China is to introduce a "green insurance system" to better monitor polluting industries and help victims get immediate compensation, said Pan Yue, Vice Minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, the country's top environmental watchdog.

The system, which aims to have all industries with pollution risks insured, will be implemented nationwide by 2015 after a trial period, according to a road map jointly created by the State Environmental Protection Administration and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Pan said the system would be tried out this year in "companies that produce, sell, store, transport or use high-risk chemical products" and "petrochemical industries and dangerous waste disposing enterprises that are prone to heavy and serious pollution accidents." In the past, once a serious environmental incident happened, the company responsible usually resorted to bankruptcy in the face of the huge compensation and pollution control expenses.

Monitoring of M&A

China has set up a special committee to oversee the merger and acquisition (M&A) of its listed companies, as this resource allocation maneuver becomes increasingly important in the country's financial markets.

China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced the establishment of the 25-member committee on February 20 as part of its plan to ensure transparency and quality of the examination and approval of M&A applications. A consulting committee of 15 members was also created to advise on the establishment of M&A rules.

A total of 73.9 billion yuan ($10.3 billion) was injected into listed Chinese companies through M&A last year, according to statistics from the CSRC.

Gold Rush

China has surpassed the United States to become the world's second largest market for gold jewelry, according to statistics released by the World Gold Council (WGC).

The latest WGC statistics showed that sales of gold jewelry in China reached a record high of 302.2 tons, up 34 percent and second only to India.

In January, China's gold futures made a strong debut on the Shanghai Futures Exchange as international gold prices had repeatedly hit new highs. Global gold prices jumped more than 30 percent last year, the biggest increase since 1979.

Selling State Wheat Reserves

A two-day auction for 2.5 million tons of state wheat reserves opened on February 20 at the Henan Provincial Grain Trade Market, which is conducting the largest such auction in China.

The auctions are meant to stabilize market prices and prevent private enterprises from holding grain stocks off the market in hopes of profit.

Buyers have responded to the auction enthusiastically and the market received 2,700 bids on the morning of the first day, said Huang Shang, Deputy Manager of the market.

Tolls on Forestry Sector

Severe winter weather, the worst in two decades, caused losses of 57.3 billion yuan ($8 billion) to China's forestry sector in January and could affect parts of the sector in the next three to five years, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced on February 19.

Snowstorms damaged 20.86 million hectares of forests, or 10 percent of the total in China, setting back efforts to meet a national 20-percent forest coverage target by 2020, according to the administration.

The weather has slashed the income of forest farmers this year and will have a severe impact on revenue in the coming three to five years, SFA Deputy Director Zhu Lieke told the conference. Another SFA official Xiao Xingwei said some timber manufacturers may have to close because of a raw material shortage.