 14 officials from the southern province of Guangdong went on a two-week junket around Africa and the Middle East that included a stay at the Burj al-Arab, a seven-star hotel in Dubai.
The junket, which included stops to buy diamonds and a belly-dancing show, was exposed by Chinese bloggers last week. The head of the trip has now been fired for wasting public money and ordered to repay the bill of over 450,000 yuan ($65,000).
February 27th, 2009
Today sees the launch of the Hurun 2009 Art List, ranking China’s top fifty living artists by the total volume of sales of their work at public auction in the year 2008.
The list was produced for the second year ever by the chinese magazine “The Hurun Report”, in partnership with Artron.
The Hurun Art List demonstrates that in 2008, collection of Chinese art remained stable and the interest of Chinese collectors in art assets grew.
February 15th, 2009
The immense popularity of the Pershing brand on the Chinese market has been reconfirmed for 2009, too.
An awards ceremony was held recently in the elegant setting of the Hotel Pudong Shangri-La in Shanghai, during which Pershing, a Ferretti S.p.A. brand and famous Italian shipyard specialising in the production of luxury yachts, was presented with the important “Best Luxury Performance Yacht 2009” award, following data issued by the “Best of the Best” survey.
The “Best of the Best” is the most authoritative survey which the Editorial Office of “The Hurun Report”, an important Chinese magazine devoted to the financial world and luxury, has drawn up every year for the past five in order to make an in-depth investigation of the lifestyles and spending habits of the most prominent figures in the Chinese economy.
