FULL SPEED AHEAD: The first intercity high-speed railway in central China's Jiangxi Province—the Nanchang-Jiujiang Intercity High-Speed Railway—is now in operation. The 135-km railway has six stations. It takes only 45 minutes to make the whole trip (CHEN CHUNYUAN)

Bank Capital

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the banking regulator, will unveil the framework and roadmap of capital regulation on commercial banks in due time, CBRC officials said on September 17.

CBRC officials also said the international bank capital regulation reform has limited influence over domestic banks in the short term, but the influence in the long run is more substantial.

Chinese commercial banks have a comparatively high capital adequacy ratio worldwide, according to a survey made by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which said China's banking industry is in a favorable position in the reform.

As of June 2010, Chinese banks' capital adequacy ratio hit 11.1 percent on average, while the core capital adequacy ratio stood at 9 percent and core capital accounted for up to 80 percent of the total capital.

Going Global

Three established overseas Chinese companies—Suncast TV, Winalite International and BioPharmGe—reached a strategic cooperation agreement on September 17 to jointly build a Chinese brand and promote Chinese corporate culture in the global market.

The strategic cooperation is based on the principle of sharing each other's available resources and advantages to achieve the best synergy in business.

Under the new cooperation, Suncas TV will help its partners build brand awareness through its IPTV and Internet media platform. Winalite International will provide its global sales and marketing network to help promote product sales and distribution. BioPharmGe will further utilize its pharmaceutical research and development to produce high quality health products. Many of its hi-tech health products have won U.S. patents and are sought after in the U.S. market.

Cleaner Energy

China, the world's largest coal producer and consumer, is seeking a cleaner method to use this natural resource. It is expected to develop its coal conversion industry into the world's largest by 2020.

"China's capacity for coal liquefaction projects would hit the equivalent of 20 million tons of oil, that of coal-to-gas would reach 50 billion cubic meters, and coal-to-chemical will total 10 million tons of oil equivalent," Du Minghua, Deputy Director of China Shenhua CTL and CTC Research Institute, said at an energy forum in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province.

The scale would then become the largest in the world, while some of the technologies would be the top level in the world, he said.

So far, China has already finished construction on eight pilot clean coal conversion projects. Annual coal liquefaction capacity stands at 1.68 million tons and that for coal-to-gas 15 billion cubic meters. Capacity for coal-to-olefin stands at 1.7 million tons, Du said.

Treasury Bonds

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) began selling a batch of book-entry discount treasury bonds with a total face value of 20 billion yuan ($2.98 billion) on September 20.

With a term of 182 days, the bonds would be sold to the public at a price of 99.074 yuan ($14.51) for each bill with a face value of 100 yuan ($14.6).

The bonds will provide investors an annual yield of 1.89 percent and investors will be paid the face value when the term is due.

This is the 13th batch of its kind launched by the MOF in 2010.