Central bank cuts yuan fix nearly 0.60%

    CHINA’S central bank yesterday fixed the yuan currency nearly 0.60 percent weaker against the U.S. dollar, according to the national foreign exchange market, the biggest downward move since devaluing the unit in August last year.

    The People’s Bank of China set the value of the yuan at 6.4943 to US$1, weakening 0.59 percent from the fix of 6.4565 the previous day, according to data from the Foreign Exchange Trade System. Analysts said the weaker fix was in line with strength in the U.S. dollar overnight, as financial authorities seek to make trading more market oriented.

    China Molybdenum buys Anglo’s businesses

    CHINA Molybdenum Co. will spend US$1.5 billion buying two Brazilian businesses from Anglo American, a global miner.

    The miner will purchase Anglo American Fosfatos Brasil Limitada and Anglo American Niobio Brasil Limitada from Anglo American, after Anglo American said Thursday it agreed to sell its Brazilian niobium and phosphates businesses to China Molybdenum.

    CNOOC expands Fujian LNG terminal

    CNOOC Ltd., China’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer, has started building two storage tanks at a receiving terminal in Fujian Province for the super-chilled fuel, Xinhua reported Tuesday.

    The new tanks are part of a plan to increase the receiving capacity at the terminal in the southeastern coastal province to 6.3 million tons a year, Xinhua said. The tanks, each able to store 160,000 cubic meters of LNG, are part of the 24 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) in LNG projects that Fujian plans for the province to supply gas to Fuzhou, Putian, Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou, as well as to power three power plants.

    CRRC unit fined for failing to declare venture

    CHINA’S Ministry of Commerce has fined Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. and a unit of domestic trainmaker CRRC Corp. 150,000 yuan (US$$23,100) each for failing to declare a joint venture set up over three years ago.

    Hitachi and Beijing CNR agreed in March 2013 to set up a rail traffic signal joint venture and obtained a business license a year later but failed to declare the tie-up to authorities, the Ministry of Commerce’s anti-monopoly bureau said in a statement yesterday. Beijing CNR was a unit of China CNR, which merged with rival trainmaker CSR Corp. to create CRRC Corp. last year.