China Manufacturer News

China’s oil imports will continue to see solid growth this year, with more than half of the country’s total oil consumption coming from abroad, industry insiders said.

China’s investment in water conservancy projects reached a record high of 142.7 billion yuan (20.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2009, Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei said Sunday.

The yuan is likely to appreciate against the United States dollar this week after China raised the bank reserve ratio in an effort to curb liquidity and shift from an overly easy monetary policy.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for more efforts to promote independent innovation and upgrading of the industrial structure during his inspection tour to Shanghai which ended Sunday.

Mazda Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co will dissolve their joint venture in China by 2012, a move that would further weaken the ties between the two auto makers, Japan’s Nikkei business daily reported yesterday.

The United States needs to face up to its own imbalances rather than engage in more China bashing over trade, said world-renowned economist Stephen Roach.

Inter-Korean trade has declined 8.5 percent in 2009 from a year earlier as a result of the global economic downturn that slowed demand and investment, South Korean government said Monday.

Property trading in Beijing in the first two weeks of this year slumped, following a string of government moves to curb soaring real estate prices.

An assembly line of Chinese automaker Geely was officially launched in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, local media reported Saturday.

Net profit in Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., China’s biggest steel marker, declined 11 percent year-on-year to 5.75 billion yuan (842 million U.S. dollars) in 2009.