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Aviation

Airbus to use Tianjinas delivery hub

Airbus SAS of France plans to make more direct aircraft deliveries to Asian carriers from Tianjin, a company official says.

The company said it aims to make the northern port city its Asian hub and indicated that the final assembly line in Tianjin would start its second phase of operations from 2016. This "opens the possibility of delivering directly to customers outside China", said Rafael Gonzalez-Ripoll, Airbus China's chief operating officer.

The factory in Tianjin, Airbus' only final assembly line outside Europe, has delivered 172 aircraft to 13 carriers. It has only marginally delivered outside China through leasing companies. Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia is the only foreign airline operating a leased A320 assembled in Tianjin.

Companies

Wind turbine makerlooks to cut costs

Vestas Wind Systems AS of Denmark must cut the cost of its turbines so the world's biggest maker of the devices is more relevant in China, the industry's largest market, said Anders Runevad, the company's chief executive officer. Vestas plans to include more local content in machines sold in China, he said. It will also remove some features used in European markets.

Automotive

Tesla buyers totake delivery

Tesla Motors Inc, the electric vehicle producer, will deliver previously ordered cars to customers in Hangzhou and Shenzhen in the next two months. The company is also setting up service centers in the two cities, spokeswoman Peggy Yang said. Tesla's Model S will be priced from 734,000 yuan ($118,000; 87,000 euros) in China.

Finance

Net foreign currencypurchases fall

Net foreign currency purchases by Chinese lenders hit a nine-month low last month, on lower foreign exchange inflows and wider yuan fluctuations.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said on June 16 that the lenders' foreign currency purchases were just $38.7 billion (28.5 billion euros) last month, down 67 percent from the $116.9 billion in April and 83 percent from the $198.3 billion in March.

The decline in inflows comes after the yuan broke a decade-long trend of steady appreciation against the dollar earlier this year.

The Chinese currency has lost about 3.4 percent against the dollar this year, after gaining more than 30 percent since 2004 with few setbacks.

China surpasses USin bond issues

The Chinese corporate bond market has overtaken that of the US as the world's biggest and is set to soak up one-third of global company debt needs over the next five years, the ratings agency Standard & Poor's says. Chinese corporate borrowers owed $14.2 trillion (10.4 trillion euros) at the end of last year, S&P said. US corporations owed $13.1 trillion, it said.

Legend gets teethinto dental sector

Legend Holdings Ltd, the major shareholder in the world's biggest personal computer maker, Lenovo Group Ltd, said it will enter China's healthcare market as it signed an agreement with iByer Dental Group on June 16.

Legend, focusing on IT, investment and real estate, will initially invest about 1 billion yuan ($161 million; 118 million euros) in Beijing-based iByer.

China Daily-Agencies

(China Daily European Weekly 06/20/2014 page18)