Financing regulations

THE central bank will speed up the drafting of financial regulations that govern the financing of small businesses, central bank Governor Yi Gang said Tuesday, as part of wider efforts to beef up its private sector.

In comments made at a conference in Beijing, Yi said the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, would adopt monetary policy tools flexibly and promote innovation of financial products for small companies to finance their businesses.

Industry consolidation

PROPERTY developers saw higher concentration ratios last year as fewer companies took larger shares of the sector amid industry consolidation, partly due to tightening government regulations.

Over half of the entire industry’s gross assets came from 15 largest property developers in 2017, compared with 18 companies in 2016, while the top 53 owned more than 80 percent of the sector’s combined assets, down from 59 firms in previous year, according to a report of the China Real Estate Association and E-house China R&D Institute.

Longping expansion

LONGPING High-Tech Agriculture Co., an agricultural firm controlled by China conglomerate CITIC Group Corp., sees Brazil expanding corn output up to 5 percent per year in coming years and is investing heavily to grab a third of the country’s corn seed market.

Longping, which bought its corn seed business from DowDuPont Inc. in Brazil for US$1.1 billion last year, said it will start building new seed plants in Brazil next year to increase production capacity beyond its current four installations.