BUSY AUTUMN: Farmers work in a field growing Chinese cabbages for the upcoming winter in Enshi, central China's Hubei Province (SONG WEN)

Insurance Valued

On August 13, the Chinese Government launched measures to boost the insurance industry, pledging to raise premium incomes to 5 percent of the GDP by 2020.

The package, announced on the State Council's website, will allow the insurance industry to play a bigger role in the fledgling social security network.

The second of its kind since 2006, the package could see citizens paying an average of 3,500 yuan ($565) per capita in premiums by 2020.

Commercial insurance companies will become the primary underwriters of individual and household programs and an important supplier of corporate pensions and health insurance.

Insurance will be given a more prominent role in the prevention and relief of disasters and accidents through the introduction of catastrophe insurance products.

Insurance funds will be encouraged to invest in bonds and equities to support major infrastructure projects, urban renewal and urbanization.

The government will encourage the house-for-pension insurance experiment and launch a pilot program to introduce compulsory insurance for environmental pollution, food safety, medical accidents and campus safety.

Export Rebounds

China's exports in July surged 14.5 percent from a year earlier to $212.9 billion, while imports dropped 1.6 percent to $165.6 billion, China Customs data showed on August 8.

Total trade volume in July went up 6.9 percent year on year.

HSBC's chief China economist Qu Hongbin attributed the strong export figures mainly to further recovery in external demand.

Trade surplus expanded to $47.3 billion from $31.6 billion in June.

In the first seven months, total trade volume edged up by 2 percent to $2.4 trillion, with exports up 3 percent to $1.28 trillion and imports up 1 percent to $1.12 trillion.

Total trade surplus in the first seven months surged 20.9 percent to $150.6 billion.

Oil Dependency

China's reliance on foreign crude will continue to increase this year despite the ongoing strife in major oil-producing nations like Iraq, an industry report said on August 12.

According to a report published by China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country's largest oil and gas producer, China is expected to import 298 million tons of crude this year, accounting for about 58.66 percent of the total crude consumption in the country.

Foreign dependency for the first five months reached 59.87 percent, according to CNPC.

However, some analysts feel that the reliance on overseas crude supplies may be much higher than the levels estimated by CNPC.

Gao Jian, a crude analyst at domestic commodities consultancy Sublime China Information Co. Ltd., said foreign crude may account for about 60 percent of China's total crude supplies this year because of the higher imports in the second half.

IPO Preparation

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said on August 13 it is selling its small business lending arm to the Small and Micro Financial Services Co., the parent of payment platform Alipay, for $518 million in cash and annual fees for seven years.

This marks the spin-off of Alibaba's last remaining financial business ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) in New York later this year.

In an updated prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the e-commerce giant said that the move is to avoid same-business competition with the Small and Micro Financial Services Co.

Alibaba said it will focus on Internet business while the Small and Micro Financial Services Co., which also has stakes in a fund management firm and an insurance company, will focus on financial services.

In 2011, Alibaba shed its PayPal-like affiliate Alipay to make it a domestic company in order to meet regulatory requirements for third-party payment licenses. Alibaba then agreed to use Alipay on preferential terms.