IN BRIEF (Page 19)

Companies

For TV set makers, it's a whole new game

Chinese television maker TCL Corp will put on the market its first video game console similar to Microsoft Corp's Xbox this year, a company executive said amid high expectations for the long closed sector.

"Entertainment will be the biggest focus for us this year," said Hao Yi, president of TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Ltd, a major subsidiary of TCL.

Increasing demand for video games from Chinese youngsters will drive the sales of the company's new gadgets, Hao said.

Although the Guangdong-based maker did not say when the terminals would go on sale or give sales forecast, its stocks surged in Hong Kong.

Policy

Ministry signs deal oninternal controls rules

The Ministry of Finance has signed an agreement with the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission to translate its new internal control framework into Chinese, and it may encourage more Chinese companies to adopt it, Robert Hirth, the committee's chairman, said on January 27. In May the committee published revisions and updates to its 1992 Internal Control-Integrated Framework document, with the aim of increasing its relevance in an increasingly complex and global business world so organizations can better design, implement and assess internal control.

Finance

Rises in fiscal revenueand spending top 10%

China's fiscal revenue rose 10.1 percent to 12.91 trillion yuan ($2.13 trillion) last year, and fiscal spending rose 10.9 percent to 13.97 trillion yuan, the Ministry of Finance said. Receipts from domestic value-added tax grew 9 percent to 2.88 trillion yuan, and domestic consumption tax receipts rose 4.5 percent to 823 billion yuan, the ministry said.

Yuan quotas risefor institutions

China's quotas for licensed foreign institutional investors rose to $51.4 billion on Jan 27 from $49.7 billion at the end of December, the State Administration for Foreign Exchange said. Quotas in China's renminbi currency for foreign institutional investors stood at 167.8 billion yuan, it said.INVESTMENT

Foreign investmentin iron ore urged

Chinese steelmakers that have lost money because of volatile global iron ore prices should invest more in foreign mineral resources to gain greater pricing power, the National Development and Reform Commission says.

The agency said on its website that the country's dependence on iron ore imports will not change in the long term, because there will demand for iron ore in China, the world's biggest buyer of the commodity, will continue to rise.

Auto

Geely-Volvo has newcar on drawing board

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, parent company of Volvo Car Corp and Geely Automobile Holding Ltd, is developing a new model at its new research and development center in Sweden.

The smaller car, developed jointly by engineers from Geely and Volvo, is designed to give the Swedish luxury brand, which Geely bought in 2010, a foothold in the entry-level car-buying segment, the Wall Street Journal said.

Although the new model is only at the initial development phase, which is due to last several years, the company said it is certain to meet Western markets' safety and quality standards.

China Daily Agencies

(China Daily European Weekly 01/31/2014 page19)