UPDATE 1-PRESS DIGEST - China - Aug 11

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BEIJING/SHANGHAI Aug 11 (Reuters) - Chinese newspapers available in Beijing and Shanghai carried the following stories on Tuesday. Reuters has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

-- One equity fund and two index funds recently gained approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission and will be launched soon, sources with the fund management companies said, breaking a two week lull in new fund approvals.

-- China Everbright Bank's net profit in the first half of the year was 3.4 billion yuan ($497.5 million), compared with 7.3 billion yuan for all of 2008. The bank, which is preparing for an initial public offering, did not give a comparable year-ago figure.

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL

-- The international finance institute of the Bank of China said in a research report that China's exports are likely to recover in the second half of this year, partly due to an expected upsurge in trade after the bottoming of the global financial crisis.

-- Korea Investment Trust Management Co Ltd has obtained a licence from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to invest in China's securities markets under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) scheme.

-- Guosen Securities, a major Chinese securities brokerage with net profit of 2 billion yuan in 2008, plans to acquire a small brokerage, Chinalion Securities, which posted earnings of 80.6 million yuan last year.

-- China's auto sales are expected to exceed 11 million units in 2009 compared with 9.38 million units in 2008, while the auto sector's steel consumption will reach 15 million tonnes, said Shi Jianhua, the vice secretary general of the the China Automotive Trade Association, an industry group.

-- More than 70 percent of the Chinese listed companies that have reported their first-half results have posted a rise in net profit in the second quarter from the first quarter.

-- The China Securities Regulatory Commission plans to establish a special committee to monitor the operation and services of the country's securities companies.

SECURITIES TIMES

-- Sunvim Group Co Ltd (002083.SZ), a leading Chinese textile maker also active in the solar energy sector, said it planned to raise 1 billion yuan from a corporate bond issue to pay back loans and boost its cash flow.

CHINA BUSINESS NEWS

-- China's Shougang Group, state-owned parent of Shougang Iron & Steel (000959.SZ), paid 500 million yuan for a 90 percent stake in Shanxi-based Changzhi Iron & Steel, which has annual production capacity of 3 million tonnes of crude steel.

FINANCIAL NEWS

-- The Agricultural Development Bank of China, a policy bank mainly serving the agriculture sector, provided 198.31 billion yuan ($29.02 billion) of loans for grains, cotton and oilseed purchases in the first half of this year, 39.8 billion yuan more than a year earlier.

CHINA DAILY (www.chinadaily.com.cn)

-- Most wrongful convictions in China are caused by bogus evidence and pressure to solve criminal cases quickly in order to meet tight deadlines, legal experts said.

-- China's tax revenue fell 189.57 billion yuan, or about six percent, from a year earlier to 2.953 trillion yuan in the first half of this year.

-- Anti-smoking initiatives are being seriously hampered by the fact that government ministries that benefit from the tobacco industry are also those in charge of China's efforts to stamp out smoking, lobbyists said.

PEOPLE'S DAILY

-- China will add 5,600 kilometres of railway lines to a total of 86,000 kilometres by the year end, making it the world's second-largest rail network after the United States. ($1=6.834 Yuan) (Compiled by Beijing and Shanghai Newsrooms; Editing by Ken Wills and Edmund Klamann)