The CBRC data showed commercial banks’ total assets gained 10 percent during the period while their liabilities grew 9.3 percent. 

China will provide Nepal with 1.3 million liters of gasoline to help it cope with severe fuel shortages as a result of restricted supplies from neighboring India, officials said yesterday.

The gasoline will be brought to a town near the China-Nepal border, said Nepal Oil Corporation official Deepak Baral. It will take about 100 tanker trucks to transport the gasoline to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.

It would be the first time Nepal would be getting fuel from China. The countries share a border that has the world’s highest mountains, but two border crossings were damaged by an April earthquake. One of the crossings reopened this month.
 

Two Chinese nuclear power giants are planning a joint venture to combine technologies on China’s third-generation nuclear reactor design, known as the Hualong One, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday.
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) and China National Nuclear Corp have decided to set up a company to reduce competition in exporting Hualong One into overseas markets, according to the source, who declined to be identified.
The plan has been forwarded to authorities and a coordination meeting will be held soon.
“If everything goes well, the joint venture will be set up before the end of this year,” the source said.
The two companies jointly started the R&D of Hualong One in 2013 based on their respective technologies. The general plan passed inspection by a national expert panel in August 2014.
In May 2015, construction on the first pilot project using Hualong One technology started in Fuqing, Fujian Province.
On Wednesday, CGN and Electricite de France signed a strategic investment agreement to build a nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwestern England.
 

INTEL Corp said it may invest up to US$5.5 billion in making semiconductors in China, lifting efforts to improve ties with the country as it seeks new revenue streams while demand for its core computer processing chips falters.
The US firm said it would convert a facility in Dalian, its first plant in China, for memory chip production. It didn’t disclose a time period for the investment, but said it will start making advanced memory chips that can store data without using up power, called 3D NAND chips, in the second half of 2016.
The move follows a flurry of deals in the global semiconductor industry, highlighting growing importance of the memory chips used to store data in increasingly popular mobile devices. Researcher TrendForce predicts China will consume US$6.67 billion worth of NAND chips this year, or 29 percent of global NAND industry revenue.
Building its own chip industry has been deemed strategically important by China in its drive to modernize its economy. Intel’s new investment follows a deal last year to buy 20 percent stake of two mobile chipmakers owned by state-backed Tsinghua Holdings Co.
Tsinghua recently unveiled a plan to buy a 15 percent stake in US data storage company Western Digital Corp for US$3.8 billion.
In separate deals, Western Digital said yesterday that it would buy SanDisk Corp for about US$19 billion, giving it better access to flash memory storage chips used in smartphones and mobile devices. Tsinghua is also trying to acquire Micron.
Intel’s latest move raises concerns that new memory supply from the chipmaker could undercut margins for leading industry players.