China Stocks Rally; Oil Spill near Dalian

Chandrasekhar Atreya
19 Jul, 2010
New York City

Stocks in China rose and in Hong Kong fell. Export growth may drop 50% or more in the second half of the year says a government agency. Ford Motor starts construction of assembly plant in Nanchang. Explosion at Dalian New Port leads to an oil spill.

[R]5:00 PM Hong Kong, China – Stocks in China rose and in Hong Kong fell. Export growth may drop 50% or more in the second half of the year says a government agency. Ford Motor starts construction of assembly plant in Nanchang. Explosion at Dalian New Port leads to an oil spill.[/R]

Stocks in China rose as developers and airlines gained the most for the day. Stocks in Hong Kong however dropped following reports of weaker than expected results from the U.S. corporations.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell 0.79% or 159.21 to close at 20,090.95. The CSI 300 Index in China gained 2.54% or 66.34 to close at 2,682.47.

China’s export growth may slow down by more than 50% in the second half of the year according to a forecast by a government agency.

The gain in exports from July through December maybe around 16.3% from a year earlier, the China Securities Journal said today citing a report by the State Information Center. The research body under the National Development and Reform Commission, said export growth may slow each quarter because of removal of tax rebates, weaker demand and Europe’s debt crisis and comparison with higher base levels.

China will not relax curbs to cool the heated property market, according to the China Business News Web site, citing Jiang Weixin, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction.

China should reduce the proportion of U.S. dollar assets in its reserve to diversify the risk of sharp depreciation, Yu Yongding, a former advisor to the central bank, wrote in his commentary in the China Securities Journal.

The nation should convert some of its holdings in U.S. dollars into assets denominated in other currencies, commodities and direct investments overseas. China’s dollar assets are in surplus and the proportion is too high, he wrote in this article.

Ford Motor Co and Jiangling Motors Corp of China have started building a $300 million assembly plant in Nanchang, China, Ford said in a statement on Sunday.

The plant will begin production at the end of 2012 and will have a capacity to build a combined 300,000 vehicles for Ford, the release said. The factory will be the largest for Jiangling. Ford which has 30% stake in the company operates two other plants with Jiangling in China.

An oil leak from the pipeline explosion at Dalian New port in China has been arrested by sealing it off and further pollution prevented after the valves were shut, China National Petroleum Corp said.

The explosion occurred during the unloading of an oil tanker on Friday evening, CNPC said in a statement on its Web site. Dalian port has six tanks with 100,000 tons each. More than 2,000 firefighters worked overnight battling the flames to control the fire.

Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd, the world’s biggest developer by market value, is planning to sale another 50 luxury high-end apartments in Hong Kong after it successfully sold all 92 flats in the first sale over the weekend.

The company sold the apartments in Larvotto project at an average price of HK$40 million per unit, fetching about HK$4 billion in revenue. The new batch may go on sale in the middle of this week, said Sun Hung Kai in a press release yesterday. Apartments at Larvotto will be around 1,500 square feet to 2,500 square feet. The project named after the main public beach in Monaco has 715 units for sale.

Bright Dairy & Food Co of Hong Kong has agreed to buy 51% stake in New Zealand’s Synlait Milk Ltd, as the milk processor plans to double its capacity.

Bright will pay NZ$82 million to Synlait Ltd, the Christchurch-based parent company said in a statement today. Synlait said it will retain 49% stake in the company and also keep 100% stake in its dairy farms.

Google Inc’s share of the Chinese Internet search market fell to 27.3% in the second quarter from 29.5% in the first quarter, according to data from research company iResearch. The report also showed that Baidu’s share increased to 70.8% from 67.8% in the same period.