Beijing is providing funding for the country's first home-grown venture capital funds in an attempt to foster a local industry to rival foreign funds operating in China and kickstart a new development zone. Ten funds with a combined total of more than Rmb20bn ($2.6bn) to invest will be approved for the Tianjin Binhai New Area. The capital venture project will be led by the Yindao Fund and will be owned and run by the state and its initial capital will come from the China Development Bank. (Source: ftchinese.com)


HSBC Holdings PLC formally offered to buy a majority stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) for $6.3 billion, launching a test of wills with South Korean regulators and politicians who have objected to previous attempts to sell the bank. The KEB now is owned by Lone Star Funds, a U.S. private-equity firm, aiming to boost its relatively small presence in South Korea with the country's sixth-largest bank based on assets. HSBC has said it will keep KEB's name and share listing after an acquisition. (Source: LawAndTax-News.com)


Trade between China and Russia is expected to surpass 40 billion U.S. dollars this year, after it reached a record high of 33.4 billion dollars last year. The China-Russia trade had reached 25 billion dollars in the first seven months. Currently, China is Russia's third largest trading partner, while Russia is China's eighth largest trading partner. (Source: chinaview.cn)


Fund manager AXA Framlington has launched a new inheritance tax portfolio service to enable UK high net worth individuals to target companies listed on the UK’s Alternative Investment Market that qualify for Business Property Relief. Portfolios will be run on a bespoke basis to suit the varying risk objectives of clients and will typically hold 25 companies from a watch-list. It will invest in a range of companies with no self-imposed restrictions on sector or benchmark weighting. （Source: wealthbriefing.com）


This year's consumer inflation is likely to exceed the central bank's target of 3 percent, a top official said on Aug.29. Food prices, which make up about a third of the inflation basket, rose 15.4 percent year on year last month. Prices in the first seven months rose 8.6 percent from the same period last year. (Source: China Daily)


Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. is quintupling its planned investment in Vietnam to $5 billion, reflecting the country's growing appeal to high-tech manufacturers. The new investment will go to factories that will make a range of components and products, including digital cameras. It could become the biggest single foreign investor in the country by investment amount and export revenue in five years. The total $5 billion investment could create employment for about 300,000 workers. (Source: WSJ.com)


The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced that it has re-appointed the Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (SCBHK) as the Settlement Institution for the Euro clearing system in Hong Kong for a second five-year period. SCBHK was appointed for the first five-year period from March 2003 when the system was launched. Currently, the Euro clearing system has 28 Direct Participants and 21 Indirect CHATS Users. (Source: Tax-News.com)


Almost a third of the UK's 700 biggest businesses paid no corporation tax in the 2005-06 financial year while another 30 per cent paid less than £10m each. Of the tax paid by these businesses, two-thirds came from just three industries – banking, insurance and oil and gas – while the alcohol, tobacco, car and real estate sectors contributed only a few hundred million pounds. Altogether, these large public and private companies paid £24.4bn in 2005-06, or just more than half of all the corporation tax paid. (Source: ftchinese.com)


China began to issue 600 billion yuan ($67.79 bn) of bonds on Aug.29 in the first tranche of 1.55 trillion yuan basket of special treasury bonds. It is authoritatively said that the annual interest rate of the bonds would be around 4.3 percent, basically matching the market rate for long-term debt and that the outstanding terms of the bonds would be ten years and 15 years. The government plans to launch a state forex investment company to make better use of the country's huge foreign exchange reserve. (Source: eng.zgjrw.com)


The European Patent Office (EPO) annouced that special search services beyond the scope of a standard patentability search would from 1 September instead be provided by the national offices of the EPO's member states. The decision came as part of an effort to re-define the roles of EPOs within the framework of the European Patent Network, which has four main pillars: the Utilisation Pilot Project, a new Co-operation Policy, the Customer Service Project (which the Special Search Programme falls under) and the Quality Project. (Source: LawAndTax-News.com)


Almost all companies listed on China's two stock exchanges have released their interim reports, with combined net profits up 70.78 percent year-on-year to 319.1 billion yuan ($42.2 bn) for the first half of this year. Between January and June, the 1,471 out of the 1,503 listed companies realized 3.57 trillion yuan in combined revenues, up 24.5 percent, and 468.7 billion yuan in gross profits, up 66.78 percent. Their weighted average yield against assets stood at 7.81 percent. (Source: chinaview.cn)


Computer maker Acer of Taiwan announced that it would acquire Gateway, the third-biggest U.S. personal-computer company, for about $710 million in cash. This deal gives Acer the well-known Gateway brand, and more than doubles Acer's U.S. market share to 11.1 percent from 4.8 percent. The deal will push the Taiwanese company past Lenovo Group as the world's third largest vendor of personal computers. (Source: Washington Post)


Bank of America and China Construction Bank have announced an agreement to jointly enter into a new leasing business, aiming at providing innovative leasing products. It is China's first joint agreement between a foreign investor and a Chinese bank to launch a financial leasing company, which is to be launched by early 2008. Both will have a board of director representative and be a part of the new company's senior management team. (Source: banking-business-review.com)


The SIIA announced a $300,000 agreement to settle copyright infringement claims against Knowledge Networks, Inc, which was the first settlement in its Corporate Content Anti-Piracy Program. Knowledge Networks is a mid-sized market research company. Its marketing group had been distributing “press packets” internally to certain employees on a regular basis, which sometimes included, without authorization or license, copyrighted articles owned by SIIA members such as the Associated Press and United Press International. (Source: LawAndTax-News.com)


After 13 years on the drawing board, the Anti-Monopoly Law passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, will come into effect on August 1, 2008. Four other laws or amendments passed by the NPC Standing Committee yesterday are: the Emergency Response Law; the amendment to the Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention; the Employment Promotion Law; and the amendment to the Urban Real Estate Administration Law. (Source: China Daily)


Peer Steinbrück, Germany’s finance minister, increased political pressure on regional governments to speed up consolidation of the country’s public-sector Landesbanken. Germany’s banking market has been the worst hit in Europe by the recent credit market turbulence. Analysts see the weaknesses of the banks in one of the continent’s most fragmented markets as a central factor in the collapses. (Source: ft.com)


China's securities regulator set up a new committee to oversee mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of listed companies, in an effort to eliminate insider trading and guarantee transparency in government approval of listed companies' M&A activities. The committee will check the M&A applications from listed companies, examine the materials and opinions provided by financial advisors, accounting firms, law firms and assets evaluation organizations, and review the trial examination reports issued by CSRC departments. (Source: chinaview.cn)


Bank of Scotland International, based in Jersey and the Isle of Man, has increased the interest rate on its Halifax International Guaranteed Reserve Account to a maximum of 6.61%. The six-month Term Account now offers 6.61% AER for amounts from GBP10,000 - 49,999, and 6.50% AER for amounts over that. The one year Term Account offers 6.55% AER for amounts from GBP10,000 - 49,999, and 6.50% for amounts over that. The two or three year Term Account offers 6.50% on balances over GBP10,000. (Source: Investors Offshore.com)


South Korea's largest carmaker Hyundai Motor has scaled down its sales targets in China and the U.S. due to tough market conditions, officials said Sept. 3. The firm said its venture in China reduced its annual target from 320,000 units to 260,000 in the first such move since the Chinese business was launched in 2002. In the U.S. market Hyundai lowered this year's target from 555,000 units to 510,000, citing weak demand caused by subprime woes. (Source: industryweek.com)


The Income Tax Division of the Manx Treasury has announced the launch of convenient and secure online services for individual taxpayers. The Service will allow people to review their previously submitted tax returns and their tax assessments. Payment enquiries can also be made, allowing taxpayers to both view their outstanding tax balance, and make payments online by debit or credit card. (Source: Tax-News.com)


China's biggest oil-and-gas company, PetroChina Co., signed deals to import natural gas from Australian company Woodside Energy Ltd., which owns nearly half the Browse natural-gas field, and from Royal Dutch Shell PLC, owner of a stake in Australia's giant Gorgon gas field, which is half-owned by Chevron Corp. China's decision to sign two deals to import natural gas signals its willingness to pay more for cleaner energy and deepens economic ties with Australia as China shifts away from the Middle East for natural-gas supplies. (Source: WSJ.com)


The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has published in the Federal Register new rules that will allow the agency to make the patent examination process more effective and efficient. Under the new rules, applicants may file two new continuing applications and one request for continued examination as a matter of right. Each application may contain up to 25 claims, with no more than five of them independent claims, without any additional effort on the part of the applicant. The new rules will be effective on November 1, 2007. (Source: uspto.gov)


UK banking giant Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has officially opened a new office in Beijing. The new branch offers clients access to a wide range of corporate banking services through its global banking and markets division, providing debt coverage, risk management and investment products to domestic Chinese corporate and financial institutions. In addition, it will facilitate RBS's overall co-operation with the bank of China. (Source: banking-business-review.com)


Blackstone Group LP (ticker: BX) announced on Sept.10 that it had agreed to buy a 20% stake in the chemical firm China National BlueStar (Group) Corp for up to $600 million. The private equity group said it was buying the stake from parent ChemChina, and would appoint two directors to the board of China National BlueStar. It added that it would use its global network to help China National BlueStar grow, both in China as well as internationally. (Source: newratings.com)


The number of credit cards in circulation in China has more than doubled over the past year to more than 40m. But international banks remain barred from issuing credit cards in China and the card business is still unprofitable for domestic banks. The sector's growing potential increases pressure on Beijing to implement long-awaited rules allowing foreign banks to issue cards. It is estimated that the number of true credit cards in China doubled for each of the last four years to reach about 43m by the middle of this year. (Source: ftchinese.com)