IN BRIEF (Page 13)

Commodity index launched

PKU-Guanghua Fubon Center for Finance on Monday launched a China commodity index, the PGF-CCI, the first one of its kind in the country to reflect the price fluctuation in the Chinese commodity market.

Industrial metal takes the largest weighting in the index, accounting for 56.2 percent, followed by agricultural products (25.1 percent) and energy products (14.8 percent). The weighting of each category will be fine-tuned annually.

Rail ministry posts profit

China's railway ministry made a small after-tax profit of 15 million yuan ($2.3 million) in 2010, down sharply from 2.7 billion yuan in 2009, it said in a long-delayed audited financial statement.

The ministry, a major bond issuer in China, said its total liabilities at the end of 2010 were 1.9 trillion yuan, up 45 percent from 2009, according to the statement on a local debt market website.

Shipbuilder gets $1b order

Shanghai's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding has signed orders to build four liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) carriers worth about $1 billion from joint ventures of Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), its first major LNG export orders, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Ship brokers said the vessels, which can carry 172,000 cubic meters of LNG each, were expected to cost about $200 to $250 million apiece, the South China Morning Post reported.

Soybean imports to fall

China's soybean imports in 2011 are expected to decline 6.9 percent from a year earlier to about 51 million tons as a result of government sales of local soybeans, the China National Grain and Oils Information Center said on Monday. It would be the first decline in soybean imports since 2004, the government think tank said in its report.

Sluggish feed-meal demand from the hog breeding sector since the start of this year has also helped to curb the demand for soybean imports, with shipments being cancelled or delayed, it said.

PICC to sell shares

State-owned People's Insurance Co of China Group (PICC), one of the country's largest insurers, plans to sell $5 billion to $6 billion of shares in an offering in Hong Kong and Shanghai, IFR reported on Monday, citing two sources with knowledge of the plans.

China International Capital Corp (CICC), HSBC and Credit Suisse were hired to handle the deal, said IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication.

Energy summit planned

The 2011 China Energy and Environment Summit (CEES) will begin on Aug 28 in Beijing. The subject of the two-day summit will include strategy and planning of new-energy development and high-end clean energy development and application.

China Daily - Agencies

(China Daily 07/19/2011 page13)