Business briefs.. Mind You own Business Business briefs May 17th It may seem like madness when you're weaving through heavy traffic in central Shanghai, but China is now trying to encourage people to buy into the family car dream. Credit and leasing mechanisms are being set up to make it easy for individuals to buy their own car. Think about all those people swapping out their bicycles and mopeds for a sub-compact. Interesting, no? Surveys have indicated that about 70 percent of households in the major cities would like to buy a car over the next decade. Meanwhile, Volkswagen says sales of cars in the China market continue to be strong. In the first three months of 1999, VW sold 66,876 cars, 10.7 percent more than the same period last year. Amazingly, that's more than half of all the cars sold in the country. Shanghai approved 327 new foreign-funded enterprises in the first three months of the year, according to official figures. No comparison was given. Air Philippines lives! The airline, which collapsed last year in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, says it expects to resume international flights by the end of the year, including a service to Shanghai. Britain has announced it's selling a large portion of its gold reserves, but Shanghai's still buying: gold ornaments and jewellery weighing a total of ten tonnes will be sold in the city this year, about the same quantity as in the past four years. Sales peaked in 1993 at 22 tonnes. The market price for gold in Shanghai is 118 yuan (US$14.2) per gram, slightly more than international prices because of higher taxes. China's economy so far this year has been growing more strongly than expected, a senior official from the country's central bank said. GDP was up 8.3 percent in the first quarter compared to a target for the entire year of seven percent. Two civilian satellites were successfully launched on May 10, the first satellites China has put into space this year. The U.S., on the other hand, continues to suffer problems and failures in its satellite launch program. It's official: everybody's in debt to everyone else. A survey in just three provinces -- Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan -- indicates more than 12,000 firms are evading debt repayments worth more than 50 billion yuan. The People's Daily said many companies deliberately evaded debt repayments even though they had money, while others filed for fake bankruptcies. Officials say one or two more major international insurance companies will be allowed to enter the Shanghai market over the next couple of years, making competition in this market even more fierce, and ever-more difficult for the local insurance companies. The eventual aim, they said, was to put Shanghai back on top of the insurance world. In the 1930s and 1940s, Shanghai was easily the most important insurance market in Asia, with 214 insurance firms in operation. Eight foreign firms currently have licences to sell policies in Shanghai, and they account for about 10 percent of the total market. Shanghai's foreign trade rose 17.9 percent in the first four months of the year, with imports up 16 percent largely thanks to the anti-smuggling crackdown. Exports were up 19 percent largely on revived demand from other Asian markets. Shanghai's exports to North America rose by a huge 38 percent. CHINA'S foreign trade for the period, meanwhile, totalled US$98.85 billion, up just over one percent from last year. Exports were down by 7.8 per cent but imports rose 13.6 percent. China's cinemas are not showing any American movies for a while due to the anger stirred up by the recent air attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, officials said. Chinese films and the occasional Yugoslav film have been substituted. BACK TO BUSINESS PAGE