China's foreign exchange reserves for 2005 at a record US$818.9bn
Beijing: China's foreign-exchange reserves have risen to record levels, almost matching Japan's, which has the world's largest, on the back of a swelling trade surplus and money inflows that are backing a currency revaluation.

According to a People's Bank of China report on its web site, reserves have risen to US$818.9bn at the end of December 2005, from US$769bn at the end of September and US$610bn a year earlier. Japan's foreign-exchange reserves stood at US$824bn at the end of November.

China also held US$247bn in U.S. government debt treasury bonds at the end of October, making the nation the largest investor after Japan.

The nation's reserves of foreign currency have almost tripled since the end of 2002, lifted by about US$170bn of foreign investment, a cumulative trade surplus of US$160bn and billions of dollars of capital inflows betting on a rising yuan. China revalued its currency by 2.1 percent against the dollar in July and is under pressure from the U.S., Europe and Japan to let the yuan appreciate more.

In its attempts to slow down the growth in foreign exchange reserves, the government has relaxed some currency controls, such as allowing Chinese companies and individuals to take more money out of the country and scrapping the limit on investment overseas by domestic companies. Yet, analysts predict that China's reserves may rise by another 20 per cent to US$1trn by the end of this year, making it the first time that nay nation's reserves would have reached that level.
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Anglo American appoints investment bankers for demerger process
Durban, RSA: Anglo American, the US$70.6bn London-listed mining giant, has assembled a team of investment bank advisers to break itself up.

Indications are that the process may start with the demerger of Mondi, its packaging business, and a placing of its GBP4bn stake in Anglo Gold Ashanti, the world's third-biggest gold producer. Anglo American has appointed investment bank UBS to either sell or demerge Mondi into a separate company.

Separately, Goldman Sachs is acting for the mining giant to dispose of its 51 per cent stake in Anglo Gold. Citigroup has also been appointed to sell Anglo American's 79 per cent holding in Highveld Steel, a South African company with a market value of GBP876mn.

As yet, no bank has been appointed to sell Tarmac, the British aggregates business owned by Anglo American.
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Just 30 per cent of UK firms in a position to pay salary pensions
London: Only 30 per cent of Britain's biggest employers have provided assurances that they will pay final salary pensions without having to amend arrangements or stop them altogether. The FTSE 100 companies were responding to a query by Scotland on Sunday whether they could guarantee their commitment to their employees' current pensions.

Eighty firms responded, and half acknowledged that they could not give a guarantee about the future, though they were serious about meeting their commitments.

Ten firms no longer offer final salary arrangements to any staff. Two companies, Scottish & Newcastle and British Airways, have already begun the review process, and Carnival, the cruise ship operator, said its scheme is under observation.

Most of the 24 firms who expressed the strongest confidence in their ability to meet their pension pledges tended to have small numbers of staff in the UK scheme. BT, which has one of the largest deficits of the top 100 companies at more than £5bn, was confident it would meet its final salary promises and rejected any suggestion that it was in denial about the scale of the challenge ahead. A spokesman said: "We deny we are in denial. Our actuaries, Watson Wyatt, are very comfortable with our ability to meet our commitments."

This contrasts with BAE Systems, which also has one of the biggest black holes of more than £4bn. Its spokesman indicated that, given the size of the deficit, it was difficult to give assurances about the future.

Elsewhere, companies in the financial sector were among those most confident that their staff's pensions would be paid as expected when they were recruited. The Prudential said it believed the terms of its trust deed would make it extremely difficult to renege on its undertakings.

HBOS, HSBC, Friends Provident, Northern Rock and Lloyds TSB all indicated they had structures in place to return their funds to surplus and had an extremely high level of commitment to employees' pensions. However, Barclays was more cautious, indicating that it could not give an unqualified guarantee about any future liability. Aviva was also less confident.

Oil and energy companies, which are cash rich and tend not to employ big numbers of staff, expressed high degrees of confidence that pension pledges would be met.
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