The coal industry and the state of West Virginia have plenty to sell to China if the country wants to increase US imports to help reduce US trade deficits with China.

China's top economic planner has called for proper planning for the construction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facilities to improve the country's storage capacity.

Major state copper and aluminium producers were among the companies that traded almost half a billion yuan of metal on Shanghai Futures Exchange's (ShFE) new physical trading platform in its debut on Monday, the exchange said.

The deepest borehole to be drilled for scientific purposes by Asians-the first to penetrate a continental layer of strata from the earth's Cretaceous period-was completed in northeastern China on Saturday, four years after it began. It reached a depth of 7,018 meters.