Tianjin Xinmao S&T Investment Corp proposed to offer €20.50 in cash per share of Dutch cable maker Draka Holding after Milan-based Prysmian, the world’s second-largest cable maker, agreed to pay €17.20 a share in a cash-and-stock offer. Xinmao told Draka that the combination will make the Dutch firm a global leader in optical wire and cable with access to the Chinese market. It added that the deal will enable Xinmao to use Draka’s core  technologies in fiber optics products to develop the Chinese market. Analysts have said China’s proposed plan to expand its broadband to integrate the TV, internet and telephone networks could benefit fiber optic cable makers as the cost of copper cables has appreciated sharply.

Chemical company China New Materials Holdings hopes to raise up to HKD1.12 billion from its upcoming listing on Hong Kong’s main board if it exercises the over-allotment option. The company has planned a capital expenditure of CNY1.15 billion at Zibo in Shandong province, where its headquarters is located, including an investment in a new 55,000-ton-per-annum production facility for its main product BDO, or 1,4-Butanediol. It will also build a production facility for polybutylene succinate (PBS), with an annual capacity of 125,000 tons. At present, China New Materials produces only BDO and two downstream products of BDO, gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and tetrahydrofuran (THF), but no PBS. The firm’s current annual production capacity of BDO is 35,000 tons, GBL 17,000 tons and THF 5,000 tons. Last year, China New Materials was the second-largest BDO producer in China by volume with a domestic market share of 16%, while domestic demand last year was 252,000 tons,  outstripping its production of 231,000 tons. In the first five months of this year, China New Materials had a net profit of CNY96.9 million and revenue of CNY383.9 million.

CNOOC, China’s largest offshore oil producer, said new energy will account for 40% to 50% of the company’s total energy produced during the 12th Five Year Plan period. “At present, new energy accounts for less than 10%,” Chairman Fu Chengyu said. He added that the company has imported more than 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year to solve the gas shortage and help rein in emissions. China’s natural gas consumption saw an average annual growth of 16% from 2000 to 2009. Use of the fuel now accounts for 3.8% of total energy consumption. “CNOOC has constructed four LNG terminals in coastal cities and we have six LNG terminals which are being tested now,” Fu said. China imported 5.8 million tons of LNG in 2009, an increase of 67% from a year earlier, and now plans to import 25 million tons annually, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

China’s property prices are likely to decline by almost 20% next year and the market may go through a major period of readjustment in March or April 2011, according to a report by Beijing-based Renmin University of China. Prices will be dragged down by the government’s measures to cool the property market, which have placed constraints on developers, as well as by an adjustment of the country’s monetary policy, though the sector is not expected to suffer a “hard landing”, according to the report. The capital available to developers is forecast to contract sharply in the first quarter of next year. The situation is likely to be exacerbated by tighter financing being available, loan repayments being due and stricter restrictions on property buyers, according to Liu Yuanchun, Deputy Dean Renmin University’s School of Economics. Housing prices in 70 of the country’s large and medium-sized cities rose 0.2% in October from the preceding month, slower than the 0.5% month-on-month increase in September. The year-on-year price rise in October was 8.6%, the sixth straight month of a fall in the growth rate from a peak of 12.8% in April, the China Daily reports.

Shanghai and Beijing’s luxury home prices may increase 15% each year to overtake Hong Kong in the next five to 10 years, Joe Zhang, Deputy Head of China Investment Banking at UBS, said. Tightening measures would not stop prices from rising and might only delay the gains, he added. ”It doesn’t matter what the government is doing, whether we have 100 new measures or 10,000 new measures,” he said. “In the long term, all these are noises and will disappear, and only one variable matters – money supply.” Prices of luxury homes in Beijing and Shanghai, or the top 5% to 10% of each market, will continue to climb as values of mid- and low-end real estate were also rising, Zhang said. Residential home values in Hong Kong have jumped 52% since the beginning of 2009 and surpassed a 1997 peak, according to an index compiled by Centaline Property Agency. China is unlikely to introduce further property-specific measures as the government shifts its policy focus to controlling inflation, Citigroup said in a report. The average price of the top 30 luxury apartments in Beijing reached CNY57,561 a sq m in the third quarter, an increase of 7.1% over the previous quarter. The year-on-year growth hit 57.8%. Soaring inflation pressure is a major reason for surging property prices in the high-end residential sector, which is usually regarded as a good choice to hedge inflation risks, Grant Ji, Director of the Investment Department of Savills (Beijing) said.