Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word china. 27 news.

Soybean futures fell in light trading Monday, the last day of the year, but prices were expected to continue their overall rise in 2008 to meet growing demand in China.

Chief financial officer of China's leading search engine dies over holiday.

Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of sensitive technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.

The chief financial officer of Chinese search engine Baidu.com died after an accident while on vacation in China.

China Investment Corporation (CIC), which has a 10 per cent stake in private equity group Blackstone and invested $5 billion into Morgan Stanley, has pumped $20 billion ($£10 billion) into the China Development Bank to transform it into a commercial lender.

Asian stock markets had a strong, if volatile, year with China leading the pack as investors bet on the region’s continued growth prospects.

AP - Asian stock markets had a strong, if volatile, year with China leading the pack as investors bet on the region's continued growth prospects.

China's sovereign wealth fund injected $20 billion into policy lender China Development Bank, the latest example of how the country is using its surplus of cash to beef up the balance sheets of local banks.

A Morningstar analyst in China discusses the rapidly changing telecom industry.

Beijing said a unit of its new $200bn sovereign wealth fund would inject $20bn into China Development Bank in a move intended to smooth the policy lender's transformation into a commercially-oriented institution

Beijing said a unit of its new $200bn sovereign wealth fund would inject $20bn into China Development Bank in a move intended to smooth the policy lender's transformation into a commercially-oriented institution

Asian shares ended mostly higher, as blue chips fueled advances in Hong Kong, but Pakistan plunged on the first day of trading since Bhutto's assassination. Markets in Japan, China and South Korea were closed for holidays.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Monday announced a $20 billion capital injection into China Development Bank, one of the country's three policy lenders, as part of a long-planned transformation of the state-owned company into a commercial bank.

China, the world's biggest grain producer, will tax exports of wheat, corn and rice to increase domestic supply and control rising food prices.

This year, the world discovered the Chinese stock market.

Merrill Lynch and Co. is in talks with Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds to raise capital through selling another andquot;bigandquot; stake in the company, the Observer reported, citing London and New York sources it didn't identify.

State Grid Corp. of China, which won a bid to run the Philippines' electricity network, expects to take about six months to secure approval to operate in the Southeastern Asian country.

Several Asian markets advanced on Monday, the last trading day of 2007, led by Hong Kong stocks, which rallied in a shortened session on China-related issues such as Air China.

CHINA'S Internet search firm Baidu.com said yesterday that its chief financial officer, Shawn Wang, died in an accident while on vacation in China. Wang, who joined Baidu in 2004 and helped the company successfully list on the Nasdaq stock market in 2005, died on December 27 during a Christmas-New Year holiday. Company officials declined to give further details. The company said it plans to replace him but also gave no further details. "Under Wang's leadership, this year Baidu became one of the four biggest firms in the US by stock transaction volume and the first Chinese company to join the Nasdaq 100 index," Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li said in an e-mail to employees. "Besides his contribution to financial affairs, he also led the company's legal and human resources departments to fruitful achievements," Li said. Baidu had a 60.5-percent share of China's search engine market in the third quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys