Quick look

Currency reform

The State Council, China's Cabinet, said last week the yuan will be allowed to be used for settlements between the Pearl and Yangtze river delta regions and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao.

The yuan will be used in transactions with neighboring trade partners as part of a pilot project - in what could be the first step on the road to making it an international currency.

Stagnant oil imports

China's crude oil imports are expected to register a stagnant year-on-year growth of 1.2 percent in 2008, surprising some market observes who thought the government would take advantage of low world oil prices to increase reserves. China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil company, published the estimate on its website, saying China will import 189 million tons of crude oil in 2008, up 1.2 percent from 2007.

China's oil demand is still on the downward cycle, and the first two quarters of 2009 are the hardest time, said Guo Haitao, assistant director of Research Center for Energy Strategy.

Blocking hackers

Hackers who steal data or manipulate a huge number of computers face jail terms of up to seven years under a proposed amendment to the Criminal Law. Those who offer intruders software or tools face similar penalties, according to the draft of the 7th amendment to the law submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the top legislature, for its second reading last week.

If passed, these will be the first legal tools to fight increasing data theft from civil-use computers in China, which has the world's biggest online population of 290 million.

Polluted US soybean

The country's quality watchdog has issued a 90-day import alert on soybeans from the United States after the products were repeatedly found contaminated with pesticides. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said last week that border quarantine officials in Zhejiang province had recently seized a batch of 5.7 tons of soybeans from the US, and found some of them coated with three pesticides.

"We've found such contamination of US soybeans, which shows loopholes in its quality control system on exported soybeans," the AQSIQ said. "We've ordered local quarantine officials to tighten checks on US soybeans."

REITs considered

The State Counil, China's cabinet, said last week the central government will launch real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the mainland in a document issued on December 21.

The REITs are designed to boost the sluggish domestic property market in face of the global economic tsunami. Signs are mounting that the central government is determined to launch the long-awaited REITs in a bid to spur the country's sagging housing market. However, it might take a long time for the government to introduce the REITs, which provide an alternative for developers to raise money in the market. The document did not specify a timetable for the introduction.

(China Daily 12/29/2008 page2)