IN BRIEF

Finance

Postal Savings Bank prepared to go public

The Postal Savings Bank of China Co Ltd, which services small-business owners, said it has finished a joint-stock restructuring, paving the way for selling shares to the public.

The bank, which has the reputation of being the "Chinese Wells Fargo", is a subsidiary of the State-owned China Post Group Corp, the country's biggest postal company. The Postal Savings Bank of China, once restructured, will take over all of its former self's assets, liabilities and personnel and will not trouble depositors by requiring them to follow new procedures, the bank said in a statement posted on its official website. The new entity has 45 billion yuan ($7.1 billion, 5.3 billion euros) in registered capital.

Machinery

Sany, Austrian company in joint venture

The construction equipment maker Sany Heavy Industry Co Ltd and the Austrian truck-mounted crane maker Palfinger AG have agreed to invest 900 million yuan in a venture to make and sell mobile cranes.

The venture, Sany Palfinger SPV Equipment Co, will be based in Changsha, Hunan province, Sany said in a Shanghai Stock Exchange filing on Feb 28. The two companies will also invest as much as 4 million euros to set up a sales unit in Salzburg, where Palfinger is based.

The China venture starts this year and will be fully operational by next year, Palfinger said in a separate statement. The sales unit in Salzburg will open immediately and will be fully operational by the end of the year, it said.

Telecom

ZTE to expand mobile phone business

ZTE Corp, China's second-largest telecom equipment maker, aims to expand sales in its mobile phone business to 100 billion yuan by 2015, accounting for more than 50 percent of the company's total annual revenue, said He Shiyou, executive vice-president of the company.

He said the next two to three years would be critical for ZTE to catch up with other leading mobile phone makers such as Apple and Samsung. ZTE aims to sell at least 30 million smartphones this year, compared with 12 million last year.

China Mobile adds cities to 4G test

China Mobile Communications Corp, the parent of the largest telecom carrier in the world measured by subscribers, said it will add three Chinese cities to the locations where it will test its fourth-generation telecommunication technology this year, says the company's president, Li Yue.

Beijing, Tianjin and Qingdao will be included in a large-scale trial starting this year of 4G time division long-term evolution technology, which will be capable of transferring greater amounts of data than can be moved over third-generation networks, Li said. The addition brings to nine the number of cities that will take part in the test. China Mobile began to try out 4G TD-LTE in six large Chinese cities in January last year and plans to officially start a second phase of the trial this year.

Auto

Beijing-Benz plans 5-fold surge in output

The Sino-German joint venture Beijing-Benz Automotive Co Ltd plans a five-fold increase in production capacity with more new models to meet growing demand in China's luxury car market.

The tie-up between Daimler AG and Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp is aimed at raising production capacity to as high as 420,000 units by 2015 from 80,000 last year, said Fu Qian, the joint venture's executive vice-president for sales and marketing.

Fu said the company would introduce one new Mercedes-Benz model every year until 2015.

Ford plays catch-up in China with new plant

Ford Motor is on track to double the number of dealerships in China by 2015, its country chief said on Feb 24, as it launches a half-billion-dollar plant and tries to narrow the gap with foreign rivals in the world's largest auto market.

Ford, which unveiled the new Focus at the opening of a plant in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, is adding an average of two outlets a week to bring the total to 680 by 2015, said David Schoch, chairman and CEO of Ford's China operations.

Govt fleet to exclude foreign car brands

China's government plans to stop buying cars from Volkswagen AG's Audi and other foreign brands, threatening to lock them out of an estimated $13 billion segment of the world's biggest vehicle market.

All 412 models approved for purchase by State agencies this year will be limited to Chinese brands, according to a proposal disclosed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last week. The preliminary list is open for public consultation until March 9, the ministry said.

Food

Packager to increase production capacity

The international food processor and packager Tetra Pak announced that the second phase of its production base in Inner Mongolia autonomous region has begun operations.

With investment of 500 million yuan, the plant can produce 10 billion boxes a year, increasing the annual production capacity of Tetra Pak's Inner Mongolia manufacturing base by 20 billion boxes. At present the Sweden-based company can produce 60 billion boxes in China every year.

The production capacity increase ties in with the ever-increasing demand in China for high-quality milk, water and other beverages, which has created job opportunities for local people, the company said.

China Daily-Agencies