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The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has resumed preparations to introduce margin lending and short selling for mainland stocks in an effort to bolster the A-share market, the South China Morning Post reported. The Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses have been asked to provide detailed plans for the derivative products, which allow investors to borrow from brokers to buy shares and borrow shares from trading houses and sell them, respectively. In May, to avoid turbulence ahead of the Olympics, the CSRC delayed the initial plan to allow margin trading and shorting. Last week the regulator canceled the stamp duty on stock purchases and allowed the government fund Central Huijin to buy greater portions of companies to prop up the market, which has jumped 17% since the measures were introduced.

Overseas investors are pulling money out of China as the US financial crisis puts a pinch on capital and the renminbi’s appreciation against the US dollar slows, the South China Morning Post reported, citing Martin Currie Investment Management. A lack of capital due to the financial crisis has caused an initial round of repatriation of funds, said Chris Ruffle, head of Martin Currie in China. "The next round will be when it becomes apparent that the currency will no longer go upward" versus the dollar, he added. China’s currency has gained just 0.45% against the dollar since June, on pace for the smallest quarterly rise since the peg to the dollar was removed in July 2005. Chen Dongqi of the National Development and Reform Commission’s Macroeconomic Research Institute said that speculative capital flowed out of the mainland in June, and possibly in July and August as well.

Countries have increased testing of imported foods from mainland China as the tainted-milk scandal raises doubts abroad about Chinese-made products, the Wall Street Journal reported. Taiwan and Indonesia have banned mainland-made dairy products, joining at least 10 other regions that have done the same. Chinese authorities have told the public that no traces of melamine – which has sickened over 50,000 babies in China who were fed formula contaminated with the industrial chemical – have been found in milk samples since September 15. New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority said Wednesday that "unacceptable" amounts of melamine were found in samples of Chinese-made White Rabbit candies, which UK supermarket chain Tesco has recalled from its stores in China, Malaysia and the UK.

The Apple iPhone handsets set to be released by China Mobile in the mainland market may lack the 3G and Wi-Fi network functionality found in the phones elsewhere, as phones with those functions have not yet been approved by regulators in Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported, citing the Daiwa Institute of Research. Daiwa analyst Calvin Huang was cited as saying Taiwan Hon Hai Precision Industry, which assembles the iPhone, was waiting for confirmation from the government to ship the iPhone with the 3G and Wi-Fi features disabled. Though mainland 3G networks using China’s TD-SCDMA standard are up and running, the iPhone uses WCDMA technology, the standard in Europe. Though still not officially released on the mainland, iPhones have been available to Chinese customers on the black market for over a year.

TCL Corp, China’s largest consumer electronics maker, has cut the target for its upcoming share sale by US$44 million, saying that it already had enough cash for a planned rights issue of its television arm, TCL Multimedia, the South China Morning Post reported. In stating its decision to cancel part of its fund-raising plan, the Shenzhen-listed company cited improved performance since the announcement of the sale. Shares in TCL Corp have dropped by more than 30% since it initially announced the share sale in July, however. The original plan to raise US$248 million by selling up to 440.62 million new shares has been scaled back to US$204 million. The shares will be sold to company chairman Li Dongsheng and 10 institutional investors, in order to increase production of large-screen LCD televisions. TCL Corp will raise its stake in Hong Kong-listed TCL Multimedia from 41.4% to 67.9%.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that a joint investment fund between his country and China would have US$12 billion in capital, twice the amount originally announced, the Wall Street Journal reported. Chavez, who made the announcement in Beijing on the second day of his three-day visit to China, hopes that China can eventually overtake the US as his country’s largest oil customer. Chinese officials have declined to confirm the deal. On Tuesday, China and Venezuela agreed to cooperate on the construction of two oil refineries, one in each country.

Three Chinese astronauts made final preparations in Jiuquan, Gansu province before the launch of a mission that will include the country’s first spacewalk, AFP reported. The Shenzhou VII, the name of the spacecraft, "is a new breakthrough" for China’s space program, said Zhai Zhigang, one of the three that will launch into orbit this evening. Zhai has been identified by a government website as the crew member who will test a new Chinese-made spacesuit on the space walk. In the US, Shu Quansheng, a Chinese-born scientist who runs a high-tech company in Virginia, has been charged with illegally selling rocket technology to China and offering bribes to Chinese officials.

You wouldn’t think so, but the thing barely fit in my living room. Try getting one off the ground!

China’s trade surplus hit a monthly all-time high of US$28.7 billion in August - but this was caused by a sharp slowdown in imports rather than any significant movement in export numbers, AFP reported. The previous record for the trade surplus was US$27.1 billion, set in October 2007. Total imports came in at US$106.2 billion in August, up just 23.1% year-on-year. Import growth was 33.7% the previous month. Exports rose 21.1% to US$134.9 billion, compared to year-on-year growth of 26.9% in July. "Soft imports growth and the reacceleration and pickup in trade surplus growth in August could be an indication of weakening domestic demand, induced by the credit tightening which began nearly a year ago," Goldman Sachs said in a research note. However, economists also noted that falling international prices of raw materials helped push down the prices importers have to pay.

Consumer prices rose 4.9% in August from a year earlier, the slowest growth rate since June 2007, Bloomberg reported. It was the fourth consecutive month that the consumer price index (CPI) has weakened and the August figure represents a significant decline on the 6.3% increase seen in July. China’s full-year inflation target is 4.8%. Food prices, which have been the main driver of inflation in the last year, rose 10.3% year-on-year, compared to a 14.4% increase in July. Non-food price growth remained static at 2.1%. Meanwhile producer prices climbed 10.1% in August, up from 10% in July. This is the fastest pace of growth since at least 1996, although it was suggested it may now have peaked given the recent slowing in international commodity prices. Urban fixed-asset investment rose 27.4% for the eight months through August, more or less maintaining the pace set for the first seven months.