MNI China Press Digest Oct 29: Coal, Real Lending, Taiwan

The following lists highlights from Chinese press reports on Friday:

• China's move to increase coal production will fill the supply and demand gap in the medium term, which will stabilize market expectation and discourage stockpiling, though coal prices are still unlikely to fall quickly, the Securities Daily reported citing Ming Ming, the chief analyst at CITIC Securities. China's recent daily coal output exceeded 11.5 million tons to the highest this year, an increase of over 1.2 million tons from mid-September, after the National Development and Reform Commission released 18 documents in 10 days to intervene, the newspaper said. Many coal mines lowered the sales prices by as much as CNY360 per ton, the newspaper said. Ming suggested the futures market should be further managed, including limiting holdings and increasing margins to curb speculation, the newspaper said.
• China has not opened the "floodgate" controlling credit to the property industry, nor will it ease its regulatory efforts, the Economic Daily said citing interviews of officials and lenders. While mortgage rates in about 20 cities have declined, including Guangzhou and Shenzhen, they were due to declining demand as falling home prices caused buyers to sideline from purchases, the newspaper said citing Deputy Director Zeng Gang of the state-affiliated thinktank National Institution for Finance & Development. Regulators were also ordered to prioritize loans to first-time buyers, so lenders have given more favorable rates, Zeng said. First-time buyers accounted for 92% of the home purchases at the end of July, he said. Mortgage rates in Beijing have not fallen, the newspaper said. Regulators are still toughening measures to prevent misusing loans to purchase properties, said the daily.
• China must warn the U.S. that it is pushing the bilateral relations to a confrontational direction as some U.S. politicians have successively hyped up the idea of so-called "Taiwan's participation in the United Nations system" and ignored the facts to slander China as a threat to regional stability, said the party-run newspaper People's Daily in a commentary attributed to a pen name Zhong Sheng which is used when the leadership wishes to register its view. The Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and China's core interests, the most sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations, the newspaper said. If the U.S. continues its "wrongdoings," it will only damage relations, peace in the Taiwan Strait and U.S. interests, the newspaper said.