Record Breaker

(CFP)

Chinese speed skater Yu Jing broke the Women's 500-meter world record at the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships in Calgary, Canada, on January 29, 2012.

Yu, 26, who competed for China at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, clocked 36.94 seconds at this year's championships to become the first woman to break the 37-second barrier. The previous world record was set in December 2009 at Salt Lake City by Germany's Jenny Wolf.

PMI Bounces Back

China's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a barometer of the country's manufacturing activity, rebounded to 50.5 percent in January 2012 from 50.3 percent in December 2011, said the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).

"The figure is a signal that the Chinese economy remains on a solid footing, with both industrial production and consumption stabilizing," said the CFLP. "But the positive development is in part due to impact of the Spring Festival and the long-term trend remains to be seen."

The new orders sub-index, an effective gauge of domestic demand, stood at 50.4 percent in January, compared with 49.8 percent in December 2011.

Property Loans Down

Banks in China extended 1.26 trillion yuan ($200 billion) of property loans in 2011, a decrease of 770.4 billion yuan ($121.7 billion) from a year earlier, said the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

"Property loan growth weakened last year due to restrictive policies in the real estate industry," said the central bank in a report.

China introduced its toughest-ever policies against property speculation last year to tame inflated home prices. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, 52 out of the 70 monitored cities witnessed month-on-month drops in new commercial house prices in December 2011.

Combating Hot Money

China will continue cracking down on illegal cross-border capital flows this year in an effort to protect economic and financial security, said the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), the country's top foreign exchange regulator.

The SAFE investigated 3,488 cases of illegal cross-border capital flows in 2011, and confiscated a total of 503 million yuan ($79.59 million) in illegal funds, more than twice the amount collected in the previous year.

In the past year, the SAFE has also cracked down on illegal private banks, Internet-based speculation in foreign exchange and illegal foreign exchange trading.

The SAFE said that it would further strengthen the monitoring of foreign exchange transactions and prevent risks from abnormal cross-border capital flows this year.

Sany Expands

China's construction equipment giant Sany Heavy Industry is set to take over Putzmeister, a German engineering firm, the Chinese company said in a statement.

Under the deal, Sany's wholly owned subsidiary, Sany Germany GmbH, will pay 324 million euros to own 90 percent of Putzmeister's shares. The remaining 10 percent would be purchased by China's Citic Funds.

Putzmeister, founded in 1958, is a familyowned firm based in Aichtal. Sany said that the deal would help upgrade its research, development and innovation capacities, improve its international operations and management expertise and lead to the creation of a global leader in concrete machinery production.

Brokerages Suffer

China's securities companies posted a combined profit of 39.38 billion yuan ($6.24 billion) in 2011, just half of what they reported in 2010, according to data from the Securities Association of China (SAC).

A total of 109 securities firms earned an operating income of 135.95 billion yuan ($21.5 billion) last year, representing a 30-percent drop from 2010, said the SAC.

The gloom was a result of the dismal performance of stock markets last year. Due to tightened bank lending, the battered real estate sector, and weak external demand, China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 21.68 percent in 2011.

IPO Mania

China's A-share markets will see around 300 initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2012, raising 270 billion-300 billion yuan ($42.7 billion-$47.4 billion) in total, said the Beijingbased research company Zero2IPO.

Because of gloomy sentiment on secondary markets, domestic stock markets received 282 listings and raised $43.7 billion in 2011, down 19 percent and 39.3 percent respectively from 2010, said the report.

The report predicted that the secondary markets will rebound in 2012 but the IPO market will not see sharp growth as the China Securities Regulatory Commission may slow down the pace of IPOs this year to ensure ample market liquidity.