Unicom denies CDMA network sale rumors
A China Unicom spokesperson denied market and media rumors the company was planning to sell its CDMA mobile phone network, the Beijing Youth Journal reported. The rumors have been fueled by the company’s decision to suspend new investment in the network, which it operates alongside a separate GSM network. However, the spokesperson said the investment halt did not signal an impending sale but reflected the fact the network had capacity to meet current subscriber demand due to heavy investment in recent years. However, a Merrill Lynch analyst told the Shanghai Securities Journal the company had indirectly admitted the sale of the CDMA network at an analyst conference. Meanwhile, China Telecom announced it would issue up to US$5.16 billion (RMB40 billion) in bonds. Analysts believe the company plans to use the raised funds to acquire Unicom’s network.

Software tester shortage to worsen
China is facing a shortage of software testing engineers and companies are finding recruitment a problem, the China Youth Journal reported. According to a research report from 51testing, a software testing portal, 91% of all mainland software firms have testing teams and 69% of surveyed firms believe testing significantly raises software quality. However, Beijing Software Testing & QA Center deputy head Xie Tengxiang said China still lagged behind in terms of product and functional testing. Addressing this would create huge demand for software testing engineers over the next few years, Xie said.

State Grid wins insurance approval
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said it had approved a bid from China’s largest electricity supplier, State Grid Corp, to establish two insurers, the Beijing Morning Post reported. The life insurance and property and casualty insurance units would be part of a new insurance group State Grid Corp was developing as part of a move into the financial services sector. Setting it apart from the seven existing domestic insurance groups, State Grid will be the first domestic insurer not to be established directly from the operations of a former state-owned entity. CIRC said State Grid’s life insurer had a registered capital of US$77.419 million (RMB600 million), but the property and casualty unit was still to be registered.

Lianhua and Hualian to merge
Lianhua Supermarket spokesperson Sun Ming told the China Business News that it was only a matter of time until the retail chain operator merged with Hualian Supermarket into a single legal entity. However, Sun said the company would retain both the Lianhua and Hualian brands. A former Lianhua Supermarket staff member said that one of the major obstacles facing a merger was the consolidation of the two supermarket chains’ respective information platforms. Human resource issues, branding, pricing and store resources were also tricky issues.