Morgan Stanley has signed an intent agreement to buy in 11 power projects in northeast China worth 2.3 billion yuan (US$278.11 million) at an auction held by China Xinda Assets Management Company.

The 11 projects include a thermal power company in Dalian of northeast China's Liaoning province.

Xinda, one of the four state-owned assets management firms, began auctioning financial assets worth a total of 15 billion yuan(US$1.81 billion) Monday in Changchun city of northeast China's Jilin province, Wednesday's Beijing News reported.

The financial assets auctioned, including debts, shares and substance assets, covered 185 projects in northeast China, including real estate, infrastructure, coal mining, power plants, paper mills and retailing.

The auction attracted about 100 investors at home and abroad including Morgan Stanley.

A Xinda source in Beijing confirmed that an auction was held in northeast China, but gave no details.

Xinda, responsible for handling the bad loans of the China Construction Bank (CCB), owned non-performing assets worth 1 trillion yuan (US$120.92 billion) after it acquired 278.7 billion yuan of non-performing assets from the CCB and the Bank of China in late June and 64.1 billion yuan worth of bad loans from the Bank of Communications.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2004)