An executive with Taobao.com insisted it operate a complete system for standardizing transactions and supervision, but promise to cooperate with administrative departments in the drive to further regulate the e-commerce market.

China-Brazil Trade

Bilateral trade between China and Brazil reached $14.77 billion in the first eight months of this year, increasing 41.22 percent year on year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

This was composed by $7.58 billion of China's exports to Brazil and $7.19 billion of imports from Brazil, up 54.4 percent and 28.1 percent respectively, said Assistant Minister Chen Jian.

Chen said Brazil is China's largest trade partner in Latin America, and that China is Brazil's third largest trade partner and export destination as well as its second largest source for imports only after the United States.

Trade between the two countries was valued at $20.3 billion last year, according to the General Administration of Customs of China.

By the end of June this year, China had invested nearly $100 million in Brazil, largely in mining, telecommunications, trade, services, lumber processing and assembly lines of household electric appliances. Meanwhile, Brazil's paid-in investment in China had hit $210 million, most of which went to manufacturing, real estate and hydropower industries, said Chen.

Armando Meziat, Secretary of Foreign Trade in the Brazilian Ministry of Development, said it was wrong that many Brazilians complained that Chinese textiles, toys and shoes had hurt their own industries, because judging by the first eight months' trade statistics, Brazil mainly imported telecommunications devices and home appliances. He said textile products only accounted a small proportion of Brazilian imports from China.

According to the present bilateral trade tendency, it is widely expected that China is going to exceed Argentina and becomes the second largest trading partner of Brazil in 2007.

Numbers on Sep.21-27 3 trillion yuan Newly added loans in the first eight months exceed 3 trillion yuan, almost reaching the aggregate for newly added loans of last year, according to the People's Bank of China. The World Bank suggested that further interest rate hikes might be in order. 60% Chinese direct investment abroad (excluding the financial sector), grew 60 percent annually during 2002-06, according to the China Outbound Investment Statistics Report 2006. Mergers and acquisitions were major channels for China's overseas investment.

Golden Futures

The securities regulator approved gold futures trading on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the fourth new futures product to be launched in China this year, following zinc, rapeseed oil and LLDPE (linear low density polyethylene). The actual date trading will begin.

China is a major consumer and producer of gold. It was the world's third largest gold producer in 2006, with aggregate output of the metal reaching 240.08 tons, up 7.15 percent from 2005.

"Gold futures are expected to be traded more actively than other metal futures, because investors consider gold to be more of a financial instrument than just a metal," said Li Jingyuan, an analyst at Haifu Futures Co.

Gold prices tend to go against the trend of other capital markets, so investors often look to gold for profit when the stock market is bearish or the U.S. dollar is under pressure. After the news was released to the public, two gold companies traded in the yuan-denominated A-share market-Zhongjin Gold Corp. Ltd., and Shandong Gold Group-saw their stock prices break record levels.