Beijing has long been dragging its feet over approving Sichuan Tengzhong’s proposed purchase of GM’s Hummer business. The Commerce Ministry is only one set of bureaucrats still to pass judgment. It is an open secret that some officials aren’t keen on a Chinese company buying the poster child for American gas guzzling extravagance, while others are uneasy about private vehicle makers expanding abroad ahead of state-owned ones.
We may be joining the faintest of dots, but an unsourced item in Shanghai Securities News prompts us to think approval will never come. The newspaper says that official oversight of investment and expansion plans by auto, farm, vehicle and engine companies will be tightened with approval required not only from the National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees strategic economic development, but also from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
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