Japan faces food pressure from China

Japan is increaingly building links in developing countries such as Brazil to boost importation of soyabeans, corn and cotton

In Baradero, an area 140km north of Buenos Aires, a Japanese company called Gialinks is growing organic soyabeans and corn destined to make the long journey back to Japan.

Across the globe in Africa, a Japanese aid agency is working with partners from Brazil and Mozambique on a project to turn part of the vast Guinea savannah into fertile farmland capable of growing crops such as soyabeans, corn and cotton.

While continents apart, these Japanese ventures in foreign lands have one thing in common: they highlight Japan's increasingly anxious search for new food sources amid mounting competition from developing countries, and particularly China.

Since China started importing soyabeans in 2000 -- after joining the World Trade Organisation -- annual Chinese imports have surged from about 13m tonnes to an estimated 50m tonnes this year, according to the US agriculture department.

Japan, which used to be the largest soyabean importer, now has to compete with a country that purchases more than 10 times the 3.6m tonnes or so it buys each year.

Consequently Japan has lost much of its former bargaining power and finds itself at a competitive disadvantage in the face of China's huge buying clout.

Japanese buyers face higher prices -- known as the "Japan premium" in the industry -- according to executives at the large trading companies that dominate the domestic food trade in Japan.

One industry executive says suppliers prefer customers who "buy a lot of product steadily at a good price", unlike Japanese companies which tend to purchase small amounts and are fussy about quality and price.

Trading companies say Japan's vulnerability is being highlighted this year as China's voracious appetite for soyabeans puts a squeeze on supplies.

Why is 'food security' sparking unrest?

"Since the end of August, soyabean and corn for shipments in October and November have run out because China has been buying. This is unusual," says Koji Fukuda, head of the grain section at Marubeni, the trading house. "[Therefore] those who came into the market late will probably have had to buy at high prices."

Japan is even feeling the impact of Russia's wheat export ban, even though it does not import wheat from Russia. The decline in availability of Russian wheat has increased demand for corn and soyabeans for animal feed, pushing up prices of those grains, according to Eiryu Sanatani, director of food security at the Japanese agriculture ministry.

Earlier this year an even more disturbing development jolted Japan's agricultural sector -- market data showed that China was importing a larger amount of corn than usual.

China imported about 1.3m tonnes in the year to the end of September, a 27-fold increase from the prior year, according to the US agriculture department.

While it is unclear if China will continue to import corn at this pace, Keiji Ohga, professor of food economics at Nihon University, says the general view is that "what they did with soyabeans ... there is a large possibility they will do with corn".

One trading company worker says that, if China became a major importer of corn, it would have a "major impact" on the availability for Japan.

"If China becomes really serious and starts buying US land or export terminals, we don't know what will happen because export terminals are like the faucets [that control the flow of grains]," says the executive.

Despite the high price pressure for Japanese trading companies, nobody is suggesting that surging Chinese demand will seriously threaten Japan's ability to buy the grains it needs, as long as it has the financial means to do so.

Mr Ohga, for one, believes that demand from the biofuel industry is a greater threat to supplies than Chinese purchases of grains.

But there is broad agreement that competition will intensify, and that Tokyo needs to take measures to ensure it has a range of options to secure grains.

Marubeni, for example, recently signed a deal that gives it access to wheat from France -- something it had not contemplated before. "France was never even an option [as a wheat supplier] but it has become an option because of the changed situation in the world," says Mr Fukuda.

Yutaka Hongo, a senior adviser at the Japan International Co-operation Agency which provides aid for the Mozambique project, says a concentration of suppliers is the "scariest" threat to food security. He says that, while the Mozambique project may take 20 years, if the country develops into a food exporter "it can help Japan's food security".

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U.S. issues travel alert for Europe amid threat

U.S. issues travel alert for Europe amid threat of Al Qaeda attack
Intelligence reports of a possible large-scale strike in the works spur an alert, which falls short of a warning, for the entire continent: 'U.S. citizens should take every precaution.'

Reporting from Washington — The State Department issued a travel alert Sunday for American citizens in Europe in light of increased U.S. and European intelligence that a large-scale Al Qaeda attack may be imminent.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Europe have said an increase in activity in recent weeks suggests that a small cell of potential terrorists hiding in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region, is preparing an attack that could be as spectacular as the 2008 raids in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people.

 

Plotters could be planning to use "a variety of means and target both official and private interests," the State Department said, adding that Americans abroad should be careful on trains, subways and other transportation systems, and in visiting hotels, restaurants and tourist spots.

"U.S. citizens should take every precaution," the travel alert said.

It is thought that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is behind the plot, and that if successful, it could become the largest terrorist action since the Sept. 11 attacks nine years ago.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are traveling in Europe at any given time — as tourists, college students and business professionals. But the State Department did not upgrade its alert to a warning, which could have led to widespread cancellations of airline and hotel bookings.

Nevertheless, many in Europe found themselves quickly aware of the situation.

With the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves in London preparing for a preseason game, the National Basketball Assn. promised to take "appropriate" measures to ensure their safety.

"The NBA is staying in contact with the U.S. Embassy, the CIA and Scotland Yard," said Lakers spokesman John Black. "They are keeping us informed of the situation."

European governments began warning of a possible attack last week.

In Britain, the threat of terrorism has been listed as "severe," meaning an attack is highly likely. Britain's Foreign Office also warned its citizens to be careful traveling in France.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin told Le Parisien newspaper that "the terrorist threat exists and could hit us at any moment." But Morin said law enforcement officials were continuing to pursue would-be terrorists.

"Networks organizing themselves to prepare attacks are constantly being dismantled around the world," he said. "It is good for the French to know this."

The U.S. military in recent weeks has stepped up drone missile attacks on suspected hideouts in regions of Pakistan, and the U.S. is passing its intelligence to its European counterparts.

According to intelligence sources, the threat apparently arose after the arrest and interrogation of a German man of Pakistani origin who was being held at the U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. He is said to have provided information about the activities of half a dozen other men from Germany and England who were linked through Al Qaeda and were reportedly talking to other operatives in several European cities about upcoming strikes.

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How Facebook Can Become Bigger In Five Years Than Google Is Today

Remember three years ago, when Microsoft paid a quarter-billion dollars for 1.6% of Facebook and the exclusive right to run banner ads across Facebook.com? Tell the truth, how many of you thought that was a killer business decision? I can’t say I did at the time. But as that deal is about to expire in 2011, Facebook’s status as a revenue juggernaut is rarely questioned any more.

In fact, I have been mulling over data from both companies, and I’m ready to declare in public my belief that Facebook will be bigger in five years than Google is right now, barring some drastic action or accident. Futhermore, Facebook will grow without needing to cut into Google’s core business of text ads, which are still 99% of Google’s profits. Even if every single Facebook user performs just as many searches with Google as ever—including Google Instant, mobile search, and YouTube—Facebook will inexorably grow as big as Google is today and maybe bigger, because Madison Avenue’s brands are less interested in targeting than they are in broadcasting to vast mother-loving buckets of demographically correct eyeballs, and Facebook has become the perfect platform for that.

What do I mean by bigger? Facebook already has more page views than Google. People already spend more time spent on Facebook than Google. I’m referring to the life blood of any business: revenues.

Google’s 2010 revenues will be $28 billion, give or take a billion. The goal of this writeup is to illustrate the ways that Facebook’s annual revenues could grow from $2 billion to more than $30 billion in five years a diverse set of revenue streams that have one thing in common: people. Facebook’s future revenue streams, like their applications, are naturally social, and engage consumers with social intent, not just a widget or “social layer.” We repeat: social is not a layer you add; it is core to monetization.

Facebook has figured out its business model, and wants to keep it out of the public eye as long as possible. Facebook’s alleged revenue has grown from $275 million in 2008 to $635 million in 2009 to a rumored $2
billion this year, which is much higher than the also-impressive $1.2 billion number circulating earlier this year. Let’s pause and reflect for a moment. Facebook is allegedly already earning double the
revenues Google reported when it filed to go public.

When we do the archaeological dig of Google’s actual revenues during its private years, we discover similar pattern to Facebook’s: $86 million in 2001, $440 million in 2002, and $1.4 billion in 2003 . . . and so on. Note, however, this divergence:  Google Web Sites earned more than twice the revenue in 2009 as the gross evenue brought in through Google Network Web Sites, even though in 2004 they were roughly the same. The value of properties Google owns has been much greater and faster growing than all of the external Web sites with whom Google shares revenue. This will almost certainly be even more true of Facebook, given the private nature of much of its content. For many consumers, Facebook is the Web.

Facebook’s second-mover advantage affords the company the luxury of offering both types of Internet money-making product: Advertising and Commerce.  As a result, instead of an open Web-like ecosystem, Facebook could choose to partner with a few friends—Microsoft, Amazon, Zynga, perhaps even Apple—and also lock out Google and anyone else, big or small, who Facebook deems not a friend, to best serve its revenue goals.

So, how does Facebook ride Advertising and Commerce into a future of more revenues than Google? By creating a virtuous cycle of cross-promotion: targeted lead-generations and subsequent transactions feed into the next series of even-better-targeted lead-generations and subsequent transactions, naturally.

Facebook Advertising does not directly compete with the text advertisements of Google’s AdWords and AdSense. Instead Facebook is siphoning from Madison Avenue TV ad spend dollars. Television advertising represented $60 billion in 2009, or roughly one out of every two dollars spent on advertising in the U.S.; the main challenge marketers have with the Internet till recently has been that there aren’t too many places where they can reach almost everybody with one single ad spend. Facebook fixes that problem. Specifically, Sheryl Sandberg went on record in August saying that some brands have increased their spending twentyfold in the past year:

Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us.  They started buying with us a year ago. Now, they’re going big.

She took this observation even further in a recent BusinessWeek article, “Facebook Sells Your Friends“:

Davide Grasso, Nike’s chief marketing officer, says Facebook “is the equivalent for us to what TV was for marketers back in the 1960s. It’s an integral part of what we do now.”

…

In 2008 [Sheryl Sandberg] left Google for the experience of running a startup—and because she believed Facebook was the better bet to win in brand advertising, which accounts for 90 percent of the $600 billion ad market. “We are in a much bigger market than Google, and we have much, much more runway,” says Sandberg.

She’s not the only one who believes how huge this market opportunity is. Just in the last week, TechCrunc quoted Paul Buchheit in his belief that people are significantly undervaluing Facebook compared with Google, and interviewed Peter Thiel about his conviction that Facebook is undervalued at $30 billion. Of course, these are all self-interested insiders.  I scratched my head at this week’s declarations of undervaluation, until I took the perspective of Mad Men.

Facebook Ads employ demographic characteristics (Age/ Sex / Location and Interests), which corporate brand managers and television ad buyers have been accustomed to purchasing for half a century. By contrast, Google AdWords target on the intent revealed by search queries, a practice that has seemed odd and new to Madison Avenue for the past decade and frankly has many of them worried for their jobs.

But it’s not just Madison Avenue. I keep thinking about putting BusinessWeek’s $600 billion ad market in context; Google seems to be having as hard a time getting into brand advertising as Microsoft had getting into search. By contrast, Facebook is making this look easy. Yahoo just paid $1 per like, and buying fans is only going to get more expensive as the lifetime value of a “fan” is better understood.

Five years from now, could enough brand managers and television ad buyers be so impressed with their returns from Facebook campaigns that they collectively increase their spending on Facebook fivefold to $10 billion annually? Heck yes, even if that entire budget comes out of the current $60+ billion annual TV ad budget (and remember, that is just in the U.S.).  Especially if the entire budget comes out of that, because Facebook is more targeted, has better analytics, and engages its audience directly and interactively through conversations—aka chat and photos.

Plus, Facebook is getting stronger at developing products for advertisers, and once they set their mind on adding algorithmic search and/or an AdWords or AdSense competitor, I’m sure some of the over 100 ex-Google engineers who are now at Facebook will volunteer for the job. Could that also represent a multi-billion dollar advertising stream by siphoning some market share from Google for searches placed within Facebook? Perhaps, though I note again that they don’t even have to go there to reach $30 billion in annual revenues.

Five years from now, billions of dollars of advertising will be spent to direct consumers from one part of Facebook . . . to another part of Facebook, where we’ll be offered real items to buy for ourselves or others (birthday alarm, anyone?), premium services to subscribe to, virtual goods to procure and play with, and deals-of-the-moment available for immediate purchase (or we’ll miss out forever!).

This is where the manyfold revenue streams of Facebook Credits become apparent, and they all have in common this observation: if you give Facebook users a few free Credits with the block of Credits they buy (at Target, online, and soon anywhere), they will spend all of those Credits and then want to purchase more. Rather than a straightforward discount, the new math of Facebook Credits means that consumers will never quite be sure if they’re getting a discount or cash back or more for less. Kind of like frequent flier miles where we’re never quite sure what the conversion rate is. Or eBay auctions where we “win” the ability to spend money.

Facebook Credits are poised to be this generation’s American Express: an “affordable luxury” lifestyle brand and credit card with reward programs, frequent flier miles, and other incentives built right in so that the more you use it, the more you earn.  ”Facebook Platinum”, anyone? I would have thought they’d need a better brand name than “Facebook Credits” but then again, I would have thought they’d need a better brand name than “Facebook”.

Off the top of my head I can think of five potential billion-dollar revenue streams that dovetail into Facebook Credits—Games, Groupon/Pages & Places, Amazon/Commerce, Inbox, and Photos—and if you really pushed me I could probably think of more, like Banking.  (Remember when Peter Thiel thought part of PayPal’s business model was to capture the float? Well, guess who’s bringing sexyback…)

Games. Facebook is running the real mafia wars, taking 30% while letting the game developers do the heavy lifting. (Hello, Disney, EA, and Zynga!).  Can worldwide virtual goods and other in-game payments represent $10 billion annually floating through Facebook in 5 years? You betcha; more so if “social gambling” Zynga-style becomes more en vogue (that is: legal authorities say it’s okay). Facebook’s 30% cut of that? A cool $3 billion.

Groupon / Pages and Places. This one’s simple: Facebook should just copy 2010′s Flavor of the Year, Groupon, and make it self-service for every Facebook Page and Facebook Place.  Early bird got the worm; Facebook will get the gold. (All that glitters is not Gilt.) Imagine if any Facebook Page or Facebook Place could make Groupon-like deals with its fans any time it wants. Now there would be an actual reason to pay Facebook money for ads that can augment the fan base of a Page or Place!

Holy carp, Batman, they’ve been teaching us to fish all along:  Suddenly consumers have a reason to LIKE Facebook Pages and Facebook Places!! LIKE something, get a deal: it’s that simple.  Groupon’s Gap promotion grossed $11 million in a single summer day in 2010; imagine, five years from now, millions of Facebook Pages and Facebook Places offering regular but expiring deals to their fans every single day.  Wild guess: in aggregate an average of $100 million in deals sold every day worldwide, or $36.5 billion of deals sold every year. At a 30% cut that’s a solid $10 billion straight into Facebook’s pocket per year. In the words of Keanu Reeves, Whoa.

Amazon / Commerce. Amazon was so smart to partner with Facebook: my informal survey of 5000 Facebook friends found many of them willing to make their purchases (and share them!) from within Facebook in exchange for extra Credits.  The details remain to be determined for consumer rewards: will it be like Discover (1% cashback on purchases) or like Visa (earn points! get entered in drawings!) or something else entirely? We’ll see.

If Amazon helps Facebook figure out how to make malls-with-walls and consequently make real shopping money, I have no doubt other e-tailers will follow. If PayPal’s 2009 revenue was $2.8 billion with 87 million active accounts, it’s not a stretch to predict that five years from now Facebook too will have 100 million to 150 million active Credits accounts (at least!) bringing in $5 billion in revenue from this business unit alone. Commerce is the grease that accelerates everything, so it seems like it’s just a matter of time before Facebook can acquire PayPal (for its volume, its risk management, and its fraud detection expertise) and fold it in together representing let’s say $12 billion in annual revenue five years from now, creating a true new currency for the world economy.

Inbox. Hotmail Plus, Yahoo! Mail Plus, and Gmail Storage all charge $20/year for premium features. So could Facebook Inbox if it became more mail-like, which is within grasp since Facebooker Paul Buchheit is the creator of Gmail, and he’s highly influential even if he’s not building the new system himself. Bonus points for throwing in an Address Book and Skype-slaying social phone features like Social Voice for free to anyone who purchases Facebook Inbox Pro.  50 million pro accounts at $20/year is a cool $1 billion Inbox product. Nice.

Photos. Fred Wilson may have mocked photos, but they represent big money now that Facebook is by far the world’s largest photo site. And the Facebook Photos product suite is about to be vastly be improved—now with high resolution!—thanks to the addition of the smart, energetic Divvyshot team during Lockdown.  Partners could be literally everyone in this space—Snapfish and Shutterfly and Kodak and Walmart, and a plethora of smaller companies like Zazzle and Picaboo! Five years from now could Facebook help sell 100 million picture books and photo schwag a year, extracting $10 per item from partners?  Easily. $1 billion annually without even thinking hard.

And Photos are just a harbinger of more social applications to come.  Bret Taylor has already hinted at ten other revenue streams. Because he thinks like a startup.

One of the biggest differences between a startup like Facebook and a big company like Google is that at a startup, everyone gets asked all the time how the product plans to make money. This imposes a discipline on the product and the people who develop it. At a big company, every boat does not necessarily have to sit on its own bottom—and this can lead to a “monoculture mindset” that stunts new lines of business and ultimately leaves the corporate ecosystem vulnerable to external forces.

The most famous example of this in our industry is Microsoft’s inability to come to terms with the Web.  When Windows and Office were making money hand over fist, text ads were as small as mouse balls. In some ways, Google is even more extreme, because for the most part no one at Google has appeared to lose sleep over where revenue growth will come from, for a decade. Those entrepreneurial muscles have atrophied, and future revenue potential does not appear to be the driver of any new Google product except Android and Google Instant, and even they follow the simple rule that mo’ searches mean mo’ money, because every search makes Google a dime.

So yes, Google will continue to grow its base of text ads, and other revenue streams like mobile, display, and YouTube should help with starting the growth engine that the recession slowed.

Getting back to Facebook, if I add my rough numbers for Facebook’s TV ad siphoning ($10 billion) + Games ($3 billion) + Places & Pages deals ($10 billion) + Credits & PayPal ($12 billion) + Photos ($1 billion) + Inbox ($1 billion) + Some of Bret Taylor’s other ten applications (???) = over $30 billion (actually, closer to $40 billion)  in annual revenues five years from now. Which is more than Google has in annual revenues today.

Is this analysis sloppy, hasty, laden with assumptions, and likely incorrect? Sure. But does it illustrate the possibilities of a very powerful Facebook five years from now? Yes. Yes it does. The main message that I want to send with this note is: This is not a game, because this is a very big market. The stakes are very real.

This is not about the revenue streams Facebook has; it’s about the revenue streams they’re about to have. Take to heart the hockey lesson from Wayne Gretszky’s father: “skate
where the puck’s going, not where it’s been.“

Remember a better time back in 2004 when Jason Kottke boldly predicted that Google would become “the biggest and most important company in the world in 5-8 years” by selling access to the world’s biggest, best, and most cleverly utilized map of the web?  Kottke was right except for one detail: the most improtant company in the world is Apple, not Google. In any case, I am going to make a similar prediction:

Facebook is going to become the biggest and most important company in the world in 5-8 years by selling access to the world’s biggest, best, and most cleverly utilized map of the closed Web that’s been shared among friends.

If Google agrees and wants to avoid that future, what should Google do with its $35 billion in cash and its Google Me team? Unfortunately, Google can’t friend Facebook. Maybe they should friend the Quora community? I’ve found that illuminating.

Talking on Quora with a woman who interned for Google and then Facebook (and now works for Quora), I was struck by her words:

I’m afraid another failed social effort might mean the beginning of a serious decline [for Google]. This is both a function of external perception and internal sentiment. Users will only have so much patience for Google’s experimentation, and things like pulling the plug on Wave can’t be good for the company brand.  Plus, Google needs to be able to sustain employee morale, especially given the highly publicized talent wars of late… I also think Facebook needs some competition.

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Fashion Faceoff: Khloe vs. Kim

We all know the Kardashian clan likes to share everything from their colorful opinions to waxing tips with each other, but they're generally pretty territorial when it comes to their clothes. So to see Kim and Khloe both sporting the same Bebe bandage dress within days of each other comes as a bit of a shock. This fashion battle pits sister against sister ... and you know those Kardashian girls fight dirty!

Khloe Kardashian in Hollywood, September 21, 2010.Michael Buckner/Getty ImagesKim Kardashian in Los Angeles, September 24, 2010.Maciel-WL/X17online.com

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Mrs. Khloe Kardashian Odom was first spotted wearing the form-fitting frock on September 21 at the AXE Music "One Night Only" Concert Series in Hollywood. The 5'10" reality star accessorized with classic bumps, a slim clutch, and long, loose locks.
Just three days later, her big sister Kim -- who's all of 5'2" -- wore a matching bandage mini with a subtly different color scheme. Kim paired her dress with leopard-print peep-toe heels and a black clutch.
OK, the dress is from the Kardashian by Bebe collection, so that explains why Kim would be willing to be seen out in the same frock as Khloe in the same week. The dark gray flatters Khloe's figure -- and she looks cute -- but Kim seriously fills the dress out in all the right places, so for me, she's the clear winner.

Poetry:Believe

Believe

作者：bonnie lynn morris（美国当代女诗人）

Believe just for a moment
The love you feel is true
A painting is inside your shoes
And the work of art is you

Your value is so priceless
Another can’t be found
You think you’re not original
Just take a look around

Galleries have many treasures
Look deep into the art
Embrace your inner meaning
And spirit with your heart
You may feel a little abstract
In your search for meaning true

Never be discouraged
For the masterpiece is you

译文

相信吧

译者：Aino Myth

相信吧，仅仅一小会儿
你感受到的爱是真实的
你的鞋里有一幅画儿
这件艺术作品就是你

你的价值如此无价
找不到另外一件
你觉得你不是原创的
只须环顾一下四周

画廊里有许多珍品
深深观察这些艺术
拥抱你内在的涵义
还有内心的精神
也许你会感到一点点印象派
在你寻找真理的时候

永远不要怯懦
因为你就是无价之宝

CNN fires host Rick Sanchez over controversial remarks

CNN host Rick Sanchez came under fire Friday after making controversial remarks the previous day on a satellite radio show.

Sanchez called out Comedy Central host Jon Stewart as a "bigot" for mocking him, and complained that Jews — like Stewart — don't face discrimination. He also suggested that CNN, and perhaps the media industry more broadly, is run by Jews and elitists who look down on Hispanics like himself.

Clearly, those comments didn't sit well with the network, which put out a terse statement around 6 p.m. Friday.

"Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company," the CNN statement read. "We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well."

So far, Sanchez hasn't spoken out about the explosive interview Thursday on "Stand Up! with Pete Dominick." On the radio show, the now-former CNN star didn't just make a single impolitic statement, but spoke at length — for roughly 20 minutes — about Stewart and a media world he believes to be filled with "elite Northeast liberals" who consider Hispanic journalists "second tier." Sanchez is a Cuban-American.

He specifically called out Stewart as someone with "a white liberal establishment point-of-view" who "can't relate to a guy like me." Also, Sanchez claimed that Stewart is "upset that someone of my ilk is at, almost, his level."

Sanchez also has yet to address the controversy via Twitter, where he is a frequent user. He even made the social media platform a signature part of his afternoon show, "Rick's List." Sanchez didn't appear on his 3 p.m. show on Friday, but CNN's public relations department put out word that he was going to be at a book signing at the CNN Center in Atlanta. It's unclear whether he attended it.

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Sanchez joined CNN in 2004 after working as an anchor in Miami. Prior to that, Sanchez worked as a correspondent at MSNBC, providing breaking news updates at CNBC, and at other local stations.

CNN plans to air "CNN Newsroom" in the "Rick's List" time slot, weekdays from 3 to 5 p.m.

China's Chang'e-2 to prepare for moon-landing mission

Beijing - China is to use its Chang'e-2 lunar mission mainly to prepare for the nation's first moon landing on the next mission scheduled to be launched by the end of 2013, officials have said.

Following the successful Chang'e-1 satellite mission from October 2007 to March 2009, the second lunar probe will test landing technology to be used on Chang'e-3 and take high-resolution photographs of the planned landing area.

Chang'e-3 is to feature a first lunar rover designed to be followed in around 2017 by another rover capable of returning to Earth with mineral samples.

'It is estimated that Chang'e-2 can reach lunar orbit within five days,' eight days faster than the previous probe, Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist at the China Lunar Exploration Project, told state media earlier this week.

It should achieve a minimum distance of 15 kilometres from the moon's surface on its elliptical orbit, allowing it to take detailed images of potential landing areas for the next mission, Wu Weiren, the chief designer of the programme, told China Central Television.

'Photos taken 15 kilometres from the moon's surface can be very clear with a resolution of 1 metre,' Wu said.

Once the mapping of the landing area is completed, Chang'e-2 is scheduled to move into a higher orbit of about 100 kilometres to continue studying the moon's surface and soil.

In 2003, China became the third country to launch an astronaut into space after Russia and the United States.

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It revealed plans in 2000 for a 20-year programme to build an integrated ground-space network for space exploration and manned space research, including a permanent space laboratory by 2020.

On completion in 2013, a fourth space centre on the southern island of Hainan plans to launch China's next generation of Long March-5 rockets designed to carry 25-ton payloads, including multiple launches of commercial satellites, large space stations and deep-space probe satellites.

There are no current plans for a manned moon landing but in June at the Global Lunar Conference in Beijing, Yu Dengyun, the deputy chief designer of the Chang'e programme, said Chinese scientists had started research on sending people to the moon.

As part of its long-term plans for deep-space exploration, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp was also researching a Mars probe and the building of a lunar base, the official China Daily newspaper quoted Yu as saying.

In an interview with the newspaper last year, Ouyang also said China had 'no specific schedule for a manned moon landing', despite much speculation by Chinese and foreign scientists that it was on track to land an astronaut on the moon within one or two decades.

The importance of the lunar exploration programme, which is named after a mythical goddess who flew to the moon, was underlined by Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to the Beijing mission control centre to see the first photographs sent from Chang'e-1 in November 2007.

'Though China's moon exploration project began much later than other countries, it is at the cutting edge in several aspects and is unique in many ways without excessive expenditure,' Ouyang said.

He said Chang'e-1 had achieved scientific targets linked to the four main goals of the lunar programme.

It brought back data from nine million points on the lunar surface to enable the formulation of two-dimensional and three-dimensional maps of the entire surface.

Chang'e-1 also recorded chemical and mineral data for scientists to create a geological map of the moon, Ouyang said.

'The third mission is to explore the soil layer on the moon, a pioneering work that has not been done by any other country. The Chang'e-1, using microwave technology, measured the depth of the soil layer across the moon,' he said.

Its fourth task was to measure lunar environmental factors such as electromagnetism and solar wind, 'which are crucial for future landings.'

Ouyang said one focus of the soil analysis would be the level of helium-3, an isotope that could be used in nuclear fusion in future decades.

Scientists have studied the potential of helium-3 for use in nuclear fusion since the 1950s, but the Earth contains only an estimated 15 tons, making the mineral a 'holy grail' of lunar exploration.

'There is an abundance of helium-3, perhaps millions of tons on the moon, which could be used to generate energy once the technology matures,' Ouyang told China Daily.

'The moon might fundamentally change the pattern of energy generation for humans,' he said.