China stocks end down, new IPOs weigh

July 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

July 27 (Reuters) – China’s key stock index closed down half a percent on Tuesday, as expected large initial public offerings (IPOs) weighed on sentiment and analysts said the index was readjusting after six consecutive days of rises.

The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC ended at 2,575.4, after closing up 0.7 percent on Monday, snapping a rally inspired by confidence that China would maintain stable economic policies.

Large fundraisings, including Agricultural Bank of China’s (601288.SS) hefty IPO, have weighed on the index, while Beijing’s clampdown on the speculative property sector triggered a near 30-percent drop in the index this year, until the recent rebound.

Sentiment was dampened on Tuesday after the China Securities Regulatory Commission said it would review an IPO application for ShanXi Securities, but analysts said new issuances were unlikely to halt market gains substantially.

“After Agricultural Bank’s huge listing, other listings are not likely to unsettle the market much. Today’s fall is because there is a need for some technical adjustment, this is normal,” said Wen Lijun, analyst at Nanjing Securities.

Wen said in the near term the index could extend its recent rally to 2,800 points on optimism that economic policies will remain stable for the rest of the year to bolster growth.

Volume slipped to 85 billion yuan ($12.54 billion) from Monday’s 88 billion yuan. Turnover had picked up significantly in the previous week, with analysts citing the potential for further rises.

Losing Shanghai shares outnumbered gainers 574 to 306. (Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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Consumer Reports magazine said on Wednesday that Apple iPhone 4 owners can eliminate reception problems by enclosing their phones in the “Bumper” case Apple sells.

July 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

July 15 (Reuters) – One of China’s leading newspapers slammed Zijin Mining Group on Thursday for its poor handling of a poisonous leak at a copper mine, as the company said it would cooperate with regulators in an investigation.

Zijin (2899.HK) (601899.SS) suspended trading of its shares on Monday after news broke about the spill of wastewater containing acidic copper from its Zijinshan Copper Mine, into the Ting river in the southeastern province of Fujian.

But the contamination began much earlier, on the afternoon of July 3, and the public was initially kept in the dark about the spill, which went on for nearly 24 hours.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said the company explained that it did not report the accident earlier as “they thought it was just as small matter”.

“How can a company like Zijin Mining, which is an industry with a high risk of pollution, not take a ‘small problem’ seriously?” the newspaper said in a commentary.

“In industries with a high risk of pollution, small problems are the hidden dangers that lead to large accidents, and you can’t ever just count on your luck,” it added.

The company said it it would fully cooperate in a probe into the spill after receiving a notice from the Fujian Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission regarding the incident. It gave no other details.

Thousands of fish — a total 1.89 million kg — were killed by the 9,100 cubic metres of waste water that escaped from a mine containment tank, according to state media reports. [ID:nTOE66D075]

Though water from the river has been declared safe to drink, the 60,000 people affected by the spill are still wary, because the river is a chemical blue colour and smells unpleasant.

Villagers are now drawing their water from wells, but worry even those may be polluted. The firm has halted production and said it would compensate fish farmers for their losses.

The Chinese government has become increasingly worried about public anger at environmental problems, especially pollution.

“Mass incidents” — or riots and protests — sparked by environmental problems have been rising at a rate of 30 percent per year, according to China’s environmental protection minister.

Earlier this week more than 1,000 people threw rocks at police and blocked roads in southern China in protest at pollution from a plant owned by one of the country’s largest private aluminium producers. [ID:nTOE66E022]. (Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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China newspaper slams mining firm after spill

July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – One of China’s leading newspapers slammed a major mining firm Thursday for its poor handling of a poisonous leak at a copper mine, as the company said it would cooperate with regulators in an investigation.

Zijin Mining Group suspended trading of its shares on Monday after news broke about the spill of wastewater containing acidic copper from its Zijinshan Copper Mine, into the Ting river in the southeastern province of Fujian.

But the contamination began much earlier, on the afternoon of July 3, and the public was initially kept in the dark about the spill, which went on for nearly 24 hours.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said the company explained that it did not report the accident earlier as “they thought it was just as small matter.”

“How can a company like Zijin Mining, which is an industry with a high risk of pollution, not take a ‘small problem’ seriously?” the newspaper said in a commentary.

“In industries with a high risk of pollution, small problems are the hidden dangers that lead to large accidents, and you can’t ever just count on your luck,” it added.

The company said it would fully cooperate in a probe into the spill after receiving a notice from the Fujian Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission regarding the incident. It gave no other details.

Thousands of fish — a total 1.9 million kg (4.2 million lb) — were killed by the 9,100 cubic meters (321,400 cu ft) of waste water that escaped from a mine containment tank, according to state media reports.

Though water from the river has been declared safe to drink, the 60,000 people affected by the spill are still wary, because the river is a chemical blue color and smells unpleasant.

Villagers are now drawing their water from wells, but worry even those may be polluted. The firm has halted production and said it would compensate fish farmers for their losses.

China has been battling to control the damage to its environment caused by more than three decades of breakneck economic growth, from acid rain to desertification.

The China Daily Thursday cited a survey in the booming southern province of Guangdong as saying 40 percent of its soil was contaminated by heavy metals, partly caused by the more than 3,000 mines operating there.

The government has also become increasingly worried about public anger at environmental problems, especially pollution.

“Mass incidents” — or riots and protests — sparked by environmental problems have been rising at a rate of 30 percent per year, according to China’s environmental protection minister.

Earlier this week more than 1,000 people threw rocks at police and blocked roads in southern China in protest at pollution from a plant owned by one of the country’s largest private aluminum producers.

(Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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China newspaper slams mining firm after spill

July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

BEIJING/HONG KONG, July 15 (Reuters) – One of China’s leading newspapers slammed a major mining firm on Thursday for its poor handling of a poisonous leak at a copper mine, as the company said it would cooperate with regulators in an investigation.

Zijin Mining Group (2899.HK) (601899.SS) suspended trading of its shares on Monday after news broke about the spill of wastewater containing acidic copper from its Zijinshan Copper Mine, into the Ting river in the southeastern province of Fujian.

But the contamination began much earlier, on the afternoon of July 3, and the public was initially kept in the dark about the spill, which went on for nearly 24 hours.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said the company explained that it did not report the accident earlier as “they thought it was just as small matter”.

“How can a company like Zijin Mining, which is an industry with a high risk of pollution, not take a ‘small problem’ seriously?” the newspaper said in a commentary.

“In industries with a high risk of pollution, small problems are the hidden dangers that lead to large accidents, and you can’t ever just count on your luck,” it added.

The company said it it would fully cooperate in a probe into the spill after receiving a notice from the Fujian Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission regarding the incident. It gave no other details.

Thousands of fish — a total 1.9 million kg (4.2 million lb) — were killed by the 9,100 cubic metres (321,400 cu ft) of waste water that escaped from a mine containment tank, according to state media reports. [ID:nTOE66D075]

Though water from the river has been declared safe to drink, the 60,000 people affected by the spill are still wary, because the river is a chemical blue colour and smells unpleasant.

Villagers are now drawing their water from wells, but worry even those may be polluted. The firm has halted production and said it would compensate fish farmers for their losses.

China has been battling to control the damage to its environment caused by more than three decades of breakneck economic growth, from acid rain to desertification.

The China Daily on Thursday cited a survey in the booming southern province of Guangdong as saying 40 percent of its soil was contaminated by heavy metals, partly caused by the more than 3,000 mines operating there.

The government has also become increasingly worried about public anger at environmental problems, especially pollution.

“Mass incidents” — or riots and protests — sparked by environmental problems have been rising at a rate of 30 percent per year, according to China’s environmental protection minister.

Earlier this week more than 1,000 people threw rocks at police and blocked roads in southern China in protest at pollution from a plant owned by one of the country’s largest private aluminium producers. [ID:nTOE66E022] (Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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UPDATE 1-China newspaper slams mining firm after spillUPDATE 1-China newspaper slams mining firm after spill

July 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

July 15 (Reuters) – One of China’s leading newspapers slammed Zijin Mining Group on Thursday for its poor handling of a poisonous leak at a copper mine, as the company said it would cooperate with regulators in an investigation.

Zijin (2899.HK) (601899.SS) suspended trading of its shares on Monday after news broke about the spill of wastewater containing acidic copper from its Zijinshan Copper Mine, into the Ting river in the southeastern province of Fujian.

But the contamination began much earlier, on the afternoon of July 3, and the public was initially kept in the dark about the spill, which went on for nearly 24 hours.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said the company explained that it did not report the accident earlier as “they thought it was just as small matter”.

“How can a company like Zijin Mining, which is an industry with a high risk of pollution, not take a ‘small problem’ seriously?” the newspaper said in a commentary.

“In industries with a high risk of pollution, small problems are the hidden dangers that lead to large accidents, and you can’t ever just count on your luck,” it added.

The company said it it would fully cooperate in a probe into the spill after receiving a notice from the Fujian Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission regarding the incident. It gave no other details.

Thousands of fish — a total 1.89 million kg — were killed by the 9,100 cubic metres of waste water that escaped from a mine containment tank, according to state media reports. [ID:nTOE66D075]

Though water from the river has been declared safe to drink, the 60,000 people affected by the spill are still wary, because the river is a chemical blue colour and smells unpleasant.

Villagers are now drawing their water from wells, but worry even those may be polluted. The firm has halted production and said it would compensate fish farmers for their losses.

The Chinese government has become increasingly worried about public anger at environmental problems, especially pollution.

“Mass incidents” — or riots and protests — sparked by environmental problems have been rising at a rate of 30 percent per year, according to China’s environmental protection minister.

Earlier this week more than 1,000 people threw rocks at police and blocked roads in southern China in protest at pollution from a plant owned by one of the country’s largest private aluminium producers. [ID:nTOE66E022]. (Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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UPDATE 1-China “mini-QFII” could launch this year -media

July 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

SHANGHAI, July 1 (Reuters) — China may let Hong Kong subsidiaries of domestic brokerages and fund managers facilitate investments of offshore yuan deposits back into mainland capital markets in a pilot scheme as soon as this year, local media said on Thursday.

Under the scheme, dubbed “mini-QFII”, institutions will be allowed to channel yuan held offshore into investments in China within certain quotas, the 21st Century Business Herald reported.

Currently, foreign investors can only invest in local-currency stocks and bonds in China under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme, after converting foreign currencies into yuan.

Hong Kong-based banking sources told the newspaper that they expected the scheme to be implemented either by the end of this year or early 2011.

The mini-QFII scheme, when implemented, “will bring down the threshold for fund companies to participate in the QFII market,” said Xav Feng, head of research for China and Taiwan at fund-rating agency Lipper.

“You will see more new products on the market, which is a positive development for China’s fund industry,” said Feng.

Yao Gang, the vice chairman of China’s securities regulator, said last weekend that the government was studying how to promote the “mini-QFII” scheme, but did not give a timetable.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) was studying the possibility of allowing Chinese brokerages to launch yuan-denominated mutual funds in Hong Kong to invest in China’s A-share market, Yao said.

The scheme is part of China’s plans to promote international use of the yuan, in order to reduce the country’s reliance on the U.S. dollar in cross-border transactions.

Those efforts include a separate programme for allowing some foreign trade transactions to be conducted in yuan.

One of the constraints to the development of that programme has been that businesses being paid in yuan have few places to park their money other than bank deposits, meaning that creating more opportunities to invest yuan could help in the development of those efforts as well.

The “mini-QFII” plan is likely to be limited to around 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) initially, fund consultancy Z-Ben Advisors said in a research report on Wednesday.

The full-fledged QFII programme, by comparison, enables institutional investors including UBS (UBS.N)(UBSN.VX) to invest a total of roughly $30 billion in China’s capital markets.

But channelling offshore yuan deposits back to the mainland via the mini-QFII scheme may not necessarily boost valuations of Shanghai- or Shenzhen-listed A-shares, many of which currently trade at a discount to their Hong Kong-listed H-share counterparts, said Lipper’s Feng.

“What the A-share market lacks is not money but confidence,” he said.

The domestic market’s lacklustre performance will likely continue until a clearer picture of the economic outlook emerges, especially regarding interest rates, he said.

China’s stock market remains one of the world’s worst performers this year, down around 27 percent over worries about the economy and government tightening. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC fell 23 percent in the second quarter. (Reporting by Soo Ai Peng, Farah Master and Samuel Shen; Editing by Jason Subler and Jonathan Hopfner)

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