China's official media has begun pointing fingers in the US$550m oil derivatives trading scandal that has engulfed state-controlled but Singapore- listed China Aviation Oil - and the role of foreigners in the debacle is one focus of interest.

The Communist party's flagship People's Daily newspaper yesterday cited two issues as particularly "worthy of attention" - the actions of overseas financial institutions in the trading that led to CAO's losses and the dominant role of foreigners in the company's own trading team. CAO's leading counter-parties included banks "steeped in the derivatives market" such as Goldman Sachs of the US, Japan's Mitsui and Barclays of the UK, the paper quoted a Chinese finance expert as saying in a report originally issued by the state news agency Xinhua.