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The number of vehicles in China would exceed 200 million in 2020, reported Monday's China Securities Journal, citing a government official.

This sharp increase in the number of cars in circulation may pose problems for the environment and energy security, said Sunday Fuchang Wang, Vice-Minister in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at an automotive conference.

The Chinese automotive market is one of the mainstays in the global automotive industry is still recovering from the slowdown experienced last year.

Sales have shown signs of slowing from the start of the second quarter but rebounded sharply in August, thanks to government subsidies for the purchase of clean vehicles.

China Construction Bank (CCB) has risen higher than expected quarterly profit, while the second largest bank in the world in terms of market capitalization will raise about 8.5 billion euros at year end.

CWB has achieved during the second quarter ended June net profit of 35.6 billion yuan (4 billion euros), against 29.6 billion yuan for the same period a year earlier.

This 20% increase in quarterly earnings of the bank is higher than anticipated by analysts to Reuters, who on average expected a profit up 16% to 34.3 billion yuan.

"The growth is higher than I expected," said Jin Lin, an analyst at Orient Securities."The development of credit will be the main driver of profit growth for banks in the future and the annual growth will average about 15% for the sector."

In contrast, the increase of group profits has slowed from the first quarter, as the period from January to March, CCB has posted a 34% increase in net profit, which presage the challenges ahead for the establishment in the second semester.

"On one side (…) environment for international operations was relaxed, with excellent opportunities to develop new business," said the bank 11% owned by Bank of America, in a statement.

"On the other hand, given the difficult situation of market liquidity and volatility of financial markets, development of sites will be more difficult and the pressures associated with control of regulators and competition will increasing requirements of managerial skills. "

For the first six months of the year, earnings of CCB increased by 27%, far less than the 60% increase recorded for the same period by China Merchants Bank and the doubling of profit Everbright Bank.

Earlier this month, sources familiar with direct knowledge of the case have told Reuters that CCB had accelerated its plans to increase capital by 75 billion yuan in Shanghai and Hong Kong early in the fourth quarter.

The New York Stock Exchange ended down 0.22% Friday, the Dow Jones 30 industrial yielding 23.31 points to 10,651.67.

The S & P 500 is broader, lost 4.38 points, or 0.39%, to 1121.43.

The Nasdaq Composite fell on his side of 4.75 points (0.21%) to 2288.31.

For the week, took the Dow 1.8%, as the S & P 500 and Nasdaq fell 1.5%.

BP wants to sell its network of Aral gas stations in Germany for about two billion euros, the German weekly reported on Saturday Wirtschaftswoche, citing banking sources.

The French Total, the Russian Rosneft and as the European Avia Service Station are among the possible buyers, the newspaper business.Rosneft is also interested in two refineries that BP has in Germany, says he.

BP, Rosneft and Total had no immediate comment.

The British oil giant recently announced its intention to sell for $ 30 billion in assets over the next 18 months to meet the cost of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sources close to the industry, the sale is deemed unlikely because the chain of service stations is included in BP's refining operations and disposals of assets of the company focus more on the upstream oil and gas fields and gas.

Aral is the market leader Germany with about 2,400 service stations operating under its brand, according to its website.BP acquired the chain in 2002 as part of a broader agreement with the German energy group E. ON

The German inflation accelerated as expected in July, as estimated by the Federal Office of Statistics, harbinger of higher prices across the euro area.

Inflation has emerged at 1.1% yoy against 0.9% in June, an acceleration due in large part to rising fuel prices and fruit and vegetables, said the Office.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an average price increase of 1.1% over one year.

On a monthly basis, the national index of consumer prices was up 0.2% in July, against 0.1% in June

Calculated the European harmonized standards (HICP), inflation German spring up 0.3% in July and 1.2% over one year.

The first estimate of inflation over the past month is calculated on the basis of published data from six Länder. Final figures will be released August 10.

Wells Fargo, the fourth U.S. bank, on Wednesday posted a profit decline in the second quarter, but losses on commercial loans and consumer loans recede from the first quarter.

The bank reports a profit of 3.06 billion dollars (2.4 billion euros), earnings per share (EPS) of 55 cents, against $ 3.17 billion, or 57 cents a year bpa prev.

Analysts on average forecast EPS of 48 cents by Thomson Reuters consensus I / B / E / S. It was not immediately clear whether this compares to 55 cents bpa announced by Wells Fargo.

"The numbers are consistent with the idea of a slowing of growth in the U.S. and worldwide, but not a recession in 'W'," said Nigel Gault, economist at IHS Global Insight.

Entries weekly unemployment declined in the United States during the week to July 10, at 429 000 458 000 cons (revised) the previous week, said the Labor Department, while economists had expected jobless claims averaged 450,000.

The producer prices have meanwhile fell more than expected due to lower energy costs. They fell 0.5% last month, after falling 0.3% in MayEconomists polled by Reuters had expected a decline of 0.1%.

The increase in industrial production in June was announced in the aftermath is just as a sham because it is primarily due to increased electricity production justified by the massive use of air conditioners.

This declining trend in the economy observed in June of large chance of being confirmed in July as evidenced by signs of activity around New York and Philadelphia.

The indices "Philly Fed" and "Empire State" have both signed for the sharp declines this month, the first falling to 5.1 against 8 in June, dipping to 5.08 the second month against 19.57 last.

"We are now in an economic environment in which one steps forward and one step back. We must content ourselves with a low growth for some time yet," said Howard Simons, strategist at Bianco Research.

U.S. stocks opened lower Monday as investors remain concerned about budget problems and the situation of banks in Europe, but activity in the area of mergers and acquisitions limit their decline.

A few minutes after opening, the Dow Jones gives 31.15 points, or 0.3%, to 10,166.88 points. The S & P 500 was down 3.77 points (0.3%) to 1074.19 points while the Nasdaq went up into the green and gained 0.3% to 2203.37 points.

Wall Street took a breather after the biggest weekly increase recorded by the S & P this year and before the start of the season results will be given after the closure of Alcoa.

The questions also persist about the strength tests conducted on the European banks.The magazine Der Spiegel reported this weekend that the test included a discount on the German debt, a hypothesis that several sources had previously rejected.

"There is a risk that banks are not doing that well in these tests," said Dan McMahon of Raymond James Financial."We do not know how likely it is but there is a certain pessimism.

Aon Corp., the first global insurance broker, announced that it would buy services company Hewitt Associates human resources for about 4.9 billion dollars (3.9 billion euros) in cash and stock.

The action Hewitt burns 33% to 47.05 dollars while Aon was down 7.4% to $ 35.50.

"This new (fusion) is very positive when we start to earnings season," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer Hugh Johnson Advisors. "It's very positive when we see money flowing into this market."

Title Playboy Enterprises also jumped 34.3% to 5.29 dollars.The eponymous magazine founder Hugh Hefner has presented an agreement to leave the company of NYSE, proposing to buy all shares it does not already own for $ 5.50 in cash.

Registrations of new cars in France fell 1.2% in June on a year to $ 240,587, announced the Committee of French Automobile (CCFA).

The month of June were 22 working days, against 21 last year.A comparable number of working days, the decline in sales stood at 5.7%.

Of the first six months of 2010, registrations in France stand up 5.4% on a reported basis, to 1,212,492 units, and 3.7% in comparable number of working days from the same period of 2009.

Sales of French brands fell 7.9% in June, while those of foreign brands rose 7.8%.

Sales of passenger cars by PSA Peugeot Citroen fell 5.6% in June, while those of Renault were down 1.0%.

Registrations only Dacia (Logan, Sandero and Duster) almost doubled (95.8%), while those of Renault fell 11.1%.

Sales of the Citroën show a decline of 7.3% and Peugeot were down 4.1%.

Pernod Ricard announces the distribution of an interim dividend for FY 2009-2010 far exceeds the total dividend distributed during the 2008-2009 fiscal year, a year when the group had to make savings because of the crisis.

Its board of directors decided to pay an interim dividend of 0.61 euro per share against a total dividend of 0.50 euro for the previous year.

The deposit will be posted Friday, July 2 and payable Wednesday, July 7, 2010.

A spokesman for the group declined to given any indication on the total dividend which shareholders could expect for the year 2009-2010.

The producer of Pastis has already announced to shareholders that he wanted to resume his practice before the crisis, which was to distribute a cash dividend representing one third of its net current.

Ricard Pernod has reported a significant rebound from its sales for the first three months of 2010 and will announce its annual results on September 2nd.