Small caps round-up: China Food, China Wonder

17th May 2010 11:58

Investors were keen to tuck into shares in China Food after the maker of cooking and dipping sauces said its new soy sauce factory in Shou Guang City is open.The new factory will increase the company's condiments production by 50% of capacity, it says.Another China-focused country, China Wonder, has also seen a sharp rise in its share price today, after strong results on the back of an improvement in the Chinese economy.The specialist engineer saw pre-tax profits climb to £636,543 in the year to December 31, up from £128,667 the previous year. Revenues climbed to £4.53m from £2.61m.Schools IT equipment supplier RM Group posted a rise in pre-tax profits in the six months to March 31, to £1.2m from £1m the previous year, as revenues climbed to £156.4m from £141.9m.Shares in Waterman fell back after the engineering and environmental consultancy said revenues in the third quarter of the financial year were 7% less than the average of quarterly periods in the first half, due to subdued activity in the commercial property sector.Asia-focused miner Oxus Gold is up at a four-month high as the market likes news it has restarted mining at its 50% owned Amantaytau Goldfields (AGF) joint venture in Uzbekistan."The restart of open pit mining, and the commencement of the substantial exploration programme that we recently announced is good news," said executive chairman Richard Shead. "Together with the development of the proposed underground mine, there is real potential to transform AGF, and therefore, Oxus into a significant gold producer and explorer." The firm wants to increase gold production at AGF to 300,000 ounces per annum over the next 3 to 5 years, raise gold reserves from 2.4m ounces to over 7m.Gold explorer Chaarat, digging around in the Kyrgyz Republic, says findings from a pre feasibility study indicate the potential of implementing an initial high grade, low-cost, open pit mine within the T0700 project area.This area currently has a JORC compliant resource of 336,000 ounces at a grade of 4.18 grammes per tonne of gold, and if this goes ahead it will cost Chaarat less money and be much quicker to production than originally envisaged.Losses at Philippines-focused nickel and copper miner Metals Exploration grew to £4.3m last year from £0.5m in 2008 following a big increase in admin costs.Despite last November's "disappointing" resource update, executive chairman Ian Holzberger says it is a "credit to the overall robustness of the orebody at (flagship project) Runruno that we have still been able to demonstrate a viable and economic development project which could produce around 100,000 ounces of gold per year."Iron ore, base and precious metals explorer Baobab Resources has intersected "significant" widths of magnetite-ilmenite mineralisation at its Chimbala prospect in Mozambique."The initial drill results from Chimbala are encouraging and indicate the potential for significant resource tonnages within the prospect area," said managing director Ben James.