Aroundtheworld

Tianqi nears Chilean deal

China’s Tianqi Lithium is nearing a deal to buy a 24 percent stake in Chile’s Sociedad Quimica Y Minera (SQM), one of the world’s biggest lithium producers, for about $4.3 billion, two people close to the transaction said.

Tianqi, which is building the world’s biggest lithium processor in Australia, is looking to sign a deal to acquire the stake in SQM from Canadian fertilizer company Nutrien, the people said.

Nutrien must sell its stake in SQM by next March as part of a commitment to regulators approving the deal. Nutrien owns about 30 percent of SQM, which also has significant fertilizer production.

Group buys Dhaka bourse

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) has signed an agreement to sell a 25 percent stake to a Chinese consortium that includes the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The price for the 25 percent stake, totaling 450 million shares, is about $120 million, according to the report.

Under the agreement, the Chinese consortium will also provide technical support worth $37 million

YiFan to acquire SciGen

Chinese drug company YiFan International Pharmaceutical Co announced on Wednesday that it has submitted an offer to acquire a full stake or at least a 90 percent share in Singaporean biotechnology company SciGen.

YiFan plans to acquire SciGen’s shares, totaling a little over 552.27 million, at $0.0507 each, which makes the deal worth more than $28 million, according to a YiFan filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Poland-based multinational biotechnology giant Bioton SA owns a 95.57 percent stake in SciGen.

YiFan said that the offer still needs to be approved by Bioton and regulators in relevant countries and a completion date for the deal is unclear.

Ctrip opens services in Japan

China’s leading online travel agency Ctrip said on Tuesday that it has rolled out localized products and services for users in Japan to tap the growing Asian tourism market.

Tourism products in global destinations are available with round-the-clock Japanese language service on trip.com, a sub-brand of Ctrip, said the company’s CEO Jane Sun.

Japan is Asia’s second-largest tourism market and has great business opportunities for Ctrip, Sun noted, citing 258 percent year-on-year growth in the number of air tickets issued on its Japanese language version of ctrip. com in 2017.

CCECC gets Nigerian rail deal

Nigeria on Tuesday signed an agreement of $6.68 billion with China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) for a major rail link that will run from Lagos to Kano, Nigeria’s northern commercial hub.

“The signing of the IbadanKaduna segment contract agreement today [Tuesday] concludes all outstanding segments of the Lagos-Kano rail line,” said a statement by Nigeria’s transport ministry.

CCECC confirmed to Xinhua News Agency the signing of the agreement Tuesday.