News 

Government Moves on Housing Guarantees 
On August 24, the National Housing Working Conference quietly convened under the leadership of officials from the State Council and the Ministry of Construction, with provincial leaders also present. Though the discussions are not being publicized, sources tell the EO that a series of documents relating to the housing guarantee system will surface soon, with policy cementing within the year. This comes after the State Council on August 8 published policy suggestions dealing with the difficulty faced by low-income families in housing markets. The document puts the issue at the top of the housing system and construction reform agenda.
Original article: [Chinese]

Editorial: Domestic Products Are Dangerous Too 
This week's editorial argues that the recently popular argument that 99 percent of Chinese exports are safe downplays the damage done to consumers who end up purchasing the sub-par 1 percent. Furthermore, domestically consumed products deserve more scrutiny, as they fail to meet standards more often than China's exports do.
Original article: [Chinese]

Antitrust Law Enters Last Draft 
The last draft of the Antitrust Law will be reviewed by the National People's Congress' Standing Committee from August 24 to August 30. After more than ten years in the making, it has hope of being passed by the end of the month. One section that has undergone heavy editing in this last draft deals with foreign firms' acquisition of domestic assets in industries linked to national security.
Original article: [Chinese]

National Mining Registry Emerges 
The Ministry of Land and Resources recently began work on a national registry to deal with confusion in mining rights transactions, which is expected to be finished by December. As part of the project, local branches of the Ministry have begun surveying mines for basic information. It is hoped that this will clear up discrepancies in local databases, aid mine inspections and assessments, and make annual reports by mines easier.
Original article: [Chinese]

Industry in Focus: Cotton 
The EO examines the cotton industry in China, which employs over 100 million people mostly in agriculture. Experts tell the EO that the industry is regulated by too many government agencies (nine) and suggest allowing market forces to play a greater role.
Original article: [Chinese] 

Limited Impact of Sub-prime Crisis on China 
China's financial markets have been unaffected by the sub-prime loan crisis that has hit Western ones in recent weeks. Meanwhile, the central bank continues to focus on excess liquidity.
Original article: [Chinese]

Breaking the Real Estate Deadlock 
As the government doubles its efforts to cool off real estate, prices keep breaking new highs. The EO interviews three experts to discuss what the government should do, two of whom agree that a new property tax is a promising policy choice.
Original article: [Chinese]

Nation 

Bringing Down the Tuo River Bridge 
On the eve of its completion and after four years of construction, Hunan province's Tuo River bridge collapsed in a matter of moments, killing 69 people and injuring many others. Three main causes are cited: First, the well-known company that built it, Hunan Road and Bridge, won the rights with a low bid against fierce competition. Two, to lower costs even more, they subcontracted work out to small labor outfits who themselves took cost-cutting measures. Three, supervising bodies failed their duties throughout the construction process.
Original article: [Chinese]

Shengpa Typhoon Exposes Housing Inspection Vacuum   
Since touching down on the mainland on August 19, the Shengpa Typhoon has killed 39 people and destroyed 23,000 homes. Most of the deaths were caused by the collapsing of crudely constructed houses. Officials say that housing inspections are virtually nonexistent in these rural areas.
Original article: [Chinese] 

Money & Investment

Chinese Yuan Foreign Exchange Services Come Online 
On August 17 the People's Bank of China made more announcements regarding the banking sector's opening up of foreign exchange services. The services will cover five currencies—the US dollar, the euro, the pound, the yen, and the Hong Kong dollar.
Original article: [Chinese]

Sub-prime Losses Low at Chinese Banks 
On August 23, the Industrial and Commercial Bank and the Bank of China published their 2007 interim reports, which said that losses related to the sub-prime loan crisis were not significant. Head of ICBC's board of directors, Jiang Jianqing, says that the bank's sub-prime bonds only account for 4.32 percent of its total foreign debt and 0.0012 percent of its total assets.
Original article: [Chinese] 

ICBC Beijing Branch Changes Direction 
In a market where freshly listed state banks are being followed closely, ICBC's Beijing branch is changing its business model. Like others in the industry, it faces challenges in increasing profitability in an environment of excess liquidity and a decreasing loan-to-deposit ratio, in innovating in new products so as to attract large clients, and retaining and attracting clients from the high-income bracket.
Original article: [Chinese] 

Corporation 

Siemens CEO Visits China Amidst Bribery Probe 
Last November, German electronics giant Siemens broke headlines with news that managers had been involved in bribery exceeding 1 billion euros, with 50 percent of its China business involved. As a result, it hired U.S. law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and accounting firm KPMG to lead an internal investigate starting this past June, with the company's CEO visiting China on August 22. According to one source, telecom and electricity industries in China are steeped in grey income and that this year, methods used to conceal these kinds of illegal transactions increased in complexity.
Original article: [Chinese]   

IT 

Seventy Percent of Online Video Firms Will Leave the Market 
Analysys International, a Chinese IT market research firm, predicts that by the end of 2007, 70 percent of China's online video sites will be pushed out of the market. Lack of funds and innovative content, high costs of equipment and bandwidth, and the inability to find profitable business models are all contributing factors to restructuring in the industry.
Original article: [Chinese]   

Observer 

Different Scales of Land Rights 
Zhou Qiren, a professor at the Yangtze Business School and Peking University, discusses rural landownership and the opportunities brought by the leasing of small-scale government owned properties in the open market. He says leasing collective-owned property on the immediate suburbs of a city is good for the elderly and young professionals because it offers them a less polluted environment with access to fresher produce at affordable prices.
Original article: [Chinese] 

Comparing India and China 
Liu Bo asks Pranab Bardhan, a professor of economics at U.C. Berkley, to compare China and India's development and the links between democratic politics and poverty alleviation. He emphasizes that continued growth in labor-intensive industries will create more employment in China for those most in need. 

Original article: [Chinese]