IN BRIEF (Page 18)

Auto

Car sales remain in fast lane

Passenger vehicle sales in China surged ahead in November, with a double-digit increase for the full year in sight for the world's largest automobile market.

Total sales of passenger cars, sport utility vehicles, multipurpose vehicles and minivans surged 14.9 percent year-on-year to 1,631,394 units last month, the China Passenger Car Association reported.

For the first 11 months, sales jumped 17.1 percent to 15.4 million units, signaling full-year growth of at least 15 percent.

The strong recovery followed an annual increase of just 2.5 percent in 2011 and of 4.3 percent in 2012.

Rao Da, secretary-general of the association, said he expects even stronger sales in December, based on the increase in November.

Finance

Central bank clears sales of interbank CDs

China has taken a giant step toward freeing interest rates, with the central bank introducing a new instrument in the interbank market, which lets the market set the rates.

Banks have been permitted to issue interbank negotiable certificates of deposit as of Dec 9, the People's Bank of China said on its website.

The interest rate on the new instruments will be determined by the market, with the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate to be used as a reference. Regular bank deposits are subject to an interest-rate cap in China, so the new negotiable CDs will initially be available to fund managers and participants in the interbank market, but not to individuals or financial enterprises.

Markets

Investors get ready for bull charge

National institutions and qualified foreign institutional investors are preparing for a possible bull market in China, following an official announcement that initial public offerings, halted since October 2012, would resume.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange said it had approved an investment quota of $49.2 billion under the QFII plan by the end of November, of which $738 million was approved last month.

Block trade platform data show that QFIIs became more active in recent months, spending 2.17 billion yuan ($354.6 million) to buy up 247 million bank shares in early December, Securities Daily said.

Meanwhile, the new renminbi quota for qualified foreign institutional investors stood at 5 billion yuan in November, bringing the total investment quota for RQFII (RMB qualified foreign institutional investors) to 144.6 billion yuan, SAFE data showed.

Investment

HK investors eye opportunities

Instead of seeing the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone as a threat, some leading Hong Kong businessmen are beginning to explore the opportunities the experiment offers.

At a conference organized by DBS Bank Ltd on Dec 6 in Hong Kong, a group of bankers, investment experts and law and accounting professionals expressed their views on how the zone will evolve and tried to identify what it will bring to Hong Kong.

Nevertheless, they agreed that the initial stages of development would likely be centered on outbound investment, which they said would have less impact on the domestic economy. As such, Hong Kong and some other financial centers would be well positioned to offer their services.

Energy

Guanghui Energy to invest $4b in Xinjiang

Guanghui Energy Co Ltd, based in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, will invest $4 billion in the northwestern region of Xinjiang to turn rich coal deposits there into cleaner-burning gas, the company said in a statement recently. The project, which will produce 4 billion cubic meters of gas a year, still needs final government approval. The project won initial approval from the National Development and Reform Commission in September. China wants to turn coal in remote areas into gas and pipe it to cities, where residential and industrial use is growing rapidly.

Solar power to shine brighter on national grid

On-grid solar power capacity in China will rise 200 percent year-on-year to 10 gigawatts by the end of this year, the National Energy Administration said in an online statement. The share of thermal power generation capacity is predicted to drop to 69.6 percent from 71.5 percent at the end of 2012. The share of hydropower will be 22.5 percent, on-grid wind power 6.1 percent and nuclear power 1.2 percent. In a move to cut air pollution and boost the share of non-fossil fuels in its power structure, the world's second-largest economy has stepped up efforts to meet the goal of a 16 percent cut in energy intensity by 2015.

Retail

Retail sales on track for 14% annual growth

Efforts are underway to help China achieve its target of boosting retail sales by an annual average 14 percent between 2011 and 2015, even amid a modest slowdown in growth this year, Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said in remarks published on Dec 9. Retail sales are likely to grow 13 percent this year, slowing from the annual average rise of 15.7 percent in the previous two years, due to weaker household incomes and a crackdown on official extravagance, Gao said.

Trade

Suppliers offered compliance training

A major trade promoter in Europe has vowed to increase assistance to Chinese suppliers in a bid to help them improve their compliance and better tap into global and domestic markets.

Jan Eggert, director-general of the Brussels-based European Foreign Trade Association, announced a plan to triple the organization's resources in China in 2014 in order to offer more training to Chinese businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

"The move aims to expand their capability to catch up with the global market and better tap into future opportunities," Eggert said.

The Business Social Compliance Initiative, a program that is committed to improving working conditions in factories and farms worldwide, will provide the support.

Technology

Britain set to OK Huawei cyber center

Telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said it is deeply committed to the European market, especially in the United Kingdom, as it provides a superb investment environment.

Huawei will sink $200 million into a new research and development center in the UK. In addition, the company is working closely with BT Group, a British telecom service group, to expand a national broadband network that currently covers 15 million UK households, Huawei said in a statement.

Victor Zhang, chief executive officer of Huawei UK, said the country is home to an outstanding pool of talent and a hub for world-class business services.

The new R&D center will be located at the Ipswich research office, which now has about 80 staffers. By 2017, the center is expected to employ more than 300 senior researchers.

China Daily Agencies

( China Daily Africa Weekly 12/13/2013 page18)