China Trade Information

Although the financial crisis of 2009 greatly affected all sectors of the travel industry, the World Travel Trends report released on Wednesday in Berlin predicted a slight recovery from some regions, including a strong boom commencing from China.

Rolf Freitag, the CEO of IPK International, a world travel research monitor that tracks the trends in outbound travel demand, told Xinhua on Wednesday: “China is very dynamic and is finding its place in the world. This year’s economic recovery will start from the East and then influence the West.” Read the rest of this entry »

China’s largest mobile phone service provider became a strategic investor in the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB) after a multi-billion dollar stock purchasing deal on Wednesday.

Guangdong Mobile, China Mobile’s branch in south China’s Guangdong province, bought 2.2 billion shares of at the cost of 39.8 billion yuan ($5.83 billion), claiming 20 percent of the bank and becoming its second largest shareholder. Read the rest of this entry »

China is requiring a down payment for land purchases equal to 50 percent of a plot’s price and prohibited the supply of land for villas as the government sought to increase affordable housing.

The down payment must be paid within a month of signing a contract for the land purchase, the Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement on its Web site late yesterday. Buyers must also pay a deposit when taking part in land auctions that is equal to 20 percent of the minimum price for the land, according to the statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Further administrative curbs likely in property market, bank lending

Real estate prices in February rose at the fastest pace in almost two years, adding urgency to the government’s efforts to rein in speculation and increase the amount of affordable housing.

Prices in 70 major cities rose 10.7 percent year-on-year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

“Despite the government’s tightening policies, it will take some time for the sizzling property sector to cool down, as developers are still awash with cash from last year’s sales boom,” said Qin Xiaomei, chief researcher with property firm Jones Lang LaSalle Beijing. Read the rest of this entry »

China’s new yuan-denominated lending in February stood at 700.1 billion yuan (102.65 billion U.S. dollars), half that of January’s 1.39 trillion yuan, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC, the central bank) said Thursday.

China’s yuan-denominated lending in 2009 hit a record 9.59 trillion yuan, almost double that of the previous year.

According to PBOC, as of the end of February, the broad measure of money supply M2, which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 25.52 percent from a year earlier to 63.6 trillion yuan. The growth rate was 0.56 percentage points lower than the figure for January. Read the rest of this entry »

China’s banking regulator issued a guideline Wednesday requiring the country’s commercial bank executives and employees’ pay to be based on performance assessment in a move to align the pay system in the sector.

Under the guideline, at least 40 percent of bonuses for banks’ top executives must be deferred for a minimum 3-year period. Banks will recover earlier payments and hold back the retained bonuses if executives cause heavy losses due to poor performance. Read the rest of this entry »