MNI China Press Digest, Jan 10: Energy, Auto Sales, Govt Bonds

     BEIJING (MNI) - The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports

on Friday:

     China will open its oil and gas assets to exploration and exploitation by

domestic and foreign enterprises, the Securities Daily reports. Citing a

document from the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Daily reports that

companies registered in China with net assets of at least CNY300 million are

eligible to participate in the energy markets. Relaxing the market in this way

could challenge the three big state-owned oil giants PetroChina, Sinopec and

CNOOC, the newspaper said.

     China should tap into its third, fourth and fifth-tier cities to boost the

consumption of automobiles as the markets in the eastern coastal regions are

increasingly saturated, the China Business News reports. Citing Ding Zhangfa, an

associate professor at the Economics School of Xiamen University, the report

says the rate of increase in car ownership has fallen over the last two years

after reaching a peak of 23.04 million in 2017. The increase in 2019 was 21.22

million, lower than the level for 2016, the newspaper said.

     Nineteen provincial governments in China have unveiled plans for the

issuance of special-purpose bonds in January totalling CNY606.4 billion,

according to Securities Daily. The comparable figure for January 2019 was

CNY141.7 billion.

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

--MNI Sydney Bureau; +61 405322399; email: lachlan.colquhoun.ext@marketnews.com

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