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To: djane who wrote (6131)	7/26/1999 11:34:00 PM
From: djane	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

US envoy in Beijing telecoms mission CAPTION: Time to talk: A girl talks on her parents' mobile phone in Beijing, as US envoy David Aaron flies into the capital seeking movement on joint ventures in telecommunications. STORY: A SENIOR US trade official was expected in Beijing on Monday to discuss telecommunications and other trade issues in the first such visit in months not related to Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. The one-day visit by Under Secretary of Commerce David Aaron, who is scheduled to meet senior ministry and economic officials, was unconnected to China's bid to join the World Trade Organisation, officials said. US consent is key to China's accession to the world trade body, but Beijing suspended WTO talks with Washington after Nato bombed the embassy in Belgrade in May. Beijing has rejected as ''unconvincing'' Washington's explanation in June that the bombing was a mistake stemming from intelligence blunders and has refused to reopen WTO talks until the US provides a satisfactory explanation. Telecommunications would be among the key issues discussed during Mr Aaron's visit, sources said. One sticking point is the fate of US$1.4 billion (HK$10.92 billion) in investment by US and other foreign firms in China Unicom, one of China's two telecommunications service providers. In the mid-1990s, US firms including Sprint, Nextel and Metromedia, exploited a loophole allowing them to pour money indirectly into Unicom and skirt an official ban on foreign investment in the telecoms sector. China closed the loophole last year and began enforcing a ban on the existing joint-venture contracts in March, barring Unicom from sharing revenues with its foreign partners. Those companies are now demanding repayment of their initial investments plus hefty hidden costs, such as marketing and maintenance of the joint ventures, and lost potential revenues. Another issue up for likely discussion was China's apparent foot-dragging on the adoption of a US mobile phone technology anticipated to bring billions of dollars in contracts to US firms such as Lucent Technologies and Motorola Premier Zhu Rongji told US officials in March that Beijing would allow China Unicom to roll out CDMA mobile phone networks to compete with entrenched European-backed technology. Since then, however, two Chinese ministries have jointly circulated an internal memorandum barring the rollout of CDMA. Foreign executives said they believed the freeze was an attempt by China to force foreign companies into divulging CDMA technology before allowing them into the market. Several executives said they believed the ban was temporary. - Reuters Back to Previous Page Copyright(c) 1999 Hong Kong Standard Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction In Whole Or In Part Without Express Permission is Prohibited.

To: djane who wrote (6131)	7/26/1999 11:37:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

China Unicom gives CCF investors August quit deadline Published on Monday, July 26, 1999 BUSINESS WANG XIANGWEI China Unicom, the mainland's second-largest telecommunications operator, has given investors an ultimatum to back out of their controversial China-China-Foreign (CCF) joint venture contracts by the end of next month. The threat comes as the company seeks to quicken the pace of its preparations for planned dual listings in Hong Kong and the United States. Reports indicate China Unicom has been cleared to come to the market in October in a listing aimed at raising up to US$1 billion. The company's share offering is a key step forward in its efforts to compete with China Telecom, which controls more than 95 per cent of the mainland's telecommunications market. Before that happens, however, the firm needs to overcome its biggest obstacle - refusal by some mainland and foreign investors to accept China Unicom's compensation offers to back out of the CCF joint venture contracts. "They must accept Unicom's compensation offers by the end of August or they will get nothing," one source said. He said both foreign and mainland investors had been notified of the ultimatum and more than half of them had agreed in principle to settlement offers. In recent years, foreign companies, including many foreign telecoms giants such as Sprint, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, invested more than $1.4 billion in more than 40 joint ventures with mainland partners which then set up joint ventures with China Unicom to operate mostly mobile-phone networks across the country. It remains unclear how much the mainland companies have invested in those ventures. Foreign investors are paid profits in the form of consultation and installation fees. The CCF formula was conceived to sidestep government regulations that ban foreign investors' direct involvement in the telecoms market. China Unicom, launched in 1994, has needed foreign investment and technology to set up its network. Now Beijing has ruled those contracts "irregular and improper", and has said China Unicom will pay compensation to investors. Resistance to settlement offers had come mainly from investors that were smaller and often not involved in the telecoms business, sources said. "Big companies are more willing to co-operate with China Unicom than the smaller ones and telecoms companies are more willing than non-telecom companies," one source said. He said China Unicom would reward companies that agreed to back out with future investment or business opportunities. But he declined to say whether the company would further sweeten its offers to settle the remaining outstanding contracts. The source said the government had good reasons to revoke the CCF formula: the ventures never had legal status and the formula was not in line with international practices. "Such a formula has not allowed proper utilisation of funds and has made it difficult to manage the network as a whole," he said. Y2K Archive What's On Analyst Reports Tech Pix Front Page \| Hong Kong \| China \| Asia \| World \| Business \| Markets Comment \| Features \| Sport \| Property \| Technology Today's Index \| Archive Search \| Classified Post \| Meeting Point Racing Post \| PostPhoto \| Store \| SCMP Home Letters To The Editor \| Contacts & Feedback \| Corporate Information Subscribe To The Paper Copyright (c)1999. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

To: djane who wrote (6131)	7/27/1999
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

I* large rise in short interest July 27, 1999 Money & Investing Short Interest in Nasdaq Issues Increased 4.39% in Latest Month By DANIELLE SESSA Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NEW YORK -- Short interest rose 4.39% in the latest month on the Nasdaq Stock Market, partly as bearish investors placed bets against stock prices that soared to records during the period. The short-interest total, which includes Nasdaq small-capitalization and large-capitalization stocks, increased to 1,987,498,609 shares on July 15 from 1,903,850,289 in mid-June, according to Nasdaq. On the Nasdaq SmallCap Market, which is made up of the 1,010 smaller-cap stocks, short interest climbed 8.91%. It rose 4.28% for the 3,792 larger-cap stocks on the Nasdaq National Market. Traders who sell securities "short" borrow shares and then sell them, betting they can profit by buying the stock back later at a lower price. Short interest is the number of shares that haven't been repurchased for return to lenders. As such, it is often taken as an indicator of the degree of negative sentiment among investors in the stocks. Investors may rely on short selling for other purposes, including as a hedging strategy related to corporate mergers and acquisitions, for convertible securities and options, and for tax purposes. The Nasdaq National Market's short-interest ratio eased to 2.17 days from 2.18 days in the previous month. The short-interest ratio for the smaller stocks rose to 1.09 days from 0.92 day. The ratio is the number of trading days that would be required to close out the short positions through share purchases and is considered a measure of trading sentiment. The following companies had the largest decreases in short interest: Cisco Systems Inc. fell 7,932,907 shares to 36,314,419. Oracle Corp. fell 5,623,971 shares to 14,750,461 shares; MedImmune Inc. fell 4,722,699 shares to 705,092; Qualcomm Inc. fell 3,618,831 shares to 15,078,549 shares; and MCI WorldCom Inc. fell 3,611,212 shares to 25,324,837 shares. The following companies had the largest increase in short interest: VoiceStream Wireless Corp. rose 6,024,157 shares to 6,304,422 shares; Metromedia Fiber Network Inc. rose 5,824,761 shares to 14,775,356 shares; Ameritrade Holding Corp. Class A rose 5,533,888 shares to 11,991,655 shares; Nextel Communications Inc. Class A rose 5,176,745 shares to 21,799,465 and Iridium World Communications Inc. rose 4,343,748 shares to 11,243,334 shares. Among companies with the largest short-interest positions: Intel Corp. was up 3,043,443 shares to 42,941,014; Microsoft Corp. was up 1,417,787 shares to 32,216,047; Dell Computer Corp. was up 927,286 shares to 31,556,379; E*Trade Group Inc. was up 2,319,529 shares to 19,554,698; and PeopleSoft Inc. was up 935,769 shares to 17,366,384. The next Nasdaq short-interest report will be published on Aug. 25. Return to top of page \| Format for printing Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.