The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is investigating China Telecom and China Unicom, two telecommunications giants, over alleged monopolistic practices in the broadband access business.

If confirmed, the two major operators could face billions of yuan in fines, said the NDRC on November 9.

China Telecom and China Unicom account for 90 percent of the country's broadband business and have formed a monopoly in the market, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing an anonymous official with the NDRC.

Experimental Bonds

Shanghai announced it would issue China's first ever local government bonds on November 15 in a pilot program designed to help cash-strapped local governments to curb fast-spreading debt risks.

The Shanghai Government sold threeyear fixed-rate bonds worth 3.6 billion yuan ($566.92 million) and five-year fixedrate bonds worth 3.5 billion yuan ($551.18 million).

The Ministry of Finance announced in late October that the State Council allowed Shanghai and Shenzhen and the provinces of Zhejiang and Guangdong to issue bonds on a trial basis to explore ways to solve local governments' debt issues.

Local government debt totaled about 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.69 trillion) at the end of last year.

Dim Sum Index

Bank of America Merrill Lynch launched a Dim Sum Index in a move that pays homage to the rapid development of the Chinese yuan-denominated offshore bond market in Hong Kong.

Designed to track the performance of the growing market, the index covers about half of all outstanding debt denominated in the Chinese yuan market in Hong Kong.

It targets corporate, sovereign and quasigovernment debt. To qualify for the index, a bond must be yuan-denominated, have at least one year to maturity at the time of issuance, have a fixed coupon schedule and have an outstanding face value of at least 500 million yuan ($78.74 million).

The offshore market in Hong Kong has sprung to life since the Chinese Government decided to allow qualified financial institutions to repatriate offshore yuan into the domestic market in August.

Huawei in Austria

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei will increase its engagement in Austria by introducing its mobile phones and tablet PCs for the first time to the European country in the next three months, Daniel Zhou, chief of Huawei-Austria, said on November 9 in Vienna.

Huawei has been active in Austria since 2006, but mostly as a technology supplier for other companies.

In 2010, Huawei-Austria's sales reached 74.7 million euros ($103.4 million).

Zhou said that annual sales this year are expected to increase by 10-15 percent, and by 20 percent in 2012 after its planned entry to the terminal markets.

Lidl, a supermarket chain based in Germany, announced in August it will begin sales of Huawei's mobile phones in Austria this autumn.

Huawei-Austria currently employs 89 workers, of whom three quarters are Austrians.