Electrical and power-grid equipment maker China Titans Energy Technology Group made an impressive debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange, rising as much as 47% during trading and raising HKD212.5 million. The offering attracted strong interest from retail investors with the retail tranche more than 475 times oversubscribed. The Guangdong-based company researches and makes power grid monitoring and management products, charging equipment for electric vehicles, wind and solar power generation products, and high-power LED lighting products. Part of the net proceeds will be spent on building a new production plant and acquiring new businesses. Net income was CNY54 million last year, an increase of 39% compared with 2008.

• The daily trading limit of China Eastern Airlines’ shares returned to 10% from 5% after its special trading limit was waived, as the company returned to profit last year. The limit was imposed on April 17, 2009, after China Eastern reported two straight years of losses.
• Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) edged closer to launching an A-share initial public offering after it cleared a preliminary hearing by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The bank is expected to raise a combined USD30 billion in a Hong Kong and Shanghai dual listing, likely to become the world’s biggest share sale.
• China has agreed to allow qualified foreign investors to trade stock index futures, enabling companies such as Invesco and Martin Currie to hedge risks in the country and compete more effectively with local asset managers. Foreign joint ventures in China and foreign investors under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) plan will be allowed to trade the derivative.

China and Taiwan will add 100 direct passenger flights and 20 more cargo flights a week bringing the total number of passenger flights to 370 and cargo flights to 48 from mid-June. Six new airports will also be opened for passenger or cargo flights. Analysts say it is a sign that business between the political rivals is picking up ahead of a free trade-style deal due to be signed next month. “New flights will be a reflection of economic interaction, as for Taiwan certainly China is one of its fastest growing markets,” said David Cohen, Director of Asian economic forecasting with Action Economics in Singapore. “It does appear to be one of the fastest growing relationships anywhere on the planet,” he said.

Marriott International aims to double the number of Marriott-brand hotels in China within five years and intends to introduce a lower-priced hotel brand in the near future. Marriott, which currently manages 46 hotels in the country, expects to have 60 hotels by the end of the year and 90 in five years, making China its second-largest market by number of hotels, Arne Sorenson, Marriott’s President, said in Shanghai. China contributed less than 10% of the group’s sales, but sales growth was in the double-digits. Marriott posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit last month and said it expects room rates to rise this year.

China will allow foreign tour operators to organize Chinese tour groups to travel abroad in the near future, as a new set of regulations is being drafted. Currently foreign tour operators are allowed to operate inbound and domestic travel, but are barred from outbound business, the most lucrative part of the Chinese tourism market. Travel companies from 14 countries and regions have established 44 foreign tour agencies and joint ventures in China. The companies stayed in business in China even though they earned little or even suffered losses. Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive of the German National Tourist Board, said that the liberalization move was “a big step”. Chinese tourists are likely to spend USD100 billion on overseas trips in 2015, Shao Qiwei, Director of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), forecast. The projection is based on every Chinese tourist currently spending USD1,000 on each outbound trip and the estimation that Chinese tourists will make 100 million overseas trips by 2015. China’s tourism deficit is expected to increase to USD6 billion this year, up from the first deficit in tourism last year of around USD4 billion, when Chinese tourists spent USD42 billion on overseas travel – including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, while foreign tourists spent only USD38 billion on the mainland. In the first quarter of this year, Chinese tourists in Germany outnumbered the Japanese for the first time.

• Chinese officials expect more than one million mainland tourists to visit Taiwan this year, up from  606,000 last year. For now, only tour groups are allowed, but the Chinese government is considering to allow individual trips.
• Hotel group Accor plans to at least triple its Pullman portfolio in China over the next three years. Seven hotels under the Pullman brand are operating in China, while another 14 hotels are in the pipeline. The newest hotels added to Pullman’s China network include the 482-room Pullman Zhangjiajie in Hunan province and the 280-room Pullman Dongguan Dalang in Guangdong Province, due to open in 2012. At present, Accor runs 94 hotels in 42 Chinese cities.
• Marco Polo Hotels, the hotel management arm of property-to-media conglomerate Wharf (Holdings), has five hotels in China, two of which are located in Fujian. In the next two years it plans to increase its portfolio to eight with new hotels to be opened in Chengdu, Sichuan; and Wuxi and Changzhou in the Yangtze River Delta.
• Mission Hills Group, owner of the world’s largest golf club in Shenzhen, will boost investment sixfold in a golfing complex in Hainan on which it will spend a further CNY25 billion by adding more golfing, retail and community facilities. Mission Hills is switching its focus from foreigners to Chinese golfers. The group opened a 12-course club, the world’s largest, in 1992 in Shenzhen.
• China Southern Airlines will double its fleet in Xinjiang to 80 aircraft in five years as the provincial government offers tax breaks and subsidies and the airline forecasts passenger growth in Xinjiang will triple to 12 million by 2015. International flights from Urumqi to Istanbul and Dubai will be opened while the number of flights to Tehran will be increased.

Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting South Korea, Japan, Mongolia and Myanmar. He attended the trilateral summit of the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea at the South Korean resort island of Cheju. The three leaders outlined a blueprint for cooperation in the coming 10 years. They made joint pledges to further trilateral cooperation in areas such as the economy, security, environmental protection and cultural exchanges. Premier Wen said that free trade area (FTA) negotiations between China and South Korea could be launched later this year or early next year upon the completion of a feasibility study. Wen Jiabao arrived in Tokyo on May 30 for a three-day state visit to Japan.