Chery sales down

Chery Automobile Co, China's biggest domestic automaker, said its car sales stood at 320,000 units in the first 11 months of 2008, down 8.9 percent from a year earlier.

The sales volume means the automaker is unlikely to fulfill the 480,000-unit sales target it set at the beginning of the year. It planned to sell 300,000 units at home and 180,000 units abroad.

The drop in sales was contributed to the decreasing demand around the global market triggered by the expanding financial crisis.

New cement plant

China's largest cement-making equipment producer China National Materials Group Corp inaugurated a new dry-process cement plant in Baiyin, Gansu province on Dec 29.

With a total investment of 600 million yuan, the plant is designed to produce 4,500 tons of cement daily and 2 million tons of high-mark quality cement annually.

Patents increased

China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) said it had applied for 388 patents in 2008, an increase of 76.4 percent from a year earlier.

Among them 317 had been approved, up 9.7 percent from 2007.

Technology improvement has become a focus for ChemChina, said Ren Jianxin, chairman of the company. Today ChemChina is one of the country's major manufacturers of new material and specialty chemical products.

Delphi plant suspend

US car parts maker Delphi has suspended work at a factory in Suzhou due to shrinking demand amid the global economic slump, a media report and a staff member said.

The factory, located to the west of Shanghai, makes compressors for GM.

"The sudden and unprecedented decline in (car) sales globally has resulted in our only customer, GM North America, announcing plant closures and plant stoppages," the South China Morning Post quoted a Delphi internal document as saying.

"Unfortunately our only customer in 2009 is GM North America and this has placed the Suzhou compressor plant in a dangerous position," it said.

Cooperation agreements

Mainland's largest offshore explorer China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), signed four cooperation agreements with Taiwan's CPC Corp recently.

The four cooperation agreements were signed by CNOOC's Chairman and CEO Fu Chengyu and CPC's Chairman Wenent Pan in Beijing.

The agreements included a letter of intent for closer cooperation, a revised contract on joint exploration in the Tainan Basin of the Taiwan Straits and the Chaozhou Shantou Basin off the Guangdong coast, joint study on the Wuqiuyu Basin off the Fujian coast, and transfer of a 30 percent stake of CNOOC' onshore Block 9 in Kenya to CPC.

Oil storage tanks

China's largest crude oil storage tanks, located in Shanshan county of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, have started operation, said sources with Xinjiang Oilfield Corp, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).

The first phase of the project includes ten 100,000-cu-m tanks, which will store domestic crude and fuel imported from Kazakhstan, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News, citing Wang Yuehua, a manager of CNPC's Xinjiang Oilfield Corp.

Online steel trade

Shanghai Baohua International Tendering Co, a unit of top Chinese mill Baosteel Group Corp, said that it has launched the nation's first integrated online tendering and bidding platform.

The system, which cost more than 20 million yuan to develop, enables the entire tender process to be completed via an online platform, saving costs such as travel bills for third-party users.

Based on the 905 tenders that Baohua arranged last year in a traditional manner, as much as 22 million yuan could be saved, Baohua General Manager Zhang Lijiang said.

Vehicles recall

Toyota recalled 12,1930 vehicles in China to fix a problem that could cause drivers to lose steering control, said China's quality watchdog.

The recalled vehicles include 62,517 units of Crown, produced between 2005 and 2006, 54,657 units of Reiz, produced between 2005 and 2006, and 4,756 units of Lexus, produced between 2004 and 2006, said a notice released by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Overseas expansion

Sany Heavy Industry Co, one of China's biggest heavy machinery makers, won government approval to build a heavy equipment production plant and research and development center in Germany, the latest step in its overseas expansion.

The National Development and Reform Commission also revealed in a brief statement on their website that the Hunan-based company has received the go-ahead to raise its stake in Sany International Development Co.

Real estate acquisitions

Financial Street Holding Co Ltd, a Shenzhen-listed property developer, has forked out 347 million yuan to take over Beijing Desheng Investment Co, the company said in a statement to the Shenzhen bourse.

This is the latest in a string of acquisitions by Financial Street, following its 1.6 billion yuan acquisition of a commercial project in Xidan, Beijing. Since September the company has spent 4.6 billion yuan on Beijing property projects.

Mengniu posts losses

China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd, the nation's largest liquid-milk producer, said losses brought on by the melamine scandal would reach 900 million yuan in 2008.

The melamine-tainting scandal caused company sales to slump, forcing it to write off inventories and increase raw-milk disposal and sales promotion costs, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange last month.

China's $20-billion dairy industry stumbled after 22 diary producers, including China Mengniu, were found to have melamine in their products.

Gold deal

China's third largest gold bullion producer Shandong Gold Mining has agreed to buy a 74 percent stake in Chifeng Chaihulanzi Gold Mining Co for about 260 million yuan, the company said in a statement.

Chaihulanzi mine, based in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, recorded sales of 104.6 million yuan and a net income of 45.9 million yuan in the first 10 months of 2008, the Shanghai-listed Shandong Gold said in a stock exchange filing on Dec 24.

China is the world's largest gold producer, registered a total output of 223.08 tons of gold in the first 10 months of 2008, up 3.32 percent from a year earlier, according to figures released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology earlier in December.

Target done

Dongfeng Automobile, one of China's biggest carmakers, announced the company is expecting to sell 170,000 vehicles in 2008.

The company has achieved its annual sales target of 122,000 units by December, and sales volume at its subsidiary Zhengzhou Nissan Automobile has reached 45,000 units, making it possible for the carmaker to realize a combined year-round sales volume of 170,000 units, its planning department said.

Assets purchase

Chinese Internet portal Sina Corp said it would acquire some of the out-of-home advertising network assets of outdoor advertising company Focus Media.

The two companies, in a statement, said the assets to be acquired include Focus Media's LCD display network, poster frame network and in-store network.

Focus Media will retain its Internet advertising division, the movie theater advertising network portion of its commercial location network and certain traditional billboards.

The value of the deal was not disclosed. An earlier Bloomberg News report said it would be worth about $1 billion.

Cross service

China CITIC Bank and Air China launched a joint 40080-95558 business and travel service phone number on Dec 25.

"It's the first hotline in China jointly launched by a bank and an airline company," said Cui Hong, general manager of sales department of Air China.

Cui said the services available through the number include ticket sales, business consultation and flight information.

Cranes deal

Shanghai Zhenhua, the world's largest port machinery supplier, has agreed to sell Dubai Port World 87 sets of container cranes worth $343 million, Zhenhua said.

As contracted, the Chinese company will deliver the cranes from 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, according to a statement the company filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Dec 27.

DP World is now the world's fourth largest container pier operator with 48 piers worldwide.

Online music service

Tencent, China's biggest instant message service provider, aims to expand its business scope in the online music sector with more offerings, the company said recently.

The company's QQ Music has already attracted 100 million users, and its peak concurrent user base has reached 2.5 million, the Shenzhen-based firm reported.

QQ Music's advantage includes its huge user base, specially designed music player tool and other functions, according to Tencent, which has also expanded its business into online game and an auction Website.

Stake sale

ProLogis, the world's largest industrial property and warehouse developer, will sell all its operations in China for nearly $1.3 billion to raise cash to pay down debt, the company said, reversing its previous aggressive expansion drive in the country.

The Denver, US-based company will sell its China business to GIC Real Estate, the property investment arm of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp, which will assume the liabilities of the assets, it said in a statement.

The China assets to be sold include 1.92 million sq m of completed properties and properties under development as well as its interest in five joint ventures and a property fund, the company said.

Disneyland expansion

Hong Kong Disneyland CEO Kam Min-ho said last month the company will invest HK$4 billion in expanding its park. Details of the expansion plan are expected to be released this year after discussion with the Hong Kong government.

The expansion work is expected to be finished within two or three years.

Railway contracts

China Railway Construction Corp, the country's largest railway and highway builder, won contracts worth 24.97 billion yuan for rail construction projects in southern China through its six subsidiaries, the company said.

The value of the contracts is equivalent to 14.07 percent of the company's 2007 sales under domestic accounting standards.

Included in the contracts is the new railway from Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou province, to Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong province, which is among China's massive stimulus package to develop infrastructures.

China Railway Group said its subsidiaries had won 7.91 billion yuan in rail construction contracts, equivalent to 4.38 percent of its 2007 sales.

Iron ore investment

China investment conglomerate China Union has promised to spend $2.6 billion on Liberia's main iron ore mine in one of the biggest investments that China has ever made in Africa, AFP reported, citing a Liberian minister.

Liberian Investment Minister Tolbert said the China Union company had promised that within 12 months it will have built a one million ton-a-year capacity refining factory at the Bong iron mines, about 150 km north of Monrovia, according to AFP.

(China Daily 01/05/2009 page4)