PRESS DIGEST - China - Dec 19

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Chinese newspapers available in Beijing and Shanghai carried the following stories on Friday. Reuters has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL

-- The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is launching a new platform for institutional trading of bonds and asset management products.

SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS

-- Most of 20 brokerages surveyed by this newspaper think the stock market will test lower next year; the lowest forecast for where the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC will bottom is 1,200 points, compared with the index's last close of 2,015 points. But 60 percent of the brokerages think the index will rebound in the second half of next year.

-- Bank of Beijing (601169.SS) said its Hangzhou branch would open on Friday, after receiving regulatory approval.

-- Sinolink Securities Co (600109.SS) said its board had approved plans to establish subsidiaries in Beijing and Shanghai to conduct regional business in securities underwriting, as well as a plan to set up a securities business in Sichuan.

-- Central Huijin, a government fund which injected 1 billion yuan ($146 million) into Guotai Junan Securities Co three years ago, will sell its 21.28 percent stake in the company to Shanghai International Group (SIG), a conglomerate affiliated with the Shanghai government, sources said.

This would give control of Guotai to SIG, which already controls Shanghai Securities Co and owns a minority stake in Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co; rules do not let a conglomerate control more than one brokerage, so the sale may prompt a round of consolidation among Shanghai-based brokerages.

SECURITIES TIMES

-- In the four months since regulators published new rules making it easier for top shareholders to increase their stakes in listed companies, 132 companies have announced their top shareholders have done so, and the share prices of 70 percent of them have risen.

CHINA DAILY (www.chinadaily.com.cn)

-- A man and a website were fined by a Beijing court for their involvement in the country's first online harassment lawsuit.

-- The Chinese 25th Antarctic expedition team left Zhongshan Station Thursday for the highest icecap on the South Pole to set up the country's first inland Antarctic research station.

PEOPLE'S DAILY

-- The Chinese 25th Antarctic expedition team left Zhongshan Station Thursday for the highest icecap on the South Pole to set up the country's first inland Antarctic research station.

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