Yuan bond issue

Export-Import Bank of China, one of the mainland's three policy lenders, has applied to regulators to issue its second batch of yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong, its governor said yesterday.

The bank issued a 2-billion-yuan bond in Hong Kong last August, China's second offshore yuan bond offering after regulators opened up the market there last year.

Bank of China and China Development Bank have also issued such bonds in Hong Kong.

However, there are no details on the timing or size of the planned issue.

'Find harbor in large-caps'

Investors are best off looking at big-cap stocks rather than beaten-down small ones, especially given that there are no signs of any let up in the tight credit conditions yet, said a top Baring Asset Management executive.

Chief Investment Officer Marino Valensise said if the lending situation doesn't improve in the next few months, some smaller and highly leveraged companies will find it hard to survive, not because their businesses don't work, but because they won't be able to roll over their funding.

"If banks do not resume acting like banks in the next three to four months, you'll have a second-order effect, which is that good businesses will not be able to fund themselves, especially the smaller caps and medium caps," he told Reuters in an interview.

300,000 tons of ethanol

China Agri-Industries Holdings Ltd will build a second phase at its ethanol plant in Guangxi with a capacity of 300,000 tons, a senior executive said yesterday.

The second phase will cost the firm 1.2 billion to 1.3 billion yuan, Yue Guojun, its vice general manager, told Reuters.

The first phase, with a capacity of 200,000 tons, started operations in late 2007.

China Coal sales up 12%

China Coal Energy Corp posted a 12 percent climb in coal sales in January and February from a year earlier to 14.8 million tons.

Coal output at the mainland's second-largest coal producer, after Shenhua Energy, rose 8 percent from a year earlier to 17.6 million tons, it said.

The worst snow and ice storms in decades hit parts of Central and South China in late January and early February, triggering severe coal and power shortages.

Beijing asked coal mines to cancel their lunar new year holiday to boost production, while calling on the transport sector to give priority to coal cargoes.

China Coal said its domestic sales in the two months soared 46 percent from a year earlier, to 12.7 million tons.

Reuters

(HK Edition 03/11/2008 page2)