IN BRIEF (Page 14)

Energy

No joint bid for British nuclear project

China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co Ltd and the French nuclear giant Areva SA have dropped out of the bidding for Britain's Horizon nuclear project, British media reported.

The Franco-Chinese consortium did not make a final offer for the Horizon joint venture by the Sept 28 deadline, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Daily Telegraph and Reuters both reported the development.

A representative of Areva confirmed the reports, telling China Daily: "Areva and CGNPC have suspended their interest in the planned sale of Horizon Nuclear Power and did not submit a bid. Areva remains committed to the development of new nuclear capacity in the UK."

Terra Firma plans $5b energy fund

Terra Firma, the private equity group led by the dealmaker Guy Hands, is planning a fund of up to $5 billion (3.89 billion euros) with China Development Bank for investments in renewable energy, a person familiar with the situation said.

The partners are expected to start raising between $3 billion to $5 billion in the next few months, with the Chinese bank to put an as-yet-undefined amount into the fund, the person said.

Investment

Chinese investment 'creates 10,000 US jobs'

Increasing Chinese investment in the United States has created more than 10,000 jobs for Americans, according to a study report published by the Asia Society.

The report, "An American Open Door? Maximizing the Benefits of Chinese Direct Investment", says Chinese direct investment in the US is more than doubling annually, and was more than $5 billion (3.89 billion euros) in 2010.

The report is the result of a study undertaken by the society and the Kissinger Institute on China and the US in May last year.

US allowed to observe audits

China and the United States have reached an agreement that will allow US authorities to observe official Chinese audits, Securities Times has reported.

The agreement is meant to help US authorities understand Chinese audit procedures and methods, which is an important part of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Observers will not have access to detailed results of specific audits, Securities Times said.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the US announced in May that it was close to an agreement with China to observe audits. Reuters said US companies had lost billions of dollars on US-listed mainland companies since 2010 because of questionable financial reports.

Italian firm announces new testing division

The Italian group Angelantoni Industrie SpA has announced it has set up a new division, Angelantoni Test Technologies, aimed at speeding up the company's development in China through increased cooperation with local companies and institutions.

The testing division already has facilities in five countries, including China, with more than 450 employees and 80 research and development engineers engaged in the aerospace, defense, automotive, and electronics industries.

Angelantoni has been in China for more than 30 years and has ties with the China Academy of Space Technology and large enterprises, such as China Electronics Technology Group Corp.

Auto

Biggest customer for VW luxury cars

China has increasingly replaced the US as the biggest market for luxury vehicles related to Germany's Volkswagen Group, a market analyst says.

Sales of vehicles in China of Bentley Motors Ltd and Porsche SE are expected to surpass those in the US this year, said Jimmy Jin, head of Market Intelligence China and ASEAN, at the Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Bentley is a VW subsidiary, and Porsche owns a controlling stake in VW.

Last year, sales in China of vehicles from the VW Group subsidiary Lamborghini SpA overtook those in the US.

China auto sales rise 1.7%, says GM

General Motors Co's auto sales in China rose only 1.7 percent last month, barely benefiting from its Japanese rivals' plunging sales, in contrast to European and South Korean carmakers.

Deliveries of GM's Wuling micro vans, a brand that accounts for nearly half of GM's China sales, came to 119,510, up 0.4 percent from a year earlier as a weak Chinese economy hurt small-business owners, the Wuling's key buyers.

Sales at GM's car venture with SAIC Motor Corp rose 3.7 percent, compared with a 17.4 increase in September last year.

Technology

Lenovo adds PC production in US

Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's No 2 maker of PCs, said it will begin making computers in North Carolina next year, its first US production line and one that could add 115 jobs in the state.

Workers at the factory in Whitsett, an hour's drive from Lenovo's main US offices outside the Raleigh-Durham technology hub, will assemble Think-branded notebooks and desktop PCs, tablets, engineering workstations and servers for business, government and education customers in the US.

Yang Yuanqing, the chairman and CEO, said Lenovo determined that the "long-term strength" and growth potential of the PC market in the US outweighed the relatively high labor cost of domestic manufacturing.

Wealth

Per capita GDP likely to double by 2020

China will gain itself a position among upper-middle income economies by World Bank standards by 2020, an economist says.

China's per capita GDP is likely to exceed $10,000 (7,785 euros) by 2020 compared with $5,530 last year, Cai Zhizhou, an economics professor at Peking University, was quoted as saying in a report in the 21st Century Business Herald.

At that time, China will fall into the income range of upper-middle income economies set by the World Bank, he said.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily 10/12/2012 page14)