Chinese exporters face an increased risk of not being paid for their goods as foreign banks run out of cash and some overseas importers evade paying debts, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) warned in Beijing Monday."The cases of malicious debt evasion and breach of contracts by importers in certain countries or regions are on the rise," said the ministry in a notice. It attributed

China's foreign trade increase is expected to continue slowing down in 2009, hampered by weakening demand in other countries and domestic economic slowdown, the Customs said in a survey released on Jan 4.The Customs estimates that the growth rate of trade in 2009 will be below 5 percent, compared with the 18 percent increase in 2008.The weakened demand in other countries has restricted exports as

China's central bank said on Tuesday it plans to implement a pilot program of settling overseas trade with the Chinese currency instead of the U.S. dollar in 2009. According to a press release posted on the website of the People's Bank of China, the central bank will expand financial cooperation with overseas economies and properly deal with the global financial crisis. "We'll actively join i

Stimulus package to boost the auto market will be released soon. The policies will encourage low-emission vehicles and self-owned brands, and reduce and exempt taxes on auto purchases.A plan to promote the auto industry has been initially formulated and will gradually be put into full operation. Specifically, the plan outlined a series of favorite policies, namely, encouraging customers to buy low

China can maintain rapid economic growth over the next three decades, which will ensure that what's now the fourth largest economy ranks among developed nations. Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank Corp., made that prediction in Caijing Magazine's 2008 yearbook, issued in December. Guo said that human resources, an advanced legal system and proper macroeconomic policies would determin

China's futures trading volume reached a record high of 71.9 trillion yuan (10.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2008, up 76 percent year-on-year, the China Futures Association (CFA) said on Saturday. It said 1.36 billion contracts were traded, up 87 percent. The most active contracts were for sugar in Zhengzhou, soybeans and soybean meal in Dalian and copper and natural rubber in the Shanghai. Trading

There's a lesson for China's car makers in the fate of the ailing U.S. auto industry: develop smaller, fuel-efficient models instead of betting on gas-guzzlers, industry analysts have warned. "We used to believe medium-sized cars would have the biggest market in China, but actually small cars have the greatest potential in terms of energy efficiency and price," senior engineer Chen Yilon