RAILWAY BRIDGE COMPLETED A railway bridge between Zhengzhou and Jiaozuo, two cities in central China's Henan Province, was finished on January 21 (ZHU XIANG)

New Silk Road

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will rebuild itself as the transport, financial and logistics center of the Silk Road Economic Belt in 2014.

Nur Bekri, the regional governor, said that Xinjiang will continue opening up to Central Asia and Europe, and grasp the opportunity to boost the Silk Road Economic Belt, during his speech at the annual session of the local legislature which started on January 16.

A Silk Road Economic Belt agreement was signed by 24 cities from eight countries along the Silk Road in November, to promote greater cooperation, development and prosperity among the countries.

Xinjiang will promote the establishment of a free trade zone with countries along the route and strengthen multilateral cooperation on agriculture, energy, tourism and culture. At the same time, Xinjiang will keep opening up to the domestic market, and prepare for the transfer of industries from the east region to the west, according to Nur Bekri.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the idea of the economic belt during his visit to Central Asia in September, eyeing the cultural revival of the Silk Road, which historically linked China with Central Asia and Europe, as a way of developing political and economic ties.

Land defined as the new Silk Road covers 18 Asian and European countries with a total area of 50 million square km and a population of 3 billion. It also boasts rich energy, mining, tourism, cultural and agricultural resources.

IPO Debut

China's first initial public offering (IPO) since the year-long listing freeze on January 17 received a fervent response from traders whose cheers brought its trading to a temporary halt.

Neway Valve (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., an industrial valve manufacturer, made a strong debut on the board, with its shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange opening around 20 percent over the IPO price.

Neway continued upward by as much as 31.99 percent in the morning session, prompting a temporary halt to trading according to new IPO rules that set limits for price changes.

At the close of business, Neway Valve ended at 25.34 yuan ($4.19) per share, 43.5 percent over the offering price. The broader Shanghai Stock Exchange dropped 0.93 percent.

"The market response showed investors want new blood in the stock market," said Qin Xiaobin, an analyst with China Galaxy Securities.

For other firms waiting to launch IPOs, Neway's debut was encouraging, but its following price movements will be mainly decided by the firms' strength, Qin noted.

Meanwhile, analysts cautioned that too fast a resumption of IPOs would put a strain on the stock market where liquidity remains tight.

Home Prices Up

Home prices in major Chinese cities continued to climb despite repeated government efforts to cool the sector.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities, 65 saw a month-on-month rise in new home prices and 64 reported price gains in

existing and second-hand homes in December 2013, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 18.

More cities saw price growth easing last December, a result the senior NBS statistician Liu Jianwei attributed to a raft of government efforts to stabilize market expectations, including more control measures and increasing supplies of affordable housing.

All of the cities except Wenzhou reported gains in new home prices over the past year.

First-tier cities continued to see rises in December, with the prices of new homes in Beijing and Shanghai surging over 20 percent from a year ago, but Liu said the trend has been losing momentum.