Shenzhen Tourism

Shenzhen police uncover elaborate scam

Shenzhen Nanao Photo,image,Picture

Jul. 10, 2008 - The Hong Kong Mortgage Corp (HKMC) plans to establish a mortgage insurance joint venture (JV) with the People's Bank of China, in a bid to expand its mortgage guarantee business in the mainland, said media reports.

According to reports, the two parties are still negotiating details before they sign the final agreement. The JV insurance firm will mainly provide mortgage guarantee services to local financial institutions. 

The venture will be set up in Shenzhen and will have paid-up capital of under RMB 300 million.

HKMC has been actively engaged in looking for opportunities to develop mortgage guarantee business in markets within Asia and in the Islamic housing finance markets. Late last year, HKMC signed an agreement with Cagamas Berhad to incorporate a joint venture to develop mortgage guarantee business in Malaysia and other Asian countries.

Founded in March 1997, HKMC is wholly owned by the Hong Kong SAR Government through the Exchange Fund. It has also been approved by the Insurance Authority of Hong Kong as an Authorized Insurer.

Its major business activities involve purchases of mortgage loans and other types of assets, issuance of debt securities in local and overseas capital markets, and securitization of its portfolio via issuance of mortgage-backed securities to investors. 

SHENZHEN: Passengers in this southern boomtown are expected to spend just 12 minutes traveling to Hong Kong international airport aboard a cross-border railway by 2011.

The Hong Kong special administrative region government conducted a feasibility study on construction of the railway linking Shenzhen's and Hong Kong's airports, and would release the results by the year's end, Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reported Wednesday.

Stanley Hui, chief executive officer of Airport Authority Hong Kong, said the railway will build a stop in Shenzhen's Qianhai, Nanshan district, which will connect the Qianhai subway station slated to open in 2011, the newspaper reported.

Traveling the entire railway would take 17 minutes, while it would only be 12 minutes between the Qianhai and the Hong Kong airport, Hui said.

The airport railway plan has been drafted in the Blueprint of Shenzhen and was among dozens of measures to strengthen cooperation between the two neighboring cities.

The blueprint, which would cover the period from 2007 to 2020, got the nod from the Guangdong provincial government and is pending final approval from the State Council.

The blueprint is intended to transform the city, which pioneered China's reform and opening up, into a special economic zone focused on innovation, a major regional hub and an international city developing in sync with Hong Kong.

In addition to playing an important role in experimental reforms, the city would be more aggressive in developing regional cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao, the Shenzhen planning bureau said.

In its quest to achieve a free flow of people, goods and capital between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Shenzhen will launch a laundry list of transportation infrastructure projects, including airport facilities, ports, railways, roads and border checkpoints, to improve traffic.

The blueprint also established a series of new standards for measuring cooperation between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

CATIC Shenzhen Holdings (00161) said it plans to issue up to 200 million new H shares, representing not more than 29.46% of the total issued share capital.
The company has yet decided the placing price, but it plans to issue at a discount of not more than 20% to the higher of the closing price of the H shares on the Stock Exchange on the date of signing of the placing agreement; and the average closing price of the H shares for the 5 trading days immediately prior to the signing of relevant placing agreement.
On the assumption that the new H Shares are to be issued at a price of $4.80 per H Share, being approximately 20% discount to the average closing price of the H Shares for 5 trading days immediately prior to yesterday, the gross proceeds from the issue of a maximum number of 181.818 new H shares will be approximately $872.727 million.

Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University Photo Image Picture

SHENZHEN - A father of five in this southern city has been charged with raping his two teenage daughters since 2002.

The 40-year-old man tried to commit suicide after one of his daughters called the police in February. He said he did not realize the gravity of his crime and asked the government to "give him a chance', the Southern Metropolis Daily reported on Tuesday.

Hearing of the case at Bao'an district court in Shenzhen began on Monday.

The daughter who reported to the police was blamed by the mother and other family members for bringing the man to court. She is now wondering whether the decision was a right one because of her "father's great financial contribution to the family", the newspaper said.

The public prosecutor at the closed hearing said the father originated from Gaozhou, Guangdong province and began working in Shenzhen in 1990. He raped his first daughter in early 2002, when she was only 13 years old.

Two years later, he asked his 15-year-old second daughter, who had just graduated from primary school, to come to Shenzhen.

He raped her a year later. The sisters were threatened "with death" if they told their mother. However, when the sisters sought help from their mother October, she claimed she could do nothing about it, as their father always made the final decision in family matters.

The second daughter, who was locked up at home by her father in February, managed to escape and called the police.

The man confessed his crime, and told police he was not mentally unbalanced.

Lawyers said the father could be sentenced to death given the severity of the crime.

"The father deserves severe punishment because his two daughters were underage when they were raped. According to the law, he could get at least 10 years' imprisonment, life or even death," Yuan Zhonggang, a lawyer at Shenzhen Commercial Law Co, told China Daily on Tuesday.

Lei Mingguang, a law professor with the Central University for Nationalities and a member of China Marriage Law Association, said the rare incestuous case was a reminder to Chinese families to protect girls at home since homes were not always safe.

"Severe punishment should be meted out to stop such family tragedies.

Family members, especially mothers, should pay more attention to the protection and education of their daughters while the daughters should be made more aware of their rights," Lei said.

Hong Kong-based lender the Bank of East Asia Ltd. (BEA; SEHK: 0023) has recently put its private banking center into operation in Shenzhen, Southern China, and each customer needs to spend at least USD 1 million enjoying the service.

It is the first time that a foreign bank set foot in such a field, through which banks can serve the rich individual customers or families. In the past, only two domestic lenders, China Merchants Bank Co., Ltd. (CMB; SHSE: 600036; SEHK: 3968) and Bank of Communications (BOCOM; SEHK: 3328; SHSE: 601328), operated the private banking business in the city.

Presently, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC; SHSE: 601398; SEHK: 1398) is actively preparing for the construction of its private banking center, and its business threshold is predicted to exceed CNY 8 million, said people familiar with the matter.

Shenzhen, as an economic engine in Southern China, has been improving its financial investment environment and introducing foreign investors in recent years.

The Bank of East Asia officially launched a private banking center in Shenzhen in the last day of last June, with a threshold set at one million US dollars. It is the first foreign bank providing such business in Shenzhen.

In Shenzhen, now only the China Merchants Bank and the Bank of East Asia dish out the private banking business. But CMB's threshold is set at 10 million yuan.

A source with the Shenzhen Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China disclosed that ICBC's private banking center is under preparation and it will start business soon.

Pioneering Chinese City Offers a Peek at Political Ferment (shenzhen)