China won't licence new Internet cafes after all
THE REPORTS in Beijing media that Chinese government agencies are about to reopen licencing of new Internet cafés were mistaken, according to an insider at China's Ministry of Culture.
The "Notice on Further Enhance[ment of] the Management of Internet Cafes and Online Games" jointly issued last January by 14 Chinese government ministries is still in effect, apparently.
The Ministry of Culture is said to have been charged with keeping minors out of netcafes. It probably can't really enforce that already, seeing as how it's reported that there are more than 1,400 netcafes in Beijing alone, but last year it ordered local governments not to approve new ones anyway.
In keeping with its tradition of authoritarian central planning, the Ministry of Culture announces the nationwide total and regional quotas for Internet café s annually. It has not decided yet whether to accept new licence applications for netcafes in 2008.
Such heavy handed government interference in the market for online diversions has had the predictable effect of driving up the prices of existing netcafe licences from less than 500 yuan a few years ago to more than 1 million yuan recently, in cities such as Shanghai, Guangdong, Anhui and Shanxi.
It seems those high prices for netcafe licences are worth paying, though. Internet café average annual income is reportedly 1 million yuan, with larger operations having maybe as many as 300 computers on premises reportedly raking in more than 4 million yuan per year.
One might suspect that some prospective netcafe buyer spread this rumour in an attempt to drive down the seller's price. Clever business people, those Chinese. µ
L'INQ
China
Tech News
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guangdong, shanxi, and anhui are all provinces, not cities. a province is the equivalent of a state with multiple large cities, not sure what you blokes in the uk consider equivalent, but just thought i'd make that correction as yet another misconception about china.