China

Singapore's United Overseas Bank, losing ground at home as HSBC Holdings and Citigroup expand, is seeking growth in China. Its biggest competitors there: HSBC and Citigroup.

"I'm not sure what advantages Singapore banks have," said Ho Kok Hua, fund manager at APS Asset Management in Singapore. "The opportunities in China are overblown. Competition is going to be very intense, and profitability will be a problem for most."

China is not ready to relax its rigid foreign exchange regime, despite a landmark stock market reform next month that could trigger an influx of overseas cash, economists said yesterday.

The imminent launch of a long-awaited scheme that allows qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) to buy yuan-denominated A shares has prompted overseas foreign exchange markets to price in a more flexible and stronger yuan.

By Le-Min Lim

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Gloom prevailed at the second day of Asia's biggest art auction in Hong Kong since the U.S. credit crisis began with about two-thirds of the Chinese paintings and sculptures offered, many by masters, unsold.

Commentary by William Pesek

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Few questions confound economists more: What might tip China into the meltdown that so many have feared for so many years?

Possibilities include overheating, social instability, corruption, pollution, debt crises, war over Taiwan and a post- Olympics growth swoon. It's a perfectly rational expectation. No rapidly industrializing nation has ever avoided some kind of crisis, least of all upstarts in Asia.