The U.S. filed a trade complaint against China for imposing duties on more than USD3 billion in shipments of American vehicles, mostly made by General Motors and Chrysler.The Chinese duties cover more than 80% of U.S. auto exports to China, including Jeep’s Wrangler and Grand Cherokee, both made by Chrysler, and GM’s Buick Enclave and Cadillac CTS, according to a White House fact sheet. The U.S. complaint adds to an expanding list of grievances between the two nations on exports of rare-earth minerals, and solar panels and wind-turbine products sold in the U.S. The steps on trade by China and the U.S. in recent months have led some analysts to speculate the nations are headed for a trade war. China, the world’s biggest car market, announced plans on December 14 to impose anti-dumping duties as high as 12.9% on GM cars and 8.8% for Chrysler vehicles. China said U.S. taxpayer support of the two carmakers amounted to a government subsidy that was illegal under WTO rules, an allegation the Obama administration rejects. The U.S. government, which provided aid to the companies in 2008 in return for stock, holds a 32% stake in GM. The Chinese levies, which cover about 92,000 vehicles, also were applied to vehicles made by the U.S. units of BMW and Daimler, which pay 2% and 2.7% respectively.

Bloomberg sued Shanghai Great Wisdom Co in the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People’s Court for copying its software and hardware designs. Bloomberg took its terminal to court to show Great Wisdom’s version is a copycat. It said that the multi-color keyboard, dual monitors, the theme colors of software, and the layout of the user interface are all copied from the Bloomberg model, and has thus violated China’s law against unfair competition. Bloomberg said users could mistake one for the other, and demanded CNY6.6 million compensation and an apology from Great Wisdom. Si Weijiang, lawyer for Great Wisdom, argued that the monitors of the two sides are both uniform products of Hewlett-Packard, and Great Wisdom purchased its keyboard from a third-party supplier. He argued that Bloomberg doesn’t own the patents for colors and layouts of the software, which are commonly used in stock-trading software and financial TV programs. Bloomberg entered the Chinese market in the early 1990s and became China’s third largest financial data provider in 2010. Great Wisdom, established in 2001, said it is the largest financial data provider in China in revenue and users. Competition between heated up after Great Wisdom drew up ambitious plans for overseas expansion. Shanghai-listed Great Wisdom said in its 2011 annual report that it had finished an English database for all 2,366 firms listed in China, and it would accelerate international versions of its products, the Shanghai Daily reports.

The HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index, slanted toward private and export-focused companies, dropped to 48.2 in June from May’s 48.4. For the second quarter of this year, the index averaged its lowest quarterly value in over three years. The index’s reading contrasted with that of big state-owned enterprises whose business grew although at the slowest pace in seven months. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and slanted toward big SOEs, continued to indicate growth. The official PMI was 50.2 in June, compared with May’s 50.4. The official non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, which measures the performance of companies in the service industry, rose to 56.7 in June, up from May’s 55.2 and April’s 56.1, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. The growth was bolstered by increased activity in industries such as logistics, telecommunications and broadcasting, while less vitality was reported in the retailing, hospitality and road transport sectors.

Shanghai plans to spend more than CNY100 billion in the next few years on infrastructure projects ranging from roads and bridges to affordable housing. Shanghai Chengtou Corp says it will partly fund the projects by issuing CNY2.5 billion of one-year bonds. Chengtou has some 77 infrastructure projects lined up over the next few years, with a total investment budget of CNY105.2 billion. “As the main infrastructure construction firm of the Shanghai government and Shanghai’s largest infrastructure conglomerate, our funding needs are large. In recent years, the scale of Shanghai’s infrastructure construction has continued to increase, and that may bring financial pressure on the company in future,” the firm’s prospectus said. This year, Chengtou will invest CNY17 billion in infrastructure projects, of which CNY3.2 billion has already been spent from January to April. Its debt stood at CNY100.9 billion at the end of March, with a gearing ratio of 56.9%.

China’s official statistics may be lagging behind independent data that show a pick-up in the economy last quarter, according to a new private survey modeled on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s “Beige Book”. The “China Beige Book”, in interviews of about 2,000 company executives and bankers, found retail sales and manufacturing strengthened while property sales increased and shortages of unskilled labor failed to abate. New York-based CBB International conducted the survey. The report said four of every five retailers see higher sales in six months, a bigger proportion than in the first quarter, contrasting with government data showing the weakest non-holiday sales growth since 2006 in May. Bankers foresee growing availability of loans and 46% of companies intend to borrow, “suggesting a fairly stable rise in credit demand”. “These findings diverge considerably from the current ‘gloom and doom’ narratives,” CBB President Leland Miller and Craig Charney, Director of Research and Polling, said. The official data probably lagged CBB’s data by one to three months and might reflect a pickup by “mid- to late summer”, they said. “The economy as a whole is now strengthening modestly” and credit was “fairly loose”, Miller said. “[Quarterly] growth was particularly evident by June in consumer spending and real estate, while agriculture and mining also showed improvement.” In the second quarterly “China Beige Book” survey, property agents reported higher second-quarter revenue doubled to almost 60%, manufacturers recorded sales increased 3 percentage points to 63%, and the number of retailers with increased sales climbed 5 percentage points to 68%. Retailers expected spending to strengthen further and 71% of manufacturers foresaw higher revenue in six months, the survey said, indicating a reduced need for further stimulus measures. The data contrasted with the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index released by HSBC Holdings and Markit Economics, which fell last month to the lowest level since November, showing a contraction for an eighth straight month, the South China Morning Post reports.