BizChina

In a sign of the changing fortunes of the world's top two economies, China's biggest auto maker, SAIC Motor Corp., is negotiating to acquire a stake of about 1% in General Motors Co. worth about $500 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The U.S. auto maker also is prepared to sell more than $1 billion worth of shares to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. Combined, the sales would give foreign investors roughly 16% of the shares to be sold next week under an initial public offering of stock, and give them a stake of some 4% in the Detroit auto maker. GM declined to comment on the investment talks.

The issue of overseas investors buying GM shares in the company's IPO has been a sensitive one for the U.S. government, which plans to reduce its 61% stake in the auto maker to about 35% through the IPO.

China’s continued rapid growth should make it the main driver of the global economy next year as the U.S. slows down, the Conference Board said in a report published Wednesday.

In just two years, the Asian country could even overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy — at least by one economic measure, the research group said in its annual global outlook.

China’s economy should grow by 9.6% in 2011 after expanding by 10% this year. By contrast, the U.S. economy is seen slowing to just 1.2% growth next year from 2.6% in 2010.

According to the most commonly used way to compare economic size, the gap between second-place China’s $5.0 trillion economy and the U.S.’s nearly $15 trillion output remains large. By that measure, it could take China more than a decade to match the U.S. even at the current very high growth rates, which will be hard to sustain for the Asian country.

Now that the U.S. auto industry has bounced back from its lows, expect to see an increase in acquisitions of U.S. auto parts makers by Chinese companies seeking to gain access to technology and international markets. While the prices they will have to pay may be higher than in 2008 when the U.S. auto industry was in free fall, a more stable industry will enable Chinese companies to overcome their natural fear of venturing abroad.

As evidence of this coming trend, it was announced Wednesday that Nexteer, a 104-year-old unit of General Motors that has made steering equipment under the name Saginaw Steering Gear, has been sold to Pacific Century Motors, a venture of the city of Beijing’s investment arm, and a closely held Beijing auto parts company called Tempo Group for $450 million. Based in Saginaw, Michigan, Nexteer employs 8,300 people and has 22 factories, six engineering centers and 14 customer-support centers around the world.

Yesterday I sat down with the irrepressible Jean-Claude Biver, head of Hublot SA, for an afternoon chat at the Four Seasons Hotel. It was a brief meeting–Biver was on his way to Paris later that evening–but we covered good ground about Hublot’s prospects in China and what counterfeiting means to the watch industry (more on that later).

A dynamic gentleman who prefers navy mechanic-like button-up jackets to the traditional suit and tie approach, Biver was born in Luxembourg but moved to Switzerland when he was a child. He loves the tradition of Swiss-made timepieces–and says China is the emerging market for Hublot, which is the only Swiss watchmaker without a real presence there. China currently accounts for 0.9% of Hublot turnover, while Asia on the whole accounts for 12%; Europe about 40%; the Americas about 40%; and the Middle East the rest.)