Bank regulator: Local debt under control
BAD loans made to financing vehicles run by local governments are under control and officials will continue to pay close attention to any risks, the chief banking regulator said yesterday.
Liu Mingkang, head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), was speaking on the sidelines of the country s annual session of parliament. A total of about 10 trillion yuan (US$1.5 trillion) has been loaned to Chinese local government financing vehicles, much of it during stimulus spending launched after the global financial crisis. The CBRC has estimated that as much as a quarter of that debt might go bad.
China replaces U.S. as No.1 manufacturer
CHINA has become the world s top manufacturing country by output, returning the country to the position it occupied in the early 19th century and ending the United States 110-year run as the largest goods producer.
The change is revealed in a study released yesterday by IHS Global Insight, a U.S.-based economics consultancy, which estimates that China last year accounted for 19.8 percent of world manufacturing output, fractionally ahead of the United States with 19.4 percent.
Feb. daily steel output hits record high
THE country s daily crude steel output rose 0.5 percent from January to a record high of 1.94 million tons in the holiday-shortened month of February, with private mills producing with abandon despite demand uncertainty.
China produced a total of 54.31 million tons of crude steel in February, up 9.7 percent from the same month last year, according to official data from China s National Bureau of Statistics on Friday.
China may gain small from Japan steel cut
KEY Japanese steelmakers stopped production at some plants yesterday as the country imposed power cuts to cope with the devastation following a massive earthquake and tsunami, although analysts say overcapacity elsewhere may curb any impact on steel prices.
A potential drop in Japan s steel exports, at around 18 million tons annually, can be easily replaced by top producer China given its huge capacity of at least 750 million tons. But the amount may be too small for Chinese companies to ramp up prices even if Japan imports steel, although steel stocks across the region rallied.
