Xinhua reports:

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's Star TV Group is expecting to set up a fully-owned subsidiary company in Shanghai within a month, the first of its kind for an overseas media conglomerate, reported CRIENGLISH.com ... The deal is inked largely thanks to implementation of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, or the CEPA.

    This stipulates that operators who have run businesses for over three years in Hong Kong can set up ad companies on the Chinese mainland.

    Otherwise, according to promises that China made upon its entry into the WTO, a foreign company such as Star would not be able to establish an exclusive foreign-owned subsidiary until 2005.

    The Murdoch media empire qualifies under the CEPA as it has maintained a presence in Hong Kong for about ten years after buying a 63.6 percent stake in a local TV station.

    And his new ad company will not only be concerned with advertising but also other areas of the media industry such as programming.

    Earlier this year, the US media conglomerate, Viacom, has announced plans to form a pioneering joint-venture TV production company with China's Shanghai Media Group.

    The joint venture is the first to be announced following China's move to relax restrictions on foreign investment in local production companies.

The Xinhua story is here