IN BRIEF (Page 5)

New brand campaign

AXA-Minmetals Assurance Co Ltd, a life insurance joint venture based on AXA, a leading insurer in Europe, and China Minmetals Corp, launched a new branding campaign, "redefining standard," in celebration of its 10th anniversary last week. The campaign highlights the company's professional and differentiated services. The firm also promised its customers 100 percent premium refunds in case of unemployment within the first policy year amidst the global economic recession. AXA-Minmetals is aiming to become one of the top life insurance companies in China by 2012.

CITIC builds villa

CITIC Real Estate, the property development arm of CITIC Group, has started a luxury villa project at Foshan, Guangdong province.

The project, named CITIC Lake, is about 20 kilometers away from the Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou. The whole project covers 466 hectares and has cost investors (CITIC Real Estate and Hong Kong-listed Kowloon Development) 20 billion yuan. The unit price for the villa is expected to be around 20,000 yuan per sq m.

Bank in Hulunbuir

Baoshang Bank recently launched a village bank in Hulunbuir, the northern-most prefecture in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The new outlet, in which Baoshang Bank took a 60 percent stake for 3 million yuan, is also the only village bank in Hulunbuir city.

The 11-year old Baoshang Bank has 83 outlets so far.

(China Daily 04/20/2009 page5)