CRE eyeing HK meat distribution unit sale

China Resources Enterprise Ltd, the State-backed retail and beer conglomerate, is evaluating options for its meat distribution unit in Hong Kong that could include a sale, said two people with knowledge of the matter. China Resources may start a strategic review of the business as early as this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The company took then Hong Kong-listed Ng Fung Hong Ltd private in 2001 in a deal that valued it at HK$5.1 billion ($658 million). Ng Fung Hong started in 1951 in Hong Kong. It handles all imports of live cattle from the mainland. The Hong Kong government said in May that it was considering requests to open the import market to competition, citing concerns that "frequent" price increases by Ng Fung Hong was hurting demand for fresh beef. The company raised wholesale beef prices six times last year, the South China Morning Post reported in December.

World Bank lowers East Asia GDP forecasts for 2013-14

The World Bank lowered its forecasts for East Asia's developing nations this year and next, saying the region must boost efforts to ensure financial stability ahead of interest-rate increases in advanced economies. Developing East Asia will probably expand 7.1 percent in 2013 and 7.2 percent in 2014, the Washington-based lender said in a report on Monday, down from April predictions of 7.8 percent and 7.6 percent respectively. China may grow 7.5 percent in 2013, lower than an April forecast of 8.3 percent, it said. "The risks to the global recovery from the uncertainty surrounding the fiscal deadlock in the United States, the impact of the withdrawal of monetary stimulus from the advanced economies, an abrupt slowdown of investment in China and unrest in the Middle-East remain prominent," the World Bank said in its East Asia and Pacific Economic Update on Monday.

HTC sees next 2 months as its biggest sales challenge

HTC Corp, the Taiwanese smartphone maker that posted its first-ever quarterly loss last week, said the next two months will be its "biggest challenge" as it tries to convince customers its products are as innovative as those from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co. "We really have the best technology and the best product," Chairwoman Cher Wang said in an Oct 5 interview with Bloomberg TV while attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Bali, Indonesia. "When we actually communicate better, the consumer will know it because they can feel our product is the best." HTC, once the biggest seller of smartphones in the US, reported its first quarterly net loss, NT$2.97 billion ($101.2 million) for the three months ending September. HTC will debut redesigned smartphones in the first half of next year, Arthur Liao, an analyst at Fubon Financial Holding Co in Taipei, said on Oct 4.

Largest coal gasification project to be built in Xinjiang

A large coal gasification project will be built in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the regional authorities said on Sunday. The demonstration project in the Zhundong area, Changji Hui autonomous prefecture, will be the country's largest with a designed capacity of 30 billion cubic meters annually, said the region's development and reform commission. With a total investment of 183 billion yuan ($29.7 billion), the project will be jointly built by Sinopec, Huaneng Xinjiang Energy Development Co Ltd and some other energy companies in Xinjiang and eastern Zhejiang province. The industrial project will need 90 million metric tons of coal annually. It will provide at least 18,000 jobs. The coal gas will be transported to the booming provinces of Zhejiang in East China and Guangdong in the south through pipelines.

Traders fear search merger will not bring big benefits

Options traders are paying more to protect against swings in Sohu.com Inc relative to rival Qihoo 360 Technology Co for the first time since July on concerns a merger will fail to boost its search engine market share. Implied volatility, the key gauge of options prices, for one-month contracts closest to Sohu's shares exceeded that for Qihoo last week for the first time since July 18, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Sohu shares have rallied 34 percent since Tencent Holdings Ltd invested in Sohu's search unit on Sept 16. The Bloomberg China-US Equity Index of the most-traded Chinese shares in the US rallied 2.6 percent last week. Sohu, a Beijing-based Internet company, sold a 36.5 percent stake in its subsidiary Sogou to Tencent for $448 million in order to boost traffic for the third-biggest search engine in the country. Sogou accounted for 5.5 percent of online queries in China in the first quarter, lagging behind Baidu Inc's 82 percent market share and Qihoo 360 Technology Co's 9 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

New policies unveiled to aid economic restructure

China's financial reform accelerated after a package of policies were unveiled to offer guidance to facilitate economic restructuring. The success of the reform may rely on big data technology, experts have said. Big data technology has contributed to the development of Internet finance, easing financing difficulties, boosting information consumption, aiding private capital to support the real economy and controlling financial risks. "Big-data-based financial practice means recognizing information value and improving the insight of customer's needs by production, exchange, management and application of data," said Tian Guichang, a big-data scientist with Beijing JinLongCai Tech & Trading Co Ltd.

China Daily - Agencies

(China Daily USA 10/08/2013 page14)