Crude steel production in China, the world's largest steel maker, rose 14 percent to a record last year, further complicating this year's iron ore negotiations.

China invested a whopping 3.6 trillion yuan ($527.30 million) in the property market last year, a 16 percent year-on-year jump from 2008, the nation's top statistician said at a news conference yesterday.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.9 percent year-on-year in December last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, down 0.7 percent year-on-year in 2009, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday.

China's centrally-administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the supervision of the state assets watchdog posted a 14.6 percent rise in profits from a year earlier in 2009, the watchdog said Wednesday.

China's yuan-denominated individual home mortgage lending rose 1.4 trillion yuan ($204.98 billion) in 2009, up 47.9 percent from the previous year, said a report issued by the People's Bank of China.

China recruited about 480,000 talents from foreign countries, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan last year, according to a leading Chinese official in charge of the affairs.

The volume of Hong Kong's goods exports in November 2009 rose by 1.4 percent year-on-year, while import volume rose 7.4 percent, local statistical authorities said Tuesday.

China Charity Federation, a leading charity organization in the country, raised about 4.64 billion yuan ($679.4 million) worth of donations in goods and money last year.

China reported 1,616 coal mine accidents in 2009, down by 338 compared to the year before, a source from the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety (SACMS) has said.