China's business press carried the following stories on Friday. China.org.cn has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Sinopec keen on Syrian oil field—21st Century Business Herald

Chinese oil and gas producer Sinopec Group is considering bidding for eight onshore oil blocks in Syria, in order to increase its access to overseas oil assets, Li Chunguang, deputy manager of Sinopec, said.

The company has set up a team to evaluate the project and has yet to decide whether to make a bid.

Citic Bank to issue 16.5 bln yuan subordinated bonds—National Business Daily

China Citic Bank, a mid-sized lender, plans to sell 16.5 billion yuan (US$2.42 billion) worth of subordinated bonds on the domestic interbank market to meet the regulator’s capital adequacy requirements.

As of March 31, Citic Bank's capital adequacy ratio was 9.34 percent, down 0.8 percent from the end of last year, and under the minimum 10 percent regulatory requirement for China’s mid-sized banks.

Citic Bank will sell the bonds in three batches: 10-year fixed-rate paper, 15-year fixed-rate paper and 10-year floating-rate paper, taking the one-year deposit rate as its reference rate.

Citic Securities Co., China International Capital Corp. and China Securities Co. are the main underwriters for the deal.

New Century Shipbuilding scraps Singapore IPO—China Business News

Jiangsu-based New Century Shipbuilding has cancelled a S$666 million (US$481 million) initial public offering (IPO) that would have been the largest on Singapore stock market this year, giving no explanation for its withdrawal.

The IPO was scrapped because the bourse received a complaint that two expiring contracts were included in the prospectus, while a lawsuit against the company wasn’t mentioned in the prospectus, according to unnamed sources.

If found guilty of submitting false information, company managers could face a fine of up to S$150,000 and or two years in prison.

New Century Shipbuilding had sought to issue 560 million shares at a maximum price of S$1.19 per share on the Singapore market. UBS and Morgan Stanley were the underwriters.