Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with words electric+provide. 2 news.

SICHUAN Changhong Electric Co, China's second-biggest TV maker, has grabbed the lion's share of government-financed home appliance sales in rural areas. China promised to give farmers subsidies, about 13 percent, for buying household electrical appliances, in a bid to stimulate sluggish rural consumption and reduce the rising trade surplus, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce said over the weekend. "We are a major player in the deal and we occupy at least 50 percent shares of the TV sales (in the subsided sales in the rural areas)," Chen Ning, Changhong's vice president, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. Changhong will provide TVs, which costs less than 1,500 yuan (US$202) each, and some mobile phones for the subsidized purchase program. The pilot program will be launched in Shandong, Henan and Sichuan, the three major agricultural provinces, according to Chen. Farmers in the provinces can buy color TV sets, refrigerators and mobile phones with

SHANDA Interactive Entertainment, Intel Corp and Sichuan Changhong Electric have established an alliance to develop the market of online games on Web-linked TVs, the three sides said yesterday in Shanghai. The companies launched an online table tennis game, available both on computer and TV platforms, to catch the sport game booms ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games next year. According to the agreements, Shanda will provide content including games, Intel will provide related chip and chipset technology, while Changhong - China's second biggest TV maker - will produce TVs with Internet access and built-in hard disk storage, the companies said. "Shanda is proud to become content provider and the three sides will jointly promote the games including the new table tennis game X-Up," said Tom Zhang, Shanda's senior vice president. The project has similarities to Shanda's previous EZ-Center plan, which allowed users to access Internet and games on TV with a