China's business press carried the following stories on Wednesday. China.org.cn has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Chilly winter for China Unicom's iPhones?—National Business Daily

Are China Unicom's newly-launched iPhones about to experience a cold winter? An apparently genuine China Unicom internal document that was leaked online recently suggests the mobile carrier is requiring all its employees to buy and sell the trendy gadgets.

China Unicom Group denied it had issued such a document. But National Business Daily learned that some provincial branches have linked employees' wages to their sales of iPhones.

China Unicom announced that it sold 5000 iPhones in the first four days after the product launch, a number which Board Chairman Chang Xiaobing described as satisfactory but has disappointed investment banks, securities brokerages, and industry analysts.

Lack of WiFi and higher-than-expected fees are blamed by some industry analysts for the sluggish sales of China Unicom's iPhones.

Morgan Stanley: China may launch new stimulus next year—www.chinanews.com.cn

China's economic growth may fall below 8 percent in mid-2010, prompting the Chinese government to announce a new round of stimulus measures in the second half of the year, Stephen Roach, the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, was quoted as saying on Tuesday by Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po.

Mundell suggests putting yuan in SDR basket—Beijing Business Today

Speaking at a Beijing gathering of Nobel prize-winners yesterday, Robert Mundell, the father of the euro, suggested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) include the yuan in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of currencies by 2011.

The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries' official reserves and is currently based on a basket of four major currencies—the dollar (44%), euro (34%), Japanese yen (11%) and pound sterling (11%). The SDR basket is adjusted every five years with the next adjustment due in 2011.

Mundell said the yuan, which is not yet a freely convertible currency, should be included in 2011 but with a low weighting, which could be revised upwards in 2016. He predicted an eventual 30 percent weighting for the Chinese currency given free convertibility and a stable exchange rate against the US dollar.

Foreign capital welcome to take part in SOE restructuring—Shanghai Securities News

The State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) encourages private and foreign capital to participate in the restructuring of centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOE), SASAC chairman said in a recent interview with www.ce.cn.

Li said SASAC will stick to its plan of reducing the number of centrally-administered SOEs from the current 132 to between 80 and 100 by 2010.

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