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Singapore Airlines (SIA) will not increase its bid for China Eastern Airlines, the Financial Times reported. SIA maintained that its bid was fair and the maximum justified by China Eastern's fundamentals. Earlier this week, China Eastern shareholders rejected SIA's bid for a 24% stake in the carrier after Air China's parent, China National Aviation Holding Company (CNAHC), said it would offer a higher bid for a similar stake. CNAHC has said that it will seek out a partnership, rather than a merger, with China Eastern.

China's Founder Group will form a securities underwriting and wealth management joint venture with Credit Suisse, AFP reported. Credit Suisse plans to hold a 33.3% stake in the firm, the maximum allowed under current regulations. The venture will concentrate on sponsoring and underwriting A-shares, foreign investment shares, and government and corporate bonds. Earlier this week, Morgan Stanley said it would sell its stake in China International Capital Corp. to pursue a similar joint venture with Shanghai-based China Fortune Securities.

Volkswagen continued to lead all auto companies in passenger car sales in China in 2007, the Wall Street Journal reported. Volkswagen's car sales rose 28% from the previous year to reach 910,941 units. Japan's Toyota posted 62% sales growth to take second place with 499,000 units. General Motors remains China's largest auto manufacturer overall, announcing record sales of 1.03 million vehicles (a figure that includes trucks and buses as well as passenger cars) across its several joint ventures. A December report by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said sales of China-made passenger cars grew by 21% in 2007.

China's special envoy to Darfur, Liu Guijin, has rejected attempts to link the 2008 Beijing Olympics to China's role in Sudan, the Wall Street Journal reported. Liu said that Beijing could not be held responsible for the actions of Sudan's military and its allies simply because of growing trade relations with Khartoum. Some activists in Europe and the US have called for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics to pressure Beijing into use its influence in Sudan to help end the conflict in Darfur. Liu said that China has made a "huge effort toward resolving the Darfur problem."

Chinese telecommunication equipment maker ZTE has signed a letter of intent with Libya's telecom regulator to build a WiMax wireless data network for commercial use in the country, China Business Net (in Chinese). The network would be the first of its kind in Africa, said ZTE, which did not disclose financial details of the project. Commercial use of the WiMax standard has sped up since it became the fourth third-generation standard to be certified by the International Telecommunication Union in October. ZTE, which has over 300 patents on WiMax technology, is focusing on building WiMax networks overseas as China has given priority to the homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G standard domestically.

Three multinational companies have been named on a blacklist of environmental offenders by China's State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), state media reported. Shanghai OMNOVA Decorative Products, a subsidiary of Thailand's CP Group and US-based OMNOVA solutions, along with Shanghai COSCO Kawasaki Heavy Industries Steel Structure and Jinmailang Food Products (Chengdu), were mentioned on the list for "a series of environmental degradation incidents." SEPA said that most multinationals named in earlier lists had improved their environmental records, and urged foreign investors not to lower their environmental standards after entering China.

The average residential real estate prices in Beijing dropped 20% in December 2007, according to China Real Estate Index System, a domest real estate market databank. The average house price in December was US$1,668 per square meter, 19.67% lower than the average price of US$2,077 per sqm seen in November, CCTV reported (in Chinese). Residential prices and transaction volume decreased as a series of regulatory policies aimed at cooling speculative activity in the capital's property market, including tightened rules for residents buying second homes, went into effect. Beijing residents' willingness to buy property went down by 7% in the fourth quarter, according to a quarterly survey conducted by the People's Bank of China.

Avon China has received approval from the Ministry of Commerce to sell nutraceutical foods in China, making it the second certified direct-sales to do so after competitor Amway. Avon China President Gao Shoukang told China Business Net that the company has bought a factory in Guangdong province to manufacture nutraceutical products, and will begin sales in the first quarter this year. The potential size of the nutraceutical food market in China is estimated at about US$14 billion. Amway earned US$1 billion in nutraceutical sales under its Nutrilite brand in 2007, accounting for 60% of its total sales.

Research in Motion (RIM) announced that its plans to sell BlackBerry handsets in China remained on track, but that its service partner, China Mobile, would make the final decision about when to sell the devices, Reuters reported. RIM said in October that it had sent its first shipment of BlackBerrys to China. Rumors suggest that delays have occurred while RIM proves to Chinese regulators that the handsets do not pose a security risk. China Mobile has launched a SIM card service for BlackBerrys, but has not officially introduced the devices in the Chinese market.

China's government plans to roll out a new lottery network following this year's Spring Festival holiday in February, the Financial Times reported. The country is set to become the world's second-largest lottery market, after the US, by 2010. Chinese lottery revenues increased by 22% to more than US$13.8 billion in 2007 on the back of a new network of video lottery terminals. The initial roll-out of the new network, based on keno, a bingo-like game, will see 2,000 terminals set up in eight provinces, with another 2,000 to follow later.