Sounds familiar

We said it wasn’t over, and it’s not: After having its bid for Australia’s OZ Minerals rejected on (Australian) national interest grounds, China Minmetals is back, if strangely quiet about the terms under which the deal was thwarted. Did anyone really not notice early in the deal-making process that OZ Minerals’ single biggest asset happened to be in a military area? In any case, Minmetals’ new bid seems to meet with OZ Minerals’ approval, though it means the Chinese firm will have to make do without a uranium exporter, among other assets. Those are the breaks. In other ongoing news, more on our recent theme of massive profit slumps at major Chinese firms, Datang Power has announced a 79% drop in profits in 2008, thanks to higher fuel costs (also a recurring theme). That won’t stop Datang from boosting output this year, although that has some analysts predicting an oversupply (recurring theme number three). And what would a summary of new-old-news be without a reference to central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s call for a new global reserve currency? Yes, it looks like China is moving to reduce its reliance on US dollars by agreeing to a currency swap with Argentina. It’s the latest in a series of currency swap deals now worth a total of US$95 billion.