No changes to caps on foreign invest in banks

THE government was not considering changes to caps on foreign investment in Chinese banks, Jiang Dingzhi, a vice chairman of the banking regulator said Thursday.

China now caps the stake a single strategic foreign investor can own in a local bank at under 20 percent and total foreign stakes at less than 25 percent. China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Mingkang said earlier this year that China was reviewing the changes foreign investors had brought to domestic lenders in which they owned stakes before considering easing the limitations on foreign investments.

Liu said at the time, “Any policy decisions need to go through a long process.”

Philips to buy Shenzhen firm

PHILIPS Electronics said Friday it had reached an agreement with Shenzhen Goldway Industrial, China’s second-largest patient monitoring company, to acquire all outstanding shares in the Shenzhen company.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed and the transaction is expected to be finalized in the second quarter of 2008. Goldway employs 290 people and the company’s sales grew 30 percent in 2007 from a year earlier.