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Shanghai GM recalls imported Captiva jeeps
Shanghai General Motors (SGM) is contacting the owners of 2,065 Captive jeeps to recall the vehicles for repair due to risk of steering malfunction, the company said on Friday.
The defected vehicles were manufactured by GM Daewoo Auto in the Republic of Korea between September 18, 2007 and December 31, 2008, said a spokesman with SGM.
China\’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) released a bulletin on Friday, approving SGM\’s application for the recall.
SGM had received no customer reports on the defect, the spokesman said.
GAQSIQ has stopped the importation of GM Daewoo Auto\’s Captive jeeps, according to the bulletin.

Google silent on copyright dispute
China\’s most influential writers say they are still waiting for Google to provide a solution to a copyright dispute in which the popular Internet company scanned books without authors\’ permission.
The Chinese Writers\’ Association (CWA), received a letter from Google in January in which the company apologized to Chinese writers for the use of the books, and promised to lay out a proposal for an agreement to end the dispute by March this year.
A final agreement was expected by June, the letter said.
"We hope Google will respond as scheduled. Let\’s wait and see," Yang Chengzhi, a senior official with the CWA, told China Daily on Monday.
The CWA\’s comments come ahead of an expected announcement by Google about its future plans in China.
It is still not clear if Google, the world\’s largest Internet search engine, will withdraw from the country. The company said in January it was considering leaving China because of censorship requirements and alleged hacker attacks.
Yang said the association and Google Books had not been in contact since early January, when Google halted the fourth round of negotiations with China\’s copyright society.
She did not say whether CWA had a back-up plan if Google did not provide a solution to the copyright issue.
Zhang Hongbo, deputy director of the China Written Works Copyright Society, which is responsible for formal negotiations with Google, told China Daily the association had tried to contact Google Books but failed to get any response.
"I sent text messages, e-mails and called Google Books\’ negotiator several times during the Spring Festival, but I haven\’t received a reply," he said.
Zhang said whether or not Google leaves China, the association would not stop fighting for the rights of writers.
"Google Books has not only got troubles in China. My organization is in touch with copyright societies in Australia and Europe to exchange ideas," Zhang said.
According to a list provided by Google at the end of 2009, its online library includes some 80,000 Chinese books, 10 percent of which are works by 2,600 members of the CWA. The authors were neither informed nor paid money by the company. The copyright society said the number of scanned books could surpass 200,000.
Lin Lin, a public relations manager entrusted by Google to handle the copyright case, gave no comment.
Officials from Google\’s book project recently reached an agreement with the Italian culture ministry, which will allow the scanning of 1 million books in the national libraries of Rome and Florence.
However, Google will pay for the access, with estimated costs reaching $135 million.

Blackstone in $600m China agricultural deal
A consortium led by Blackstone Group has agreed to invest about $600 million in a Chinese agricultural company ahead of its planned Hong Kong listing, sources with knowledge of the deal said on Wednesday.
China Shouguang Agricultural Product Logistic Park, one of the country\’s largest agricultural market operators, will sell a roughly 30 percent stake of the company to the group led by the US buyout giant for about $600 million, said the sources.
The investment marks Blackstone\’s first pre-IPO type deal in China as Shouguang plans to raise about $700 million in a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) in the middle of this year after receiving investments from the Blackstone-led consortium, the sources said.
It also became the second major investment in China for Blackstone, which agreed in September 2007 to buy a 20 percent stake in the major chemical maker China National BlueStar (Group) Corp for up to $600 million. The BlueStar deal was approved by Beijing in early 2008.
The consortium includes Capital, Atlantis Investment and Warburg Pincus, said the sources, adding Blackstone is the lead investor with the biggest portion.
"This will be the last round of private capital-raising before the company goes public," said one of the sources. "Blackstone is apparently interested in this type of Pre-IPO deal with private company as well as investment in state enterprise like BlueStar," he added.
The sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because the deal was not yet public. Blackstone declined to comment, while Shouguang, based in Shandong province, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Home of vegetables
Shouguang is a family-owned business and it has hired investment banks including UBS and BOC International, the investment banking arm of Bank of China, to advise on its Hong Kong listing, said the sources.

The company is named after Shouguang, the Chinese city known as the "Home of Vegetables" — a center of trade in vegetables and other agricultural products, not only for major domestic customers but also for international agricultural markets.
Shouguang won approval in 2009 to expand its logistic park project, after which trading volumes of vegetables, fruits and agricultural by-products are expected to reach 10 million tons annually, according to a company statement at that time.
Blackstone became aggressive in China business after it hired Anthony Leung, a former Hong Kong financial secretary as its Greater China chairman.
Leung has said the US buyout would not slow its investments in China despite the global financial crisis, as high economic growth and low valuations promised good returns.
Blackstone currently is raising a local currency yuan-denominated fund with a target size of about $750 million, purely for China deals.

Wuhan Steel raises April steel prices

China\’s Wuhan Iron and Steel Co has raised April prices for hot- and cold-rolled steel by 300 yuan a ton, and for galvanised steel by 200 yuan a ton, the China Securities Journal said on Tuesday.
Wuhan Steel was the first to announce April prices among China\’s steel sector, which produced almost half the world\’s steel last year, but the paper gave no further details.
Baosteel, the country\’s top steel firm, has yet to announce prices of its mainstream products for April, after it hiked March prices of hot- and cold-rolled steel coil to their highest since November 2008.
But Baosteel has raised prices of steel wire rod by 150 to 300 yuan per ton for April, the paper said.
China\’s steel mills and global miners are locked in negotiations for 2010\’s iron ore contract, and the country\’s steel sector faces a huge increase in iron ore costs this year.

China Life sees 2009 earnings up over 200%
China Life Insurance Co, the world\’s biggest life insurer by market value, on Tuesday revised up its 2009 net profit growth forecast to more than 200 percent from 2008, citing accounting rule changes.

China Life did not give details on its 2009 earnings, but said that it posted a net profit of 10.068 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) for 2008, in a statement published in the Shanghai Securities Journal.
China Life previously estimated its 2009 net profit grew over 50 percent, partly as a result of a recovery in the capital markets which led to an increase in investment returns.
China\’s Ministry of Finance revised accounting rules for insurance companies last year to bring them more in line with international standards, and China Life\’s 2009 earnings estimates were based on new accounting rules.

Google prepared to leave China
A second Google executive said on Wednesday that the company had not changed its decision to stop censoring its Chinese language search site and it was prepared to shut down the website if necessary.
"We are no longer willing to censor our search results in China, and we are currently reviewing our options," Google vice president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong said in her testimony before the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
"If the option is that we\’ll shutter our .cn operation and leave the country, we are prepared to do that."
Wong added that the company would do it in an "appropriate and responsible way," that it has "hundreds of employees on the ground" and understands "the seriousness or the sensitivity" of its decision but "we will stop censoring" search results in China.
At the congressional hearing on "The Google Predicament: Transforming US Cyberspace Policy to Advance Democracy, Security and Trade," the Google executive said they had found out those attacks came from China but they were not going to say "who is carrying out these attacks" and they would hope the Chinese government would work with the US officials to investigate the issue.
She also told the lawmakers that the decision to review the business operation in Chinawas made by the executives in the US, "without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China."
After the hearing, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Howard L. Berman told reporters that the USgovernment should "think more carefully" before jumping into bilateral sanctions over the Google issue.
"First we try diplomatic engagement," he said. "Our ambassador in Beijingand other diplomatic persons are engaging with Chinese government over these issues. And we should look at the current trade agreements in WTO to see in what extent practice is going on in terms of violating the agreements. All of these are steps issues."
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Wednesday at a media conference in Abu Dhabithat the discussion with Chinawill yield results soon, according to Bloomberg.
"We decided not to publicize our dealings with China," he said. "We?ˉre in active talks with the Chinese government, and we have no specific timetable, but something will happen soon."

Sanofi-aventis seeks partners in China
France-based Pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-aventis will continue to look for partnership opportunities in China after it launched a joint venture with Minsheng Pharmaceutical, the company\’s top management said Tuesday.
"The deal with Minsheng Pharmaceutical is expected to receive regulatory approval within 2010, and we are still seeking other cooperation opportunities," said Thomas Kelly, vice president of Sanofi-aventis Greater China.
On February 3, the French company signed agreements with Minsheng Pharmaceutical Co Ltd to form a new consumer healthcare joint venture. Subject to certain conditions and regulatory approvals, Sanofi-aventis is to obtain a majority equity stake in the venture.
The Sanofi-aventis-Minsheng venture will focus primarily on vitamins and mineral supplements (VMS), the largest consumer healthcare segment in China, where Minsheng has established a strong presence with its flagship multivitamin brand of 21 Super-Vita.
Meanwhile, the company also strengthened its diabetes research as China faces a growing epidemic of diabetes, with the second-largest diabetic population in the world. Sanofi-aventis joined with the Chinese Diabetes Society of the Chinese Medical Association on Tuesday to launch a landmark study on Type 2 diabetes in China.

Rio Tinto president says to better China ties

Tom Albanese, president and chief executive officer of mining giant Rio Tinto Group, said Monday the company was committed to repairing and strengthening commercial ties with China.
The world\’s second-largest iron ore supplier\’s ties with China could be traced back 50 years as it had provided aluminum to China in the 1960s, Albanese said at the China Development Forum 2010 in Beijing.

He said it was a "pity" that his company lost a chance to forge a strategic partnership with Chinese state-owned aluminum producer Chinalco last year.
Rio Tinto declined Chinalco\’s offer of a US$19.5-billion cash injection ?in June last year and decided to raise capital through a US$15-billion rights issue.
Albanese said he would be glad to see the two companies agree to build a joint venture to develop a rich iron ore deposit in Guinea.
Chinalco is poised to invest 1.4 billion US dollars in the Simandou project to take a 47-percent stake in the joint venture.
The company\’s ties with China were strained last year partly because of Chinalco\’s rejected deal and the arrest of four Rio Tinto employees.
The employees, including Australian national Stern Hu, were detained in August on allegations of bribery and stealing commercial secrets.
They are to stand trial in the Shanghai First Intermediate People\’s Court from Monday to Wednesday, according to a statement posted on the court\’s website.

Toyota in talks with Zhejiang on recall
Toyota started talks with authorities of east China\’s Zhejiang Province Monday on the recalls and compensations over potential accelerator pedal problems of the RAV4 sport-utility vehicles.
The delegation led by the general manager of the FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co. Ltd., a Sino-Japanese joint venture, held close-door talks with the Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce, which was China\’s first local bureau to ask Toyota to improve its post-sale service.
The administration demanded Toyota to step up recalling the RAV4 vehicles and compensate the Chinese customers, said Zheng Yu, the administration head.
Affected owners have complained Toyota was slow in repairing the recalled vehicles. The company has not met the demands for compensation or canceling the purchase contracts, said Xu Jianming, secretary general of the provincial committee of consumer rights protection.
"We will fully support the customers to safeguard their interests," Xu said.
Toyota would recall about 75,000 RAV4 vehicles in China, nearly 10 percent of which were in Zhejiang.

Beijing Benz starts leasing program

Li Hongpeng (left), general manager for sales and marketing of Sino-German car joint venture Beijing Benz, Don Chan (second from left), director and general manager of Fortis Lease (China) Co Ltd for Greater China, and Patrick Chou (third from left), chairman of car dealership Beijing BetterLife Group with a Mercedes-Benz C-Class in a Beijing showroom.
The joint venture between Daimler AG and Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp last week forayed into the auto leasing business with BetterLife and Fortis, an affiliate of BNP Paribas.
The new business model will see Fortis provide financing to customers to lease new cars made by Beijing Benz from Beijing BetterLife for terms between three months and three years. When the lease expires, customers can buy the cars or lease other new Mercedes-Benz models. Unpurchased used cars will go onto the second-hand market through dealerships.
The business will mainly target institutional customers such as government organizations, multinational executives and managers in China as well as China\’s State-owned enterprises.
Beijing Benz has delivered 100 cars to BetterLife for leasing, part of its efforts to further propel sales.