China Press Digest: Thursday, December 7

     BEIJING (MNI) - The following are highlights from the China press for

Thursday, December 7:

     The U.S. refusal to recognize China's market-economy status, as part of a

submission to the World Trade Organization in support of the Europe Union's

position in a Chinese complaint on EU anti-dumping actions, is "playing dirty"

and is actually trying to shock China's economic regime, the Economic

Information Daily, a newspaper under the official Xinhua News Agency, said in a

front-page commentary Thursday. On Dec. 11 last year, the rule that China must

prove its market economy status when defending itself against anti-dumping

accusations ended, the newspaper argued. But the U.S., Japan and the EU still

follow the rule, using China's supposed "non-market economy status" as a weapon

to impede Chinese exports, the commentary said. China should not be disturbed by

these outside factors but should deepen its reform and make itself into a

"strong trade country" and climb to a higher rung on the global trade value

ladder, it said. At the same time, China must continue to defend the interests

of its domestic sectors and never allow such "playing dirty" tactics. (Economic

Information Daily)

     Policy controls on the property sector are expected to continue and be

strengthened, the Securities Daily reported Thursday. In the past two months,

cities experiencing rapid housing price growth have been the subject of

frequent, sweeping examinations by regulators. The Ministry of Land and

Resources ordered examinations in 70 cities to check whether property developers

that had acquired land for residential use had actually started construction

based on their contract commitments. In addition, the National Development and

Reform Commission and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development conducted

examinations in 15 cities aimed at clamping down on manipulation of housing

prices. The two movements resulted in a total of 73 cities coming under tighter

oversight. The government initiatives aim to fill in regulatory voids and

reflect the Chinese government's determination to stabilize the property market,

analysts were cited as saying. The government will bring more cities under

supervision, stepping up examinations to clamp down on stockpiling of land and

housing price manipulation and other practices harmful to the health of the

property sector. (Securities Daily)

     Online lending default risk caused by delinquencies is a "grey rhino" for

China -- a risk that is likely to happen and have a significant negative impact

but has been largely ignored -- the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday.

High interest rates and penalties for not paying back loans have caused

thousands of young people run away from home and made their families suffer, the

newspaper said. Finance technology growth is booming in China because of the

large amounts of cheap capital accumulated by China's impressive economic growth

and because most adults have a cellphone. So low-income young people who had

been shunned by traditionally lenders are resorting to using financial firms

providing payday loans even without knowledge of the exact annualized interest

rate and penalty rules, the newspaper said. The Peoples' Bank of China has

recently issued policies to prohibit payday loan companies providing loans with

an interest rate more than a 36% annualized rate, the limit set by the

government. The central bank also ordered a pause in creation of new payday loan

companies and will exam existing companies. (South China Morning Post)

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: iris.ouyang@marketnews.com

--MNI BEIJING Bureau; +1 202-371-2121; email: john.carter@mni-news.com

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