Lighter Penalty

(FILE)

Wu Ying, who was sentenced to death early this year for financial fraud, received a lighter penalty on May 21. The Higher People's Court of east China's Zhejiang Province made a final judgement, sentencing the 31-year-old businesswoman to death with a two-year reprieve. The court also ordered that all Wu's personal property be confiscated.

Wu, 31, is the former boss of Bense Group, a business conglomerate based in Zhejiang. She received a death sentence for cheating investors out of several hundred million yuan in January. The sentence upheld the result of a previous trial in December 2009. This once sparked public outcry for a lenient punishment.

From May 2005 to February 2007, Wu raised 770 million yuan ($122 million) by promising high returns to investors. She still had 380 million yuan ($60 million) in unpaid debt with creditors when the case was uncovered. Wu amassed the fortune by fabricating facts, deliberately hiding the truth, and promising high returns as an incentive.

Home Prices Drop

New home prices in nearly two thirds of major Chinese cities decreased in April as the country continues to regulate the real estate market.

In April, 43 of 70 major cities saw drops in new home prices from March, while new home prices in 24 cities remained at the same level. Only three cities, down from eight in March, saw slight increases of less than 0.2 percent last month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Compared with April 2011, new home prices in 46 cities declined. But 23 cities saw the prices up by less than 1.7 percent from a year earlier.

Prices of newly built homes in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou fell further on both monthly and yearly bases in April.

Direct Buying

China now has direct access to the U.S. Department of the Treasury to buy U.S. government bonds, though "the buying amount is not significant," a source close to China's central bank told the Beijing-based Global Times.

While all other countries have to go through primary dealers on Wall Street to buy and sell U.S. bonds, China now only has to sell, not buy, through these brokers.

"The direct access is an acknowledgement of the critical importance of China to the U.S. ability to fund its deficits. It gives China more power in bidding without showing its hands to Wall Street banks and other potential competition," Dariusz Kowalczyk, a senior economist at Crédit Agricole CIB told the Global Times.

Buyback Deal

Alibaba Group, a leading Chinese e-commerce company based in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, announced it will spend about $7 billion in repurchasing up to one-half of Yahoo! Inc.'s stake in the company, or approximately 20 percent of Alibaba's fully diluted shares.

According to an agreement reached with Yahoo, Alibaba will repurchase the shares with $6.3 billion in cash and no more than $800 million in newly issued Alibaba preferred stocks, said Alibaba in a statement.

Previously, Yahoo was the largest shareholder of Alibaba with a stake of approximately 40 percent and Japan's Softbank Corp., another major Alibaba shareholder, holds 29 percent of Alibaba's shares.

After the deal, Yahoo and Softbank will see their voting rights diluted below 50 percent in the company's new board.

"The repurchase deal is a very clear signal that Jack Ma, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba, wants to take back control of the company soon," said Fang Xingdong, Chairman of the Beijing-based IT think tank Chinalabs.com.

Anti-dumping Measures

The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced that China will continue to impose anti-dumping measures against catechol imports from the United States and Japan for another five years starting from May 22.

"If such measures cease to be implemented, the dumping of imported catechol from the United States and Japan may continue to occur in China and cause damage to the domestic catechol industry," said the MOFCOM in a statement.

The MOFCOM handed down the ruling after a one-year review of the previous antidumping measure. China implemented a five-year anti-dumping duty of 4-46.81 percent on catechol imports from the United States and Japan on May 22, 2006.

Catechol is a chemical material that can be used as an antiseptic or photographic developer.

Cinema Chain Acquisition

Dalian Wanda Group Corp. Ltd., a private Chinese firm based in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, announced that it will purchase U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion, creating the world's largest movie theater franchise.

Dalian Wanda Group is a leading commercial real estate developer that also owns Wanda Cinema Line, Asia's largest movie theater chain. 290 million Credit cards in circulation rose to 290 million at the end of March, an increase of 20 percent year on year, said the China Banking Association.

The group will invest no more than $500 million to fund operations after finishing the acquisition, bringing the total payment to $3.1 billion.

After buying AMC's 346 multiplex theaters and 5,028 screens in North America, the group will become the world's largest movie theater operator.

The deal needs approval from the Chinese and U.S. governments before being formally closed.

Nestle's New Farm

Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle signed an agreement with a county government in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to build a new dairy farm.

The government of Old Barag Banner confirmed on May 22 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nestle to build a 2,000-cow dairy farm by the end of 2013.

The county is located near the Hulun Buir grasslands, where Nestle built a dairy plant in 2007.

According to the agreement, Nestle will not have ownership of the farm, but will help the owners manage it.