Friday, October 10, 2008

Sinopec parent announces not to sell 4.3 bln non-tradable shares

Sinopec, Asia's top refiner, saw 4.335 billion of its non-tradable shares freed-up on Friday, all belonging to its parent company, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. . CPCC said it would not cash in any of those shares.

These shares accounted for 5 percent of its total capital stock.

"We have never sold any Sinopec shares and we are not set to do so this time," an unspecified CPCC source told Xinhua on Friday, adding several companies had mirrored the state-owned enterprises watchdog's call to buy back their shares.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission last month voiced its support to back up its 147 centrally-administered SOEs in buying more stocks of their listed subsidiaries, a move to shore up the sliding stock market.

CPCC has another 57.088 billion non-tradable shares to be unlocked on Oct. 12 next year. But the company did not say how it would deal with those shares.

Sinopec dropped 3.83 percent to 9.8 yuan per share on Friday.

Source: Xinhua

China mainland records 39.85% increase in actual use of overseas investment

China's mainland reported a 39.85 percent surge in the actual use of investment from other areas in the first eight months over the same period last year.

Investment inflow reached 74.37 billion U.S. dollars during the January to September period, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

Zhang Hanya, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic planning organ, said the impressive growth indicated China was an attractive investment destination worldwide.

"Enterprises that invest in the country still have confidence in reaping profitable business returns," Zhang said.

The mainland approved the establishment of 20,801 enterprises funded with outside investment in the first nine months, down 26.25 percent from the same period last year.

The figures reflected the endeavor to increase the quality of investments from the outside, Zhang said.

"China is reducing its processing industry scale as part of its effort to upgrade industrial structure, so companies with high-energy consumption and high pollution were refused entry to the domestic market," said the researcher.

Source: Xinhua

Hong Kong stocks close down 7.19%

Hong Kong stocks tumbled 1,146. 37 points, or 7.19 percent, to close at 14,796.87 on Friday amid the global financial tsunami, marking the first time for the benchmark Hang Seng Index to end below 15,000 in about three years.

Turnover totaled a moderate 69.37 billion HK dollars , slightly higher than Thursday's 60.87 billion HK dollars .

All the 42 blue chip stocks lost ground, with market heavyweight HSBC Holdings shedding 8.2 HK dollars, or 6.95 percent, t 109.8 HK dollars, in spite of the London-headquartered banking giant saying it had abundant liquidity.

Analysts attributed the loss in its stock prices to tight credit market, as the banks remained unwilling to lend to each other despite high interbank rates, and to a spray of sell-off by fund managers as investors hurried to make redemptions.

HSBC local unit Hang Seng Bank, which adjusted its economic growth forecasts for Hong Kong in 2008 and 2009 on Friday, lost 7.55 percent at 109 HK dollars, while local player Bank of East Asia lost 3.59 percent to close at 20.15 HK dollars.

Mainland-based commercial banking group Bank of China went down6.59 percent, while BOC Hong Kong lost 7.56 percent at 11 HK dollars on high interbank loan interest rates.

The financial sub-index suffered a loss of 7.54 percent, and the properties issues lost 9.64 percent, which was the biggest loss among the four major categories. The utilities and the commerce and industry sub-indices shed 6.88 percent and 6.23 percent, respectively.

Mainland-based commercial banking giant ICBC lost 7.41 percent to close at 3.75 HK dollars, while China Construction Bank lost 7.64 percent to 3.75 HK dollars.

China Life turned out one of the biggest losers with a plummeting drop of 3.35 HK dollars, or 13.01 percent, at 22.4 HK dollars, contributing 108.68 points to the change of the blue chip index, which was second to only HSBC Holdings' 208.96 points.

China Mobile, another market heavyweight and by far the largest mobile carrier on the Chinese mainland, lost 4.32 percent to end at 66.4 HK dollars, with a local investor services institution saying the stock may outperform the market.

Cheung Kong, the real estate conglomerate headed by "superman" Li Ka-shing, closed down 8.10 HK dollars at 67.5 HK dollars. SHK Properties, the leading residential developer in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, tumbled 11.63 percent on fears the local banks might raise mortgage interest rates in the near future.

Oil giant PetroChina lost 0.37 HK dollars, or 5.81 percent, at 6 HK dollars and Sinopec ended down 8.56 percent at 4.81 HK dollars. Offshore oil producer CNOOC closed down 9.23 percent at 5. 9 HK dollars as international oil prices fell.

Shipping stock China COSCO closed down 8.04 percent at 4.69 HK dollars.

Source: Xinhua

Fund redemptions add to sell-off pressures on Hong Kong stock market

Hong Kong stocks tumbled 7.19 percent on Friday, with a spray of indiscriminate sell-off by fund managers on redemption pressures adding to the woes of the already troubled market, analysts said.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index opened down 7.69 percent at 14, 717.52 and once dipped to as low as 14,398.54. It closed down 1, 146.37 points at 14,796.87, marking the first time for the blue chip index to end below 15,000 in about three years.

Turnover totaled a moderate 69.37 billion HK dollars , compared with 60.87 billion HK dollars on Thursday.

All the 42 blue chip stocks lost ground, with market heavyweight HSBC Holdings shedding 6.95 percent to contribute a drop of 209 points to the index change, in spite of the London- headquartered banking giant saying it had abundant liquidity.

Analysts attributed the losses to the tight credit market, as the banks remained unwilling to lend to each other despite the high interbank rates. Tight liquidity forced some investors to redeem their investments in funds, which, in turn forced the fund managers into a spray of indiscriminate sell-off.

Jasper Tsang, director of equity research at CSC Securities Limited, said quite a number of funds faced redemption pressures, leading to selling pressures on the "stable" stocks that would normally have been considered safer investments.

Chan YK, an analyst with Phillip Asset Management, said the fact that even the utilities chips suffered from a spray of sell- off, let alone the mainland-based quality stocks, shows that the investors were selling off indiscriminately.

The utilities sub-index suffered a loss of 6.88 percent on Friday, which was more than the percentage point losses for the commerce and industry genre.

In a sign of redemption pressures on the investment funds, the Hong Kong unit of Atlantis Investment Management said it has suspended redemptions in its Atlantis China Fortune Fund -- a hedge fund with outstanding performance -- due to market volatility.

Yang Liu, the company's chairperson, said the company felt the move would best protect the interests of investors, local and international media reported.

The financial sub-index suffered a loss of 7.54 percent, and the properties issues lost 9.64 percent, which was the biggest loss among the four major categories.

HSBC local unit Hang Seng Bank, which adjusted its economic growth forecasts for Hong Kong in 2008 and 2009 on Friday, lost 7.55 percent at 109 HK dollars, while local player Bank of East Asia lost 3.59 percent to close at 20.15 HK dollars.

BOC Hong Kong, the local unit of mainland-based commercial banking group Bank of China, lost 7.56 percent at 11 HK dollars on high interbank loan interest rates.

China Life turned out one of the biggest losers with a plummeting drop 13.01 percent at 22.4 HK dollars, contributing 108. 68 points to the change of the blue chip index.

China Mobile, another market heavyweight and by far the largest mobile carrier on the Chinese mainland, lost 4.32 percent to end at 66.4 HK dollars. HSBC Holdings, China Life and China Mobile contributed a total of almost 400 points to the index change.

Cheung Kong, the real estate conglomerate headed by Li Ka- shing, closed down 8.10 HK dollars at 67.5 HK dollars, despite the" superman" chairman's buying of company stocks. Residential developer SHK Properties also tumbled 11.63 percent on fears the local banks might raise mortgage interest rates due to high interbank lending rates.

Dickie Wong, of Friedmann Pacific Investment, said he expected the investors to continue shying away from the stock market even if they had cash on hand. The limited effect of the concerted rate cuts by central banks of major economies showed that the investors just had no confidence, adding to the economic recession fears.

Wong said he expected the market to look to further boost measures by the United States federal government for cues, like a possible direct injection of cash into the banking system.

Source: Xinhua

To enhance supervision and financial innovation

When the sub-prime mortgage crisis has been escalating, the governments of the United States and other related countries and personages from all social sectors globally are mulling over its causes and impact worldwide. These days, U.S. statesmen and economists reflect upon the divorce of banking business innovation from financial supervision, and review the practice of former Federal Reserve Chainman, Alan Greenspan, in which he strove sedulously to extend the boom-and-bust cycle when America's red-hot economy was already cooling.

In another development, French President Nicolas Sarkozy demands the overhaul of the world economic system. "We need to rebuild the whole world financial and monetary system from scratch," he said in a keynote speech in last September. He also called for working out drafting essential international norms for guiding economic and trade globalization. Meanwhile, some developing countries hope to draw lessons from the financial market upheavals in the U.S., which, up to date, has the most mature and developed banking system, and are thinking of what-type open strategy they should adopt to stabilize their financial market.

Despite a divergence of particular emphases, they focus on one question in common, that is, the relationship between government financial supervision and financial innovation. The business of banking has all along been regarded as the lifeblood of the performance of a modern economy and the core for the allocation of resources. The past experience shows that the market-oriented mechanism can give more play to the efficiency of the banking business and contribute more to the economic growth accordingly.

American economy is a typical case in point. In spite of some troubles or disorders it has encountered on its financial market, big or small, at an interval of a dozen years, the U.S. is certainly the most booming, thriving economy among the developed nations, and its renewed vigor comes from the optimized allocation of resources, and the outstanding contributions its banking sector has made are of course beyond any doubt.

Fully market-oriented banking industry brings in greater competition and innovation, which are not all necessarily beneficial or conducive to economic entities. Some innovations, such as the high-lever financial derivatives, chief culprit of the present financial turmoils, contain or herald immense risks, as operators of the relevant agencies expose investors' money to market risk. If a gambling is won, they would make windfall profits and, if it is lost, both investors and the government would incur huge, unmeasurable losses. Such "innovation" will definitely not help economic entities, but contrarily dampen investors' confidence, give rise to panic, and proceed to thwart economic entities due to the loss of financial games.

There poses a tough, thorny problem placed before investors: An excessive supervision can smother market competition and innovation, which are indispensable in keeping up the vitality of economic entities, whereas the lack of such supervision will end with a plunder of public property by a handful of individuals and naturally jeopardize the stability of the entire economy.

Although the current raging financial tsunami is not yet over, the international community has come to recognize that three ensuing points have to be underlined in the supervision of the banking sector. Firstly, increasing transparency, or to propose more transparency for the derivatives to be devised, so as to ensure that investors would not be hoodwinked. Secondly, stepping up social supervision, so that more stakeholders should be empowered to inquire about activities of banking institutions, which are in turn accountable to give detailed and earnest replies.

Thirdly, to ensure that financial innovation should not be detached from financial supervision, whose activities should also keep pace with new financial innovation promptly and ensure that supervision departments should have an ample, high degree of freedom in action so that these departments, too, would be likewise accountable once problems crop up.

With regard to developing nations, how to beef up financial supervision represents a conspicuous, protruding issue in the process of opening their financial markets to the outside world. The opening-up of banking sector poses a crucial, component part of the marketization of banking business and also a vital fresh impetus to uplifting the banking industry.

This constitutes a severe test for national economy, since both the shortage of experience and the lack of supervision could possibly spur financial competition to deviate further from the development objective of economic entities and become an instrument for speculation and plunder. Faced with vibrant global financial upheavals, therefore, developing nations need all the more to mull over carefully and learn painful lessons; they must never forget that they should retain transparency, and keep up the wide-ranging, rigid supervision, and prompt, effective control over the financial business while advancing the opening-up of the financial sectors prudently and with great caution.

By People's Daily Online, and its author is Zhang Bin, deputy researchers with the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Financial crisis is teaching us how to spend money

‘The time of wielding wealth is over,' remarked the U.S historian Steph Friesier on the unprecedented financial turmoil. It is much like the scene, he said, in which a grand feast broke up all of a sudden, leaving everybody running wild. The Wall Street bubble suddenly burst, with the disillusionment of extravagant consumption puffed up by the fanciful splendor.

A few months prior to the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers, an executive director of the once flourishing investment bank put his luxurious seaside villa on sale for $325 million. More significantly, many business tycoons even sold out their luxurious yachts, which used to be the apple of their eyes and worth tens and even hundreds of million. Before this, no doubt had been raised about the U.S superpower in consumption, as the U.S has long been acting as the engine of the world economy, and its powerful consumption determines the U.S role in the global economy as the bellwether. If the U.S consumption diminished, the driving force propelling the world economy would accordingly be retarded.

China, on the other hand, is an emerging economy and what is confronting it as a crucial issue will be the modes of consumption. So what mode to select is closely related to its economic routes with sustainable development highlighted. From the perspective of handling crisis, China will have to brace for the shrinking U.S consumption, and meanwhile, learn a good lesson from the U.S mode of consumption.

The U.S mode of consumption has served as the driving force pushing ahead the global economy, but other-handedly, it has also exacerbated the precariousness of the world economy and the trade structures, spurring the strong desire for extravagance all across the world. As Kenneth Rogoff, a notable economist at the Harvard University, was cited as saying, ‘the U.S consumers exhausted almost all on the earth, helped the country swallow up 25 percent of the world oil reserves, but had no interest in opening a saving account. He added, ‘thanks to the U.S unmatchable fiscal policies, the consumers don't need down payment before deciding to buy in a luxurious car. They can, of course, mortgage their houses to the bank for more loans. They have the courage to squander every cent of their savings, and enjoy their retirement life starting much earlier than ever.' Perhaps, only when we really understand the above statements, can we realize why the U.S is and has to be unique on the planet.

When tracing the causes to the financial storm, economists from different nations have so far reached an uncommon consensus, pinpointing unanimously the influence imposed by the consumption concept. When the capitals from world wide flooded into the U.S market, and due to the slack supervisory system, the untamed consumption loomed there. Abruptly, the credit links snapped, and the visionary bubble puffed up by the false prosperity got burst.

Once the old balance collapsed, the new one would not come into being promptly, and the world economy will have to seek a new bolstering point to keep balance. As a matter of fact, the ongoing process, in which grappling with and dealing with the crisis are addressed, is in itself a process to seek the new economic growth point and a new driving force. Currently, China, as well as its economic measures and policies countering the side effects brought about by the global economic slowdown, is stepping into the limelight, and the entire world is pinning hopes on China to lead the global economy out of the abyss by escalating its domestic demands.

Without any doubt, it is a bold but very plausible assumption. But considering China's present level in its economic development, the more important practice to be put in place may well be its economic restructuring and optimization. On the surface, it seems to be an easy job for China to push forward its domestic demands in its economic transformation. As economist Mr. Lin Yifu put it, ‘China is able to maintain a relatively high economic growth by stimulating its domestic economy and enhancing its domestic demands.' But if viewed from its nature, we will find that the enhancement of China's domestic demands also means that we will have to select a new consumption mode, or so to speak, we will have to spend money in a more courageous but much wiser way.

Now that China can hardly learn from the U.S in its consumption mode and even hardly can the U.S consumption mode set a goal for China to follow in its economic development. Therefore, the Chinese consumers will have to be armed with the idea involving more scientific and more rational consumption. In so doing, China's economy will be kept on the sound track of sustainable development, and contribute more to the world economy.

By People's Daily Online

Great progress achieved in the cause of women

The 10th National Women's Congress of China will be held from Oct. 28 to 31 in Beijing. The congress will comprehensively review and sum up the development of China's cause of women in the past five years, and set forth the goals and tasks within the next five years.

The All-China Women's Federation recently introduced the development status of the cause of Chinese women in the past five years.

During the past five years, the Chinese government has enhanced the investment and support in women's education and employment. The gaps between men and women in years to receive education and employment rate were both shortened.

At present, the years of Chinese women to receive education averaged 7.3; women account for more than 45.4% of all the the employees in China.

Women, making up more than 65% of China's labor force in agriculture, are the main force in building new countryside.

At the same time the women's employment structure in urban areas continues to optimize, and the employment levels to upgrade.

Data shows that Chinese's women entrepreneurs in medium and small enterprises consist of 20% of the total entrepreneurs; the number of women who start their own business has risen remarkably.

At present, among the senior party and state leaders, eight are female. The ratio of women deputies to the 11th National People's Congress and women members on the CPPCC Ninth National Committee were 21.33% and 17.7%, risen by 1.09 and 1 percentage points respectively, as compared with the NPC and CPPCC National Committee of the last terms.

In the past five years, the Chinese government has taken effective measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of women and children, and have greatly promoted the healthy development of the cause of Chinese women.

By People's Daily Online