Portuguese private bank hikes capital, Chinese stake rises

LISBON, Jan. 9 (AFP)

Portugal's biggest private bank, BCP, on Monday announced a share sale of 1.33 billion euros
($1.41 billion) and said purchases by Fosun Industrial Holdings would see the Chinese
conglomerate nearly double its stake in the firm.
The cash injection will be used to pay off 700 million euros in debts to the state, the last
repayment in a three-billion-euro bailout dating to 2012. The funds will also be harnessed to
strengthen the balance sheet, bringing the bank's capital adequacy ratio to 11.4 percent, BCP said
in a statement.
Fosun, which became the BCP's biggest shareholder last November, has committed to buying
more shares that will see its holding rise from 16.7 percent of capital to 30 percent, it said.
Portugal's banking sector is saddled with debt and bad loans and has had to be rescued twice by
the state under a plan backed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF).
On November 20, Fosun and BCP said the Chinese firm paid nearly 175 million euros for its
stake and aimed to increase its shareholding to around 30 percent.
China's largest privately-owned conglomerate, Fosun is already present in Portugal with
stakes in the insurer Fidelidade and medical services group Luz Saude.

China's economy likely to grow 6.7 pct in 2016: top

economic planner
 BEIJING, Jan. 10 (Xinhua)
China's economy is estimated to grow by about 6.7 percent in 2016, the top economic
planner said Tuesday. The economy would exceed 70 trillion yuan (about 10.1 trillion U.S.
dollars) last year, an increase of 5 trillion yuan, Xu Shaoshi, minister in charge of the National
Development and Reform Commission, told a news briefing.
Steady growth and the performance of new sectors have debunked predictions that China's
economy will collapse or face a hard landing, and the growth rate was remarkable among major
economies, he said.
Citing a report by the International Monetary Fund, he said that China may have contributed
1.2 percentage points, or over 30 percent, of the world's economic growth in 2016, while the
United States might account for 0.3 percentage points. This would mean China has been the top
engine of global growth for 10 years in a row.
China is confident in and capable of maintaining the reasonable growth rate thanks to its
economic structural reforms and emerging new sources of growth, Xu said. As China adapts to a
new normal of moderate-to-high growth, it has tried to shift from an export-and-investment
driven economy to one that is more sustainable and draws strength from consumption, services
and innovation.
In the first three quarters of 2016, the economy expanded 6.7 percent, well within the
government's target range of between 6.5 and 7 percent. During that period, the service sector
accounted for 52.8 percent of value-added industrial output, 13.3 percentage points higher than
secondary industry, while consumption accounted for 71 percent of the growth, up 13 percentage
points, Xu said.
The economy is in better shape for cleaner development, with a five-percent drop of energy
consumption per unit of GDP and continuous declines of major pollutant emissions, he added.
Besides, the country has exceeded its annual target for job creation, adding over 13 million new
jobs in 2016.