Based on the most recent rounds of talks between Chinese and US officials, the question is no longer whether the Yuan will appreciate, but how much. Some believe that the Chinese currency will rise to 6 yuan against 1 dollar by the end of 2011. The exchange rate currently stands at 6.83.

At a recent resin conference in Hangzhou, Yu Wei, the deputy general manager for Chinese resin trading firm Xiamen Xiangyu Corp., made that prediction, citing other analysts.

A change in that direction will make China more expensive as a destination for foreign direct investment as well as an exporter, which in turn will make China less competitive in the global marketplace. Will that make American manufacturing more competitive? Or will manufacturing move out of China and flow to cheaper regions - such as India? Time will tell.

But Yu made an interesting argument on a strengthening yuan's impact on Chinese domestic market, according to notes by my colleague Steve Toloken, who covered the 2010 China Plastics Industry Conference last week.

In short, a rising yuan will benefit Chinese consumers but hurt the domestic manufacturers. Imported products will become more affordable, giving consumers more purchasing power. Yu said that will help China transform into more of a domestic growth driven model.

Meantime, he acknowledged, competition in China's domestic market will further intensify, and the rising currency could bring speculative ''hot money'' into China, further complicating the market.

For multinational companies with established China operations and expanding local sales, what impact will a strengthening yuan bring? A Shanghai-based Rhodia executive gave his take on the issue.

Frank Laganier, the Zone Director - Asia Pacific for Rhodia Polyamide Engineering Plastics, told Plastics News that a large portion of the company's business in China is driven by domestic consumption (essentially automotive sales). Therefore, "we should not expect a strong impact on the Rhodia EP business in China," he said in a statement.

In fact, the appreciation of the Chinese currency will have a positive effect on the company's turnover from a corporate point of view, when the numbers are converted to dollars or euros, he added.

He acknowledged possible negative impact on some fixed costs linked to the Renminbi, but that would be of "a lower order of magnitude," he said.

Compared to increasing China costs resulted from wage hikes, inflation and the real estate boom, I think, the impact of the currency could remain a minor factor for the time being and the near future.

I've been reluctant to write about the recent labor issues in China. Not that long ago, I mentioned in my blog post the "work-to-death" attitude many Chinese people possess. But it doesn't make the dozen or so suicides at electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group any less shocking.

While the case is under investigation by a team led by central-government specialists, the basic facts are said to be simple: within five months, 13 migrant workers - mostly younger than 30 years of age, some with college degrees - attempted to end their lives by jumping out of Foxconn buildings in Shenzhen, and 11 of them died.

There are different schools of thoughts speculating the possible causes. Foxconn's owner Terry Kuo suspected that some of the workers may have traded their lives for the death-in-service benefit. Foxconn has since given its production line workers a 30 percent pay raise, but the company may have decided to stop compensating suicides, according to some reports.

One popular perspective among Chinese nationals on online discussion forums blames the inhumane work schedule at Foxconn factories: 12 hours per day with night shift rotation, plus overtime on weekend and holidays. The huge amount of overtime bumps up the monthly paycheck, but the hourly rate just touches Shenzhen's minimum wage.

Some may argue that these workers accepted the hectic schedule on a voluntary basis. Nobody forced them. Does that it make the practice right, according to either China's labor laws or just the human common sense?

This week, Apple's Steve Jobs told the All Things Digital Conference that Foxconn's factories are not sweat shops, because they've got restaurants, movie theaters, hospitals and swimming pools. He also stated that Foxconn's suicide rate among its 400,000 workers in Shenzhen is still lower than the national average in the US.

I don't know how many of the dead workers ever had time to check out the movie theaters or swimming pools. But I've seen photos of Foxconn's cafeterias, where thousands of workers quickly feed themselves with food served on stainless steel trays in one large hall. It's hardly anything a Westerner would think of as a "restaurant".

"The food service is very efficient," a self-claimed Foxconn employee said in an online post, "so that we can finish the rituals as soon as possible and go back to the production line."

As for the Apple CEO's seemingly logical comparison of suicide rates, it's really comparing apples with oranges. A fair and scientific evaluation should take into account various factors including at least country/culture, age group, education level, profession, physical and mental health history, use of alcohol and drugs.

Following the Foxconn tragedy, Honda's Chinese workers decided to protest in a less self-sacrificing way. They put on an unprecedented strike that forced the automaker to halt production and eventually to offer a 24 percent raise earlier this week.

China's first national lab that focuses on the application of polymers and composites in the aerospace field has been established in Beijing, with aims to end China's dependency on imported composite materials.

The lab is part of the Beijing Aerospace Materials Research Institute under the Aviation Industry Corp. One of the founders, Chen Xiangbao, told China's Caijing magazine that he expects the lab to develop and commercialize key aerospace composite materials within five years.

The National Development and Reform Commission made an investment in the lab.

A strong wave of manufacturing wage hikes may soon sweep across China, triggered by Foxconn and other major Chinese manufacturers' decision to significantly boost its workers' pay.

If the raises stay and the jobs remain secure, then congratulations to the workers. If that happens, - instead of jobs being transferred to lower cost regions, which some companies say they are already planning, whom do the workers owe their thanks to?

Apparently, Taiwan-based Foxconn is not willing to cover the bill all by itself. Rather, it expects its customers, including big names like Apple, Dell, Sony, Nokia, and Cisco, to pay more for future orders, according to an Associated Press report.

"Many of our customers also have operations, fairly extensive operations in China, so they understand what's going on. So we believe we will be able to have some success with the understanding to be able to offset some of the impact of the salary change," Chairman Samuel Chin of Hong Kong-listed Foxconn International Holdings Ltd. was quoted as saying.

Whether Foxconn and other Chinese manufacturers that have been forced to adjust wages will be able to pass on some of the additional labor cost to brand owners and OEMs is still up in the air, although Foxconn expressed optimism about the upcoming price negotiations to be completed by the third quarter.

If brand owners decide to pass on their cost increases to the end of the value chain, global consumers may face higher prices for manufactured goods.

China's central government is reported to be contemplating plans to double workers' income in the next five years. Some media quoted statistics that demonstrate China's declining percentage of labor cost, in relation to GDP, in the past two decades.

Theoretically, higher income will strengthen Chinese consumers' purchasing power, expand the domestic market, and lessen the country's unhealthy dependency on exports.

Meantime, Foxconn said it's speeding up automation efforts in China, where it currently employs about 800,000. It also has factories in India, Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam and Finland.

Taiwan's Wei Mon Industry Co. Ltd. has established its first factory in Mainland China that makes PLA-coated food packaging items. NatureWorks CEO Marc Verbruggen also paid a visit to China earlier this month.

Wei Mon's new factory was officially opened last week in Xiamen, Fujian province. The facility produces PLA-coated paper, and then, through cutting, printing and molding, food packaging products such as cups, bowls, containers. It reported a current capital investment of $5 million, and Wei Mon plans to double that amount by the end of the year, according to Taiwan's Want Daily.

Wei Mon of Taipei owns 70 percent of the facility and expects annual turnover of 1 billion yuan ($146.3 million). Other investors include Xiamen Goods & Materials Group Co. Ltd. and Wei Mon's mainland sales subsidiary, Xiarui Biotechnology Co. Ltd.

Publicly traded Wei Mon was founded in 1987 with its core business centered on the manufacturing of concrete pipe for public water projects.

Wei Mon started its Environmental Materials Division in 1999, trying to develop applications for Mater-Bi branded bioplastic from Italy's Novamont. Due to technical challenges, the company said on its Web site, it switched direction and became NatureWorks' exclusive distributor in Taiwan in 2002.

Wei Mon said it PLA-coated paper product line, branded "Pland Paper," is the first time pure PLA adheres to paper without the use of any additives. In addition to supplying PLA-coated paper, resin, sheet and film, the firm also claims to provide technology for PLA-based injection and thermoforming processes.

The company has announced plans to build four sites that will be similar to its Xiamen factory, in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Chongqing, within three years.

Wei Mon claims about 600 million yuan ($87.8 million) of annual sales in PLA-related business. It also is active in organizing Taiwan's PLA recycling network.

Earlier this month, NatureWorks CEO Marc Verbruggen paid a visit to China, in a mission to investigate the market. He told a group of Chinese journalists that NatureWorks is searching for a site for its second plant, and the company hopes to [eventually] start manufacturing in China. Natureworks' new site will be completed by 2013/2014 with $300 million investment and 140,000 metric tons of annual capacity.

Verbruggen hopes that China's policy makers will consider giving more favorable tariff rates and investment packages for NatureWorks, according to reports in multiple Chinese media. He said the import procedure of PLA materials from the US to China adds 30 percent to the original cost. He feels that PLA should not be treated like other petroleum-based plastics.

Because of the price difference, he said, some Chinese companies only use PLA in products that are destined for export markets.

Verbruggen added that the US government has offered support - in terms of funding and taxation - if NatureWorks was to build a second plant there.

NatureWorks is seeing its applications in China from food packaging to a greater variety of end markets, including electronics, telecommunications and textile, Asia Pacific Director Daniel Sawyer told Chinese media.

Many of the stadium horn vuvuzela used during the World Cup games are made in China, but a South African local firm challenges that.

Toy factories in Chenghai district of Shantou city in Guangdong province have produced millions of plastic vuvuzelas this year, the China Youth Daily quote the local toy manufacturers' association saying. Combined with other Fifa goods such as plastic hats, "this is a good year for toy companies," said a factory owner, whose company is working around the clock to meet orders.

The toy association expects the volume of orders to stay high throughout the year, because the Fifa World Cup is spreading the popularity of the vuvuzela popular to other countries and beyond the soccer game.

Cape Town-based Masincedane Sport, however, questioned the quality of Chinese-made vuvuzelas. "They come free from corporations, or cheap, made in China. They don't blow. Our product has been tarnished," the company was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

Masincedane Sport was formed in 2001 to mass produce the trumpet, which became very popular at football matches in the late 1990s. Co-owner Neil van Schalkwyk was in the plastics industry and decided to develop a plastic version, a Business Report article said.

Schalkwyk said the company has sold 1.5 million vuvuzelas in Europe since October 2009 and expects to generate sales of between $2 million and $2.6 million during the 2010 World Cup.

Fifa has no plans to ban the meter-long plastic horn, despite complaints about the noisemaker.

How much would you pay for resin pricing? The Chinese government is offering it free of charge to the public through an online platform that just went online yesterday.

The "Guangdong Price Center" Web site, in Chinese language only, houses an enormous amount of pricing data, including prices for more than 3,000 products and grades, seven merchandise price indexes, as well as pricing analysis and forecasts.

The Web site is run by the Guangdong Price Bureau and authorized by the National Development and Reform Commission. The datacenter aims to establish the "Guangdong prices" as a benchmark for China's other regions and international markets, provide guidance for manufacturers, and upgrade industrial sectors.

The site collects information from 130 member companies in Guangdong province, including the Guangdong Plastics Exchange and the Lecong Defu Plastics City.

The pricing for plastics resins can be accessed here [click the fourth yellow folder on the left], which, as of my writing, includes 37,250 transactions that happened between January 12, 2007 and June 18, 2010. The good news is that you don't have to be able to read Chinese to take advantage of these data. The product names are mostly in English, such as PVC, LDPE, and PMMA, and the pricies are yuan per metric ton.

If you need help with the other fields in Chinese, feel free to drop me a line or post questions here.

Now, have fun exploring the data center.

I am happy to report that the China Blog has been recognized as the second place in New Media-Blog category of the 2010 Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards.

We received the award at a ceremony held by the Press Club of Cleveland last Friday evening. The judges gave these comments to the China Blog: "Well written and insightful, analytical, well-read by audience, lots of responses."

We thank you all of our loyal readers for being part of this exciting blogging experience in the past three years. We look forward to more interaction and discussions with you in the future.

China failed again to produce a soccer team that could qualify for the World Cup, but a Chinese firm made the list of official sponsors for the first time in history.

YingLi Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: YGE) is one of the eight 2010 World Cup sponsors. The company in Baoding, Hebei province, makes photovoltaic modules under the Yingli Solar brand. It presented what it calls the first carbon-neutral commercial display in FIFA history at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg. Yingli also provided solar flashlights as giveaways to journalists, for example, at the event. Yingli spent more than a reported $80 million on the sponsorship.

A few more examples of made-in-China products at the World Cup, with at least some plastic content:

1. The official match ball, Adidas Jabulani, is molded from ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) and thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU). The balls are made in China by Taiwan-invested Jiujiang Si Mai Bo Sports Equipment Co. Ltd., using latex bladders made in India, thermoplastic polyurethane-elastomer from Taiwan, ethylene vinyl acetate, isotropic polyester/cotton fabric, glue and ink from China. The company has produced more than 12 million of the Jabulani - which means "bringing joy to everyone" in isiZulu.


2. China Dafeng Industry of Yuyao, Zhejiang, molded more than 40,000 plastic seats for the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.


3. Reports say more than 90 percent of the plastic vuvuzelas used at the game are made in China. Chinese manufacturers said the profit averages only 0.20 yuan ($0.03) per piece.


4. Fu Ismail Semiconductor Precision Industry Co. Ltd. in Jiangsu province made for the South African government 50 large outdoor TV screens that measure 20 square meters (215 square feet) each. Fu Ismail is owned by Taiwan's Hon Hai Group. The screens are leased for a total of $1.1 million.

China's 2010 Most Successful Design Awards are calling for entries. Last year's top prize went to the Water Cube - National Aquatic Center in Beijing, an innovative structure that consists of more than 100,000 square meters of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene film.

The awards -- started in 2006 by the Fortune China magazine and Shanghai-based design management consultancy China Bridge International (CBi) -- aim to honor the top international designers and enterprises for their designs that are most successful in the Chinese market, from conception to commercialization. Current organizers include the Shanghai International Creative Industry Week Organizing Committee, Shanghai Industrial Design Association, and Shanghai Creative Industry Center. CBi is the sole operator.

Design companies and teams from all over the world are eligible to enter, including manufacturing and R&D departments that are developing products or designs that either appeared in the Chinese market during 2009, or are scheduled to do so in 2010. The contest covers a wide range of categories, to include products ranging from appliances, automotive, computer equipment, furniture, medical, sporting goods, and the like, to graphic design, apparel and landscape design. The entry deadline is Aug. 15. More information is available here.

In the wake of the recent labor movements in China, a 22-year-old plastics factory worker came out and told the press, "I'd rather suffer [from hard work] in the city than [from a boring life] in the village."

In a long profile feature by the Xinhua News Agency, Mr. Gu Xiaochong said his current lifestyle - working 12 hours a day on a BOPP packaging production line - is far better than harvesting wheat in his home village in Shandong province.

"In the village, people are valued by how much they make," he said.

But what really keeps Gu from going back is the boring rural life and the lack of entertainment. "Even though you have money, you have nowhere to go to spend it."

Gu has been working in the city since he was 16, when he graduated from a technical training school. For the past two years, he has been a line operator at a plastic packaging factory in Tianjin city.

Gu is determined to settle down in the city and has a plan to own a home in the suburbs. He said his parents never ask him for money and have offered to support him financially with the down payment. His father works on construction sites not far from the home village, making 3,000 yuan ($442) a month.

"I make more than that," Gu said with pride. His first job paid 1,200 yuan ($177) a month and the second job 1,300 yuan ($192), both in mid-sized cities. Four years later, he took a friend's advice and came to Tianjin, the sixth largest city in China.

"In smaller cities, some local residents really show discrimination against migrant workers, whereas in a real big city, the line between local and newcomers is faded," he said.

Gu has a girlfriend back in the village, who works at a garment factory. Their communication is all done through cell phone text messages. He dreams of the day when he can buy an apartment in Tianjin, get married and have his wife stay home. He doesn't want her to work hard at a factory, and he said his coworkers share similar plans.

He wants his next generation to attend school in the city, and he wants be more like a "city person".

"They don't just dress well. The way they speak and the way their carry themselves look so educated. I think I need to study more to be like that." To do that, he hopes to get training from the factory and brush up on his English and computer skills.