SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s central bank is changing the way it conducts monetary policy as the world’s second-largest economy looks inward for growth, and it is being felt first by people such as Madam Ju, a senior money market trader at a commercial bank in Shanghai.

“It’s really a strange feeling that you have to look for the central bank to inject money into the market, after for so many years a flood of liquidity had kept the central bank needing to drain money from the market nearly every week,” she said.

Ju and other Chinese traders who are finding it harder to borrow cheap money before holidays or the end of the month are at the sharp end of a big change in policymaking: the shift to a domestic-driven economy where interest rates are the main conduit of monetary policy.

For the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), it is focusing less on draining liquidity from the market – which has been a necessary result of its controlling the exchange rate over the past years – and working towards using tools like the repo market to signal its interest rate intentions.

The changes have been facilitated by an easing of heavy capital inflows, once a major problem for policymakers as they sought to protect the growth engine of exports.

Rather than being a temporary response, the steps taken by the PBOC could take on a permanence that suggests it has seized the opportunity of slower inflows to advance its policy restructuring.

“Major changes in the PBOC’s market activities are being unveiled as China shifts its economic focus to domestic consumption,” said economist Wang Haoyu at First Capital Securities in Shenzhen.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s central bank is changing the way it conducts monetary policy as the world’s second-largest economy looks inward for growth, and it is being felt first by people such as Madam Ju, a senior money market trader at a commercial bank in Shanghai.

“It’s really a strange feeling that you have to look for the central bank to inject money into the market, after for so many years a flood of liquidity had kept the central bank needing to drain money from the market nearly every week,” she said.

Ju and other Chinese traders who are finding it harder to borrow cheap money before holidays or the end of the month are at the sharp end of a big change in policymaking: the shift to a domestic-driven economy where interest rates are the main conduit of monetary policy.

For the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), it is focusing less on draining liquidity from the market – which has been a necessary result of its controlling the exchange rate over the past years – and working towards using tools like the repo market to signal its interest rate intentions.

The changes have been facilitated by an easing of heavy capital inflows, once a major problem for policymakers as they sought to protect the growth engine of exports.

Rather than being a temporary response, the steps taken by the PBOC could take on a permanence that suggests it has seized the opportunity of slower inflows to advance its policy restructuring.

“Major changes in the PBOC’s market activities are being unveiled as China shifts its economic focus to domestic consumption,” said economist Wang Haoyu at First Capital Securities in Shenzhen.

SHANGHAI, May 8 (Reuters) – China plans to treat local money raised and managed by global private equity firms as foreign funds, industry sources said on Tuesday, restricting their access to sectors such as media and mining in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Foreign private equity firms such as Blackstone Group and TPG Capital Management have been setting up yuan-denominated funds in cities such as Shanghai, hoping they could be treated as local funds and thus avoid curbs on the sectors overseas funds can make investments in.

In a move aimed at ending regulatory ambiguity and tightening supervision, China’s Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) is formulating rules that will classify all foreign-run yuan funds as non-Chinese, one source with direct knowledge of the plan said on Tuesday.

The rules are set to introduced before the end of this year, the source, who did not wish to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, added.

“That would be a blow to foreign private equity firms as one of the main purposes of launching yuan funds is to become local,” said Poddy Feng, analyst at consultancy ChinaVenture.

“Being treated as foreign means they’re not allowed to invest in certain industries in China and there are also restrictions on ownership in some cases.”

Mofcom wasn’t available for immediate comment.

SHANGHAI, April 30 (Reuters) – Foreign companies doing business in China must navigate a business culture in which bribery is rife, finding ways to remove obstacles to expanding in the world’s second-largest economy without running afoul of local or home-country laws.

Especially in areas such as dealing with local officials in charge of permits, it is still common for bribes, whether cash or illegal gifts, to be expected in return for providing the necessary approvals, industry and legal experts say.

For U.S. companies in particular, that means they need to take pains not to run afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which bars U.S. firms and others from paying bribes to officials of foreign governments.

“Any industry that you see that is heavily regulated typically is high-risk,” said Meg Utterback, a partner at the law firm King and Wood Mallesons in Shanghai who frequently deals with corporate investigations.

Utterback named health care, construction and energy as examples of industries that fall into that category in China.

PERMIT PAYOFFS

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice have stepped up scrutiny into potential violations of the FCPA, especially in countries like China, where state-owned companies are a big force in the economy.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In little over six months as China’s top securities watchdog, Guo Shuqing has let loose a flurry of reforms targeting insider trading, market manipulation and dodgy disclosure that have hamstrung China’s stock markets even as its economy surges.

But China’s more than 72 million retail investors, who account for about three-fourths of trading on the domestic stock exchanges and have been burned repeatedly in the weak and volatile markets of recent years, remain skeptical.

“It doesn’t make a difference who’s in charge,” said Si Jun, a 62-year-old retired taxi driver.

“Markets might go up for a few days after some reform is announced, but then it’s all back to normal,” he said, summing up the view of many retail investors.

Gaining their confidence – and their hard-earned savings – will be crucial if China is to build up stable markets that can fund world-class companies and generate reliable returns for China’s rising ranks of retirees.

All signs so far are that the bold steps from Guo, a former foreign exchange regulator who was most recently chairman of China’s second-largest bank, will only gradually convince the country’s investing masses to begin sticking with stocks for the long run – rather than ducking in and out to seek a quick profit from what they regard as a largely rigged market.

In a brokerage lobby in downtown Shanghai, Ms. Gen, a 63-year-old retired clerk, watches the ticker board, hoping the shares she bought last year will tick up enough that she can unload them at an acceptably small loss.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In little over six months as China’s top securities watchdog, Guo Shuqing has let loose a flurry of reforms targeting insider trading, market manipulation and dodgy disclosure that have hamstrung China’s stock markets even as its economy surges.

But China’s more than 72 million retail investors, who account for about three-fourths of trading on the domestic stock exchanges and have been burned repeatedly in the weak and volatile markets of recent years, remain sceptical.

“It doesn’t make a difference who’s in charge,” said Si Jun, a 62-year-old retired taxi driver.

“Markets might go up for a few days after some reform is announced, but then it’s all back to normal,” he said, summing up the view of many retail investors.

Gaining their confidence – and their hard-earned savings – will be crucial if China is to build up stable markets that can fund world-class companies and generate reliable returns for China’s rising ranks of retirees.

All signs so far are that the bold steps from Guo, a former foreign exchange regulator who was most recently chairman of China’s second-largest bank, will only gradually convince the country’s investing masses to begin sticking with stocks for the long run – rather than ducking in and out to seek a quick profit from what they regard as a largely rigged market.

In a brokerage lobby in downtown Shanghai, Ms. Gen, a 63-year-old retired clerk, watches the ticker board, hoping the shares she bought last year will tick up enough that she can unload them at an acceptably small loss.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China put rare public pressure on ally North Korea over the reclusive state’s plan to launch a long-range rocket which is raising tension in the region and could scupper a recent aid deal with the United States.

The announcement of the launch immediately threw into doubt recent hopes that the new young head of the family dynasty ruling North Korea was ready open up more to the international community.

Experts said the planned launch is clearly a ballistic missile test, banned by U.N. resolutions, and would be in line with North Korea’s long practiced diplomacy of using threats to regional security to leverage concessions from the international community, and the United States in particular.

It would also be used to boost the stature of the North’s new young leader Kim Jong-un, who took over the family dynasty after his father’s death late last year.

Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun expressed China’s “worry” when he met North Korean ambassador Ji Jae Ryong on Friday, the Xinhua news agency said.

“We sincerely hope parties concerned stay calm and exercise restraint and avoid escalation of tension that may lead to a more complicated situation,” Xinhua on Saturday quoted Zhang as saying.

Though he stopped well short of condemning the planned launch, Beijing only rarely goes public with pressure on the isolated North which relies heavily on its giant neighbor for its economic survival.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A Shanghai court has rejected a request by a Chinese technology firm to stop Apple Inc selling its iPad tablet computers in the city, a source said, part of a wider battle for Apple over the trademark in China.

The Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ruled in Apple’s favour after a hearing on Wednesday, the source with direct knowledge of the ruling said, confirming a report by the website of local official newspaper Xinmin Evening News.

The Chinese company, Proview Technology (Shenzhen), had said the U.S. tech giant was infringing on a trademark it owns in China.

China is important to Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) not only as a consumer market, but also because the country is a major production base for the iPad and other Apple products.

The dispute, which dates back to a disagreement over what was covered in a deal for the transfer of the iPad trademark to Apple in 2009, has seen iPads seized by authorities in some Chinese cities, and some retailers in some Chinese cities have stopped selling them under court order.

The victory for Apple follows a string of defeats in other Chinese courts, and averted what could have been an embarrassing suspension of iPad sales in Apple’s own flagship stores, of which it has three in Shanghai.

However, it was still not clear whether a separate effort by Proview to seek compensation in the Shanghai court from Apple for alleged trademark infringement would be successful.

SHANGHAI, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A Shanghai court has rejected a request by a Chinese technology firm to stop Apple Inc selling its iPad tablet computers in the city, a source said, part of a wider battle for Apple over the trademark in China.

The Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ruled in Apple’s favour after a hearing on Wednesday, the source with direct knowledge of the ruling said, confirming a report by the website of local official newspaper Xinmin Evening News.

The Chinese company, Proview Technology (Shenzhen), had said the U.S. tech giant was infringing on a trademark it owns in China.

China is important to Apple not only as a consumer market, but also because the country is a major production base for the iPad and other Apple products.

The dispute, which dates back to a disagreement over what was covered in a deal for the transfer of the iPad trademark to Apple in 2009, has seen iPads seized by authorities in some Chinese cities, and some retailers in some Chinese cities have stopped selling them under court order.

The victory for Apple follows a string of defeats in other Chinese courts, and averted what could have been an embarrassing suspension of iPad sales in Apple’s own flagship stores, of which it has three in Shanghai.

However, it was still not clear whether a separate effort by Proview to seek compensation in the Shanghai court from Apple for alleged trademark infringement would be successful.

SHANGHAI, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A Shanghai court has rejected a request by a Chinese technology firm to stop Apple Inc selling its iPad tablet computers in the city, a source said, part of a wider battle for Apple over the trademark in China.

The Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ruled in Apple’s favour after a hearing on Wednesday, the source with direct knowledge of the ruling said, confirming a report by the website of local official newspaper Xinmin Evening News.

The Chinese company, Proview Technology (Shenzhen), had said the U.S. tech giant was infringing on a trademark it owns in China.

China is important to Apple not only as a consumer market, but also because the country is a major production base for the iPad and other Apple products.

The dispute, which dates back to a disagreement over what was covered in a deal for the transfer of the iPad trademark to Apple in 2009, has seen iPads seized by authorities in some Chinese cities, and some retailers in some Chinese cities have stopped selling them under court order.

The victory for Apple follows a string of defeats in other Chinese courts, and averted what could have been an embarrassing suspension of iPad sales in Apple’s own flagship stores, of which it has three in Shanghai.

However, it was still not clear whether a separate effort by Proview to seek compensation in the Shanghai court from Apple for alleged trademark infringement would be successful.