IN BRIEF (Page 24)

Bid for Qualcomm may face scrutiny

Chipmaker Broadcom Ltd's $105 billion (90.5 billion euros; ￡79.9 billion) proposal to buy its United States rival Qualcomm Inc is likely to face intense regulatory scrutiny in China, given the deal's huge size and potential impact on Qualcomm's joint ventures in the country, analysts said on Nov 6. Wang Junlin, an antitrust lawyer at Beijing-based Yingke Law Firm, says the alliance, which could create a more than $200 billion behemoth in the semiconductor sector, will be closely watched by regulators around the world. Broadcom said on Nov 6 that it plans to pay $70 a share to acquire Qualcomm in what would be the largest-ever takeover in the technology sector. The offer represents a 28 percent premium over Qualcomm's closing price on Nov 2.

Crackdown continues on waste imports

China has expanded its crackdown on the import of waste materials, arresting 39 suspects and seizing 33,000 metric tons of plastic and mineral waste during the latest round, the Customs department said on Nov 7. Earlier this year, China launched the campaign against harmful "foreign garbage" as part of Beijing's efforts to improve environmental conditions. The Customs department said that after three rounds of "concentrated crackdown" on the illegal import of waste, it has arrested 259 suspects for importing 303,000 tons of unlawful waste materials.

Alibaba drones fly over water

E-commerce giant Alibaba announced on Nov 7 that it has used drones to deliver packages over water for the first time. Three drones carrying a total six of boxes of passion fruit with a combined weight of around 12 kilograms flew from Putian in East China's Fujian province to nearby Meizhou Island on Oct 31. Flying into a strong wind, the drones took nine minutes to make the five-kilometer crossing. Each drone can carry up to seven kilograms. The drones were jointly developed by Alibaba's delivery arm Cainiao Network, the company's rural shopping platform Rural Taobao and a domestic technology firm.

Haier raises funds from bond issue

Qingdao Haier Co raised HK$8 billion ($1.03 billion; 890 million euros; ￡780 million) in an exchangeable bond offering. The Chinese mainland's white-goods maker sold five-year, zero-coupon bonds convertible into stock of its Hong Kong-listed unit, Haier Electronics Group Co. Qingdao Haier plans to use the proceeds for debt repayment and other general corporate purposes. It set an exchange premium of 50 percent and priced the offering to yield 1 percent annually to maturity. Qingdao Haier joins several other Chinese companies that are raising funds by monetizing their stock-market holdings. In July, an arm of Shanghai International Port (Group) Co sold about $1 billion of US dollar notes convertible into Postal Savings Bank of China Co shares.

PBOC fund infusion helps maintain liquidity

China's central bank injected 561.35 billion yuan ($84.6 billion; 72.93 billion euros; ￡64.34 billion) into the market via various tools in October to maintain liquidity. The People's Bank of China said 498 billion yuan was added via the medium-term lending facility to keep interbank liquidity stable. The funds will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.2 percent. The injection brings total outstanding MLF loans to 4.4 trillion yuan at the end of October. The MLF tool was introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral. The central bank increasingly relies on open market operations for liquidity, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios. In October, the PBOC also granted 24.95 billion yuan to financial institutions through the standing lending facility to meet provisional liquidity demand. Last month, the central bank injected 38.4 billion yuan of funds through pledged supplementary lending to the China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank of China and Export-Import Bank of China. The PBOC's open market operations are closely watched by the market, since they have become major tools for the central bank in pursuing its monetary policy. China set the tone of its 2017 monetary policy as prudent and neutral, keeping appropriate liquidity levels but avoiding excessive liquidity injections.

Nation to host internet conference in Wuzhen

China will hold the fourth World Internet Conference next month in the river town of Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang province, said a statement released on the WIC website on Nov 5. The conference, scheduled to run from Dec 3 to 5, has invited leading figures from governments, international organizations, companies, technology communities and nongovernmental organizations to discuss internet-related topics including digital economy, cutting-edge technology and cyberspace governance, according to the statement. This year's WIC will continue to present the latest internet technologies to the world, said the statement. The conference will be jointly sponsored by the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Zhejiang provincial government. It will push for the building of a community of shared future in cyberspace, advocate respect for differences and a forging of consensus, focusing on development and innovation, so that a prosperous internet will produce greater welfare for humanity, the statement said.

Partnership suggests green finance ideas

A partnership between government-backed green finance initiatives in Britain and China has made a number of recommendations in a report that will help grow green finance across the globe, according to a Nov 8 news release from the City of London. The report, titled "Turning Green Momentum Into Actions", is the latest contribution from the UK-China Green Finance Taskforce, which was set up by the Green Finance Initiative of the City of London and its Chinese counterpart, the Green Finance Committee of the China Society for Finance and Banking. Green finance includes private sector investments in technologies, infrastructure and innovative startups that can create jobs and allow businesses to expand, boosting economic growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Exports of Slovenian wines to China surging

Exports of Slovenian wines are on a steady increase, with the figure standing at almost 14 million liters last year, the Slovenian Press Agency reported on Nov 3, as the country's annual wine festival started. Most of Slovenia's wines were exported to its traditional destinations like Italy, the United States, Austria, Croatia and the Netherlands. However, exports of Slovenian wines to China in particular have been surging lately, the STA report said, with sales more than doubling since 2009 from 91,000 euros ($105,675; ￡80,420) in 2009 to more than 1 million euros in the first seven months of this year alone.

Chinese scholarships awarded to Ugandans

Chinese enterprises in Uganda on Nov 4 awarded full scholarships to three financially disadvantaged students to pursue their secondary education. Zheng Biao, representative of the China Enterprises Chamber of Commerce in Uganda, says the four scholarships by Mirembe Villas-Guoji Group (U) Limited, a housing enterprise, are part of the Chinese enterprises' dedication to fulfilling social responsibility by funding financially disadvantaged but academically excelling students. This sponsorship brings to 155 the number of Chinese enterprises' scholarships at Luyanzi College in central Uganda in less than five years.

(China Daily European Weekly 11/10/2017 page24)