BIDDING for a modernised computer payment system in China will be opened to computer companies worldwide by the end of the year. The project, partly financed by the World Bank, is designed to provide a safe and efficient payment system for China's financial industry. It will take over 10 years to build up the system, which is projected to cover major financial organisations across the country, People's Bank official Chen Tianqing said. THAILAND paint producer Toa Group Company is to invest US$18 million to construct three paint plants in China. MONSATO, one of Fortune magazine's top 100 US enterprises, is to expand its business in China. It will set up a solely-funded enterprise in Shanghai, expand its office and set up branches in Beijing and Guangzhou. THE US-based Simmis International company has invested US$6.6 million in the third phase of a thermal power plant being built in Xinchang County, Zhejiang province. HONGKONG ceramic products designer and manufacturer, Siu-Fung Group, has signed four contracts worth US$87.1 million with Handan Ceramic Group of Hebei province. TOSHIBA has joined forces with two other companies in a US$49.9 million deal to produce television parts in Shanghai. COMPAQ Computer Corporation, the third largest computer producer in the US, has announced that it is to set up its first overseas joint venture in China with the Beijing Stone Group, the largest private electronic firm in the country. The joint venture will build a plant in Shenzhen to produce personal computers and computer parts. SHANGHAI'S aviation industry is to assemble the MD-90 passenger jet, the latest model in the MD series designed and built by US-based McDonnell Douglas company. This will be the third phase of co-operation between Shanghai and McDonnell Douglas, whichhas seen the assembly of 34 MD-82 and MD-83 aircraft in the province in the last two years. HINO Motors, Japan's largest truck maker, has announced it is to form a joint venture with the Heilongjiang Bus Company to set up a plant early next year in Harbin to assemble buses. THE Jiangsu Provincial branch of the People's Construction Bank of China has signed an agreement with the Jiangsu Huning Expressway Company to lend US$26.31 million to support construction of the Shanghai-Nanjing expressway. AN INVESTMENT delegation from the Shanghai district of Jiading has concluded four deals in Singapore worth US$24 million. The deals involve a housing and commercial development and computer software. THE Industrial Bank of China has signed US$25.5 million in working capital loans with seven companies led by Shanghai's telecommunications office. The loans will be used to develop hi-tech telecommunications products such as cables, optical fibres, programme-controlled exchanges and mobile phones. NANTONG City, in east China, is to build a large crude-oil transfer centre near the mouth of the Yangtze River. To be built over the next three years the centre will be able to accommodate 300,000-deadweight tonne oil tankers. ABOUT US$64 million is to be invested in three joint-venture projects to be built in Suzhou National New and High-tech Industrial Development Zone. The projects are the Sino-American Chemical Medicine Industrial Ltd, Sino-Japanese National Electronic Industrial Ltd and Suzhou-Hongkong Fengsheng Real Estate Development Ltd. SANHE, in Hebei Province, has invited foreign investors to either buy, take over, merge or lease any of its 20,000 factories. CONSTRUCTION of China's first modern international ski facility has begun at Beidahu mountain near Jilin city in northeast China. The facility will be opened in time for the 8th Winter Games in 1995. CHINESE vice-premier Li Lanqing and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Sultan Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, signed two economic memorandums of understanding early this month. One of the agreements is for promoting investments in both countries and the other is aimed at the prevention of double taxation between the two nations.
