ODI Control Loosened

The Chinese Government has relaxed its grip on outbound direct investment (ODI) as domestic enterprises begin to invest heavily abroad.

On November 18, the State Council released a much shorter list of ODI projects needing government approval to encourage enterprises to enter the international market.

Gu Dawei, an official of the National Development and Reform Commission, estimated that around 99 percent of investment projects included on the previous list are now free from long government procedures, and will only need to go through a registration system.

Chinese enterprises have been keen on investing overseas during the last decade with robust mergers and acquisitions in manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, minerals, agriculture and culture.

China is currently the world's third largest investor after the United States and Japan. Last year's ODI amounted to nearly 40 times that in 2002. ODI by non-financial Chinese firms rose 17.8 percent from a year ago in the first 10 months to $81.9 billion, according to the MOFCOM.

RMB Clearing in Sydney

The People's Bank of China (PBC), China's central bank, on November 18 appointed Bank of China, one of the country's big four lenders, to clear yuan transactions in Sydney, Australia.

The PBC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Reserve Bank of Australia on November 17 in the Australian capital Canberra, authorizing the Sydney branch of Bank of China to clear yuan transactions, according to the PBC website.

Under the agreement, China will also grant Australian banking institutions a 50-billion-yuan ($8.2-billion) quota under the renminbi qualified foreign institutional investors (RQFII) program and increased the maximum amount the Reserve Bank of Australia is allowed to invest in China's interbank bond market to 10 billion yuan ($1.63 billion).

So far this year, China has reached agreements with Germany, Britain, France, Luxembourg, South Korea and Canada to open local yuan trading centers.

China is Australia's largest trading partner, export market and source of imports. Two-way trade reached $136.4 billion in 2013, a year-on-year rise of 11.5 percent.

Listed on NYSE

China's leading car rentals and services provider eHi Car Services Ltd. listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange on November 18.

The company announced that its initial public offering of 10 million American depositary shares (ADSs), each representing two Class A common shares of the company, was priced at $12 per ADS, at the low end of its expected price range of $12 to $14.

The company's shares opened trading at $12 a share under the ticker symbol EHIC, but slipped slightly later in trading.

It expects to receive gross proceeds of approximately $120 million from the offering at closing, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs.

Headquartered in Shanghai, eHi initially focused on providing car services to corporate clients when it commenced business in 2006, and then expanded to provide car rentals to individual customers two years later.

By the end of June, eHi had directly operated a total of 760 service locations in 90 cities across China, said the company in its prospectus.