IN BRIEF (Page 19)

Companies

For TV set makers, it's a whole new game

Chinese television maker TCL Corp will put on the market its first video game console similar to Microsoft Corp's Xbox this year, a company executive said amid high expectations for the long closed sector.

"Entertainment will be the biggest focus for us this year," said Hao Yi, president of TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Ltd, a major subsidiary of TCL.

Increasing demand for video games from Chinese youngsters will drive the sales of the company's new gadgets, Hao said.

Although the Guangdong-based maker did not say when the terminals would go on sale or give sales forecast, its stocks surged in Hong Kong.

The company was eager to find a new business model after the government stopped subsidizing the household appliances market last year.

Hit films help reelin bumper profit

Huayi Brothers Media Group announced on Jan 27 that it expected annual net profit last year to be between 635.5 million yuan and 684.4 million yuan, up 160 percent to 180 percent year-on-year. The private production and distribution company attributed its significant growth to rosy box office revenue generated by hit feature films such as Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and Personal Tailor, stable development of new TV series, its artist agency and its cinemas business. In recent years Huayi Brothers has had domestic market share of between 20 percent and 30 percent in the movie industry.

PetroChina takes stakein Ecuadorean project

China National Petroleum Corp, the nation's largest oil and gas producer, will take a 30 percent stake in a refinery project in Ecuador, Jorge Glas, Ecuador's vice-president said.

CNPC, also known as PetroChina, will invest more than $10 billion to help finance the Pacifico oil refinery project, Glas said during an economic forum in Beijing.

Construction of the project's first phase has already been completed, he said.

State-owned companiesturn in solid results

State-owned non-financial companies reported annual gross revenue growth of 10.1 percent last year, the Ministry of Finance says. Their profits rose 7.4 percent compared with the year before, the ministry said.

Profits of locally administered state-owned enterprises rose 2.7 percent to 739.77 billion yuan. Business revenues of SOEs totaled 46.47 trillion yuan.RESOURCES

Cotton output fallsas labor costs rise

China produced 6.31 million tons of cotton last year, 7.7 percent less than a year earlier, CNCotton.com reported, citing customs data. Cotton acreage in the world's top producer and consumer of the fiber has fallen significantly as labor costs rise and farmers switch to more profitable crops. Chinese growers are expected to cut their cotton planting by 9 percent this year, according to a survey by the China Cotton Association published in January.

Finance

Rises in fiscal revenueand spending top 10%

China's fiscal revenue rose 10.1 percent to 12.91 trillion yuan ($2.13 trillion) last year, and fiscal spending rose 10.9 percent to 13.97 trillion yuan, the Ministry of Finance said. Receipts from domestic value-added tax grew 9 percent to 2.88 trillion yuan, and domestic consumption tax receipts rose 4.5 percent to 823 billion yuan, the ministry said.

Value of M&A dealsreaches all-time high

The total value of mergers and acquisitions in China reached a record high of $260 billion last year, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report said. Although such deals dipped to a new low in the first half, strong growth in the second half helped sustain the robust momentum of previous years, PwC said. Last year there were 43 deals with a transaction value exceeding $1 billion, compared with 30 cases a year earlier, the report said.

Yuan quotas risefor institutions

China's quotas for licensed foreign institutional investors rose to $51.4 billion on Jan 27 from $49.7 billion at the end of December, the State Administration for Foreign Exchange said. Quotas in China's renminbi currency for foreign institutional investors stood at 167.8 billion yuan, it said.

Policy

Ministry signs deal oninternal controls rules

The Ministry of Finance has signed an agreement with the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission to translate its new internal control framework into Chinese, and it may encourage more Chinese companies to adopt it, Robert Hirth, the committee's chairman, said on January 27. In May the committee published revisions and updates to its 1992 Internal Control-Integrated Framework document, with the aim of increasing its relevance in an increasingly complex and global business world so organizations can better design, implement and assess internal control.

Investment

Foreign investmentin iron ore urged

Chinese steelmakers that have lost money because of volatile global iron ore prices should invest more in foreign mineral resources to gain greater pricing power, the National Development and Reform Commission says.

The agency said on its website that the country's dependence on iron ore imports will not change in the long term, because there will demand for iron ore in China, the world's biggest buyer of the commodity, will continue to rise.

It also said global miners' dominance of iron ore resources is likely to persist.

Auto

Geely-Volvo has newcar on drawing board

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, parent company of Volvo Car Corp and Geely Automobile Holding Ltd, is developing a new model at its new research and development center in Sweden.

The smaller car, developed jointly by engineers from Geely and Volvo, is designed to give the Swedish luxury brand, which Geely bought in 2010, a foothold in the entry-level car-buying segment, the Wall Street Journal said.

Although the new model is only at the initial development phase, which is due to last several years, the company said it is certain to meet Western markets' safety and quality standards.

Banking

ICBC's cross-borderyuan activity up 40%

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd said its cross-border yuan business exceeded 2.1 trillion yuan ($347 billion) last year, almost 40 percent higher than in 2012. Such business totaled nearly 5 trillion yuan since ICBC launched this service in 2009. At the end of last year ICBC had opened 485 cross-border yuan settlement accounts with a network covering 72 countries and regions. It offers cross-border yuan business in all of its overseas branches where local regulations permit it.

China Daily Agencies

( China Daily Africa Weekly 01/31/2014 page19)