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Oil
prices fall by over $ 3.50
New York: Oil prices slid more than $3.50 a barrel
on Wednesday, the biggest drop since September 2001,
on the back of a good build in US heating stocks soothing
worries about a winter fuel deficit. While US crude
settled down $3.64 a barrel to $45.49 a barrel, off
7.5 per cent, the London Brent crude, benchmark for
European imports, fell $3.20 to $42.30 a barrel, off
7 per cent.
The
broad S&P 500 index settled to its highest close
in nearly 3-1/2 years, while the blue-chip Dow finished
at its highest since March and the technology-laced
Nasdaq at its highest since January.
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Chinese
domestic banking system opening up ahead of schedule
Beijing: China on Wednesday opened five new cities,
including the capital, to foreign banks to allow them
to conduct yuan business with local and overseas companies.
The China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman, Liu
Mingkang, said Beijing, Kunming and Xiamen have been
opened to foreign banks in line with an agreed schedule
with the World Trade Organisation. Liu told a news conference
that two additional cities, Xi'an in the country's west
and Shenyang in the northeast, will also be opened on
Wednesday, a year ahead of the agreed schedule.
The
latest opening up of the banking sector expands the
number of cities in which foreign banks can conduct
yuan business with local and overseas corporate clients
to 18.
Since
joining the WTO in late 2001, China has eased the geographical
restrictions that previously limited foreign banks to
branches in Shanghai's Pudong district and Shenzhen,
a southern boom town bordering Hong Kong.
As
part of the agreed five-year schedule, China is to gradually
widen the geographical area open to foreign banks before
completely throwing open the local banking market to
full competition by the end of 2006. By that time foreign
banks will also be able to expand their business scope
to include offering yuan services to retail customers,
a lucrative area of business still restricted to domestic
commercial banks, most of which are state-run.
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