Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with word rising. 23 news.

CHINA Petroleum & Chemical Corp, Asia's largest refiner, will complete construction of a 12.5-billion-yuan (US$1.7 billion) plant in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao by the end of next month to tap rising fuel demand. The project will help boost the state-controlled refiner's market share, parent China Petrochemical Corp said in its online newsletter Sinopecnews. It didn't say when the plant will start commercial operations.

THE prospects of rising profit for China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co have created a buzz among stock analysts who forecast that the insurer's stock is likely to jump about 50 percent on its A share debut today in Shanghai. Everbright Securities Co expects shares of Pacific Insurance to be between 42.60 yuan (US$5.81) and 44.30 yuan apiece, up from its offering price of 30 yuan. Guotai Jun'an Securities has a higher valuation of 43.80 yuan to 46.80 yuan while Haitong Securities sees a range of 40.64 yuan to 45.22 yuan. Pacific Insurance raised 30 billion yuan in its Shanghai initial public offering last week, making it the sixth-biggest IPO on the Chinese mainland. The Shanghai-based insurer sold one billion yuan-backed new shares, or 13 percent of its enlarged capital, at the top end of its offering price range of 27 yuan to 30 yuan. "Pacific is the sole comprehensive insurer whose business is balanced between life and property and casualty insurance," said Pan

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

GOVERNMENT subsidy support for meat production will be stable even when pork prices fluctuate, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Speaking at an online press conference, Zeng Xiao'an, deputy director of the MOF's Department of Economic Development, said the government would take subsidies for piglet keepers into a long-term mechanism framework. "It does not matter whether pork prices are rising or falling, the supportive policies will be successive," said Zeng. "We will only adjust the strength of the policies based on real conditions," Zeng said when asked about the policies' time limit. To combat escalating inflation, China pledged to draw up a series of measures, including more subsidies for farmers. From July next year to the end of June in 2009, subsidies for each reproductive female piglet will be raised from 50 yuan (US$6.75) to 100 yuan, said Zeng. Also, the central government will allocate 2.5 billion yuan next year to support the

JAPAN'S Cabinet approved a budget that includes increased spending on rural areas and social welfare, making it harder for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to balance the books by 2011. Japan's deficit is set to widen for the first time in five years and spending will rise 0.2 percent to 83.1 trillion yen (US$732 billion) in the year starting on April 1, according to a budget proposal released in Tokyo, Bloomberg News reported. Fukuda may struggle to meet his deadline as cooling global growth dims the outlook for Japan's export-dependent economy. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is under pressure to assist ailing regions and elderly voters after it lost control of the upper house in July, making it difficult for it to cut debt. "The current political situation is forcing Fukuda to spend more," said Hidenori Suezawa, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co in Tokyo. "Given that the nation's public debt is rising, the government needs to make drastic reforms in

RAPID urbanization as well as robust demand for homes will continue to boost the country's real estate industry in 2008, industry analysts said. Wei Bo, a property analyst with Central China Securities Company, sees three main factors as being responsible for the strong demand. "New demand from the country's urbanization progress, growing requirement for larger and better homes among the Chinese, as well as rising investments caused by the appreciation of the Chinese currency and the existing negative interest rates, will probably help the real estate industry's fortune for another year," Wei said. "We expect the industry to maintain its high pace of development and give it a 'better than broad market' rating." China is seeing probably one of the largest urbanization in the world. According to an earlier forecast by the United Nations, between 16 million and 22 million people will migrate from rural places to urban areas in the country each year from now

Maxjet Airways Inc., facing financial losses because of rising fuel prices, has ceased operations and is filing for federal bankruptcy protection. (CAL)

Americans' debt woes expanding. Now it's unpaid credit card bills that are rising.

Suddenly, Martin Tobias is out at Imperium while rumors swirl that the IPO is delayed.

Maxjet Airways Inc., facing financial losses because of rising fuel prices, has ceased operations and is filing for federal bankruptcy protection. (CAL)

MAXjet Airways said it has filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming rising fuel costs and an increase in competition for business-class travelers for its inability to raise funds.

Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.

Profit is rising at Oil-Dri Corp. of America, as cat owners trade up to better, more expensive cat litter. About five years ago, the next big thing in the cat-box business — scoopable litter — accounted for just one-fourth of Chicago-based Oil-Dri's sales. Today, scoopable represents ...

Rising demand for star sportswriters, driven by rising television and Internet revenue, is leading to intense competition to hire talent.

Oil prices have fallen amid light holiday trading, after rising more than $2/barrel in the previous session on news of improved US consumer spending.

DOMESTIC stocks climbed and pushed the Shanghai index to a nine-day high in the morning session today, buoyed by rising blue chips across the board. The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks yuan-denominated A shares and hard-currency B shares, jumped 1.37 percent, or 69.87 points, to 5,171.65 at 11:30am today. The Shanghai index opened at 5,132.91 at 9:30am today, 31.13 points higher than its close at 5,101.78 at 3pm last Friday. Gains in the Shanghai market outnumbered losses 717 to 48 and 81 were unchanged. The Shenzhen Composite Index, which covers the smaller mainland stock market, gained 2.09 percent, or 28.72 points, to 1,404.61. Copper stocks rose thanks to rising copper prices. Tongling Nonferrous Metals, China's biggest copper producer, advanced 1.97 percent, or 0.48 yuan (6 US cents), to 24.82 yuan. Jiangxi Copper Co, the second-biggest, added 3.32 percent, or 1.67 yuan, to 51.99 yuan. Yunnan Copper Industry Co, the third-largest, climbed 2.94 percent, or 1.15

Asian markets advanced, with the MSCI regional index rising 2%, as an upbeat report on US consumer spending lifted exporters and manufacturers that are dependent on American demand

THE number of Chinese broadband users has hit 122 million, the highest in the world, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing an official from the information industry authority. Sixty percent of the netizens surfed on the Internet via broadband, said Jiang Yaoping, vice minister of the ministry of information industry, at a work conference of China Telecommunications Corporation on Saturday. Last year, more than 30 percent of China Telecom's income came from non-phone services, rising from 5.5 percent in 2002, the report said. One-third of the new broadband users are farmers, where the demand for the service is high, China Telecom officials said. The increased user number boosted the non-voice income of fixed-phone carriers, accelerating the transformation of traditional phone carriers into comprehensive information service providers, the report said.

China has proposed lifting millions of its citizens out of the income tax net to ease the burden on low-wage earners amid rising inflation, state press said Sunday.

Vietnam has allowed commercial banks to trade US dollars more freely against the Vietnamese dong, given a rising dollar inflow, widening the trading band to plus or minus 0.75% from 0.5%