China's benchmark CSI 300 index has emerged victorious out of the sub-prime shadow cast over the world's money markets, coming out on top of the list of the year's best-performing indices.
The CSI 300, which tracks the daily price performance of the top 300 companies on the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stock exchanges, gained more than 161 per cent in the past 12 months. The Hang Seng China Enterprise Index, which was launched in 1994 as a benchmark for the stock price performance of China-incorporated companies listed in Hong Kong, also had a good year and came in eighth in the list of the 10 best performers, gaining more than 54 per cent in 2007.
A number of markets are now closed until the new year, including Shanghai and Tokyo. Hong Kong and New York are open on Monday, while the UK stock exchange is open for a half-day session.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average, which tracks the top 225 companies listed in the first section of the Tokyo stock exchange, finished the year as one of the worst-performing indices in the world, losing just over 11 per cent in the past 12 months.
"The market ended as if to symbolise the year's trade – sub-prime," said Hitoshi Yamamoto, the chief executive of Fortis Asset Management Japan. "This looks like a warning by the market that the sub-prime problem will continue into the new year and won't be solved easily."
Cameron Umetsu, the head of economic research at Nomura in London, expects the Nikkei to rebound eventually, as the US economy recovers towards the end of 2008. But he said: "It has been vulnerable because of its exposure to America as there are a number of blue-chip exporters who have suffered. At the same time, the Nikkei has been marked by the conspicuous lack of domestic investor demand, which might have shielded it."
Mr Umetsu added: "A large portion of retail investors in Japan are quite mature and have seen the market in the late Eighties and the early Nineties. As a result, taking a long-term view, the Nikkei has not been seen as the best investment option by them. As for China, even though the market looks bubbly, with the Fed easing, we think it will continue to do well in the short term."
The Nikkei average was joined by the ISEQ Overall Index from the Irish stock exchange, which lost 26.26 per cent, and the IBC Index from the Caracas stock exchange in Venezuela, which took the prize for the year's worst performance, losing more than 27 per cent, at the bottom end of the table.
Estonia's OMX Tallinn index, which lost more than 13 per cent, and the Sri Lankan stock market Colombo all share index, which fell by almost 7 per cent during the past 12 months, also featured in the list of 2007's biggest losers.
David Stanway in Beijing Saturday December 29, 2007 The Guardian
China has abandoned controversial plans to build a huge dam which would have submerged one of the country's most renowned tourist areas and forced the relocation of 100,000 residents in the south-western province of Yunnan.
In a rare and high-profile victory for China's environmental movement, the project at Tiger Leaping Gorge on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river was scrapped during a meeting in the provincial capital, Kunming.
But it is unlikely that hydropower construction will come to a halt in what remains a remote and energy-poor region. Officials have turned their attention to sites further upstream and are proceeding with several other giant dams, partly to meet commitments to supply power to the eastern coast and to neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Burma.
Yu Xiaogang, a campaigner with the local Green Watershed organisation, said profits of national power companies - rather than the economic development of Yunnan - were the driving force behind the carving up of the region's rivers. The government says its hydropower plans for the upper reaches of the Yangtze are designed to counteract some of the worst consequences of industrialisation that have left filth and debris floating in the lower and middle reaches.
The damming of the Jinsha, or upper reaches, they admit, is one way of cutting off the silt that surges down the Yangtze, threatening to incapacitate the politically important Three Gorges Dam project and cripple local shipping routes.
Local officials also believe that dam construction in the region will make it easier to flush out the chemical poison that has accumulated in the Dianchi lake, a major source of water for the province but now the dumping ground for the dozens of power plants, steel smelters and cement factories that have been built in recent years on its western banks.
After years of rampant hydropower construction - likened by one expert to the construction of "backyard" steel smelters during the disastrous Great Leap Forward of the 50s - activists hope that the age of big dams is coming to an end.
In 2005 Premier Wen Jiabao intervened to block an unpopular plan to build 13 dams and hydropower plants on the untouched Nu river, a Unesco-protected site also in Yunnan, saying that the plan was "unscientific".
But despite recent coverage of the potential catastrophes that surround China's biggest and most notorious dam at the Three Gorges, the government has fought back hard on the issue of hydropower.
While admitting that river banks have collapsed, that biodiversity has dwindled and that many displaced communities have failed to thrive, the government has said that the benefits of construction still far outweigh the risks.
It has also pressed on with the launch of the country's second largest hydropower plant, known as the Xiluodu, also on the Jinsha river.
Backstory
After crippling power shortages in 2004 and 2005 China's leaders approved a capacity expansion programme to take full advantage of the country's resources. That primarily meant coal, which provides at least 70% of China's energy needs, but also water - and the damming of previously undeveloped rivers in the south-west. China's capacity has doubled in six years to more than 700 gigawatts, and since 2005 it has risen by 100 gigawatts a year.
Shanghai surpassed Hong Kong as a market for initial stock offerings this year with companies going public raising 417.8 billion yuan (HK$444.1 billion) compared with HK$286.9 billion on local exchanges.
Releasing its survey of initial stock offerings yesterday, Ernst & Young said capital raised in Hong Kong will shrink further to HK$260 billion next year because many large state-owned enterprises have already come to market. Last year companies raised HK$333.9 billion in Hong Kong.
The survey noted that H share companies returning to the domestic market to issue A shares had propelled Shanghai past Hong Kong. The firm said a "significant share of funds raised in the mainland is from H share return and [the] A and H share deals of SOEs." H share companies floating A shares raised 302 billion yuan of an overall tally of 417.8 billion yuan.
In terms of total funds raised, however, Hong Kong's was the world's leading exchange for initial stock offerings, ahead of the main bourses in New York and London. Shanghai Stock Exchange ranked fifth with 115.8 billion yuan raised.
Although the overall amount raised on the Hong Kong bourse fell this year, the number of deals increased to 82 from 56 in 2006, but nearly half the new listings trade below their offer price.
"Some priced their stocks when the Hang Seng Index was above 30,000, but then a market correction took place during their debut. This led to poor performance," said Paul Go, Ernst & Young partner and head of risk advisory services.
Fellow partner Ringo Choi said banking, insurance and property companies will dominate issuance in Hong Kong next year. He said Hong Kong's stature as a leading market for new listings will not be easily challenged by the mainland.
Go said considering that as some leading H share companies have introduced A shares, he expects fewer H share returns next year, although the presence of privately owned enterprises in the A-share market will increase.
中国国际航空股份有限公司(Air China Ltd.)董事长李家祥已经被任命为中国民用航空总局(General Administration of Civil Aviation of China)局长。对此分析师周五表示，这一人事变动为拟议中新加坡航空公司(Singapore Airlines Ltd.)收购中国东方航空股份有限公司(China Eastern Airlines Corp.)股权的交易增添了新的变数。
BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A report on China's blog development has found that the blogger population has reached 47 million, more than half of whom are women.
"One fourth of online surfers are bloggers," said the survey, based on a poll by China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) of 1,862 netizens in late November.
It added that registered blog spaces have exceeded 33 million since the advent of blogs in China five years ago.
The survey also showed that 57 percent of Chinese bloggers are women, in contrast with the 55:45 gender ratio of China's 180 million netizens, reports China Women's News today.
The newspaper reports that blogs, as a new medium to record personal lives, share feelings and socialize, are particularly attractive to women, who have fewer alternatives in the cyber world.
LOS ANGELES - FORMER First Republic Bank shareholders sued Merrill Lynch & Co on Friday accusing the Wall Street investment bank and brokerage of hiding billions of dollars of losses related to sub-prime mortgages while the companies' merger was pending. The complaint, filed in the US Court for the Southern District of New York by investor James Conn, seeks class-action status.
It accuses Merrill and several executives and directors, including former chief executive Stanley O'Neal, of misleading First Republic shareholders about its finances as they considered Merrill's US$1.8 billion (S$2.6 billion) takeover of the company.
'Merrill Lynch effectively hid its sub-prime exposure right up until the close of the merger,' said Mark Molumphy, a lawyer at Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy representing Mr Conn. 'It's a sign of the times and the economy we are now living in.'
Mr Molumphy said former First Republic shareholders lost about US$250 million because Merrill's share price declined in the weeks following the merger on Sept 21.
Merrill revealed an expected US$5.5 billion write-down on Oct 5, and then on Oct 24, boosted the write-down to US$8.4 billion. Mr O'Neal's ouster followed on Oct 30.
Merrill Lynch spokesman Bill Halldin said the company 'made all appropriate disclosures'. Merrill had agreed in January 2006 to buy First Republic, which was based in San Francisco and specialised in serving wealthier customers. First Republic shareholders approved the transaction in July.
According to the complaint, Merrill made materially false statements in a June 22, 2007 proxy statement and prospectus distributed to First Republic shareholders.
It said Edwards also misled investors on a July 17 analyst conference call in saying that 'proactive risk management has put us in an exceptionally good position'.
John Thain, who had led NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, became Merrill's new chief executive on Dec 1. He was not named in the suit.
Shares of Merrill Lynch closed down 23 US cents at US$52.97 on the New York Stock Exchange. -- REUTERS
Indian Farmers May Produce More Than 75 Million Tons of Wheat
By Pratik Parija
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Farmers in India, the world's second-biggest wheat grower, may harvest more of the crop following early planting and ``good weather'' in the main growing areas, lowering overseas purchases.
The country may harvest more than 75 million tons of wheat during the March-April harvest, the most since 2000, compared with 74.89 million tons in the previous year, N.B. Singh, the nation's agriculture commissioner, said in New Delhi today.
``Temperatures in December have been excellent and better than the last two years and that will help the crop,'' Singh said. ``There has been very good crop growth in the key growing areas.''
A bigger crop will ease pressure on the Indian government to import the grain at record prices. The nation has since July bought 1.79 million tons of wheat from traders, including Glencore International AG and Cargill Inc., to build its reserves, helping support this year's 82 percent gain in prices on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Wheat rose above $10 a bushel for the first time on Dec. 17 on concern dry weather in Argentina, the world's fourth- biggest exporter, will cause global supplies to shrink.
State warehouses held 9 million tons on Nov. 23, enough to meet demand for nine months, Food Corp. of India, the nation's biggest buyer of grains, said last month.
Wheat was planted on 24.93 million hectares (61.6 million acres) as of today, compared with 26.33 million hectares a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement. Wheat is India's biggest winter food grain.
``The expected production loss in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan will be compensated by higher productivity in Punjab and Haryana,'' Singh said. ``But the only rider is we have to look at temperature and weather conditions in the next three months.''
Sowing of the grain will be completed in a week's time and planting area will increase to more than 27 million hectares, Singh said.
India's winter crops are sown from October through December. Harvesting starts in March and continues through April.
Toyota Raises 2008 Sales Forecast on Overseas Demand
By Naoko Fujimura and Tetsuya Komatsu
Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. raised its sales forecast for 2008 to 9.85 million vehicles, cementing the company's lead as the world's most profitable carmaker.
Sales will rise 5 percent from an estimated 9.36 million this year, the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker said in a release today. Toyota plans to make 9.95 million vehicles, also a 5 percent increase. The company previously forecast sales of 9.8 million next year.
Toyota, close to ending General Motors Corp.'s 76-year reign as the world's largest automaker by sales, needs to sell more vehicles in emerging markets to achieve its targets, as demand for automobiles is forecast to decline in the U.S. and Japan, the company's two biggest markets. Toyota opened a factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week and will add production in China next year.
``Toyota will solidify its position as the top carmaker in 2008,'' said Hitoshi Yamamoto, who manages the equivalent of $5.5 billion in Japanese equities as chief executive officer of Fortis Asset Management in Tokyo. ``The company's cars give it an edge.''
Toyota made an estimated 9.51 million vehicles this year, up 5 percent from 2006. GM said on Dec. 3 its production will total about 9.26 million in 2007.
Sales and production figures for Toyota include vehicles built by its Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. subsidiaries.
Emerging Markets
The automaker earned net income of 1.64 trillion yen ($14 billion) in the year ended March 31 compared with General Motors's $1.98 billion loss for the calendar year. GM in November reported a record $39 billion quarterly loss.
Toyota rose 1.3 percent to close at 6,100 yen at 3 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock has fallen 23 percent this year, compared with a 9.7 percent drop in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Automakers are boosting sales and production in emerging economies such as China, Russia, and India, where rising incomes are making automobiles affordable to more people. The growth is offsetting slumping sales in Japan and the U.S., the world's biggest auto market.
``The importance of emerging markets will increase next year as demand in the U.S. may fall,'' Fortis's Yamamoto said.
Toyota aims to increase sales in Asia outside Japan, excluding those by Hino and Daihatsu, by 20 percent to 1.58 million vehicles next year, Executive Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi told reporters in Nagoya today.
Europe, Japan
Sales in China may jump 43 percent to 700,000 as Toyota starts to make Yaris compact cars in the country. The carmaker needs more capacity in China to catch up with faster-than- expected growth, Uranishi said.
Toyota said Dec. 21 it may build a second car plant in Russia. The company will also sell more cars in Europe, the Middle East and Central and South America, Uranishi said today.
In Europe, sales excluding Hino and Daihatsu may rise to 1.27 million vehicles next year, including 200,000 units in Russia, from 1.24 million. Toyota forecast sales in the Middle East to increase to 510,000 from 480,000. It expects to sell 420,000 vehicles in Central and South America.
Toyota's sales in Japan will be little changed next year at about 2.27 million vehicles, the company forecast. Industrywide sales of cars, minicars, trucks and buses in the country may decline 1.2 percent to about 5.32 million, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Dec. 20.
U.S.
Demand for automobiles in Japan declined for a third straight year in 2007 as the country's population decreased and wages fell. Auto sales will drop to the lowest in 26 years next year, according to the association's forecast.
Toyota predicted an increase in 2008 U.S. sales to 2.64 million vehicles from 2.62 million this year. Industrywide U.S. sales may be unchanged or fall next year, as the world's largest economy may slow down, said Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota's president.
``We're getting to the stage where Toyota has grown so impressively in recent years that it's going to find the next stage of growth quite difficult'' in the U.S., said Ashvin Chotai, an automotive analyst for Global Insight Inc. in London.
Toyota added a pickup truck plant in Texas last year and will open a second plant in Ontario, Canada, to make RAV4 SUVs in 2008. The company is also building a plant in Mississippi that will make Highlander SUVs.
``The company's sales forecast may be very challenging, depending on the U.S. economic outlook next year,'' said Koji Endo, a senior analyst at Credit Suisse Securities (Japan) Ltd. in Tokyo. Toyota may report a drop in earnings next fiscal year, he said.
Hybrids, Batteries
Toyota, the world's largest producer of gasoline-electric hybrid cars, is in a race against GM to develop the first ``plug- in,'' or a hybrid model that can be recharged using an electrical outlet. Toyota is considering mass production of lithium-ion batteries with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. to power such vehicles, President Watanabe said. GM, which is developing the Volt electric car, also plans to use lithium-ion batteries.
Toyota and Matsushita have a venture called Panasonic EV Energy Co. to manufacture batteries for Toyota's hybrids. The venture will also increase production capacity of the nickel- hydride batteries now used to power Toyota's hybrid vehicles.
8 comments:
China's CSI 300 emerges as the index of the year
By Nikhil Kumar
29 December 2007
China's benchmark CSI 300 index has emerged victorious out of the sub-prime shadow cast over the world's money markets, coming out on top of the list of the year's best-performing indices.
The CSI 300, which tracks the daily price performance of the top 300 companies on the Shanghai and the Shenzhen stock exchanges, gained more than 161 per cent in the past 12 months. The Hang Seng China Enterprise Index, which was launched in 1994 as a benchmark for the stock price performance of China-incorporated companies listed in Hong Kong, also had a good year and came in eighth in the list of the 10 best performers, gaining more than 54 per cent in 2007.
A number of markets are now closed until the new year, including Shanghai and Tokyo. Hong Kong and New York are open on Monday, while the UK stock exchange is open for a half-day session.
Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average, which tracks the top 225 companies listed in the first section of the Tokyo stock exchange, finished the year as one of the worst-performing indices in the world, losing just over 11 per cent in the past 12 months.
"The market ended as if to symbolise the year's trade – sub-prime," said Hitoshi Yamamoto, the chief executive of Fortis Asset Management Japan. "This looks like a warning by the market that the sub-prime problem will continue into the new year and won't be solved easily."
Cameron Umetsu, the head of economic research at Nomura in London, expects the Nikkei to rebound eventually, as the US economy recovers towards the end of 2008. But he said: "It has been vulnerable because of its exposure to America as there are a number of blue-chip exporters who have suffered. At the same time, the Nikkei has been marked by the conspicuous lack of domestic investor demand, which might have shielded it."
Mr Umetsu added: "A large portion of retail investors in Japan are quite mature and have seen the market in the late Eighties and the early Nineties. As a result, taking a long-term view, the Nikkei has not been seen as the best investment option by them. As for China, even though the market looks bubbly, with the Fed easing, we think it will continue to do well in the short term."
The Nikkei average was joined by the ISEQ Overall Index from the Irish stock exchange, which lost 26.26 per cent, and the IBC Index from the Caracas stock exchange in Venezuela, which took the prize for the year's worst performance, losing more than 27 per cent, at the bottom end of the table.
Estonia's OMX Tallinn index, which lost more than 13 per cent, and the Sri Lankan stock market Colombo all share index, which fell by almost 7 per cent during the past 12 months, also featured in the list of 2007's biggest losers.
China abandons plans for huge dam on Yangtze
David Stanway in Beijing
Saturday December 29, 2007
The Guardian
China has abandoned controversial plans to build a huge dam which would have submerged one of the country's most renowned tourist areas and forced the relocation of 100,000 residents in the south-western province of Yunnan.
In a rare and high-profile victory for China's environmental movement, the project at Tiger Leaping Gorge on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river was scrapped during a meeting in the provincial capital, Kunming.
But it is unlikely that hydropower construction will come to a halt in what remains a remote and energy-poor region. Officials have turned their attention to sites further upstream and are proceeding with several other giant dams, partly to meet commitments to supply power to the eastern coast and to neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Burma.
Yu Xiaogang, a campaigner with the local Green Watershed organisation, said profits of national power companies - rather than the economic development of Yunnan - were the driving force behind the carving up of the region's rivers.
The government says its hydropower plans for the upper reaches of the Yangtze are designed to counteract some of the worst consequences of industrialisation that have left filth and debris floating in the lower and middle reaches.
The damming of the Jinsha, or upper reaches, they admit, is one way of cutting off the silt that surges down the Yangtze, threatening to incapacitate the politically important Three Gorges Dam project and cripple local shipping routes.
Local officials also believe that dam construction in the region will make it easier to flush out the chemical poison that has accumulated in the Dianchi lake, a major source of water for the province but now the dumping ground for the dozens of power plants, steel smelters and cement factories that have been built in recent years on its western banks.
After years of rampant hydropower construction - likened by one expert to the construction of "backyard" steel smelters during the disastrous Great Leap Forward of the 50s - activists hope that the age of big dams is coming to an end.
In 2005 Premier Wen Jiabao intervened to block an unpopular plan to build 13 dams and hydropower plants on the untouched Nu river, a Unesco-protected site also in Yunnan, saying that the plan was "unscientific".
But despite recent coverage of the potential catastrophes that surround China's biggest and most notorious dam at the Three Gorges, the government has fought back hard on the issue of hydropower.
While admitting that river banks have collapsed, that biodiversity has dwindled and that many displaced communities have failed to thrive, the government has said that the benefits of construction still far outweigh the risks.
It has also pressed on with the launch of the country's second largest hydropower plant, known as the Xiluodu, also on the Jinsha river.
Backstory
After crippling power shortages in 2004 and 2005 China's leaders approved a capacity expansion programme to take full advantage of the country's resources. That primarily meant coal, which provides at least 70% of China's energy needs, but also water - and the damming of previously undeveloped rivers in the south-west. China's capacity has doubled in six years to more than 700 gigawatts, and since 2005 it has risen by 100 gigawatts a year.
Shanghai overtakes HK stock listings
28/12/2007
Shanghai surpassed Hong Kong as a market for initial stock offerings this year with companies going public raising 417.8 billion yuan (HK$444.1 billion) compared with HK$286.9 billion on local exchanges.
Releasing its survey of initial stock offerings yesterday, Ernst & Young said capital raised in Hong Kong will shrink further to HK$260 billion next year because many large state-owned enterprises have already come to market. Last year companies raised HK$333.9 billion in Hong Kong.
The survey noted that H share companies returning to the domestic market to issue A shares had propelled Shanghai past Hong Kong. The firm said a "significant share of funds raised in the mainland is from H share return and [the] A and H share deals of SOEs." H share companies floating A shares raised 302 billion yuan of an overall tally of 417.8 billion yuan.
In terms of total funds raised, however, Hong Kong's was the world's leading exchange for initial stock offerings, ahead of the main bourses in New York and London. Shanghai Stock Exchange ranked fifth with 115.8 billion yuan raised.
Although the overall amount raised on the Hong Kong bourse fell this year, the number of deals increased to 82 from 56 in 2006, but nearly half the new listings trade below their offer price.
"Some priced their stocks when the Hang Seng Index was above 30,000, but then a market correction took place during their debut. This led to poor performance," said Paul Go, Ernst & Young partner and head of risk advisory services.
Fellow partner Ringo Choi said banking, insurance and property companies will dominate issuance in Hong Kong next year. He said Hong Kong's stature as a leading market for new listings will not be easily challenged by the mainland.
Go said considering that as some leading H share companies have introduced A shares, he expects fewer H share returns next year, although the presence of privately owned enterprises in the A-share market will increase.
新加坡航空入股东方航空再添变数
2007年12月29日
中国国际航空股份有限公司(Air China Ltd.)董事长李家祥已经被任命为中国民用航空总局(General Administration of Civil Aviation of China)局长。对此分析师周五表示，这一人事变动为拟议中新加坡航空公司(Singapore Airlines Ltd.)收购中国东方航空股份有限公司(China Eastern Airlines Corp.)股权的交易增添了新的变数。
中国国航已对上述两家航空公司的交易表达了反对意见，中国国航的母公司将于明年1月8日作为东方航空的少数股东之一就该交易进行投票。
中国国航称，李家祥将接替杨元元出任民航总局局长。民航总局的一位官员拒绝对此置评。目前尚不清楚李家祥是否将在东方航空的少数股东就东方航空与新加坡航空间的交易投票表决前履新。
中国国航表示，李家祥将不再担任中国国航董事长以及母公司中国航空集团公司(China National Aviation Holding Co.)总经理的职务。
海通证券(Haitong Securities)分析师马婴指出，李家祥被任命为民航总局局长为东方航空与新加坡航空之间的交易增加了不确定性，同时还加大了中国国航母公司对该交易投反对票的可能性。
东方航空计划以72亿港元的价格向新加坡航空及其母公司淡马锡控股(Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.)合计出售24%的股权。
中国国航称，母公司中国航空集团可能将对上述交易投反对票。中国航空集团持有东方航空12.07%的H股。
如果新加坡航空真的入股东方航空，则将构成一大竞争威胁，同时也将阻碍中国航空集团实现雄据上海市场的愿望。作为中国蓬勃发展的金融中心，上海是东方航空的总部所在地。中国国航的运营主要集中在北京。
马婴还说，很难预测这笔交易是否会在东方航空少数股东下月初投票时获得通过。
中国国航发言人饶昕瑜周五表示，对李家祥的任命将很快生效，但拒绝详细说明。她称，一旦确定李家祥的继任者，将发布正式公告。
此前一位知情人士向道琼斯透露，民航总局已经向中国国航的管理层提出了有关李家祥的任命意见。
这位知情人士称，尚不清楚即将离任的民航总局局长杨元元将被调往何处。
尽管在一些分析师看来，对李家祥的任命可能与东方航空的交易有关，但其他分析师认为，这两个事件可能毫不相关。
国信证券(Guosen Securities)分析师李树荣说，作出如此高级别的任命决定绝非一日之事。
他谈到，尽管杨元元放宽了对中国民航市场的管治并推行了改革，但李家祥可能更倾向于保护国内的航空企业，中国的航空公司已对相关领域开放过快而导致竞争过于激烈颇有怨言。
李家祥此前曾表示，他的愿望是中国的国有航空公司合并成一家超大型航空企业，以便有实力与管理水平较高的国际航空公司竞争。
今年9月，为阻止上述东方航空出售股权的交易，中国航空集团曾试图通过计划与国泰航空有限公司(Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd.)联合竞购来取代新加坡航空的收购。
据知情人士当时透露，此后中国航空集团因迫于监管部门的压力而取消了联合竞购的计划。
中国航空集团今年9月称，在未来三个月内不打算再度提出入股东方航空。所承诺的期限在本周初已到期。
不过中国航空集团尚未就入股东方航空提出新的收购报价。一些分析师指出，有更高层的政府主管部门正在阻止该公司采取进一步行动。
东方航空的A股和H股股东将于明年1月8日在上海就交易进行表决。
这一交易若要获得通过，尚需三分之二的A股和H股少数股东投赞成票。
China's blogger population reaches 47 mln
BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A report on China's blog development has found that the blogger population has reached 47 million, more than half of whom are women.
"One fourth of online surfers are bloggers," said the survey, based on a poll by China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) of 1,862 netizens in late November.
It added that registered blog spaces have exceeded 33 million since the advent of blogs in China five years ago.
The survey also showed that 57 percent of Chinese bloggers are women, in contrast with the 55:45 gender ratio of China's 180 million netizens, reports China Women's News today.
The newspaper reports that blogs, as a new medium to record personal lives, share feelings and socialize, are particularly attractive to women, who have fewer alternatives in the cyber world.
Ex-First Republic investors sue Merrill Lynch
Dec 29, 2007
LOS ANGELES - FORMER First Republic Bank shareholders sued Merrill Lynch & Co on Friday accusing the Wall Street investment bank and brokerage of hiding billions of dollars of losses related to sub-prime mortgages while the companies' merger was pending.
The complaint, filed in the US Court for the Southern District of New York by investor James Conn, seeks class-action status.
It accuses Merrill and several executives and directors, including former chief executive Stanley O'Neal, of misleading First Republic shareholders about its finances as they considered Merrill's US$1.8 billion (S$2.6 billion) takeover of the company.
'Merrill Lynch effectively hid its sub-prime exposure right up until the close of the merger,' said Mark Molumphy, a lawyer at Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy representing Mr Conn. 'It's a sign of the times and the economy we are now living in.'
Mr Molumphy said former First Republic shareholders lost about US$250 million because Merrill's share price declined in the weeks following the merger on Sept 21.
Merrill revealed an expected US$5.5 billion write-down on Oct 5, and then on Oct 24, boosted the write-down to US$8.4 billion. Mr O'Neal's ouster followed on Oct 30.
Merrill Lynch spokesman Bill Halldin said the company 'made all appropriate disclosures'. Merrill had agreed in January 2006 to buy First Republic, which was based in San Francisco and specialised in serving wealthier customers. First Republic shareholders approved the transaction in July.
According to the complaint, Merrill made materially false statements in a June 22, 2007 proxy statement and prospectus distributed to First Republic shareholders.
It said Edwards also misled investors on a July 17 analyst conference call in saying that 'proactive risk management has put us in an exceptionally good position'.
John Thain, who had led NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, became Merrill's new chief executive on Dec 1. He was not named in the suit.
Shares of Merrill Lynch closed down 23 US cents at US$52.97 on the New York Stock Exchange. -- REUTERS
Indian Farmers May Produce More Than 75 Million Tons of Wheat
By Pratik Parija
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Farmers in India, the world's second-biggest wheat grower, may harvest more of the crop following early planting and ``good weather'' in the main growing areas, lowering overseas purchases.
The country may harvest more than 75 million tons of wheat during the March-April harvest, the most since 2000, compared with 74.89 million tons in the previous year, N.B. Singh, the nation's agriculture commissioner, said in New Delhi today.
``Temperatures in December have been excellent and better than the last two years and that will help the crop,'' Singh said. ``There has been very good crop growth in the key growing areas.''
A bigger crop will ease pressure on the Indian government to import the grain at record prices. The nation has since July bought 1.79 million tons of wheat from traders, including Glencore International AG and Cargill Inc., to build its reserves, helping support this year's 82 percent gain in prices on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Wheat rose above $10 a bushel for the first time on Dec. 17 on concern dry weather in Argentina, the world's fourth- biggest exporter, will cause global supplies to shrink.
State warehouses held 9 million tons on Nov. 23, enough to meet demand for nine months, Food Corp. of India, the nation's biggest buyer of grains, said last month.
Wheat was planted on 24.93 million hectares (61.6 million acres) as of today, compared with 26.33 million hectares a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement. Wheat is India's biggest winter food grain.
``The expected production loss in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan will be compensated by higher productivity in Punjab and Haryana,'' Singh said. ``But the only rider is we have to look at temperature and weather conditions in the next three months.''
Sowing of the grain will be completed in a week's time and planting area will increase to more than 27 million hectares, Singh said.
India's winter crops are sown from October through December. Harvesting starts in March and continues through April.
Toyota Raises 2008 Sales Forecast on Overseas Demand
By Naoko Fujimura and Tetsuya Komatsu
Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. raised its sales forecast for 2008 to 9.85 million vehicles, cementing the company's lead as the world's most profitable carmaker.
Sales will rise 5 percent from an estimated 9.36 million this year, the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker said in a release today. Toyota plans to make 9.95 million vehicles, also a 5 percent increase. The company previously forecast sales of 9.8 million next year.
Toyota, close to ending General Motors Corp.'s 76-year reign as the world's largest automaker by sales, needs to sell more vehicles in emerging markets to achieve its targets, as demand for automobiles is forecast to decline in the U.S. and Japan, the company's two biggest markets. Toyota opened a factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week and will add production in China next year.
``Toyota will solidify its position as the top carmaker in 2008,'' said Hitoshi Yamamoto, who manages the equivalent of $5.5 billion in Japanese equities as chief executive officer of Fortis Asset Management in Tokyo. ``The company's cars give it an edge.''
Toyota made an estimated 9.51 million vehicles this year, up 5 percent from 2006. GM said on Dec. 3 its production will total about 9.26 million in 2007.
Sales and production figures for Toyota include vehicles built by its Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. subsidiaries.
Emerging Markets
The automaker earned net income of 1.64 trillion yen ($14 billion) in the year ended March 31 compared with General Motors's $1.98 billion loss for the calendar year. GM in November reported a record $39 billion quarterly loss.
Toyota rose 1.3 percent to close at 6,100 yen at 3 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The stock has fallen 23 percent this year, compared with a 9.7 percent drop in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
Automakers are boosting sales and production in emerging economies such as China, Russia, and India, where rising incomes are making automobiles affordable to more people. The growth is offsetting slumping sales in Japan and the U.S., the world's biggest auto market.
``The importance of emerging markets will increase next year as demand in the U.S. may fall,'' Fortis's Yamamoto said.
Toyota aims to increase sales in Asia outside Japan, excluding those by Hino and Daihatsu, by 20 percent to 1.58 million vehicles next year, Executive Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi told reporters in Nagoya today.
Europe, Japan
Sales in China may jump 43 percent to 700,000 as Toyota starts to make Yaris compact cars in the country. The carmaker needs more capacity in China to catch up with faster-than- expected growth, Uranishi said.
Toyota said Dec. 21 it may build a second car plant in Russia. The company will also sell more cars in Europe, the Middle East and Central and South America, Uranishi said today.
In Europe, sales excluding Hino and Daihatsu may rise to 1.27 million vehicles next year, including 200,000 units in Russia, from 1.24 million. Toyota forecast sales in the Middle East to increase to 510,000 from 480,000. It expects to sell 420,000 vehicles in Central and South America.
Toyota's sales in Japan will be little changed next year at about 2.27 million vehicles, the company forecast. Industrywide sales of cars, minicars, trucks and buses in the country may decline 1.2 percent to about 5.32 million, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Dec. 20.
U.S.
Demand for automobiles in Japan declined for a third straight year in 2007 as the country's population decreased and wages fell. Auto sales will drop to the lowest in 26 years next year, according to the association's forecast.
Toyota predicted an increase in 2008 U.S. sales to 2.64 million vehicles from 2.62 million this year. Industrywide U.S. sales may be unchanged or fall next year, as the world's largest economy may slow down, said Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota's president.
``We're getting to the stage where Toyota has grown so impressively in recent years that it's going to find the next stage of growth quite difficult'' in the U.S., said Ashvin Chotai, an automotive analyst for Global Insight Inc. in London.
Toyota added a pickup truck plant in Texas last year and will open a second plant in Ontario, Canada, to make RAV4 SUVs in 2008. The company is also building a plant in Mississippi that will make Highlander SUVs.
``The company's sales forecast may be very challenging, depending on the U.S. economic outlook next year,'' said Koji Endo, a senior analyst at Credit Suisse Securities (Japan) Ltd. in Tokyo. Toyota may report a drop in earnings next fiscal year, he said.
Hybrids, Batteries
Toyota, the world's largest producer of gasoline-electric hybrid cars, is in a race against GM to develop the first ``plug- in,'' or a hybrid model that can be recharged using an electrical outlet. Toyota is considering mass production of lithium-ion batteries with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. to power such vehicles, President Watanabe said. GM, which is developing the Volt electric car, also plans to use lithium-ion batteries.
Toyota and Matsushita have a venture called Panasonic EV Energy Co. to manufacture batteries for Toyota's hybrids. The venture will also increase production capacity of the nickel- hydride batteries now used to power Toyota's hybrid vehicles.
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