BizChina

China's top automaker SAIC Motor Corp expects to top its full-year earnings forecast, banking on its diversified vehicle range, even as it projects overall growth in the country's vehicle sales to slow rapidly this year owing to inflation.

President Chen Hong said on Friday he expects the country's overall vehicle market to grow 7.4 percent this year to 19.7 million vehicles, slowing after an expansion in 2010 of nearly a third. SAIC is the Chinese partner of General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG.

"The environment of China's auto industry has turned from positive to neutral, and there are signs of an obvious slowdown," Chen told a shareholders' meeting.

"Inflationary pressure is relatively high, consumer confidence is weakening, the government has exited incentive policies, oil prices keep rising and Japan's earthquake has impacted the supply chain."

Walt Disney Co.'s Chinese government-owned business partner, Shanghai Shendi Group Co., has agreed on a syndicated loan for an undisclosed amount with 12 Chinese banks for the construction of Shanghai Disneyland, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Xinhua said the lead arrangers are China Development Bank Corp., Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co., and Bank of Communications Co.

Co-lead lenders are Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of China Ltd.

Frequent readers of my “Frank Talk” blog and the weekly Investor/Advisor Alert should be familiar with the story of China’s high speed rails. We’ve previously discussed how China is building the world’s largest network of high speed rails at an incredible speed.

Since opening the first high speed line between Beijing and Tianjin in 2008, the country has laid down more than 4,600 miles of new tracks. This is three times more than Japan, where the bullet train was invented, and this is just the start. Once completed near the end of this decade, the high speed rail system will connect more than 250 Chinese cities, span 18,641 miles and reach roughly 700 million people.

Currently, the high speed rail network connects about one-third of China’s cities. That figure is set to nearly double over the next two years. If current forecasts hold true, 100 percent of the China’s cities will be connected through high speed rails by 2019.

China's first rare earth spot exchange will be established as early as August this year and will be led by Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co, the country's top rare earth producer.

Analysts said a nationwide exchange could help build a unified rare earth pricing mechanism in the country.

Rare earths are used in the manufacture of magnets that have a wide range of applications, from electric motors to disk drives, and demand for them is soaring worldwide.

"Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech Co will be one of two corporations designated by Baotou's municipal government to set up a rare-earth exchange in the city," said the company in a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange Wednesday.