Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (SHA: 601398, HKG: 1398) and Bank of China (SHA: 601988, HKG: 3988) have denied that they had been ordered by the banking regulator to freeze loans for property developers. The news had caused panic in the local stock market. In their first-half financial statements release press conference, Jiang Jianqing, chairman ...

China's 500 most profitable privately owned businesses earned less than just China Mobile and PetroChina combined, according to a report by the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce. The 500 posted ¥218 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) in net income last year, up 32.8% from 2008, while China Mobile plus PetroChina generated ¥249 billion in profits. ...

China has 817 million middle class consumers, according to an Asian Development Bank report. It defines China's middle class as those who spend $2 to $20 a day and further divides them to lower, average and above-average categories. There are 303 million referred as lower middle class, who would easily fall back to poverty when a crisis hits. This definition...

Goldman Sachs has signed a deal with eHi Car Service to inject $70 million into China's largest car leasing company. The money is expected to be in place by the end of the year. It is the largest venture capital funding of its kind in China. Among the minor investors are Qiming Venture Partners, Dinghui Venture Partners, Ignition Capital, JAFCO Asia and New ...

August 31 – Telepizza, Spain's largest pizzeria, formed a 50:50 company with Christine, a leading bakery based in Shanghai, to establish a chain operator in China. It is Telepizza's first joint venture in Asia. Source: http://www.linkshop.com.cn/web/archives/2010/141638.shtml   August 31 – Hugo Boss, a German luxury goods retailer, plans ...

Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Co (SHE 000630) and Jiangxi Copper Co (SHA: 600362, HKG: 0358) have contacted Exco Resources Ltd, an Australian copper and gold explorer, for assets acquisition, according to people familiar with the matter. They would rather establish a joint venture or sign sales contract with Exco Resource than purchase some assets, said t...

Suntech Power Holdings Co (NYSE: STP), China's biggest crystalline solar panel maker, has stopped producing thin-film solar cells in its factory in Shanghai and started producing polysilicon solar cells as the former has lost its cost leadership against plummeting polysilicon prices. Suntech chairman Shi Zhengrong expressed pessimism over thin-film solar cel...

Baidu Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) on Monday launched search services for software on computers and cellphones. Soft.baidu.com is not available on Baidu's official site but can be visited through the web address. The majority of search results show Skycn.com, Onlinedownload.net and Duote.com, which are owned by Baidu. Baidu's software search service will pose a threat...

Yongye International Inc (NASDAQ: YONG), an agricultural fulvic acid liquid and powder nutrient compounds manufacturer based in Beijing, launched a new plant in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Monday. The new factory is capable of 20,000 tons of biogen plant products and 10,000 tons of biogen nutrients a year, boosting its total annual capacity to 46,000 tons.  ...

Guangdong province aims to make use of 33.8 million tons of recyclable resources valued at ¥140 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) by 2015, according to a provincial seminar on the issue. The figures are expected to hit 50.6 million tons and ¥270 billion by 2020. By the end of 2008, Guangdong had around 40,000 registered businesses engaged in the industry emplo...

Microsoft is seeking a Chinese partner to dig deep into the nation's search market, Microsoft China CEO Simon Leung said Wednesday. "We want to attract the largest amount of search queries in China," Leung said. Although he did not name the prospective partners, it is believed that small search engines run by NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) and Tencent (HKG: 0700) wo...

The Chinese government has finished assessing the bidders for 13 photovoltaic power stations in northwestern China with a total capacity of 280MW. Huanghe Hydropower Development Co, a subsidiary of China Power Investment Corp, won a 30MW project in Qinghai province with its lowest bid price of ¥0.7288/kW hour. Xinjiang Energy Co, also owned by China Powe...

Crimped demand and reduced export rebates will weigh on China's steel price in the short run, Baoshan Iron & Steel (SHA: 600019) president Ma Guoqiang has argued. He did not specify how short the term will be. Ma also predicted that iron ore price would keep running high in the second half of the year but the price would fall a bit in the fourth quarter....

A ¥62.7 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) natural gas transfer project of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (NYSE: SNP, SHA: 600028, HKG: 0386) was inaugurated Tuesday. The 2,170km pipeline will deliver 12 billion m3 of gas in the southwestern province of Sichuan eastward annually, which represents 1/7 of China's total gas consumption in 2009. It is expec...

NetEase.com Inc (NASDAQ: NTES), a leading Chinese portal, shut down its World of Warcraft servers Tuesday to test the game's second expansion Wrath of the Lich King. It was reported that Mike Morhaime, CEO of WoW developer Blizzard Entertainment, will attend a press conference for the launch of the new game, which is thought to benefit NetEase but to have a ...

Shenyang, the capital of northeastern China's Liaoning province, plans to attract 50 domestic and foreign venture capital investors in the years to come, according to a government official. The local government wants them to invest ¥20 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) in the city. It was reported JPMorgan Chase, Blackstone and CCB International have done some rev...

China's property developers are likely to suffer extremely strained cashflow if sales are not good in September and October as 40% of their loans will reach maturity by the end of 2010, argued an unnamed official with a state-owned bank. Property loans given to big developers and those operating in the second and third tier cities have become increasingly di...

The 112 listed property developers posted a combined net profit up 26% to ¥16.1 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) for 1H 2010. Only 15 reported losses. Their revenues climbed 30.8% to ¥120.1 billion. However, they had a total ¥783.6 billion in liabilities. Source: http://finance.ce.cn/rolling/201008/31/t20100831_16154656.shtml   Evergrande Real Est...

CNOOC (NYSE: CEO, HKG: 0883), China's biggest offshore petrol energy explorer, will boost its output to 100 million to 120 million tons of oil equivalent by 2015, a senior manager told an international meeting on petrochemical equipment Wednesday. "We will spend ¥250 billion to ¥300 billion ($1 = ¥6.8) creating 50 million tons of new capacity fro...

China's demand for aluminum will grow 20% to 16.7 million tons this year and its output will grow 30% to 16.9 million tons, the world's largest aluminum producer UC RUSAL has estimated. Based on the current prices, Chinese aluminum producers will have a hard time making money in the second half of the year as a result of spiking electricity prices, raw mater...