Cross-border capital outflows easing: regulator

    CROSS-BORDER capital outflows from China have started moderating in recent months, the country’s top foreign exchange regulator said Saturday.

    Pan Gongsheng, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, made the remarks at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual parliament session. China’s foreign exchange reserves fell US$28.57 billion in February, slightly less than expected and easing from January’s slump, suggesting the central bank is scaling back its interventions to support the yuan as capital outflows slow.

    Shanghai, London bourses in trading link deal

    THE Shanghai Stock Exchange said Friday that it has reached a preliminary agreement with the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on a co-operation framework for a planned stock trading link.

    The two bourses will now carry out deeper studies into the feasibility of a Shanghai-London connect program, the Shanghai exchange said in a statement posted on its official microblog. The British and Chinese governments announced in September last year that they had asked LSE Group and the Shanghai Stock Exchange to launch a feasibility study into a link.

    Greenland unit to list REIT in Singapore

    CHINESE property developer Greenland Group said Friday that its unit plans to set up and list a real estate investment trust (REIT) backed by hotel assets in China on the main board of the Singapore Exchange.

    The REIT, to be set up by Greenland Holdings and investment firm Amare, will purchase 19 hotel properties from Greenland for 21 billion yuan (US$3.23 billion), it said, adding that the REIT will be listed soon. It did not specify a timing. The company did not say how much it was looking to raise through the listing, but said it would be the largest REIT issued by Chinese property firms so far.

    Shanghai copper stocks highest since August 2002

    COPPER inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose to their highest in nearly a decade, data showed Friday.

    Many had expected Chinese copper demand to rebound after the Lunar New Year break in January, but a slower domestic economy and strains from a prolonged debt crisis in Europe cut its appetite for the metal. Stockpiles of copper in Shanghai warehouses rose 2.5 percent to 221,487 tons, the highest level since early August 2002.