On April 27th, China's National Council of Light Industry said it wanted to merge most of the household-products makers into publicly traded firms by the turn of the century.

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The industry's reorganisation will also help strengthen Air China, the national carrier, for an international listing, pencilled in for 2003.

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The rules were issued by the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, an industry body tasked with overseeing China's interbank bond market and backed by the central bank.

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