UPDATE 1-PRESS DIGEST - China - June 1

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, June 1 (Reuters) - Chinese newspapers available in Beijing and Shanghai carried the following stories on Monday. Reuters has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

SECURITIES TIMES

-- China's Ministry of Finance and the China Banking Regulatory Commission urged the country's lenders to strengthen risk control as they boost lending to support a slowing economy.

-- Industrial Bank (601166.SS) and China Merchants Bank (600036.SS) have submitted applications to China's State Council, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission to set up offices in Taiwan.

-- Dacheng Fund Management Co has obtained regulatory approval to set up a subsidiary in Hong Kong, becoming China's fifth fund manager start operating on the island.

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

-- Southern Building Materials Co 000906.SZ plans to raise 546 million yuan ($80 million) by selling shares to its parent and strategic investor Art Garden Holdings Ltd, a unit of China Construction Bank's (0939.HK) CCB International, to fund expansion in central and western China.

FINANCIAL NEWS

-- China Banking Regulatory Commission released operational and supervisory directives for rural units under the Agricultural Bank of China.

CHINA DAILY (www.chinadaily.com.cn)

-- China and the United States will resume high-level defence talks this month after bilateral military exchanges were frozen between October 2008 and February as China protested a $6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan brokered by the former Bush administration.

-- Visiting US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to reassure China of the safety of its investments in the US and to resist the temptation of trade protectionism measures - crucial to attracting further Chinese lending to the world's largest borrower.

-- On the first day of Geithner's visit to China, a Chinese newspaper reported that seventeen out of 23 economists said they deemed the country's vast holdings of U.S. bonds "risky".

-- China has confirmed 32 H1N1 influenza cases after reporting eight new cases on Sunday.

PEOPLE'S DAILY

-- Government officials under 35 years of age in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province, are required to be able to speak, read and write English.

--More than 70 percent of China's government officials said they enjoyed reading books but only a third spent up to three hours each week reading, a survey showed. ($1=6.827 Yuan)