Regulator tightens oversight of banks’ reporting

EIGHT Chinese banks have been fined up to 17.7 million yuan (US$2.5 million) by the country’s top banking regulator as authorities moved to tighten supervision over financial data reporting.

This is a rare occasion for the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission to levy fines on banks regarding data reporting issues, according to Wednesday’s Shanghai Securities News. The eight banks were found to have submitted incomplete information including transaction and credit asset transfer and underreported the number of wealth management products.

Alibaba launches poverty relief initiative

CHINESE e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. launched Wednesday the “Poverty Relief Spring Thunder Initiative,” dedicated to combating poverty in the country’s rural areas.

Under the initiative, 100 “Village Livestreaming Colleges” will be established to cultivate 100,000 farmer livestreamers and digital agricultural bases, and 50 brands featuring agricultural products will be built. The project will also build 100 “deliveryman villages” to provide more than 100,000 new jobs in poverty-stricken counties. Alibaba will dispatch senior staff to impoverished counties and help the poor to cast off poverty by developing e-commerce and other industries based on the local conditions.

Hundreds of German execs plan return to China

HUNDREDS of German executives who want to get back to China plan to charter a first flight May 25, with China offering to waive quarantine measures introduced to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, business and diplomatic sources said.

About 500 to 1,000 business managers have been offered an accelerated re-entry procedure by the Chinese Government, a German business representative said, with family members bringing the total to around 2,500 people. The German Chamber of Commerce in China is in the process of organizing a first charter flight with Lufthansa that could fly from Frankfurt to Shanghai on May 25, the representative said.

HK land fails to sell at auction

A PLOT of land at Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport has failed to sell at auction in a sign the city’s economic crisis is starting to take its toll on the property market.

Hong Kong’s government rejected all four offers received for the 19,788-square-meter site after they failed to meet the reserve price, it said in a statement late Wednesday.