【财经看点】

Chinese gov't unveils trade support On the policy front, The Chinese government has announced new measures to support the stable growth of foreign trade and job creation. The new measures include giving more tax breaks, credit insurance and currency hedging options to its exporters. The support measures were announced in a statement entitled "stabilizing trade growth", released by the State Council, China's Cabinet. The statement says China needs to ensure that its trade sector grows at a stable rate while developing its services trade industry. Shanghai FTZ mulls cutting negative list Shanghai Free Trade Zone plans to shorten the negative list this year to attract more foreign investment. The negative list specifies bans or restrictions on certain types of foreign investment. Zhang Hong, head of the finance bureau of the FTZ, says the list will be shortened from 190 to 130 this year. The change is aimed at increasing foreign investment and lifting the FTZ standards to the global level. Negative list management was introduced in September last year. 17,000 enterprises had registered in the zone by the end of April. Shanghai's first private bank to land in FTZ Shanghai's first private bank is to open in the free trade zone. The bank will be jointly formed by local private conglomerates Fosun and JuneYao. China's banking regulator approved five private banks in Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong, to bring more private players into the sector dominated by the state. Each private bank has to constitute capital from at least two private firms. Beijing denies receiving Tesla application Beijing's local government has denied that it is preparing to put US electric car manufacturer Tesla on its new energy car list. The local regulator of new energy cars says it has not received any application from new companies. The current list of new energy cars consists of seven models from domestic companies, such as electric vehicle producer BYD and BAIC Motor, but not Tesla. Tesla was reportedly trying to get onto the city's new energy car list. In Beijing, new energy cars can enjoy double subsidies from both the central government and the municipal government, as well as special license plate quota conditions. Q&A on ICBC to accelerate the granting of mortgages for home buyers Anchor: The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has announced plans to step up mortgage lending. ICBC's announcement comes in response to a central bank call for the country's commercial banks to be quicker in approving and issuing loans to "eligible" home buyers. The new policy moves comes amid falling home sales and cooling home prices across the country. Official data shows that residential property sales have dipped just below 8-percent through the first quarter. For more on this, Paul James spoke with CRI's financial commentator Cao Can. … Back Anchor: Cao Can, CRI's financial commentator. China's rebalancing creates near-term challenges Credit rating company Moody's says China's rebalancing poses near-term challenges but most entities will be resilient to such challenges. The rating agency says tighter credit conditions and decelerating economic growth are creating significant financial stress for many sectors in the near term, especially for smaller, privately owned corporations. But it also says most of the Chinese entities it rates, including the national government, exhibit characteristics that should mitigate the resulting credit stresses. Moody's adds that such rebalancing is positive for China's long-term macroeconomic stability. Robust German growth puts stagnant France in shade Germany has posted strong growth in the first quarter of the year, but France, the euro zone's second largest economy, failed to expand at all. The German economy expanded 0.8 percent, marginally exceeding forecasts and was double the pace at the end of last year. Germany's performance was driven largely by domestic demand. In contrast, growth in the French economy was flat, with an official figure of zero percent. That was put down to weak consumer spending and business investment. Public spending helped to stop the French economy from contracting.