| 'Made in China' but with warning
Wang said the move was a way to start to enforce intellectual property rights and show that better quality comes with real goods.
But he warned that if anyone tried to sell fake Silkstreet goods, they will be dealt with "according to the law". Counterfeit goods remain widespread in China, despite occasional crackdowns, because laws against the practice are rarely enforced.
The market has a program to crack down on fake goods, Wang said, such as giving a 20 percent discount on rent for stalls that sell real goods.
But many of the shops in the Silkstreet market still sell fake good.
"The quality and look is good," shopkeeper Xu Meiling said of Silkstreet shirts, comparing them favorably to fake foreign-brand shirts hanging in dozens of stalls.
Peer review: Merchants pay fees for sales that use plastic
A You have heard correctly: Merchants pay fees when you use your plastic for purchases. Those charges are called "interchange fees," although there may be some fees with other names built in as well. The system is fairly complicated, but the fact is that if you spend $100 using plastic when shopping, the merchant likely will see only $98 or $99 of it. Credit-card and debit signature transactions typically cost merchants between 1 percent and 2 percent of the purchase amount in fees, depending on the type of card and the banks involved. Debit transactions using a PIN cost the merchants much less, around 0.2 to 0.5 percent. These fees are divided among the bank that issued the card, the credit-card network (Visa, MasterCard, etc.), and the merchant's account provider. Some have called those fees an implicit tax, because merchants pass the costs on to customers in the form of higher prices.
Bahrain launches debit card payment for eGovernment services
Previously, only credit card users could make payments online for services such as traffic fines, electricity and water bill payments etc. Over 70% residents of Bahrain will now be able to pay the fees for services available on the eGovernment portal - www.e.gov.bh. This facility is available, at no additional cost, to the users. An agreement to enable the debit card payment facility has been signed between the Ministry of Finance and Ahli United Bank which would be using the Benefit system. This is in continuation with the progressive leadership of Ministry of Finance to leverage the latest developments in Information Technology for the benefit of the Kingdom. In January 2007, the ministry celebrated ten years of introduction of the Financial Management Information System (FMIS) that enables the government organizations in maintaining their accounts efficiently.
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