Recruiting in China

Shanghai is home to one-third of the artificial intelligence professionals nationwide, drawing firms and organizations to the city to tap the talent pool and potential AI development, a top city government official said today.

Besides the talent pool, Shanghai has an advanced capital market and a huge volume of tradable data, which account for half of the national level, Wu Qing, the city's vice mayor, said during a meeting with visitors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and SenseTime, one of the leading AI firms in China.

Wu, however, didn't mention the detailed figures of AI professionals the city hosts.

But China suffers from an AI talent shortfall of 5 million professionals which include 500,000 core engineers who master programming and related technologies, dajie.com, an online recruitment firm, has said previously.

SenseTime, which plans to invest 6 billion yuan (U.S.$938 million) in Shanghai, signed cooperation agreements with state-owned giants Shanghai Lingang Group and Shanghai Inesa to develop AI. SenseTime will set up a headquarters for global research, intelligent car, smart chip and smart education in Shanghai, said Tang Xiao'ou, founder of SenseTime, who is also a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Carriers face competition from booming railway industry, fuel costs

China's major airlines recently released their annual profits for 2017, with all reporting a jump in profit due to soaring travel demand.

Air China said on Tuesday that its net profit in 2017 rose 6.3 percent to 7.24 billion yuan ($1.15 billion), its strongest profit increase since 2011. Meanwhile, China Southern Airlines Co posted a 17 percent jump in profit and Hainan Airlines reported a net profit of 3.3 billion yuan, up 6 percent compared to its net income of 3.1 billion yuan in 2016.

China Eastern Airlines had not released its financial report as of press time.

Those numbers mean that the three airline giants contributed substantially to the overall robust growth of the domestic aviation market witnessed in 2017.

Air China said that the level of outbound travel in the industry is continuously increasing, causing the demand for international flights to soar. At the same time, its cargo sector has witnessed a recovery due to an increase in global demand, with the airline noting that its cargo revenue jumped 23.5 percent in 2017 alone.

China Southern, which is based in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, said that the number of transfer passengers traveling through its main hub at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport grew by 24.2 percent year-on-year while its transfer revenue grew 22.6 percent year-on-year.

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), in 2017, China remained the world's second-largest aviation market, with a total annual freight transport turnover of 108.31 billion ton-kilometers, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 12.5 percent.

In detail, the number of domestic and regional passengers reached 500 million, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 13.7 percent. The number of international passengers reached 55.442 million, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 7.4 percent. Meanwhile, the total domestic aviation freight volume reached 7.058 million tons, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 5.7 percent.

CAAC has predicted that 2018 could see the high demand trend continue, forecasting a passenger growth rate of more than 10 percent for the year.

Looming challenges

However, despite the strong forecasts and 2017's climb in growth, numerous factors, including a pickup in fuel prices, a boom in high-speed rail travel, the prospect of interest rate hikes and fluctuations in exchange rates, are posing challenges and bringing uncertainties to the industry.

The three airlines said that each of their fuel costs are now at more than 28 percent, with Air China in particular noting that its fuel costs now stand at 29.2 percent, or 6.42 billion yuan, the highest fuel cost rate among the three giants.

Air China also said that currency fluctuations remain a risk as a 1 percent change in the yuan against the dollar could lead to a 279 million yuan shift in net profit.

All three companies have pointed out that the rapid development of China's high-speed railway system could pose a big threat to their performances in the future, as the train network has almost completed the construction of four horizontal and four vertical transportation arteries spanning the entire country.

The National Development and Reform Commission said earlier that the country's entire railway system could extend by as much as 150,000 kilometers by 2020, with that number including a 30,000 kilometer high-speed railway line increase. However, since Air China does not operate as many domestic short- and medium-haul routes as its peers, which are challenged by train journeys of a similar length, the impact of railway expansion on the airline's overall performance will be limited.

Future strategy

As for future development, competition over slots at major domestic airports is becoming increasingly tense and it is getting ever more difficult for carriers to tap airports in first- and second-tier cities.

Because more carriers have been placing an increasing number of planes at domestic airports, competition has even been spreading as far as third- and fourth-tier cities.

Air China noted that since domestic airlines operating with wide-body aircraft are actively involved in the development of remote, second-tier markets, it has brought about a kind of diversion effect from its hub operations in first-tier cities.

In 2009, there were only three second-tier airports operating long-haul international routes longer than 5,000 kilometers. By December 2017, however, such flights were being operated in 21 second-tier airports across the nation, Air China said, adding that those airports have developed so much in recent years that they now have destinations across Europe, the Americas, Australia and Africa. This demonstrates the recent exponential growth of second-tier markets.

Despite the fierce competition, the three airline giants are nevertheless still holding on to the strategy of accelerating intercontinental routes as their main form of expansion.

Hainan Airlines, for example, said it will amplify its intercontinental route network in second-tier cities while China Southern said it is expecting a more prominent position in its Guangzhou hub, attempting to expand in Beijing and establishing more routes connecting China with overseas destinations. face competition from booming railway industry, fuel costs

China's top tier cities may elevate themselves from regional centers to future global metropolises, with advantages in sectors such as smart cities and artificial intelligence.

International investors from global giants like Boeing, Merck and Siemens shared this view at the Annual Investment Conference in south China's Guangzhou on Wednesday.

The conference is a major event aimed at promoting the city to potential investors and listening to their comments on its business environment. Over 1,800 enterprises from around the world attended the conference.

Many investors stated that China is now more than just a large market for them.

This year China is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its reform and opening-up.

Merck, a world leading company in health care, life science and performance materials, has been operating in China for over 80 years. As well as its existing research and development centers and labs in Beijing and Shanghai, the company established a new China Innovation Center in Shanghai in February.

"The opening-up of China has made a great difference to our business and it allowed us to advance business sectors liquid crystal and pigments," said Allan Gabor, managing director of Merck China.

"When Merck looks at China, we see China as much more than a large business market, we see it actually as an enabler of our global strategy," Gabor added.

Similarly, John Bruns, vice president of Boeing International, said China is now "a source of innovation" from the company's perspective.

The American aviation giant will soon open its first finishing and delivering center for 737 planes outside the United States in east China near Shanghai, and recently signed an agreement with China Southern Airlines to initiate a 737 converted freight project in Guangzhou, and to include a local maintenance company in its 787 global care program.

Cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, are becoming the key players in investors' global strategies.

These cities have mature urban infrastructure, advanced industries and are renewing their focus on development to be in line with the information revolution and an international lifestyle.

Guangzhou, for example, is focusing on the new generation of information technology, artificial intelligence, bio-pharmaceuticals, as well as new energy and new materials.

The output of its new generation internet technology and panel display industries have both exceeded 100 billion yuan. It is also ambitious in becoming a smart city, by teaming up with global giants like Cisco and Siemens.

New York and London are indisputably global cities now, but what will global cities of the future look like?

"A future global city should be leading in smart mobility and smart energy distribution and future technology like A.I. I think Guangzhou is on a very good way to that," said Jens Hildebrandt, chief representative of Delegation of German Industry and Commerce Guangzhou.

But investors also pointed out that Chinese cities still need to tackle a series of challenges before they become global cities, including IPR protection, environmental protection, further opening-up and continuous innovation, as well as self promotion.

These are also the areas where huge opportunities lie.

Three months ago, SHV Energy, the world's largest distributor of LPG energy solutions, signed an memorandum of understanding with Guangdong Province, to build a LPG terminal in the city's Nansha District.

"With the strong focus of the Chinese government to improve air quality and reduce emissions, you see a higher need for clean energy solutions." said Maarten Bijl, global vice president of the company.

He added that SHV is also innovating its business model and looking for cleaner energy solutions in which it can cooperate with the Chinese cities. "We're in discussion to see how we can work with the city of Guangzhou, and we can get hydrogen mobility solutions here, which is the next step."

Aside from the top tier cities, China as a whole is putting every effort to further open up. Earlier this month, the government pledged to continue to streamline administration and delegate power to improve the business environment and further stimulate market vitality.

Policy support to reduce costs, higher sales help boost growth

The nation's industrial profits grew significantly in the first two months of the year, thanks to policy support to lower costs and higher sales offsetting weaker price rises.

Industrial profits increased by 16.1 percent to 968.9 billion yuan ($154.6 billion) in the January-February period compared to the same period last year, up from the 10.8 percent growth in December, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

Profit growth in sectors such as oil and natural gas extraction and pharmaceutical manufacturing helped drive up the overall profit growth, according to the NBS.

Better than expected demand in the first two months led to stronger growth of industrial product sales, which helped offset the downward pressure from slower price rises, according to Liang Jing, an analyst with the research institute of Bank of China.

In the first two months, the industrial added value increased by 7.2 percent year-on-year, up 1 percentage point compared to December.

Revenue from companies' major businesses increased by 10 percent year-on-year in the first two months, which is 1.2 percentage points higher than that in December.

Looking ahead, analysts expect slower profit growth in the near future due to the high base effect in the past several months, but they expect relative strong growth in the medium-to-long run as the growth momentum persists.

Gao Ming, an analyst with China Merchants Securities, said government support implemented since last year, such as efforts to lower production costs and tax cuts, will continue to help increase the efficiency of industrial production.

He expected industrial profit growth will increase by around 13.2 percent in 2018.

While many manufacturing sectors failed to see major improvement in profit growth in the first two months due to cyclical factors, government support to lower enterprises' debt levels will encourage enterprises to restructure to achieve more sustainable profit growth in the long run, according to Gao.

The overall debt level of State-owned enterprises has been declining steadily as the government implements measures to help enterprises to improve asset quality.

Some promising signs can be found in enterprises' financial performance, reflected by improved cash flows, higher investment returns and improved performances of inventories, according to a research note by China International Capital Corporation.

The profitability of consumer-related manufacturing enterprises is expected to see continued improvement, including food and consumption upgrade related industries, according to CICC.

New analysis from market observation firms Kantar Millward Brown and Wire & Plastic Products Group now lists Tencent as China's most valuable brand.

The analysis is part of the group's "2018 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands" ranking and report.

The report says the total value of the Top 100 Chinese brands has come in at $683.9 billion to start this year. This would represent 23% growth compared with the start of last year.

With a brand value of $132.2 billion, Tencent tops the list for the 4th year in a row.

E-commerce giant Alibaba now has an estimated brand value of $88.6 billion, a 53% year-on-year rise.

Other noteworthy sectors performing well are education, logistics and technology.

"Chinese customers pay increasing attention to brands, and top brands affect purchasing to a great extent," said Wang Xing with Kantar Millward Brown.

The 2018 BrandZ China Top 100 is based on interviews with over 400,000 Chinese customers, as well as analysis of financial data, market evaluation and risk prediction.

Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Chinese internet giant Tencent, indicated his support for the company's listing both in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, and said he has discussed Tencent's A-share flotation during the two sessions, which concluded last week.

Ma made the remarks at the China (Shenzhen) IT Summit on Sunday, according to a transcript from financial news outlet wallstreetcn, which broke the Hong Kong-listed company's silence on returning to the mainland stock market.

Chinese business magazine Caixin earlier reported Tencent has been singled out as one of eight companies in the first batch to issue Chinese Depository Receipts — similar instruments to American depositary receipts, which are certificates that allow investors to hold shares listed across borders.

The other seven are Baidu, Alibaba, JD, Ctrip, Weibo, NetEase and Sunny Optical, which will go back to the A-share market via the CDR.

In Tencent's 2017 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results announcement Wednesday, Ma also said the company will consider issuing CDRs if conditions permit, the Paper reported.

To woo tech giants home, China's regulators have been working hard. Yan Qingmin, the deputy head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission confirmed to Securities Times on the sidelines of the two sessions that CDRs will be released very soon, and the instrument is an effective measure for enabling Chinese enterprises listed elsewhere to return to the mainland's A-share market.

China's investment bank China International Capital Corporation Limited predicted China will release a draft on CDR rules after the two sessions.

For years, China's capital market was dominated by traditional industries such as property development, finance and industrial materials.

Innovative firms, tech startups in particular, face legal and technical barriers to list on the A-share market, including restrictions on weighted voting rights, or dual-class shares, and mandatory requirements on IPO applicants' profitability.

Tech firms have declared support for the China-based listings. China's search engine giant Baidu Inc, Chinese game developer NetEase Inc, Chinese search engine Sogou Inc and major online marketplace operator 58.com are among a host of firms interested in a secondary listing at home.

If CDR rules are released soon, China's high-tech titans Alibaba and JD will probably issue CDRs in June, Caixin reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Market share of the Chinese top 100 real estate companies reached about 50 percent in 2017, up 7.9 percentage points year-on-year, suggesting a trend for concentration in the domestic property industry, report said.

Total sales of those companies grew 32.8 percent to surpass 6.37 trillion yuan ($1 trillion) last year, with a 23.7 percent increase in sales area, showing an overall positive performance, according to a report released Thursday by the China Index Academy, the Development Research Center of the State Council and Tsinghua University.

"Since 2003, the Chinese property industry has undergone a 15-year golden era as one of the pillar industries in the Chinese economy and an engine of urbanization," the report said.

Gross assets and sales of the top 100 real estate operators have seen fiftyfold growth amid the period, showing a steady and quick development, the report showed.

In 2017, those companies strengthened cost controls to improve the quality of operations, whose average revenue and net profit increased 28.5 percent and 30 percent respectively, it said.

They also helped to provide houses for low-income families and construct eco-friendly and energy-saving buildings, as part of the effort to realize corporate social responsibility, according to the report.

However, the average asset-liability ratio of the top 100 property developers reached 78.9 percent, up 2.2 percentage points over 2016, suggesting greater pressure from debt.

In the future, the report suggested those companies should not buy too many parcels of expensive land in hot cities to prevent the risk of overstock.

Besides, they need to attach more importance to the safety of cash flow to avoid capital risk, it said.

China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced the country's 2017 monthly minimum salary standard and hourly minimum salary standard among 32 provinces and cities.

According to the data, Shanghai's monthly minimum salary was top in the country last year, with its full-time workers at least earning 2,300 yuan ($364), and Beijing's part-time workers earned the highest hourly minimum salary at 22 yuan.

Monthly minimum salaries in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Zhejiang, Tianjin and Beijing have broken 2,000 yuan, and Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai's hourly minimum salary has also reached more than 20 yuan.

Last year, 20 provinces and cities increased minimum salary standards, with an average increase of 11 percent from 2016.

This year, many other regions in China, including Jiangxi, Liaoning, Tibet and Guangxi, have all enhanced their minimum salary. Guangxi increased its minimum by 20 percent.

Shanghai announced it will increase its monthly minimum salary standard by 5 percent to 2,420 yuan per month starting April 1.

China's spending on research and development (R&D) grew faster in 2017 as the country continued to push for innovation-driven development.

Preliminary calculations showed that R&D spending rose 11.6 percent year-on-year to 1.75 trillion yuan (about 280 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017, 1 percentage point higher than in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

The spending accounted for 2.12 percent of China's gross domestic product, 0.01 percentage points higher than the previous year.

Chinese enterprises spent more than 1.37 trillion yuan on R&D last year, up 13.1 percent from 2016, while R&D spending at government institutions and colleges increased 7 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively.

Some 92 billion yuan, or 5.3 percent of the total spending, was put into fundamental research in 2017, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier, the NBS said.

According to the 13th five-year plan for national science and technology talent development (2016-2020), China will increase its annual per capita spending on R&D to 500,000 yuan by 2020, up from 370,000 yuan in 2014.

China had 5.35 million people working in R&D at the end of 2015, the world's largest pool of R&D personnel.

China's sales of fast moving consumer goods, such as packaged food, beverage and cosmetics, recorded the highest annual growth in three years in 2017 at 4.3 percent, with online sales volume rising 29 percent, according to Kantar Worldpanel.

Retailers are adopting new methods to catch up with the digital transformation, with the combined sales volume of hypermarket, supermarket and convenience stores rising 2.6 percent, from 1.6 percent growth a year ago.

Most multinational and local retailers have strengthened their foothold with new store openings or business formats through tie-ins with Internet companies.

Sun Art Retail Group, which runs Auchan and RT Mart malls, remains the biggest player by sales, lifting its market share to 8.4 percent from 8.1 percent a year ago.

Yonghui recorded the fastest growth with new formats such as Super Species and community stores. It overtook Carrefour as the fourth largest retailer, with a market share of 3.3 percent.

About 60 percent of Chinese families have purchased fast moving consumer goods online, and in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, that figure is nearly 70 percent.

China's offline retail is embracing new opportunities as e-commerce is presenting innovative consumption experiences for the country, said People's Daily in a Monday report.

According to recent statistics released by China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the sales of 2,700 key typical retail enterprises rose by 4.6% year on year in 2017, 3 percentage points higher than that of last year over the same period.

Convenience stores are a miniature that shows signs of the recovery of the retail industry. The overall business index of China's convenience stores was 71.28 in the fourth quarter of 2017, 2.03 higher than that in the third quarter, said a report issued by the MOFCOM.

The statistics of different businesses of typical retail enterprises showed that in 2017, the sales of specialty stores, pro-stores, supermarkets, and department stores increased by 8.3%, 6.2%, 3.8%, and 2.4%, respectively, 6.6, 3.3, 1.9, and 2.7 percentage points higher respectively than those of the first half of this year over the same period of time.

Online and offline retail have always been considered rivals to each other. Some people even attributed the previous fall of market share of the real economy to the diversion of e-commerce.

"Online and offline competition is not a 'win and die' situation, and 'survival of the fittest' is the only market law," said Li Keaobo, Executive Secretary General of Center for China in the World Economy under Tsinghua University.

After timely adjustment, offline retail still has the opportunity to win the market share because of its unique advantages in meeting consumers' demand.

The narrowing gap between online and offline prices is the primary reason for the recovery of offline business. "Now the prices offered at online platforms and department stores are almost the same," said a consumer named Cai Wei, adding that he prefers the latter since it features more credibility.

"China's online and offline retail are experiencing integration and common development," noted Ren Guoqiang, senior partner of the global strategy consulting firm Roland Berger. More Chinese retail enterprises have realized that innovation, enhanced operating capability, and the upgrading of consumer experiences are the only way of development, he said.

"But we still have to further improve the business environment for retail industry," said Li. According to him, the online-offline integration calls for a fair and orderly competition environment.

Currently, online retail sales account for 15% of the total retail revenue in China, and a well-built monitoring system would better guide the direction for its future development.

Denis Koreshkov waited only one night before getting his business license in south China's Hainan Province.

The 34-year-old Russian engineer and his business partners were amazed at the administrative efficiency. The office of his company in Hainan Software Park in Chengmai County, which is undergoing fitment and equipment installation, will be put into use after Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 16.

Koreshkov and his partners moved their computer technology company from Russia to Hainan last year and established the Hainan firm with a registered investment of 10 million U.S. dollars.

"China is a rising power in the IT industry and has a huge potential market," he said. His company has signed three cooperation projects in Hainan.

The Russian entrepreneur is among foreign investors benefiting from the favorable business environment in China.

The country has been making efforts to remove barriers to market access and requires local governments to create healthy business environment for fair competition.

To attract foreign investors, since October last year the approval of foreign enterprises in Hainan has only taken three days, compared with 18 days previously.

Hainan took the lead on online administrative approval in July 2017, enabling applicants to submit administrative approval affairs at home with a computer.

"A highly efficient government will cut the institutional and time costs for companies' development," said Wang Jing, head of the Hainan provincial government affairs service center.

"Streamlining administrative approval procedures will push the transformation of government functions and create a favorable soft environment for economic development," she said.

Wu Yusheng, founder of Tetranov International, a U.S. pharmaceutical company, also feels the benefits of such policies.

The registration and construction of his health product plant in Haikou, the provincial capital, only took five months.

"We have lots of investment projects around the world. The Hainan project is the fastest," Wu said.

To attract foreign capital, Hainan also identified 12 key industries, including tourism, Internet, medical treatment and bio-pharmaceuticals, and introduced preferential policies.

Due to the policies, the island province has become a hot spot for foreign investment.

In the past five years, 360 foreign-funded enterprises have been set up in the province, with contracted foreign capital reaching 25.4 billion U.S. dollars. In 2017, the island signed almost 40 foreign investment projects.

Game developers at Perfect World, a Beijing-based game company

Consider playing video games is simply a waste of time and money? You may need to think again.

Those thousands of hours spent playing video games, especially if supplemented with a degree in game development and design, can now lead to a career in the video game industry with a very competitive salary.

Game developers and designers are earning the highest salary among almost all professionals in the cultural and creative industry, with a median salary of over 10,000 yuan (U.S.$1562.5) a month in China, according to a report released by the Beijing-based market consultancy CNG.

Its chief analyst Wang Xu explained this could be attributed partly to rapid industry development and to the high demand for talents.

China's game market has become the world's largest, with sales revenue rising from some 10 billion yuan in 2007 to 203.6 billion yuan in 2017, a nearly 20-fold jump in a decade, according to China Gaming Report.

Despite the rapid development, the country still faces a lack of skilled professionals in the industry. Survey analysis shows the gaming market still need over a million game designers to match its rapid development.

Although a high diploma is not a must in the career, big game companies still prefer college graduates with hands-on experience and vocational skills in game development and designing, CNG reported.

Due to course design and lack of interaction with the industry, however, universities usually are not producing the kind of graduates suited to industry demand, said Guo Lei, executive dean of the Pixseed Digital Art Education Base, a talent incubator focusing on digital art fields such as games, comics and animation.

"We want to work with top universities at home and abroad as well as leading companies in course designing and work orientation, so as to cultivate more talents fitting the industrial demand," she added.

People select food products imported from Britain at an Ito Yokado department store in Beijing.

In their competition with online giants, which have recently expanded to offering fresh food in physical stores, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are gearing up to secure their market shares in this sector.

Sam's Club, the membership store and high-end format of one of the world's largest retailers by revenue Wal-Mart Stores Inc, has decided to set up "club depots", or storehouses, with Dada-JD Daojia, a food-delivery unit of the country's second largest e-commerce platform JD, at places where their physical stores have not yet reached.

The system will be built together by Sam's Club and Dada, including selecting locations for the storehouses, managing the inventory and deliveries.

Each storehouse will cover about 1,000 merchandise items, mostly high-frequency fresh groceries. That category currently takes up 20 percent of the Sam's Club stores' revenue. Every storehouse will cover a neighborhood market of three to five kilo-meters, offering delivery within one hour.

Chen Zhiyu, Walmart China vice-president, said since the testing of two club depots in Shenzhen, the delivery time has been shortened to 40 minutes on average, with orders quickly raised to 200 a day and repeating orders to 30 percent.

"We've often heard that despite consumer's preference in products at Sam's Club, they are often restrained by the long distance to the store or large packages of each item," said Chen, who is also in charge of Sam's Club's e-commerce and marketing and membership.

"The new storehouse will increase customer's shopping frequency and loyalty by satisfying their needs for convenience, especially for fresh goods," he said.

Chen, who held several positions at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd prior to his current role, said Sam's Club expects to increase its online sales to as much as the level of its physical stores within three years.

Sam's Club's digital services have seen three-digit annual growth in recent years.

French leading retailer Carrefour SA is also planning to expand its digital and online reach to 18 cities in China from the current 12. The six new cities include Guangzhou, Dongguan, Haikou, Changsha, Hefei and Dalian.

Carrefour has built its own shopping application and its stores have worked with online-to-offline delivery platforms including Metian, Ele.com and Baidu Waimai. Meanwhile, in Beijing and Shanghai, Carrefour has started to sell fresh goods directly from overseas, with a special focus on lobsters and oysters.

Meanwhile, traditional department store Ito Yokado has initiated upgrades on its remaining Yayuncun store after closing its seven other stores in Beijing.

The revamping efforts include expanding its food supermarkets, introducing catering, entertainment and education businesses and gyms, which cover nearly half of the total area, while the general merchandise area will be downsized.

Founded in 2002, the Yanyuncun store of Ito Yokado has an operating area of 21,200 square meters. The new store will set up a central kitchen to offer processed foods and half-processed food for consumers.

Fresh merchandise has also been upgraded to meet the demands for high-end products. Imported beef from Australia, food from Japan and packaged processed food for neighboring working families are now also available.

China's economy expanded 6.9 percent in 2017, picking up pace for the first time in seven years.

GDP totaled 82.7 trillion yuan (about 13 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2017, up from around 41.3 trillion yuan in 2010, when China first overtook Japan.

But it's not only the speed or quantity of growth that may make China a sustained engine for global economic growth. With policymakers reiterating the importance of "high quality growth," China's economy is entering a new era.

BEATING FORECAST

"Major macroeconomic indicators all beat market expectations, pointing to economic stabilization," said Ning Jizhe, head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

While exceeding market consensus of around 6.8 percent, the 6.9-percent growth rate in 2017 was also well above the official target of around 6.5 percent, and 6.7 percent in 2016.

Wang Hanfeng, an analyst with China International Capital Corporation, said that the pick-up signaled that China's economy has entered a new phase of development.

"The acceleration added to evidence that the economy passed a turning point in 2016 and continued upward on the back of industrial and consumption upgrades," Wang said.

Growth in the fourth quarter came in at 6.8 percent, unchanged from the rate seen in the third quarter, NBS data showed.

The Q4 data was driven by a robust expansion of the service sector, as it continued to benefit from China's economic rebalancing, Nomura said in a research note.

"Given these stronger-than-expected Q4 GDP data, we have decided to raise our 2018 growth forecast by 0.1 percentage point to 6.5 percent," it said.

BETTER STRUCTURE

The new era's basic feature is a shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development, according to a statement issued after the Central Economic Work Conference in December.

A breakdown of economic data Thursday showed a better economic structure, with new growth drivers emerging and outdated capacity fading.

New-energy vehicles, industrial robots, solar power and integrated circuit outshone most other industries in terms of output, growing 51.1 percent, 68.1 percent, 38 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively, year on year, contributing to a pick-up in industrial output growth in 2017.

On the other hand, mining and cement sectors saw their output decline 1.5 percent and 0.2 percent, while the textile and coal industries only grew 4 percent and 3.2 percent.

"New growth drivers are increasingly important for the economy, contributing more than 30 percent of growth and 70 percent of new jobs," said Tang Jianwei, an analyst with the Bank of Communications.

Bright spots such as retail sales in rural areas create future growth potential, analysts said.

The private sector is also showing vitality as the government pushes market reforms and improves business environment.

Private investment reached 38.15 trillion yuan, up 6 percent year on year, 2.8 percentage points faster than the previous year, accounting for 60.4 percent of the total investment.

HARD-WON RESULT

The growth came despite government measures to contain risk, which should have dampened growth.

Data Thursday showed a delicate balance between defusing risks and maintaining growth.

In 2017, stricter rules were adopted to curb pollution, local government debt, housing speculation and financial irregularities. All these "reductions" add up to a more sustainable growth model.

"The fact that the economy rebounded despite pollution controls and deleveraging showed that the real economy is improving, leaving room for risk control in 2018," said Liu Dongliang, an analyst with China Merchants Bank.

Chinese authorities said the country would continue to seek solid progress in preventing major risks, targeted poverty alleviation and pollution control in 2018, or the so-called "three tough battles."

When asked if such battles would weigh on growth in 2018, Ning hinted that he would not worry too much.

"When we talk about keeping the economy running within a proper range, we should not only look at the growth pace but also employment, income growth and improvement in the environment. After all, that's what economic development really means," Ning said.

Revenue of China's catering industry in 2017 is expected to reach 3.9 trillion RMB ($607 billion), according to a report by China's Cuisine Association (CCA) on the country's food consumption.

The revenue stood at 3.23 and 3.58 trillion RMB in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The continuous rise of the figure indicates the industry's growing impact on the general consumption market.

CCA President Jiang Junxian noted that the growth of China's catering industry has been maintained within a reasonable range, predicting revenue of over 5 trillion RMB in 2020.

According to the report, dining environment was selected by 19.2% of the consumers as the most important factor that influenced their choices of restaurants. A total of 17.8% of them considered taste as the most important.

Chinese cuisines took 57% of the catering market, possessing a dominant position. The figure was 55% in mega cities and 63% in small- and medium-sized ones.

A total of 92% of the people born between 1970 and 1979 marked Chinese food as their priority, while the proportion was only 19% among those born in the 1990s.

Hotpot was the most favored food of Chinese consumers in 2017, for which food safety, price, and environment were all criteria for their choices, especially those born between 1980 and 1989.

In addition to the dominant Chinese cuisines, snacks were another major contributor to catering industry growth in 2017, accounting for 16% of the sector. The proportion was even 18% in major cities.

CCA statistics indicate that salty taste was the most popular among Chinese consumers in 2017, favored by 23.3% of them. Spicy food ranked second, with a percentage of 17.2%.

Mobile games revenue in the Chinese market in 2017 reached $14.6 billion, beating the United States market, which recorded $7.7 billion revenue, CBN Daily reported Friday, citing a whitepaper released on the China Digital Entertainment Industry Annual Summit.

China's gaming industry leader Tencent saw its online games revenue in the third quarter of 2017 grow by 48 percent to 26.8 billion yuan ($4.14 billion), which reflected contributions from smartphone games, including existing titles such as Honour of Kings, and new titles such as the China version of Contra Return and Legacy TLBB Mobile, according to the tech giant's website.

Another major play NetEase reported a net revenue of 8.11 billion yuan in the third quarter, up by 23.5 percent year-on-year, according to tech.163.com, NetEase's online news portal.

Japan and South Korea followed with a revenue of $6.51 billion and $2.07 billion respectively, according to the whitepaper.

Mobile games revenue reached $46.1 billion worldwide, up by 12.5 percent year-on-year. The North American region saw a revenue of $82.6 billion year-on-year, up by 5 percent, while the Asia-Pacific recorded a revenue of $27.54 billion year-on-year, up by 13 percent.

The fastest growing region was the Middle East and African market, which saw $2.32 billion yuan in revenue, up by 46 percent. The second-fastest growing market was the Latin American, which saw a revenue of $1.71 billion, up by 24 percent.

China's producer price inflation eased in December on government restrictions for polluting industries, official data showed Wednesday.

The producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 4.9 percent year on year in December, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

It was down from growth of 5.8 percent recorded in November, according to the bureau. On a monthly basis, it was up 0.8 percent.

For the whole year of 2017, PPI climbed 6.3 percent from one year earlier, compared with a 1.4-percent drop in 2016, ending the declining trend for the past five years.

As northern China enters its winter heating season, the government has increased efforts to tackle smog, asking steel mills and smelters to halt production to curb pollution. Those measures cooled demand for industrial raw materials.

Compared with a month ago, factory-gate prices increased at a slower pace in oil and natural gas developers, while ferrous metal producers and the coal mining industry saw prices drop. Costs increased in gas production and supply industries, NBS senior statistician Sheng Guoqing noted.

Compared with a year ago, prices in oil and natural gas extraction increased by 20.1 percent, followed by 18.5 percent for ferrous metal smelting and 12.3 percent for oil processing.

The PPI figures came alongside the release of the consumer price index, which rose 1.8 percent year on year in December, up from November's 1.7 percent.

China's passenger vehicle sales edged up slightly in 2017 and are expected to grow faster this year, according to an industrial association Tuesday.

About 24.2 million passenger vehicles were sold last year, up 1.5 percent year on year, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

In December, about 2.8 million passenger cars were sold, up 0.6 percent year on year, while over 100,000 new energy vehicles were sold, marking a month-on-month increase for 11 months, CPCA data showed.

The association expected sales of passenger vehicles to pick up in 2018 to reach about 4 percent year-on-year growth.

China is the world's largest auto market and also the fastest-growing market for new energy vehicles, thanks to the government's preferential policies to boost clean energy use to curb pollution.

New businesses gave a boost to China's services activity which expanded in December by the quickest momentum in four years, a private report showed yesterday.

The Caixin China General Service PMI rose to 53.9 at the end of the year from 51.9 in November, according to the survey conducted by financial information service provider Markit and sponsored by Caixin Media.

It said the growth in services activity was due to a greater volume of new business.

The PMI showed services companies posted the strongest upturn in new orders since May 2015 as around 14 percent of monitored companies noted an increase.

Services companies continued to increase their payroll numbers at the end of the year amid reports of rising business requirements.

Released on Wednesday, the Caixin manufacturing PMI rose to a four-month high of 51.5 for December from November's 50.8 to confirm steady economic growth in 2017.

"The December readings of the Caixin PMI surveys point to improving economic sentiment," said Zhong Zhengsheng, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group. "Expansion in total new orders and new export business revealed that manufacturers and service providers are optimistic over the business outlook for 2018."

Meanwhile, the official non-manufacturing PMI released last week edged up to 55 for December from 54.8 in November.

The official non-manufacturing PMI survey covers 4,000 large and small companies, while the Caixin service PMI measures over 400.

The services sector contributed to more than half of China's gross domestic product in recent years as the country is in the midst of transforming its economy from investment-driven to consumption-driven.

The Bank of Communications wrote in a report yesterday that China's GDP may have grown 6.8 percent in 2017, above the government target of 6.5 percent.

The bank's economists expect GDP this year to dip to 6.7 percent, with growth of tertiary industries continuing to outpace the industrial sector.

As part of the plan to contain housing price, China vows to step up housing system reform and create a long-term market mechanism.

When and how a property tax will be levied has long been a public concern.

China's finance minister Xiao Jie has published his policy statement on People's Daily, the Communist Party of China (CPC)'s flagship newspaper.

What have been specified?

Xiao outlined that property tax will be levied on industrial and commercial properties, as well as personal residential houses, based on their "appraised value". He also suggested the legislation work would be completed by 2019, which would lay the foundation for its enforcement in as early as 2020.

Experts believe it has sent out signals for the speeding up of China's introduction of property tax.

"The article shows that the authorities now have clearer thinking on the levy of property tax, as substantial questions have been specified, especially how the taxes will be collected," said Yan Yuejin, senior researcher of the Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute.

Yan noted that "appraised value" means a comprehensive assessment of the original and current value of the property, while also taking into account affecting factors such as the real estate market situations and the price of similar property in surrounding areas. "It's a rather fair and reasonable way to do it," Yan added.

It would require the establishment of an appraising system by each city, according to Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Beijing-based Centaline Property, a leading property agent company. In Xiao's article, he also confirmed that local governments would obtain enough authorization in the process.

"That means local governments are allowed to run pilot policies based on their specific circumstances, so as to map out practical schemes that suit local development," said Jiang Zhen, research fellow with Chinese Academy of Social Science, "and their experiences drawn from the pilot programs will become important reference for property tax legislation, which will be pressed ahead steadily."

Why is property tax put on China's legislation agenda?

"Housing is for people to live in, not for speculation," this has been the tone-setting slogan for China's real estate market since it was first brought up by Chinese president Xi Jinping on the Central Economic Work Conference in December 2016. The long-awaited property tax is a key measure to reduce the appeal of houses as speculative investment, and bring the development of China's housing market to the right direction.

China's property price has been rocketing for over a decade, partly due to Chinese investors' preference for houses as investment and the resulting speculations. Bloomberg estimated that 25 percent of China's housing demand is out of speculations.

At present, taxes are only levied when houses are bought or sold, which leaves multi home owners with no extra financial burdens. The planned introduction of property tax may not only deter future speculators, but also drive existing multi home owners to sell extra ones before the enforcement of the new tax, thus increasing housing supply in the market.

But it's all up to the release of further details on how the property tax will be rolled out step by step.

The State Council made arrangements to optimize the business environment to stimulate market vitality and social creativity, at an executive meeting Wednesday.

Premier Li Keqiang, who chaired the meeting, called for universal use of a negative list of sectors and businesses off limits to foreign investment to control market entry.

Optimizing business environment would help productivity and competitiveness, he said.

The business environment is the foundation for developing a modern economy and ensuring high-quality development, the premier said.

Greater efforts should be made in streamlining administration, compliance oversight and offering better services. An internationally competitive business environment would have equal treatment for domestic and foreign enterprises and stimulate market entities and social creativity," he said.

China was ranked the 78th in ease of doing business, according to a 2017 report by the World Bank, up from the 96th place in 2013.

The government will cut red tapes, reduce taxes and slash fees for enterprises.

It was decided at the meeting that more efforts will be made to slash or cancel fees paid by enterprises, including operational and service fees and fees charged by sectoral associations and chambers of commerce. Costs for customs clearance will be lowered.

The government will further simply the procedures of administrative review and speed up approval procedures for business start-up, tax payments, application for construction permit and water, electricity and gas services, and real estate registration. The slashing of electricity price will also be a priority.

A new oversight mechanism characterized by integrity and information disclosure will be established at a faster pace. A unified punishment mechanism for breaches will be improved. An evaluation mechanism for business environment will be established, and rolled out nationwide over time. Special sectoral measures will be unveiled to facilitate the application for construction permits and cross-border trade.

"There is still much more that we can do to streamline administration, enhance compliance oversight and improve services. We should foster a more enabling business environment to incentivize a visible improvement in the ease of doing business for entrepreneurs, market entities and the general public," Li said.

A series of measures have been taken by the current government to cut red tape, reduce corporate burdens and improve the business environment. It has canceled or delegated administrative approval by the State Council bodies on 697 items, which account for 45 percent of the total.

The government also shortened the list of intermediary services for administrative approval by 323 items, or 74 percent of the total, and canceled professional qualification and certification requirements for 434 items, more than 70 percent of the total.

Shanghai's first "corporate service lab" has opened in a number of downtown districts to offer legal, financial and other support to local startup companies.

The service project, named "wehome LINK", was initially established in two major Dobe innovative parks in Changning and Jing'an districts as the first batch of "service labs" to serve hundreds of locally based startup firms in a trial operation.

Under the scheme, service providers such as law firms, human resource management companies, insurance providers and incubators will offer services to the small and medium-size enterprises for three months. The parks' operator will evaluate their performances and decide whether to retain or substitute them with better service providers.

This scheme will support a large swathe of startup companies under the government's mass entrepreneurship campaign, especially during the bottleneck period that most local innovative firms are undergoing.

"We found many young entrepreneurs, though they do have achievements in their fields, can hardly figure out many problems during the management and operation of their startup companies, such as share allocation, legal disputes and financial issues," said Jia Bo, chairman of Dobe Group, a major developer of local innovative parks.

"Some small and medium size companies don't even know how to apply for government subsidies that they are entitled to, and lost the opportunity to further develop," Jia said.

The first batch of seven service providers has entered the two innovative parks and begun serving startups on these issues. They include the Watson & Band law firm, online insurance company Qibao 360 and other service suppliers in print, office decoration, air purification and housekeeping.

Currently, most of the startup companies receive basic administrative services from incubators who merely help the entrepreneurs register their companies, pay taxes and apply for patents.

Most of the incubators neglected other more essential demands from startup companies, which hampered their development, according to mobile-Internet consultancy iiMedia Research.

Shanghai municipal government said Thursday it will develop the city into a cultural and creative center with international influence by 2035.

According to a newly-issued document, which introduced 50 promotional measures, the added value of the cultural and creative industry will account for about 15 percent of the city's GDP in the next five years, and about 18 percent in 2030.

Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong said the cultural and creative industry is a pillar industry for Shanghai, and plays an important role in the city's development and the people's livelihood.

The document said Shanghai will become a global film and television production center, a performance capital in Asia, a global animation and game production base, a leader in domestic Internet culture and publication, an international creative design highland, and an international art trading center.

Customers try the Google Daydream VR at a Google pop-up shop in the SoHo neighborhood in New York City. The shop lets people try out new Google products such as the Pixel phone, Google Home, and Daydream VR

Amid the enthusiasm shown by the government and domestic technology companies for research and development of artificial intelligence, global technology giant Google announced on Tuesday the opening of its AI center in China.

Li Feifei, chief scientist of AI and machine learning at Google Cloud, announced the launch of the AI center during the Google Developer Day in Shanghai. Based in Beijing, the center will host a group of researchers supported by hundreds of engineers in the country.

The China AI center is the first of its kind in Asia. It will join similar overseas centers operating in New York, Toronto, London and Zurich.

Li will lead the center, which will focus on basic AI research. She said this is one of the first steps for Google to conduct long-term research in China.

"There are a large number of scenarios where AI technology can be applied in China. The talents here are also top-class if put in an international context," said Li.

Scott Beaumont, president of Google in China, expressed his confidence about the AI center, since he has witnessed the vibrancy of local developers and Chinese people's willingness to embrace new technologies, which is hardly found elsewhere in the world.

According to global market consultancy Roland Berger, China now ranks second globally in the quantity of AI enterprises, patent applications, and the scale of financing across the world, only next to the United States. It is expected that AI technology will create 10 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) in profits for related industries by the end of 2030.

Finance, automotive, medical and retail will be the four industries in China seeing the most benefits by adopting AI technology, according to Roland Berger.

Leading Chinese technology companies such as Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd are making inroads into AI development in the form of self-driving cars, energy-efficient automobiles and educational equipment.

Simon Lance, managing director of global human resources company Hays in China, said that the AI sector faces a great shortage of candidates in China at the moment, since the country is "moving away from manufacturing and toward AI and robotics".

It is calculated by domestic online recruitment platform Zhaopin.com that the demand for AI talents in China has doubled so far this year, with the biggest demand for algorithmic engineers.

Regarding the rise and prospects of the AI industry in the country, the central government released the first number of national-level open innovation platforms for AI in November. AI technology has been used at Customs and procuratorates to seek innovation in different scenarios. Such adoption at the government administration level will be extended in 2018.

Global technology giant Google announced on Wednesday the opening of its artificial intelligence (AI) center in China during its second developers conference in Shanghai.

The new AI center will be based in Beijing. A small group of researchers supported by hundreds of Chinese engineers will be working there. Basic AI research will be the main area that the center will be focusing on.

Li Feifei, chief scientist of AI and machine learning at Google Cloud, will lead the research group of this new center. The center will seek cooperation with the local academia and other possible partners since China is one of the world leaders in AI technology development with ample supply of top talents in this area, she said.

"The center is a corporate-level effort. It is one of the first steps for Google to carry out long-term research in the Chinese market," she said.

The preparation for this center started in January. A number of Google's teams, such as the one for Tensor Flow - computation using data flow graphs for scalable machine learning, have taken part in the establishment of this center.

Residents stroll through the streets of Ankang city, Shaanxi province.

Tuesday marks the third anniversary of the start of operations of the central route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, a massive infrastructure program designed to transport water from the south of the country to the arid northern regions via three separate channels.

So far, more than 10 billion cubic meters of water have been carried to North China via the central route, benefiting more than 53 million people.

The environmental improvements that have resulted from protection efforts in the regions that supply the water?the provinces of Henan, Hubei and Shaanxi?have attracted investment and brought new job opportunities in green industries, including tourism and ecological agriculture, benefiting people in the areas that supply the water.

Xia Qinghua is one of them. The 43-year-old was employed in a small toy factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, for 12 years before he returned to his home, Chenjiawan, a village in Hubei's Shiyan city, in June.

He had long wanted to return, but was prevented by a shortage of jobs. However, the situation changed after Hubei Beidouxing Eco-agriculture and Forestry Co began investing in the area in 2014, lured by the cleaner environment.

"Great improvements have happened to the environment in my hometown. When I left at age 17, I had never seen an egret. Now, there are birds everywhere. They are beautiful," he said.

Though he earned more than 5,000 yuan ($756) a month in Shenzhen, Xia often had to work until 11 pm.

"The salary was good, but I felt lonely and helpless because I had no family around me," he said.

In 2011, he attempted to return to Chenjiawan, but the move wasn't successful. "There weren't many business opportunities in the poverty-stricken area at the time," he said. Xia had spent 50,000 yuan on a small truck and started a transportation business, but he lost his investment and was 20,000 yuan in debt after a year, so he was forced to return to Shenzhen.

After that, he only returned home once a year, for the Spring Festival holiday, and leaving his family was always a tearful affair.

"I remember very clearly leaving home on the evening of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year in 2013. My wife, my daughter and I cried in each other's arms. They all didn't want me to go," he recalled, tears glinting in his eyes.

Now, he works in the warehouse at a farm operated by Hubei Beidouxing, making about 2,000 yuan a month. Even though he earns less than he did in Shenzhen, Xia is much happier because he is close to his family and can care for his 70-year-old father, who is unwell. He supplements his income by leasing 0.5 hectares of farmland to Hubei Beidouxing, which brings in an extra 4,000 yuan a year.

The Danjiangkou Reservoir in Shiyan, Hubei province, is a source area for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

Li Wei, head of the farm, said the company rents 200 hectares of land from residents of three nearby villages, which have a combined population of about 5,000. While 500 villagers work on the farm full time, a further 2,000 are employed seasonally every year.

So far, the company has invested 280 million yuan in the farm, which has been in operation since 2014. However, the enterprise only became profitable this year; Hubei Beidouxing made more than 2 million yuan from the sale of fruits and flowers, and the farm attracts a steady flow of visitors who come to view the blossoms on the trees and pick fruit, he said.

The company has bought a number of vehicles to provide free transportation for sightseers. "The purpose of offering these services is not to make money. Instead, we hope to attract tourists and create business opportunities for people in local villages," Li added.

Some local residents have also started providing services in their homes, such as restaurants and guest rooms. In response to the rise in the number of visitors, Xia plans to provide tourist services too.

The most recent data is not yet available, but the Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project said that between 2011 and 2015 the central government invested more than 17 billion yuan in environmental protection measures in the area that supplies the central route.

Beijing and Tianjin, two of the prime beneficiaries of the project, have also invested a combined 2.3 billion yuan in 650 projects, including a number designed to protect the environment and develop ecological industries, such as eco-agriculture and tourism. The municipalities have also mobilized local businesses to invest 88 billion yuan in 118 projects.

People stroll on a walking path near an embankment of Hanjiang River in Ankang, Shaanxi province.

Marketing opportunities

Last year, Chen Guosheng returned to his hometown of Shiquan county in Ankang city, Shaanxi, which is also located in the source area for the water diversion project.

The entrepreneur was prompted to return by the rise in the number of business opportunities resulting from the improvement to the local environment.

"The improvements have resulted in a lot of high-quality farm produce, but the local farmers don't know how to market or sell the goods," he said.

In response, Chen's company, Shaanxi Baren Tourism and Culture Co, is building marketing channels, and has invested 20 million yuan to transform Zhongba, a small village, into a business hub.

His plan is that tourists will be able to visit for sightseeing and also learn how to make local delicacies, including tofu and cooking oil, using local farm produce and traditional facilities and methods. A trial has been in operation since Oct 1, while the village is being redeveloped.

Chen also rents 67 hectares of land, which he has turned into a tea plantation. The leaves grown on the plantation are highly rated by a tea merchant in Guangdong province, who has ordered a continuous supply.

Business opportunities are also being nurtured in Madeng township, Nanyang city, Henan, via a 1,667-hectare forestry project intended to restore desertified land in a mountainous area.

Two scenic spots are the township's main tourist attractions, generating annual revenue of 35 million yuan. Now, the local government is using the forestry project, which has attracted investment of 82 million yuan, to widen the area's appeal to visitors.

Cherry and Chinese cherry apple trees will be planted along roadsides to create attractive scenery, while pomegranates and walnuts will be cultivated to allow tourists to pick their own fruit, said Zhou Yushan, head of the Madeng government.

In 2009, the per capita income in the township was about 3,000 yuan, but this year the figure is double that thanks to the tourism boom. There are now more than 100 "farm resorts" in the township, according to Zhou.

"The environmental improvements are bringing more opportunities for the development of tourism. All nine registered impoverished villages in the township will be lifted out of poverty by the end of the year," he said.

It took Nikita Ermakov, a second-year Russian student at Peking University's Yenching Academy, four months of job hunting and many interviews before he finally got an offer from the HNA Group, a Chinese conglomerate on the Fortune 500 list. He is currently negotiating the offer with them, and hopefully, he will start the job after graduation.

Ermakov, 25, got his bachelor's degree at a university in South Korea and a master's in Russia before coming to China. He has three years of work experience from his time in South Korea and Russia and can speak four languages: English, Korean, Russian and Chinese.

"China has become the new U.S., a new land of opportunities," he said. "The U.S. is a country of immigrants, but it is already a developed country. With President Trump's new policies, the country has become stricter with visa and immigration regulations. China is still developing; it has a huge market."

Ermakov is just one of many foreign talents who choose to come to China for career development.

According to the HSBC's 2017 Expat Explorer Global Report in October, a move to China offers expats numerous career and income advantages.

The report showed that China, as one of the world's economic powerhouses, now comes in second in HSBC's global rankings for career progression. A total of 70 percent of the 27,500 expats surveyed said the Chinese mainland offers strong job prospects compared with only 54 percent globally and 48 percent in Eastern Asia, a 16 percent increase over last year's figures.

Half of the surveyed expats on the Chinese mainland said they have more opportunities to acquire new skills here than at home, and they earn significantly more than the average expat - typically around $171,000 annually compared with $100,000 globally and $115,000 regionally, according to the report.

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), said China is now involved in "global talent circulation."

"There is a new trend in which more foreign talents will go to China to develop their career in the next decade or two. China's international talent competitiveness is growing," he said.

Hot areas for foreign professionals

According to the HSBC report, the top three employment sectors are the education, service, and financial services sectors, which account for 31, 17 and 9 percent of the employment market respectively. The service industry includes hospitality, travel and leisure, tourism and customer service.

Ermakov thinks that foreigners, especially recent graduates and young specialists, face fierce competition from Chinese professionals. But as the HSBC report showed, the education, services and finance industries require the highest level of qualifications, so foreign talents can still compete with domestic specialists.

"In spite of the fact that foreigners have lower language skills, lack connections and have a limited knowledge of the market, they have comparative advantages: international networking experience, mobility, knowledge of specific business cultures, foreign languages or business English, special areas of expertise and so on," he said.

Eric Tarchoune, founder and managing director of the Dragonfly Group, an HR consulting firm in China, said foreigners who have competencies in big data, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, research and development, knowledge management, brand management, and smart data analysis are in greater demand. They have years of work experience and can bring innovative and different ways of working to their job in China, he explained.

Hays, a British recruitment company with offices in China, said the industries on the Chinese mainland that offer good job prospects for foreigners include science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the Internet, e-commerce and digital technology, and medical care in its December 5 release on the top 10 recruiting tendencies on the Chinese mainland in 2018.

"Candidates with well-developed soft skills and technical or product knowledge in their area of expertise are also in high demand for these roles and are well positioned to command the most attractive remuneration packages in the coming months," said Simon Lance, managing director of Hays China.

Attracting high-end talent

National initiatives such as the Belt and Road initiative and national technology projects are attracting more high-end foreign professionals.

Jurriaan Meyer, a 52-year-old man from the Netherlands, recently resigned from his post as Asia Pacific director at an international software company in Beijing to work as the general manager of Shandong SRCC Rail Transit Technology, a new Jinan-based company that does innovative propulsion systems for both the local and international markets. Meyer has been in China for over 15 years.

"This project is part of the Belt and Road initiative and is supported by the governments of Shandong and the Netherlands," said Meyer. "Jinan wants to build a local rail industry, and SRCC will be one of the first companies to contribute to this plan with local assembly facilities. If we succeed, this project could truly be the crown of my career in China."

A new work permit system was implemented across China on April 1. Under the new system, foreigners fall into the categories of A, B or C based on their educational background, qualifications and work experience. The policy, which was launched by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, shows that China wants more high- and mid-level foreign talents.

According to Shanghai-based newspaper Jiefang Daily, Ben Feringa, the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry and Kurt Wüthrich, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in chemistry, are expected to obtain a Chinese green card in December.

Meyer also applied for a Chinese permanent residence card last year, which is expected to be granted to him in 2018.

"I think China is right to attract foreign talent while focusing on high quality," said Meyer.

Meyer thinks that compared with big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, where the living costs are becoming excruciatingly expensive, second- and third-tier cities also offer a lot of opportunities these days.

"Facilities in China are very good these days. The transportation infrastructure is awesome, and the Chinese people and companies are usually very supportive and go to great lengths to accommodate foreign talent," he said.

A new generation of expats

Madeleine, a 21-year-old woman from Indonesia, works as an event manager for jingjobs.com, a Beijing-based startup recruitment company.

She came to Beijing in 2013 and studied marketing for four years at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE). She also does public relations for Global Foundation of Young Entrepreneurs (GFYE) at UIBE.

"Startup environments attract me a lot, as they are very challenging and give me the opportunity to learn every single day," said Madeleine.

She started building her career here in 2016 by taking different internships and part-time jobs and has built her network from hundreds to thousands within a year.

Running events with NGOs and big job fairs, and meeting inspiring people are just some of her memorable experiences so far.

Madeleine thinks there is a bright future for bilingual professionals who speak Chinese and are passionate about China, its fast economic growth, growing advanced technology and diversity.

"Nowadays, employers and companies are hiring younger professionals because they're known to be very tech savvy, entrepreneurial, adventurous and very talented overall," she said.

Meyer agrees.

"I think a new generation of expats is coming who are younger and better prepared for China. Most speak Chinese, which is a great development," said Meyer, who passed HSK 5.

He explained that the new generation of candidates compromises millennials, those who are born after 1990, and Generation X or those who are born after 2000. They are coming to China to study and then work. They learn Chinese at an early age and mix with the younger generation in China, he said.

"They are very well integrated into the culture and business environment and are of great value to China and their home countries," he said.

"China is making a smart move by inviting many young people from abroad to study in China. This helps groom a pool of future 'ambassadors for China' who can help develop understanding and cooperation to the benefit of China and its counterparts abroad."

How to grasp the opportunities?

Meyer finds that after coming to China to work, he has learned much more and is earning more as well.

He said that while China is developing fast and Chinese graduates and professionals are catching up quickly, some high-level foreign workers are still sought after for their unique combination of academic, professional and soft skills and language abilities.

"Soft skills and foreign languages are a weak spot for some Chinese candidates, particularly those outside of the big cities, so there are opportunities for those who can help bridge the gap between China and the world," he said.

He thinks that to be successful in China, one needs many skills, such as in-depth experience in their related field of work.

He said recent graduates from abroad would have a hard time finding a job in China, as many graduates from China or Chinese returning from overseas are stiff competition.

Intercultural skills are also needed. Meyer said an excellent command of the Chinese language and an understanding of the business culture must be brought to the table. Flexibility and an innovative mind comprise the third and final essential factor.

"China will develop more and more, and the labor market will be even more competitive even for the most skilled talent from abroad. However, some very good ones will always be required and welcome if only to help China succeed on the world stage, away from the familiar home markets in China," he said.

Nicolas Fusier, operations director of Dragonfly Group, said more and more Chinese companies that are going global recruit foreigners to develop in the North American and European markets. He said for these specific jobs, it's definitely an advantage to be a foreigner because they know the culture and have their network.

However, Madeleine thinks that despite the good prospects, getting a work visa still poses a challenge.

"Be ready for the long process of applying for a work visa. It is sad because I have seen and met hundreds of young talent who did not get the work visa but are actually very enthusiastic and passionate," she said.

Fusier sees things differently.

"It takes time to get a visa, but I think the most important thing when it comes to attracting high-quality foreign talent is to offer them interesting and innovating challenges while working here in China," he said.

More than 8 million students will graduate from Chinese universities in 2018 and must adjust to lower-income opportunities amid intensifying competition, experts told the Global Times on Thursday.

The number of China's university and college graduates is estimated to reach 8.2 million in 2018, the People's Daily reported on Wednesday.

Students should be encouraged to seek jobs in grass-roots work units, the military, newly emerging fields and international organizations, Lin Huiqing, Vice Minister of Education, said at a meeting about the employment of university and college graduates on Wednesday in Beijing.

Lin said that the concept of innovation and starting up should be involved in education, the Beijing-based national newspaper reported.

Discrimination in any form, job hunting traps and pyramid schemes should be firmly opposed to protect college and university graduates' legal rights, Lin said.

"China's employment rate is actually among the highest in the world," Xie Zuoxu, a professor of high education at Xiamen University told the Global Times on Thursday.

"We are not lacking positions. In fact, many grass-roots positions such as escort service, sales and teachers, urgently need to fill positions. It is a question of whether college and university students would like to take those jobs," Xie said.

Young people should first increase their own capability to get the jobs they want. Newly graduated students needed to adjust their attitude especially toward grass-roots work, Xie believed.

The number of China's college and university graduates has been increasing constantly since 2001. The number reached 7.95 million in 2017, 300,000 more than 2016, Xinhua News Agency said Thursday.

The flagship working space of co-working company WeWork in Shanghai at a renovated hundred-year-old UK-style building.

Freelancers and small and medium-sized companies that yearn for better working environments can increasingly avail themselves of a new option, co-working spaces.

With the rise of millennials in the workforce and the government's supportive policies such as the so-called mass entrepreneurship innovation, the co-working space sector is booming, along with much of China's emerging sharing economy.

According to an annual report released by the National Development and Reform Commission, more than 5.5 million new companies were registered last year, growing 24.5 percent year-on-year.

By the end of 2016, the country had nearly 26 million registered enterprises, up 18.8 percent year-on-year. And the report noted that 41.7 percent of the entrepreneurs are young people, especially millennials.

Seeing the huge potential in innovating away from traditional working offices, Hu Jing, the former executive vice-president of Chinese property developer Greenland Holding Group Co Ltd, established his co-working startup Distrii, to offer co-working spaces, coupled with online mobile office solutions.

"As more cities in China become highly developed and business concentrated, traffic congestion, air pollution and other city diseases pop up now, and the cost of commuting also has increased. All those problems are the real pain points for cities and will also reduce people's work efficiency," said Hu, now CEO of Distrii.

Hu aims to build a community that allows employees to set up workplaces in the nearest co-working offices, instead of traveling for hours to a far-away office.

"Advances in technologies will enable us to live in the flexible, mobile, productive and convenient working environment, marking a key point to the smarter future.

"Co-workers are able to deal with company tasks online via our mobile office solutions and communicate with other company employees in the working building to expand their social circles," he said.

According to statistics on the official website, more than 450 companies have registered to use properties offered by the Shanghai-based co-working space operator.

Currently, Distrii has set up 15,000 working spaces in four cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Singapore. The company said it would unveil its flagship franchise in Singapore next April.

In September, the company announced it had raised 200 million yuan in series A financing to further expand its light-asset office network and start to tap into overseas markets in the Asia-Pacific, Southeast Asia and North America regions.

"Our co-working mode is more than simply renting working offices. We aim to connect people with the facilities via the internet, making them into part of the smart city plan," Hu added.

Once users sign up to use the co-working building, they can simply use smartphones to unlock the office door and check in automatically via the internet. And the serviced offices will offer more functions, including tele-conferencing and video-conferencing.

"Currently, we especially target small and medium-sized companies, which account for around 70 percent of the total domestic firms, aiming to help them reduce the costs on operation and IT spending."

A report released by consultancy iResearch showed that there is huge potential in China's co-working industry. According to the report, the domestic market in China reached 4.29 billion yuan ($650 million) in 2016, and the number is expected to hit 9.35 billion yuan by 2019.

Feng Chao, an analyst at internet research company Analysys, noted that co-working companies need to offer favorable prices and comfortable working environments to accumulate enough users.

"The key is to introduce more value-added services," Feng said. "It should be more than simply providing renting offices and should involve more needed services, such as training and a community network."

China's push to develop industrial internet will inject a fresh impetus to the development of smart manufacturing as well as the integration of the industry and the internet, analysts said on Wednesday.

"Accelerated steps on industrial internet are of significance to China's advanced manufacturing amid fierce competition from abroad. It will help promote deeper integration of the country's real economy with internet, big data and artificial intelligence," said Yang Chunli, a researcher at the China Center for Information Industry Development, a Beijing-based think tank.

The State Council, China's cabinet, earlier this week unveiled a guideline that aims to build three to five industrial internet platforms, which will reach international standards by 2025 and lead the world in key areas by 2035.

Specifically, the country will build about 10 cross-industry platforms by 2020 to accelerate digital transformations at enterprises. The industrial internet refers to a network of combined, advanced machines with internet-connected sensors and big-data analytics. It is designed to boost the productivity, efficiency and reliability of industrial production.

Qianzhan Industry Research Institute forecast that the market size of China's industrial internet sector will hit 10.8 trillion yuan ($1.64 trillion) in 2025, without disclosing the figure for this year.

"To compete with the world in internet and manufacturing, China must foster national platforms, which will act as main pillars of future industrial transformation. Key industries such as automobiles, digital, energy and aerospace are some of the potential areas to establish such national platforms," Yang said.

According to a recent report from Alliance of Industrial Internet, China's industrial internet sector is still in its infancy, as a group of Chinese companies, including Sany Heavy Industry Co Ltd, started tapping into the sector several years ago.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also selected 206 smart manufacturing pilot projects, of which 28 are related to industrial internet innovation.

Now, around 50 percent of the world's industrial platforms are provided by US enterprises and China still faces a gap with developed countries in terms of function, degree of commercialization and integrity of the whole ecosystem, according to the report.

Yang also noted that a group of companies including Rootcloud and Haier Group did quite well in industrial internet but most of them focus on certain vertical areas with limited users and resources, which still lag behind world-leading platforms such as General Electric's Predix and Siemens' MindSphere.

"However, most industrial platforms across the world are in the early stage of commercialization and are still on the way of exploring the market. In other words, China stands almost at the same starting line with developed countries," Yang said.

"Even though some enterprises started to map out industrial internet long before, they just launched their products and the service system still needs to be improved," she added.

Coca-Cola's biggest bottling plant in north China began operating Thursday in Xianghe County of Hebei Province, southeast of Beijing.

The plant will produce bottled water, Coke and Sprite, mainly to serve Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and neighboring regions, according to Luan Xiuju, president of COFCO Coca-Cola Beverages, a joint venture of Coca-Cola and China's COFCO Corporation.

The first phase of the plant involved investment of 500 million yuan (76 million U.S. dollars).

As Coca-Cola's third-largest market, China offers exciting opportunities and the firm has full confidence in the Chinese market, said James Quincey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola.

Quincey said the firm will continue to work with COFCO to offer new products for Chinese consumers.

Anhui Jianghuai Automobile (JAC Motors) and Volkswagen Monday signed a memorandum on a joint venture to develop and market multi-function vehicles.

The two companies will discuss possible options for a joint venture which will develop pickup trucks, MPVs and electric cars.

The venture will be half-owned by JAC and half-owned by Volkswagen. It will be based in Hefei, capital city of central China's Anhui Province, hometown of JAC.

It will be the second joint venture between JAC and Volkswagen, as the two companies signed an agreement in Germany in June to establish a 50-50 joint venture to develop, produce and market new energy cars and related mobility services.

Chinese companies abroad hired 118,000 more local employees in 2016 than in 2015, according to the country's top economic planner.

The number of local employees working for Chinese companies abroad rose to more 1.3 million last year, said Zhou Xiaofei, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, at the 2017 International Industrial Capacity Cooperation Forum and the 9th China Overseas Investment Fair, held in Beijing.

China's global outbound direct investment, which includes corporate mergers, acquisitions and start-ups, reached nearly 1.4 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of 2016.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland added up to 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars by the end of last year, according to Zhou.

FDI into the Chinese mainland claimed has been third highest in the world for nine years in a row.

"Foreign-funded enterprises contributed one-fourth of the country's industrial output, one-fifth of its treasury income and one-tenth of urban employment," Zhou said.

Places $2.8 bln bet on 'new retail' amid saturated markets: analysts

Alibaba Group announced on Monday that it would invest about $2.88 billion into one of China's largest grocery operators as part of a broader drive to integrate traditional offline and online retailing and create a "new retail" environment.

The move represents the e-commerce giant's answer to pressure from rival JD.com Inc, which has a big presence in online grocery retailing, as well as to saturated online and physical retail markets, experts noted on Monday.

Alibaba said that, as part of a strategic alliance with Auchan Retail SA and Ruentex Group, it will invest HK$22.4 billion ($2.88 billion) to acquire a total direct and indirect stake of 36.16 percent in Sun Art Group.

Under the alliance, Auchan Retail and Ruentex will hold 36.18 percent and 4.67 percent stakes, respectively, in Sun Art, which operates 446 hypermarkets in 29 provincial-level regions in China, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

"The alliance reflects Alibaba's 'New Retail' vision to leverage its Internet-based approach and new technology, while working closely with retail partners to provide a seamless online and offline experience to consumers in China," read the joint statement.

"By fully integrating online and physical channels together with our partners, we look forward to delivering an original and delightful shopping experience to Chinese consumers," Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong was quoted as saying in the statement.

"I think this deal will have a positive impact for both parties. From the Alibaba side, the deal will further strengthen its efforts to integrate online and offline to build the 'New Retail' environment," Veronica Wang, an associate partner at global consultancy OC&C Strategy Consultants, said in a note to the Global Times on Monday.

Wang added that Sun Art could potentially leverage Alibaba's strong digital capabilities, not only at the consumer level but also through the back-end supply chain, to provide a seamless online-to-offline (O2O) experience for consumers in China.

The alliance represents the latest move in Alibaba's aggressive investment in brick-and-mortar retailers in recent years, including electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group and supermarket chain Sanjiang Shopping Club Co. Since 2015, Alibaba has invested more than $9.3 billion in physical stores, Reuters reported on Monday.

Lu Zhenwang, founder of Shanghai Wanqing Commerce Consulting, said that Alibaba's approach in the physical retail market is aimed at "huge competition from JD.com" because the latter has built up a big presence in online grocery retailing with its own robust off-line resources such as storage, while Alibaba was focused on increasing independent sellers and brands on its platforms.

"Retail markets both online and off-line have peaked in recent years and growth has been showing signs of slowing, and Alibaba is trying to create a new retail environment that could extend into the O2O retail market," Lu told the Global Times on Monday, adding that Sun Art's strong presence across China could support Alibaba's efforts.

At the end of the Alibaba "New Retail" push is the much larger consumer base than those currently online, and that's a "huge potential" market for Alibaba and for physical stores, according to Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based independent analyst.

"Think about it. There are only 700 to 800 million Internet users in China but the population is 1.3 billion. What about the rest? They are also consumers, so I think that's what Alibaba is after; it wants to reach everyone in China," Liu told the Global Times on Monday.

The proportions of restaurants and retailers reporting a year-on-year growth of revenue were higher than those in August, and they were optimistic about the business prospects in October, the Macao Special Administrative Region's (SAR) statistics department said on Sunday.

Latest report by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the business performance of the interviewed restaurants or similar establishments and retailers in September 2017 was better than expected with improved business conditions.

Among the interviewed restaurants or similar establishments, 45 percent registered a year-on-year rise of revenue in September, up by 12 percentage points from August.

For retail trade, the proportion of interviewed retailers reporting a year-on-year sales increase in September 2017 went up by 10 percentage points from August to 51 percent. On the other hand, 24 percent of the interviewed retailers registered a year-on-year sales decrease, down by 17 percentage points over August.

The DSEC report also said that benefited from the long holidays for National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival in October 2017, the interviewed restaurants or similar establishments expected a slight improvement in their business, with 27 percent anticipating a year-on-year rise in receipts in October, up by 6 percentage points from September.

Retailers were more optimistic about their business prospects in October, with 33 percent predicting a year-on-year sales increase, up by 8 percentage points from September.

Internet giant Baidu Inc is considering spinning off its international division, as it focuses more on prioritizing artificial intelligence as a growth driver, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Following the closure of its mobile healthcare segment and the sale of its takeout delivery unit earlier this year, analysts said the Beijing-based company is aiming to reposition itself as a leader in artificial intelligence.

"Baidu wants to spin off those businesses that have less relevance to its AI strategy. As for the international unit, the company's executives have been in negotiations about detailed issues, such as the price and shareholding structure," said the person on condition of anonymity.

"When it is divested from Baidu, the international unit is very likely to be renamed," the source added.

He said many issues need to be discussed, so the results may still be pending by the end of this year.

Baidu's international unit has seven offices around the globe. Its products include the mobile ad platform DU Ad Platform, as well as several other mobile applications such as DU Speed Booster and Battery Saver. These international apps have more than 2 billion users in 200 countries and regions worldwide.

"The idea behind this spinning off is to gear up efforts to develop AI, since Baidu lost its luster in the age of mobile internet," said Wang Huie, a senior analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys.

Baidu did not confirm this information on Thursday.

The tech giant has been consolidating its core resources on AI-enabled business, in order to keep pace with its faster-growing rivals.

On Thursday, it announced it would roll out driverless buses next year. In addition, it has expanded its business into voice-assisted products and video-streaming entertainment.

Analysts spoke highly of Baidu's strategy to refocus on AI.

"It's a wise move. Baidu would stay ahead of the curve in the AI era, because it boasts massive data acquired from its search engine and rich funds." said Wang, adding that Baidu might axe unprofitable non-core segments in the future.

But she was skeptical about Baidu's plan to realize the mass production of driverless vehicles by next year.

Li Zhi, an analyst with Prestige Securities, said Baidu's concentration on AI would help to shore up its profit margins.

The search engine company's profit in the third quarter more than doubled, compared to a year earlier. In the same period, its total revenue rose to 23.49 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) from 18.25 billion yuan.

Shanghai's artificial intelligence industry revenue will hit 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) by 2020, and likely become the city's new growth engine, top government officials said yesterday.

It will be a big market because AI is set to integrate with many sectors, including finance, transport, agriculture, healthcare and medical and automotive industries.

Shanghai plans to incubate AI "unicorns," which are private firms with market value of over US$1 billion each, Chen Mingbo, chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said.

The city will build six industrial zones focusing on AI applications, establish a government-backed fund and open up data from government and telecommunications carriers. By 2020, Shanghai will be home to 10 global AI giants, according to a new government AI blueprint released yesterday.

"Shanghai doesn't have BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) now but I am confident we will own world-class AI unicorns in the future," Chen said during a city government-held conference.

Open data, high-end talent and eco-systems covering finance and information infrastructure are Shanghai's unique advantages, Chen added.

So far, Shanghai has opened up 17,000 categories of government data containing 260,000 projects, covering e-government and telecom data — more than other Chinese cities have released.

Shanghai firms have invested heavily in intelligent connection, robotics, smart devices and industrial-use sensors based on advanced smart manufacture and chip industries.

Meanwhile, Shanghai is drafting plans to attract overseas AI giants to set up facilities in the city as AI is a "globalization industry," Chen added.

China's 2017 online retail sales is approaching $1 trillion that will buttress the country's position as the largest e-commerce market in the world, S&P Global Ratings said on Monday.

The rating agency said the estimation is based on record online spending during the country's Singles Day shopping carnival last Saturday. Driven by that, China's online retail industry's annual growth will be 20-25 percent in next 12-24 months.

According to Syntun, a Beijing-based e-commerce data provider, the online sales totaled 254 billion yuan ($38.26 billion) at this year's event.

The huge number of transactions last Saturday indicated that Chinese online retailers still have enough space to grow, financial news portal stcn.com said quoting Shalynn Teo, an analyst at S&P.

More product categories will go online, and the increasing mobile penetration will promote the online sale momentum, Teo said.

In addition, purchasing online will become more popular in China's third- and fourth- tier cities and rural areas, the analyst added.

China's online retail sales surged 34 percent year-on-year to 5.54 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of this year, surpassing the 10.3 percent increase in overall sales of consumer goods, official data showed on Tuesday.

In next 12-24 months, the intense competition will put pressures on the Chinese online retailers, Teo warned, adding that the pricing power in addition to rising marketing and delivery expenses will lead the industry's margins to slip.

"But higher growth and improving operating leverage will ease the risks," Teo said.

A technician of CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co Ltd, a high-speed train manufacturer, gives instructions to students at a vocational school in Shandong Province.

The labor market needs more vocational education to lift the number of skilled workers in China, experts said at a recent seminar.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the working population in China will face a sharp drop to 700 million by 2050 from 911 million in 2015.

Such a drop is sparking the demand for vocational education and creating a profound market. At the seminar held by JP Morgan, experts addressed on the importance of vocational education.

"The speed of industrial upgrading is going beyond expectation," said Hao Jianbin, director of the Entrepreneurship and Employment Research Center at the Ali Research Institute. "It raised the salary for low-end labor and pushed the manufacturing factories (that) required less skills moving abroad."

He said it is not very likely the quantity of labor can increase in the short run. Hence the market needs to see more investment in human resources to train more skilled workers to make up for the shortfall.

According to Qianzhan Industry Research Institute's report, the market for vocational education in 2015 was 453.5 billion yuan ($68.3 billion), and the number is expected to double by 2020, creating a trillion-yuan market.

To promote people's employability in the fierce job market, some vocational education has already seen a growing volume of students. Emerald Group, an education institution focusing on inter-net technology and digital entertainment, is one example.

"We have seen a rising demand for internet engineers in the domestic job market every year since it is a very prospective occupation," said Chen Shengdong, chief executive officer of the group. "More and more graduates come here to enhance their competitive edge in the labor market."

Chen said the institution will constantly change their course syllabi according to what is hot in the labor market, thereby serving the companies that are upgrading but struggling to find suitable employees.

From January to August this year, net profit of the group has reached 50.25 million yuan. The group is expected to bring in an annual 90 million yuan in net profit and predicts a stable 30 percent growth rate during the next two years.

Education in the high-end financial sector is also booming. Earlier this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, started its You Plus Special Training Program in Shanghai's Lujiazui Financial City.

According to PwC's report, more than 80 percent of senior executives in Chinese corporations said it is hard to find talent with practical problem-solving skills.

The full-time PwC program lasts for 12 months and can cost up to 300,000 yuan.

Cai Xiaoying, general manager of You Plus, said such training will help solve the imbalance between the supply and demand in human resources for Chinese corporations.

China's industrial output in the Internet of Things exceeded 930 billion yuan (140 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology official said Thursday.

The value was almost six-times the level in 2009, when the sector saw 170 billion yuan of output, said Zhu Wan, deputy head of informatization and software service at the ministry, at the opening of a China Internet of Things conference in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian Province.

"Industrial chains have been formed in chips, sensors, terminal devices, application software, system integration and communication networks, with over 100 million machine-to-machine terminals set up via the mobile communication network," Zhu said.

In June, the ministry announced faster development of the Internet of Things infrastructure, and innovation in Internet of Things pilot zones. The zones aim to promote the Internet of Things in public safety, health care, urban management and well-being services.

"Accomplishment has been primarily achieved at the pilot zones, such as Fuzhou economic and technical development zone, with the Internet of Things integrated in fields of retail, transport, environmental protection, medical care and power grids," she said.

Zhu said the ministry would help companies that were influential and industry leaders, as well as encourage the creation of small and medium-sized Internet of Things startups.

More than 1,000 new products will be released at the China Hi-tech Fair 2017 next week in the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, authorities said Wednesday.

Scheduled for Nov. 16 to 21, the fair is themed "Innovation-driven development and supply quality upgrade," said Gao Yuyue, deputy secretary-general of Shenzhen city government, at a press conference.

More than 50 roadshows have been arranged for the fair to introduce new products, including an Intel robot 3D sorting system and a flexible rechargeable battery developed by the Chinese Academy of Science Institute of Advanced Technology.

The fair will have 12 exhibition zones, covering a total area of 120,000 square meters, said Gao, also deputy secretary-general of the fair's organizing committee

He said hi-tech products in environmental protection, biological sciences, new energy, new material, military and civil integration, and sensor technology would feature in the zones.

Around 100 technical meetings have also been scheduled on topics such as artificial intelligence, energy saving, aeronautics and astronautics, the Internet of Things, new material and smart cities.

The fair will be attended by more than 3,000 registered exhibitors from over 30 countries, including 27 Belt and Road countries.

The annual China Hi-tech Fair was inaugurated in 1999, and is the largest and the most influential state-level international fair in science and technology in China.

The Chinese ministries of commerce, science and technology, industry and information technology, agriculture, and the National Development and Reform Commission are among the co-organizers.

China's cloud computing industry will grow by at least 30 percent year on year on average in the coming five years, the latest industry report showed.

By 2020, the aggregate market size of the country's cloud computing industry is expected to hit 686.6 billion yuan (about 103.6 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Report of Prospects and Investment Strategy Planning on China Cloud Computing Industry (2017-2022) published by Forward Intelligence Co., Ltd., a special market research institute.

The country's cloud computing industry has experienced robust growth since 2010 and its market size reached 178.2 billion yuan in 2016, up 18.8 percent year on year, said the report.

The growth was propelled mainly by public departments, who serve both as the customer and the government, as well as by telecom operators, the service provider.

Cloud-based infrastructure or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is playing a key role in the industrial development, while factors include the adoption of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) are also growing fast, according to the report.

The central government attaches great importance to using emerging information technology, including cloud computing and the Internet of Things, to shore up the digital economy, as information consumption, mobile payments and e-commerce grow rapidly in the country.

The cloud computing market is expanding fast worldwide. Last month, American market research firm Gartner's latest worldwide public cloud services revenue forecast showed the cloud computing market would reach 411 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, driven by robust growth of services including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, according to media reports.

Cloud computing, also called on-demand computing, is the delivery of on-demand computing resources over the internet.

China's foreign trade environment will remain favorable in 2018, although the trade protectionism risks still keep growing, the commerce ministry said on Monday.

The Chinese government is implementing policies to cool the property sector and deal with debt risks in the economy. China's stronger than expected trade performance this year has provided support for the economy.

"Looking forward to 2018, China's foreign trade conditions are generally favorable as the global economy steadily recovers, and China's economy grows smoothly," the ministry said.

"But there are still many external risks and uncertainties with economic and non-economic factors intertwined. As trade protectionism continues to grow, domestic costs also continue to rise. As a result, pressure on business has increased, and the development of China's foreign trade continues to face many difficulties and challenges."

After several years of contraction, China's foreign trade has recovered this year, even though the government has not set a specific target for international trade growth in past two years.

Growth in foreign trade may slow down, but will remain at a high level in the fourth quarter, a ministry report said.

Economists expect China's exports have risen 7.2 percent on-year in October, slower than 8.1 percent the previous month.

Economists are positive about the Chinese export outlook due to the improvement in the global economy. Capital Economist Evans-Pritchard, still feels that China's imports may face "a sharper slowdown," because of that the support to the economy from a loose fiscal policy reverses. And local governments are forced to rein in spending in the final months of the year to meet budget targets.

With a GDP growth of 6.9 percent in the first half, China's economy is also on firmer footing this year, contributing to brisk import growth.

The IMF raised its forecast for China growth for the fourth time this year in its latest report. The IMF predicts that China's economy will grow 6.8 percent this year, and 6.5 percent next year, both 0.1 percentage point higher than its previous forecasts.

Sodexo Group, a French services giant specializing in traditional segments such as catering and engineering, is expanding in the Chinese mainland market, its largest target in Asia, by enhancing its integrated corporate services in 50 Chinese cities.

Such services include asset lifecycle management, workplace setting improvement, facility and equipment maintenance.

As China opened up its services sector to strengthen industry, Sodexo started developing its business in more mid-western cities. Its on-site offerings now include business support services, lifestyle services and scientific services.

Optimal use of human resources; design, installation and maintenance of aesthetically appealing entrance areas, inner courtyards, terraces and floral decoration; upkeep of sophisticated buildings ... all these functions are now performed by Sodexo for its clients.

"We will cater to diverse segments as our clients are increasing," said Bruno Vaquette, CEO of Sodexo China. "For example, we're introducing wellness services in China as part of our 'Mindful' project."

The services, including staff training courses, have already become popular in some metropolises, thanks to agreements with corporate icons such as JD.com Inc and St Luke's Hospital in Shanghai.

The Sept 1 agreement with JD was for upgrading Sodexo's supply management.

Sodexo's wellness services include entertainment sessions and enjoyable short breaks during off-work periods, which are designed to raise awareness of fitness among employees of its corporate clients.

"Chinese companies have recognized the significance of employees' fitness to their business, and are investing more to improve the quality of their life. Their leaders know that employees' happiness is key to the company's success," Vaquette said.

"We will respond to industry trends and needs via innovation and more services."

With 425,000 employees worldwide, Sodexo takes the 19th rank among the world's largest employers and figures in the Global 500 list. Its China unit company employs 12,000 staff.

"Our Chinese on-site employees are all local people, and are supported by thousands of in-house experts, which helps in delivering services in time as per clients' demands," said Vaquette.

Paul Junck, managing director of the Luxembourg Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, said, "Opening up the services market is mutually beneficial for foreign investors and Chinese domestic players. Companies' development is stimulated by competition between players, and industry standards rise thanks to such development."

Employment demand across China's first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen saw negative growth year-on-year for the first time, according to a report issued on Thursday by China Institute of Employment Research with Renmin University of China.

The CIER index, designed to monitor China's job climate, rose to 2.43 in the third quarter from 2.26 in the second, indicating continuous improvement in employment.

Increasing recruitment demand among enterprises, decreasing job-hopping in the job market and relatively less job hunting among graduates led to the rising CIER index, said Zeng Xiangquan, director of China Institutefor Employment Research.

The CIER index shows a progressive increase trend in China's first-tier, emerging first-tier, second-tier and third-tier cities, with that of first-tier cities seeing a slight drop over last month.

Employment demand in first-tier cities saw year-on-year drop for the first time, at 7 percent, according to data by recruitment website Zhaopin.

Urban resource optimization, a declining registered permanent residence quota and relocation of outdated industries are the main reasons behind decreasing demand, Zeng said, adding that the trend would continue.

More job applicants are supposed to flow to emerging first-tier cities, he said.

In the IT/Internet sector, which saw the highest employee increase, employment demand in emerging first-tier cities and third-tier cities increased 121 percent and 82 percent respectively, much higher than the national average level of 60 percent, while demand in first-tier cities saw negative growth, with a fall of 2 percent.

Employment in Northeast China saw and uptrend , with the CIER index rising to 1.42 from 1.33 in the second quarter. Employment demand in this region increased 57 percent over last year, much higher than 33 percent in East China.

An intelligent manufacturing headquarter for new energy vehicles is to be laid in Xi'an High-Tech Industries Development Zone, according to an agreement signed on Oct. 30.

Thanks to the combined efforts of the Xi'an municipal government and the Skywell New Energy Vehicle Group, a total investment of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) will be used to establish a manufacturing base that will have a profound influence across northwestern China.

Liang Gui, vice-governor of Shaanxi province, extended congratulations to the successful signing of the project, noting that the new energy vehicle industry is a typical sunrise industry which will likely spur the development of the real economy and bring unprecedented prosperity to the city.

The partnership with the leading commercial automobile manufacturer is bound to further upgrade the new energy car industry chain and enhance core competence.

Liang urged the government departments to actively support the construction of the base, and create a favorable environment to achieve a win-win result.

Chairman of the Skywell Huang Hongsheng appreciated the help from the authority and gave recognition to Xi'an's strategic role in the development of West China.

The company will exert its edge in research and production, boost related industries to settle in Xi'an and contribute to the economic and social progress.

The first China International Import Expo, or CIIE, will be held from November 5 to 10, 2018, in Shanghai to further optimize the country's trade structure with rest of the world, the Ministry of Commerce announced.

The ministry established the China International Import Expo Bureau earlier this week to gear up preparation for the first expo.

Fu Ziying, China's international trade representative and vice-minister of commerce, said the expo is expected to host businesses from more than 100 countries and regions.

The sponsors of the expo will be the Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai Municipal Government.

The total exhibition area of the CIIE will exceed 240,000 square meters, covering both national trade and investment fair and business fair.

China's manufacturing activity was stable last month but production increased at its slowest rate in four months, a report released yesterday showed.

The Caixin China General Manufacturing Purchase Managers' Index stood at 51 for October, the same as September, according to the survey conducted by financial information service provider Markit and sponsored by Caixin Media Co Ltd.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.

Sub-indices showed that new orders rose slightly faster, while output growth fell for the third straight month.

At the same time, companies continued to shed staff amid company-downsizing and efficiency-raising efforts, the report said.

The sub-indices for input costs and output prices both eased from the previous month but remained rather high.

"China's manufacturing sector expanded steadily in October," Zhong Zhengsheng, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group said. "But the stringent production curbs imposed by the government to reduce pollution and relatively low inventory levels have added to cost pressures on companies in midstream and downstream industries, which could have a negative impact on production in the coming months."

Released yesterday, the official PMI in October fell to a three-month low of 51.6.

Divergence of the official data from Caixin data is common as the official manufacturing PMI survey covers 3,000 large and small companies, while the Caixin PMI covers 500, with a focus on small and medium sized businesses.

Wang Tao, chief China economist of UBS, said she expected October data to show softer activity with weaker industrial production and property investment, lower export growth, and largely stable overall fixed asset investment growth.

She said consumer inflation may be warmer last month but factory gate inflation was likely to be cooler.

Chinese entrepreneurs' views on wealth are changing significantly as their fortunes increase, China National Radio reported on Monday, citing a new study.

Some 568 billionaires from greater China made the Hurun Global Rich List released early this year, the highest number from any country in the world and 33 more than the United States with 535. Among them, 470 were from the Chinese mainland, and 100 from Beijing.

A separate survey by the All China Federation of Industry and Commerce showed the total assets of the top 500 Chinese private enterprises increased to 17.3 trillion yuan ($2.6 trillion) in 2015 from 434.6 billion yuan in 2001, an average annual growth of 30 percent. The average asset value of these enterprises increased to 34.6 billion yuan in 2015, from 860 million yuan in 2001.

The latest study, jointly conducted by the Dacheng Enterprise Research Institute and the Social Sciences Academic Press (China) in Beijing, found private entrepreneurs now focus more on the relationship between the interests of the nation, their own and those of their enterprises, attaching greater importance to sustainable growth, competitive edge and contributions to society.

In the past 40 years since China began its reform and opening up, the number of private enterprises has been rising rapidly, bringing increasing fortunes to entrepreneurs.

The study attributed the rapid growth of Chinese private entrepreneurs' fortunes to their utilizing various opportunities with regard to policy, market, resources and business environment. Their actions, on the whole, conformed to laws, regulations and policies of the country, it added.

"Entrepreneurs' money is not their money," said Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. "Some people said I was the richest person in China, but I think the 'fu ' in 'shouru' (the richest) actually means the 'fu' in 'fuze' (to take responsibility)." His company's charity activities now cover four fields, including eco-environmental protection as well as health and medical care.

Chen Yongjie, vice president of Dacheng Enterprise Research Institute, said the change in entrepreneurs' views on wealth, together with their charity campaigns, represent an important characteristic of China's economic, social and cultural development for the present and future.

"Chinese entrepreneurs' charitable activities have gradually grown into a trend, which is having and will continue to have a great impact on narrowing the wealth gap and adjusting China's income distribution and social conflicts," said Chen.

The study suggested China improve laws and regulations to allow entrepreneurs to reasonably, intelligently and effectively use and manage their fortunes.

China is determined to put growth quality before pace, but that will not hold the economy back from growing faster than most of other countries in the coming decade, according to experts.

In a report delivered to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the country's leadership called it "a new historic juncture in China's development," as the economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development.

In the eyes of Chi Fulin, head of the China Institute for Reform and Development, that does not mean the growth rate will be mediocre.

Over the next five to 10 years, China's economy will be able to achieve at least 6 percent of annual growth thanks to improvement in industrial structure, upgrading of consumer spending and progress of urbanization, he said.

In the past five years, the global economy expanded at an average rate of 2.6 percent, while developing economies grew at 4 percent.

China has set 2020 as the target to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, just one year before the CPC celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Chi estimated that by the end of 2020, China's economic rebalancing will yield eye-propping results.

By then, the value of the country's service sector will increase to about 50 trillion yuan (7.58 trillion U.S. dollars) from 38.4 trillion yuan recorded in 2016. Retail sales of consumer goods will also expand to about 50 trillion yuan from 33 trillion yuan recorded in 2016.

The integrated development of urban and rural areas is expected to generate investment and consumption of nearly 100 trillion yuan, which will be the most remarkable bonus for China's development in the medium to long run, he said.

Over this period, China's contribution to global economic growth would remain at around 30 percent. More than half of its population would become middle-income earners.

"A successful rebalancing of the world's second largest economy would not only upgrade China's economy, but also boost global economic recovery and growth," Chi said.

In the future, China's economic restructuring will be advanced together with opening up, of which the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of service trade and free trade zones will be the focuses, he said.

The IMF recently raised its forecast for China's economic growth in 2017 and 2018 to 6.8 percent and 6.5 percent respectively, both higher than the earlier forecast in July.

For an economy with a total volume of over 11 trillion U.S. dollars, maintaining such high growth is not easy, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said.

China's stable economic growth mainly stems from major progress in economic reforms, particularly supply-side structural measures, and the government's ability to maintain a stable macroeconomic policy, he said.

While gains from structural reforms will come with a time lag, they will have a positive impact on China's economic growth in the medium term, said Changyong Rhee, director of the Asia Pacific Department at the IMF, adding China's growth has also provided ample opportunities for Asia to maintain its growth over the last ten years.

? Chinese government encouraging the development of cross-border e-commerce along Belt and Road

? Such platforms are developing rapidly in China and enjoying the benefits of new policies, including tax breaks and duty-free warehouses

? Customers appreciate the convenience and affordability of buying authentic foreign products online

Whenever Liu Lin finds herself missing England, where she has previously studied, she just hops onto a cross-border e-commerce platform to buy herself some British-made merchandise.

"Some of the products I used to purchase there, such as a brand of combs made in England, aren't sold in China, so I buy them from overseas," she said.

Shopping for foreign products has never been easier for Liu and other Chinese like her. But imported makeup, food and clothes from other countries can now all be obtained with one swipe of the phone.

China's cross-border e-commerce platforms have developed rapidly in just the past few years. Many online shops both in and outside of China, especially those from Belt and Road countries, are taking advantage of this phenomenon, with both the foreign retailer and the Chinese shopper benefiting.

Cross-border e-commerce is now a bright, shining highlight of China's ever-growing foreign trade. According to data from the China Electronic Commerce Association, in the first half of 2017, China's cross-border e-commerce trade reached 3.6 trillion yuan ($541.87 billion), up 30.7 percent from last year.

China has also released a series of new policies to further develop cross-border e-commerce, such as increasing the efficiency of products going through customs and supporting enterprises that establish overseas sales channels.

Selling by the millions

In September, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said at an executive meeting of the State Council that there needs to be more development of cross-border e-commerce on a bigger scale, including encouraging enterprises to develop through Belt and Road.

Data shows that the trade volume of countries along the Belt and Road accounts for a quarter of China's entire foreign trade. In this case, cross-border e-commerce can be a large boost for trade.

Shops both in and outside of China are benefiting from being placed on such platforms. At a recent cross-border e-commerce convention, the director of Jilin's Guhetai Machinery told Economic Information Daily that 80 percent of his company's clients were found via the platform.

In the 18 months since Guhetai Machinery first started using e-commerce platforms, the security safes it produces have been sold to numerous Belt and Road countries. According to a new research report from Chinese e-commerce giant Jingdong (JD), many Chinese companies have successfully extended their brands overseas.

Electronics brand Puppyoo, for instance, became the highest-selling small electronics seller after joining JD's cross-border e-commerce platform. Local wig maker Allrun has also successfully established clients in 92 countries. Earphone brand Bluedio and male clothing designer Freesoldier have likewise successfully exported through the platform.

Foreign companies are also placing themselves on Chinese e-commerce platforms in order to make direct contact with Chinese customers. By the first half of 2017, Internet giant NetEase's platform Netease Koala successfully established cooperation with 279 foreign brands along Belt and Road, with a sales volume of nearly 200 million yuan, according to Wang Zheng, senior press relations manager for Koala.

Famous foreign companies, such as Korean cosmetics titan L&P, Panasonic and Herobaby milk formula from Europe, have also signed contracts with Koala. The platform promoted Thailand's latex pillows and successfully doubled its sales in China in 2016. Koala was awarded by the Thai embassy in China for its success, Wang said.

The JD report also pointed out that many smaller countries prefer to focus on selling their specialties to China via these new platforms. A few examples are cotton products from Egypt, black tea from Sri Lanka, jade from Myanmar and rose essence oil from Bulgaria.

In 2016, companies from Belt and Road countries were on top of the list for increasing sales to China. Countries such as Bangladesh and Lithuania realized a 60 percent increase in sales compared to the year before.

Among the products being sold, food from the Belt and Road countries is the most popular. Fruits and vegetables are also rising stars in China's cross-border e-commerce. In 2016, Mexican avocados, Chilean cherries and Filipino dried mango were selling by the millions to Chinese online shoppers.

Authentic products

For Chinese consumers in years and decades past, the only way to buy foreign products without leaving the country was purchasing through an agent. But this way of shopping was very slow, sometimes taking months, and there was no way to ensure authenticity. Furthermore, agents charged considerable markups for their products, Liu said, sending the entire sector into chaos.

A local shopper surnamed Cheng told the Global Times that, for the past several years, she has been using Chinese e-commerce platforms to purchase products from Europe, U.S. and Australia. Specifically, she uses Xiaohongshu and Koala to buy cosmetics and handbags from those countries.

She said she appreciates the discounted prices, which are far cheaper than the same products being sold at brick-and-mortar foreign stores in China, as well as its convenience. "I can place an order without going out the door," she said.

Liu agrees that e-commerce platforms have made shopping in China much more convenient. In the past, when she wanted something from abroad, she'd either have to wait for a friend to visit that country or wait weeks and even months for old-school Western e-retailers like Amazon to ship them. Today, anything can be had in a matter of days.

"Sometimes, when I watch TV shows and see stars wearing foreign-brand clothes, I just hop on a platform like Koala and buy the same outfit," she said, adding that due to Taobao's reputation for selling counterfeits, fakes and knockoffs, she'd prefer to pay a bit more for the peace of mind that a trusted seller provides.

Government policies support cross-border e-commerce by cutting down on costs and increasing efficiency, Wang said. The government offers a 30 percent tax discount for cross-border e-commerce platforms, which allows local consumers to enjoy authentic, high-quality products at affordable prices.

The government is also now allowing cross-border duty-free warehouses. Zhang Chao, deputy director of startup Xbniao.com, told media his company has benefited from these new governmental policies. An important feature of Xbniao, according to Zhang, is that it has overseas warehouses and operation centers, which allows them to ship products to 45 countries and regions around the world.

As the government supports Belt and Road construction, it also supports cross-border e-commerce companies establishing overseas warehouses along Belt and Road logistics hubs; platforms that already have warehouses, such as Xbniao, have a competitive edge.

There are problems that still need to be tackled. According to media reports, language is still a big barrier preventing Chinese companies from increasing their business in foreign countries through e-commerce. Media has reported on companies recruiting talents who speak the languages of smaller countries.

"It is shown that the government supports and encourages the development of cross-border e-commerce business and also regulates it," Wang said. "As policies improve and develop, the market is sure to welcome new development. Right now, the industry has become an important force in increasing domestic consumption and has obvious boosts on the domestic economy."

Belt & Road Best Sellers

Best-selling "Made-in-China" products along the B&R:

Cellphones, computers, Internet products, electronic components, furniture and textiles

Made-in-China products with the highest overseas sales growth:

Cars, food, sports products

B&R countries with the highest sales growth in China:

Lithuania, Montenegro, Bangladesh, Oman, Tajikistan

Best-selling products from B&R countries:

Food, wine, textiles, fruits, clocks and watches, sea food

East China's Shandong Province said Wednesday it has tightened its investment regulations, including a move to not approve new gasoline-powered car producers.

Meanwhile, new-energy vehicle manufacturers are now required to have power system and whole-vehicle research and development capacities before receiving government approval for establishment, the provincial government said.

China has been offering subsidies for new-energy vehicle purchases in a bid to increase the numbers of cleaner vehicles on the road.

It has signalled the intention to join countries such as Britain and France with plans to ban the manufacturing and sales of fossil fuel cars.

Xin Guobin, China's vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, said in September that China has begun researching a timetable to phase out the production and sales of fossil fuel cars.

The provincial government also announced that it would no longer approve new plants in industries plagued by overcapacity, such as steel, electrolytic aluminum, plate glass and shipbuilding.

In addition, it will not approve capacity increases for coal production companies, and new dangerous chemicals projects will now require investment of more than 300 million yuan (45.2 million U.S. dollars) to receive approval.

The Tesla logo is pictured on Feb 5, 2014 in its first Chinese mainland show room in Beijing.

Tesla Inc is conducting a nationwide campus recruitment drive in China as part of its efforts to get better established in the world's largest new energy car market.

The United States-based electric carmaker has been conducting job fairs at four universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to recruit forthcoming graduates to work in about a dozen tier-1 and-2 cities in the country.

"We conducted campus recruitment just as we did last year, with a focus on finding potential recruits for sales, service, IT and intern positions. We have not determined how many people will be hired yet," said Tesla in a statement. The Tesla job fairs run until this Friday.

There are eight posts available for new graduates, according to Tesla's page on popular recruitment website 51job. In total, Tesla is hiring people for 79 posts for its business in China.

It has 32 experience centers and eight service stores in the country but did not disclose the number of current employees.

This campus recruitment drive is unlikely to have any direct connection with Tesla's localization efforts, as most jobs available are sales and service-related instead of engineering and production.

Tesla had confirmed earlier that it was in talks with the Shanghai city government to establish a manufacturing facility.

The company has been growing steadily in China, with its revenue more than tripling from 2015 to 2016. It delivered 13,500 cars in the first nine months of 2017, more than double from a year earlier, according to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association.

The company is now looking to build on its current success in China, home to about 1 million new energy cars by the end of 2016.

On Monday, the carmaker unveiled in Shanghai its largest charging station in the world, which can accommodate 50 Tesla cars at the same time.

To date, Tesla has 700 charging posts in 170 cities in the country, with the number expected to rise to 1,000 by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, Tesla announced that it has modified the charging hardware for Tesla vehicles built for the Chinese market so that they can make use of the public charging infrastructure.

Shanghai has submitted to the central government the first draft of plan to establish a free trade port in the city, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Saturday.

The plan falls under the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Scheme announced by the State Council, China's cabinet, in March 2017, and it incorporates the Yangshan and Pudong airport zones.

The free trade port will adopt information technology to strengthen its supervision systems, which will reduce risks and simplify goods entry management measures, the report said.

The port will establish and improve a system for risk prevention and control purposes while staying in line with international practices of financing, foreign exchange, investment and visa controls.

''The biggest breakthrough is (a series of) preferential measures for import and export tariffs so as to meet China's upgraded consumption demand and improve export competitiveness,'' one source told the Shanghai News Securities.

"For instance, industry sectors at the port, such as cosmetics and food, will be moved from a single model of imports and exports of finished products into a full supply chain covering raw materials, procurement, production and sales," the source said.

"The move will facilitate the improvement of domestic brands' competitiveness when 'going global.' At the same time, domestic enterprises will drive further transformation and upgrading, reduce costs and offer better services for consumers," the source said.

"Shanghai's free trade port is part of our national strategy. It also exemplifies innovation and breakthroughs in free trade zones," Sun Yuanxin, deputy director of the Research Institute for the Shanghai FTZ at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, was quoted as saying in the report.

"The free trade port is also an important test of the waters for the city as the municipal government deepens its reforms."

China's economic growth looks set to accelerate this year, the first time in seven years, after it registered a 6.8 percent year-on-year GDP growth in the third quarter. Given that growth trend has been achieved against the backdrop of both domestic structural reforms and the still fragile global economic recovery, it showcases the exceptional resilience of the world's second-largest economy. [Special coverage]

China's GDP growth in the first three quarters has been in stark contrast to the scenario depicted by many doomsayers late last year. Even more reassuring, while a variety of economic indicators are showing signs of steady growth, the country has also made much headway in carrying out the tough task of economic restructuring.

Industrial output growth, for example, increased to 6.7 percent in the first three quarters from 6 percent a year ago, with high-tech manufacturing and equipment-making industries, which are the backbone of a country's industrial development, showing brisk performance. The growth in their output was 13.4 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively, 6.7 percentage points and 4.9 percentage points higher than that of overall industrial output.

Another case in point is retail sales growth, which remained strong at 10.4 percent in the January-September period. Although that was unchanged compared with a year ago, online sales increased by 34.2 percent, 8.1 percentage points higher than a year ago, indicating the bigger role played by this new driving force for consumption.

In terms of the supply-side structural reform, China has continued to reduce its leverage levels and the country's investment in environmental protection, public facility management and agriculture all registered much higher growth than overall investment expansion.

Such encouraging fundamentals have been achieved thanks to the government striving for innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development.

As Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said on Wednesday, while expansion of economic scale remains important, top priority must be given to the quality of growth.

It is a focus that will ensure sustainable long-term growth.

Medium-sized companies on the Chinese mainland are confident of the business growth over the next three years and are focusing on expanding in the domestic market, according to a HSBC report.

Generally, medium-sized companies surveyed saw both their revenue and profit margin to grow steadily in the next three years, the report said.

"As an important part of the national economy, mid-market companies have their own features in business development and market strategies." said Fang Xiao, vice president and director of commercial finance of HSBC China.

"Different from mega-sized companies which are actively expanding in global markets, we found that many mid-sized companies focus more on seizing the opportunities arising from China's economic upgrading and transformation and digging deep to tap the potential of local markets."

One-third of the mid-sized companies on the mainland highlighted tapping market potential as the main channel to increase revenue. This option topped expanding the domestic market which came in second at 24 percent while improving operational efficiency ranked third at 19 percent, according to the report.

Meanwhile, 61 percent of medium-sized enterprises on the mainland believe that investing in technology can bring new business opportunities and 54 percent see green development as the way to survive.

Along with rising business confidence, as many as 31 percent of Chinese companies expect to increase their travel budgets over the next 12 months, surging from the 17 percent of respondents that predicted budget increases last year, a survey showed.

The 2017 China Business Travel Survey was published by the CITS (China International Travel Service) American Express Global Business Travel on Tuesday. It revealed that 40 percent of the polled organizations planned to expand their budgets to tap into the opportunities presented by the Belt and Road Initiative.

China became the country with the largest business travel expenditure of $317 billion in the world after overtaking the United States in 2016.

The survey indicated that 75 percent of China's business travel spending was made domestically, but Tan Haoling, vice-president of CITS American Express Global Business Travel, said they have also noticed the trend that many Chinese companies are looking outward for opportunities in global commerce.

"China's Belt and Road Initiative could benefit Chinese organizations with an international travel program (43 percent of companies), as well as those with a regional program (21 percent of companies)," said Tan.

The survey also highlighted the importance of business travel as a key driver of revenue for many Chinese organizations, with 90 percent reporting that increased client-facing travel would likely increase revenue, and 53 percent of the respondents believed an increase in client-related travel would improve overall revenue by between 10 percent and 20 percent.

"The research tells us Chinese companies believe there are savings to be identified within their current travel budgets, and that many intend to put measures in place to realize some of these savings next year," said Tan, who added inflexible travel policies (30 percent) and complex reimbursement processes (23 percent) are the top two complaints for business travelers.

The barometer is an annual report detailing the status of, as well as forecasts for, China business travel. This year's report surveyed executives from 150 companies in China, in a variety of enterprises in major Chinese cities.

CITS American Express Business Travel is a joint venture between American Express and CITS.

A white paper on China's business travel by Ctrip, China's largest online travel platform, published earlier this year, projected China's market will continue to see double-digit growth this year.

Shanghai will offer financial incentives and greater access to government-led projects for foreign-invested research and development centers as it bids to turn itself into technology and innovation center.

Foreign investors are encouraged to set up R&D centers and incorporate existing ones into their global R&D center as the government will offer a one-off 5 million yuan ($759,000) for foreign-invested R&D centers employing more than 100 employees, according to new rules released yesterday.

The R&D centers will also receive subsidies to cover as much as 30 percent of the rent for three years. Rent subsidies will also be granted for R&D centers if they share their resources with small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The government has also vowed to lift the proportion of foreign-invested R&D centers within state and city-level technical centers, and offer as much as 3 million yuan per project for city-level technical centers engaged in lifting basic innovative capability, breakthrough of core technology, and smart manufacturing.

"Promoting the role of foreign investment to build up Shanghai's technology and innovation center is a new path of innovation-driven development," said Shang Yuying, director of the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

The incentives include funding for R&D projects in emerging industries, equal policy support between domestic and foreign investment on transfer of technology, faster import procedures for R&D materials, and financial awards for new patents.

Various government bodies will also enhance protection of intellectual property rights, simplify visa and work permit procedures, and offer more public services for foreign investment R&D centers.

There were 416 foreign-invested R&D centers in Shanghai by the end of August, accounting for a quarter of the total on China's mainland, according to official data.

Increasing demand for workers amid a shrinking labor pool is driving salary offers higher than job seekers' expectations.

"Offered salaries have been lower than job seekers' expectations for a very long time," said Wang Jiawen, a career information analyst at the city's employment promotion center, which released a study on the jobs market yesterday.

"But we noticed they began to exceed expectations in the fourth quarter last year and the trend has become increasingly very obvious in the past 10 months."

Average offers were 4,630 yuan ($700) a month in August, against average expectations of 4,474 yuan, the report said.

The average offers cover from entry-level to more experienced positions.

The shift reflects significant changes in the labor market.

"The recruitment needs have been high, but the working-age population is declining," Wang said.

Shanghai is expanding and upgrading its industrial infrastructure, fuelling strong growth in demand for skilled workers — and making it harder for employers to find people with the right skills and qualifications.

"Previously, people had to lower their expectations to get a job as soon as possible," Wang said.

"But now, employers have had to increase their offers to hire the right talent as soon as possible.

"The job market is no longer a buyers' market. It is a sellers' market."

He forecast that trend to continue over the long term, with salary offers continuing to rise.

The report also found the general average pay offered by employers across the total job market was 8.8 percent higher in August than the lame period last year.

But that is still below the average of 9.6 percent growth in recent years.

The finance industry has the best offers -— 5,436 yuan a month in August, up 5 percent from a year earlier.

Next best were hydraulic engineering, environment and public facility management averaging about 5,252 yuan a month and information, computer services and software, offering about 5,144 yuan a month — which showed the highest growth over last year at 15.6 percent.

Private companies offered the highest wages — 4,733 yuan a month.

Money offered by foreign ventures saw the highest growth, with a 9.2 percent increase to 4,484 yuan.

Men are still offered more than women — 4,825 yuan a month, compared with 4,609.

Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd has completed its registration in China's Xiongan New Area to set up a subsidiary, becoming the first cybersecurity company to set its footprint in this new economic area, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News on Friday.

The subsidiary was established on Oct 12, 2017, with registered capital of 10 million yuan ($1.52 million), the report said, adding that Qihoo 360 has pledged its safety network will cover social and economic aspects in Xiongan and will help train more cybersecurity talents in the area as well.

Meanwhile, the People's Insurance Company (Group) of China, China's major insurer, announced On Oct 11 that its proposed subsidiary PICC Pension Company Limited (PICC Pension) has been granted approval to commence operation from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

The registered capital of PICC Pension will be 4 billion yuan, with its place of registration in Xiongan New Area and its place of operation in Beijing city, an announcement on PICC's website said.

And information on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System showed that a unit of China's real estate giant Vanke Co Ltd was registered on Oct 10, with 2 billion yuan registered capital and Hebei's Xiongxian, part of Xiongan New Area, as its registration place.

These are among 48 companies in the first batch to have been given green light to set up units in the economic zone, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Tencent Holdings Ltd, Baidu Inc, Jingdong Finance, Shenzhen Kuang-Chi, China Telecom, according to the administrative committee of Xiongan.

Fourteen companies are leading Chinese information technology firms, 15 are in finance, seven are research institutes, and five are focused on green technology.

Nineteen of them are centrally-administered State-owned enterprises and 21 are private companies.

The committee's official WeChat account said on Sept 28 that high-end and high-tech companies will be the mainstream of industry in the area.

While Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced on Sept 29 that it will set up three subsidiaries in Xiongan with a total registered capital of 160 million yuan, tech giant Tencent also set up a subsidiary on Sept 26 in the new area with a registered capital of 20 million yuan, according to Tianyancha, an enterprise data query system.

The Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing, was announced in April. It covers Hebei's Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin counties.

The project aims to relieve the pressure of population on Beijing and build another economic powerhouse along the lines of those built near Shenzhen and Shanghai.

China will step up financial support for major projects of its "Made in China 2025" strategy, a blueprint for upgrading the country's manufacturing sector.[Special Coverage]

Sectors that boost manufacturing innovation, including the Internet of Things, smart appliances and high-end consumer electronics, are the major priority for funding, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The total funding is likely to exceed 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars), Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily reported.

Aside from central-level funding, local authorities will also increase financial support for "Made in China 2025" projects with over 10 billion yuan expected to be invested by local governments nationwide from 2016 to 2020.

The MIIT will also cooperate with China Development Bank to provide financial services including loans, bonds, leasing to support major projects, with an estimated 300 billion yuan of financing in place in the 2016-2020 period.

"The financial support gives a clear direction for future development in China's manufacturing innovation and boosts social confidence in economic restructuring and upgrades," said Wu Hequan, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The "Made in China 2025" strategy, a roadmap released by the State Council in 2015 to guide the country's advanced industrial manufacturing, has seen steady progress in industrial capability, smart manufacturing, innovation, as well as product quality and branding.

Average productivity was up by 38 percent for China's first 109 pilot projects in smart manufacturing, while operating costs dropped by 21 percent, according to the MIIT.

China's insurance industry is facing profound changes in terms of policy, environment and technology, said Huang Hong, deputy president of China Insurance Regulatory Commission, on Tuesday.

He made this comment at the China Life Insurance October Qianhai Summit 2017 in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

He stressed that the key of the country's financial policy now is to serve the entity economy, control financial risks, and deepen reform.

"Serving the entity economy should be reflected through the entire asset management process in a broad range, including stabling people's lives, promoting consumption, and supporting the building of major projects," he said.

In addition he believes new technology, such as mobile internet, big data, AI and genetic tests, are changing consumer behaviors, service methods and sales channels in China.

Huang also argued the industry should continue to open up, stably relax the threshold for foreign insurance companies to enter the domestic market and encourage foreign capital to take part in health care and retirement insurance.

Ng Keng Hooi, chief executive and president of AIA Group Ltd, noted at the summit the life insurance market in Asia remains the strongest in the world and is at an inflection point for continued high growth.

Both Chinese and international companies should seize the opportunities offered by the Belt and Road Initiative, according to a report issued by global real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefield.

Since the initiative was proposed by China in 2013, governmental organs and companies from around the world have expressed their strong will to take part in it, the report said.

Some Chinese companies have increased their international competitiveness through self development and business management, while others sought global partnerships or foreign acquisitions to fill existing gaps between them and their global counterparts.

The number of overseas mergers and acquisitions executed by Chinese firms in 2016 increased by 21 percent from the previous year to reach 438, and the amount of actual investment involved grew to 215.8 billion U.S. dollars, up 148 percent than 2015, the report stated, quoting figures jointly issued this June by Shanghai-based advisory firm DealGlobe and Hurun, known for publishing an annual rich list. These deals were mainly made in the manufacturing, financial services and health sectors.

Business opportunities will arise for overseas companies, including outbound capital projects and infrastructure, especially in partnership with Chinese companies, and involvement in supplying equipment, technology and intellectual property, it also said, citing a report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers earlier this year.

The Belt and Road Initiative, also knows as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

Over 100 countries, regions and international organizations have expressed support for or participated in the initiative.

China's job market is steadily expanding, with the survey-based unemployment rate falling to its lowest level since 2012, an official said Tuesday.

China's nationwide survey-based unemployment rate stood at 4.83 percent in September, the lowest since 2012, Ning Jizhe, head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed at a press conference.[Special coverage]

Some 9.74 million new jobs were created in China's urban regions from January to August, which means the country has already fulfilled 88.5 percent of its official goal to create 11 million new jobs in 2017.

From 2013 to 2016, China's surveyed unemployment rate in 31 major cities stabilized at around 5 percent.

The number of migrant workers leaving their hometowns rose 2.1 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, according to Ning.

The NBS survey-based jobless rate is usually higher than the registered jobless rate released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which came in at 3.95 percent by the end of the second quarter.

Creating more jobs to stabilize unemployment is a priority for the government as millions of workers face the prospect of redundancy due to mergers and reorganization in industries bogged down by overcapacity.

China aims to maintain the registered urban unemployment rate at under 4.5 percent for 2017.

Some Chinese studying abroad have found it difficult to find a well-paid job when returning to China after graduation in recent years. This is quite unlike they'd imagined.

In fact, some of these job hunters may have just wasted their school time in another country. They thought an overseas diploma alone would guarantee them a decent job, but the job market disagreed, contrary to expectations.

A Xinhua report defined these people as "bathing crabs".

The Yangcheng Lake in East China's Jiangsu province produces a variety of freshwater crabs, called Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab, every autumn. These crabs are raised in the lake for at least six months, which is what makes them authentic and fetch a high price.

But some counterfeit ones spend a short time - perhaps only a few hours, like taking a bath - in the lake before being passed off as genuine. Those who had not taken their academic careers seriously abroad are seen as "fake" crabs.

Beyond these bathing-crab students who find it difficult to obtain employment, the job-seeking destinies of haigui, or "turtles" - overseas returnees who have studied or been trained abroad - varies, too. Some haigui earn tens of thousands of yuan annually, while others net more than one million yuan (about $150,000) a year.

About 45 percent of haigui earn less than 6,000 yuan ($900) monthly in 2017, according to a survey by the Center for China and Globalization, a Chinese think tank based in Beijing. Nearly 70 percent of them think their current salary is far less than what they had expected.

"Take the United States as an example. A student needs at least $40,000 a year to study there, or $120,000 for three years. One returnee has to be paid at least 10,000 yuan ($1,500) monthly for seven years before he or she gets academic cost back," said Qi Lixin, president of the Beijing Entry & Exit Service Association. He thought this was why the haigui community has high salary expectations.

Development opportunities and favorable policies have attracted a growing number of haigui. According to data from the Education Ministry, about 430,000 came back to China for employment in 2016, 160,000 more than in 2012 — an increase of 58 percent.

There has been a dividing line taking shape to distinguish two groups of returnees, with one group having special skills and the other, not. Quite a few Chinese companies came to this conclusion, based on their recruitment experience. The former are called "big turtles" and the latter "small turtles".

"'Small turtles', without techniques or experience, are sure to be overshadowed in salary by 'big turtles' from prestigious universities and with hands-on backgrounds," said Xu Chuanhai, who represents an overseas education service agency.

In the IT industry, a returnee who has mastered the world's leading technologies can earn up to around 800,000 yuan ($120,000) a year, and those with further managerial experience can even get one million yuan (about $150,000), said Yang Zhiguo, himself an overseas returnee.

Yang studied in Germany for eight years before coming back to China in 2009 and starting up a tech company. His company has been well-developed.

In addition to factors within students' control, like making an effort in study or work, there are also reasons for employment difficulties which are totally objective. One is the choice of major — quite a few haigui had learned something that didn't match what the Chinese market needed.

More than 46 percent of returnees majored in business administration, while humanities and social sciences majors numbered 20 percent, applied science majors 16 percent and natural science about seven percent, according to a report on the haigui community's employment and entrepreneurship in 2017.

If "bathing-crab" returnees want to avoid losing out in job competition, experts said, they should seize every possible opportunity to gain valuable experience when they study abroad, and have more than just a diploma when they return.

As Ant Financial pushes its global drive to tap into Hong Kong's cashless payment market, the tech giant is forming a joint venture with tycoon Li Ka-shing's CK Hutchison Holdings (CKH) to sign up more local users.

The two companies are poised to set up a 50-50 joint venture to offer a consumer-oriented digital wallet under the AlipayHK brand. The deal is expected to be completed later this year, subject to obtaining the nod from regulators.

Neither company has disclosed the amount of their contribution to the joint venture. But market experts speculate that the parties are not disclosing the figures due to the negligible amount compared with the companies' massive portfolios.

Ant Financial, the financial services arm of Chinese mainland e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding and operator of the world's largest online payment app Alipay?entered the Hong Kong market with AlipayHK mobile wallet in May this year.

The e-payment app attracted more than 100,000 active users in the two weeks since its launch, and is now accepted at more than 4,000 leading retail brand outlets in the city.

Ant Financial's expansion in Hong Kong is highly aligned with CKH's line of business, which has a strong presence in retail, infrastructure, energy and telecommunications in the city. The group boasts personal care store Watsons, supermarket ParknShop and electronic store Fortress, among many other flagship companies in Hong Kong.

Ant Financial said in a statement that apart from mobile payment, Alipay's many in-app lifestyle features and third-party insurance products are among the traits that drew the attention of CKH. Currently, Hong Kong users can easily buy travel insurance and accident insurance from mainland insurance companies such as Ping An and China Life through AlipayHK.

Martin Bao, senior analyst of ICBC International, said the partnership is a big step in Alipay's global drive. Alipay has extended its cashless payment network in many countries but is mostly for the convenience of mainland tourists going abroad. The alliance with local partner CKH demonstrates Ant Financial's ambition to woo local users, he said.

Currently, the most dominant cashless payment in Hong Kong is the Octopus card, a rechargeable card that is widely accepted by Hong Kong residents to pay for transportation, as well as items at convenience stores and small retailers. Yet Bao said the pre-top up mode, which requires citizens to top up the balance before paying, occupies a portion of citizens' disposable capital, and is less convenient than Alipay's real-time payment system.

Ant Financial, hailed as the mainland's biggest unicorn with an estimated valuation of more than $60 billion, is considering going public in the mainland or Hong Kong.

The average pay for college graduates has gone up by 7.4 percent year-on-year, according to a survey published Wednesday by China International Intellectech Corporation, a State-owned human resources company.

The survey shows the pay for college graduates this year is 4,854 yuan ($741) for graduates, 6,791 yuan for postgraduates and 9,982 yuan for PhD graduates.

The salary in first-tier cities is 5,218 yuan for graduates, 7,612 yuan for postgraduates, and 10,077 yuan for PhD graduates.

It indicates 47 percent of the employers have hired more people this year, while 21 percent cut down on their recruitment numbers.

Sixty two percent of the polled enterprises said hiring desirable employees became more difficult this year, due to excessively high expectations of graduates and low name recognition of employers.

The survey polled more than 2,800 enterprises in sectors including finance, internet and manufacturing.

A record 7.95 million graduates entered the workforce this year.

Xiongan Construction and Investment Group Co Ltd, a company based in the Xiongan New Area, started recruiting employees from around the country recently.

This is the first public recruitment in Xiongan New Area, according to China Economic Weekly.

The company published the employment information on the website of Chengtong, a recruitment agency, on Aug 31. And the 23 job openings attracted more than 4,000 candidates, equivalent to 1 in 179, within a week.

The positions on offer cover fields such as finance, infrastructure construction and public relations, with only 23 people to be hired by the State-owned enterprise, according to a report of China Economic Weekly on Tuesday.

Most of the jobs require five years of work experience and at least a bachelor's degree, and the pay is similar to that of Beijing, where the average salary for employees in public sector stood at 120,000 a year ($18,000) in 2016, said the report.

Xiongan New Area, about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing, straddles the three counties of Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin in the neighboring Hebei province.

China announced the plan to build the new area in April, aiming to promote the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei province.

A bulk carrier freighted with goods on a pier in Lianyungang, East China

China will roll out a negative list for foreign investment, which has been tested in pilot free-trade zones.

The negative list model, which states the sectors and businesses that are off limits to foreign investment, will be adopted nationwide as early as 2018.

"Introduction of the negative list is a creative approach at home and abroad. It lays an important foundation for market to play a decisive role in resource allocation," said Xu Shanchang, with the National Development and Reform Commission.

The approach had an initial test run in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong and Fujian, before expanding to other places, including Zhejiang and Hubei, for further testing.

"It is rather important to be prepared before making it a nationwide practice," Xu said.

On Aug. 16, the State Council issued a document saying that China would make its foreign investment environment "more law-based, internationalized and convenient" to promote growth and raise the quality of foreign investment.

"The country should continue to reduce market access restrictions for foreign capital," the document said.

China will expand market access to allow foreign capital in sectors including new-energy vehicle manufacturing, ship design, aircraft maintenance and railway passenger transport, it said.

On July 28, China began to implement a revised foreign investment catalogue, which included a negative list as well as sectors and industries in which the government wants to encourage foreign companies to invest.

"Instead of trying to guide industrial adjustment, the negative list is to coordinate the relationship between government and market, aiming to improve the market's role of regulation, make enterprises the major investment sources and lift government restrictions," said Guo Guannan, with China Academy of Macroeconomic Research.

"The resilience and competitiveness of China's investment management system would be enhanced by implementing a negative list," said Gao Yuwei, a Bank of China researcher.

The negative list will help China develop an open economy and lead to comprehensive reforms to the country's economic and social management, according to Gao.

China will introduce more fiscal and taxation support policies to encourage overseas investors to expand investment, the State Council said in August.

The country could make use of overseas investors to optimize the service trade structure.

China encourages multinationals to set up regional headquarters in the country and wants more investment in western areas and the old northeastern industrial bases.

The investment environment in national-level development zones will be improved by giving the zones more authority in investment management and raising their ability to provide industrial services, according to the State Council.

Foreigners will find it easier to get work permits as the government aims to facilitate the cross-border flow of professionals.

Before the end of the year, China will release detailed new rules for granting visas to foreign professionals, including extending the validity period, the State Council said.

Efforts should also be stepped up to improve foreign capital-related laws, provide better services to overseas investors and ensure the free outward remittance of their profits.

China will improve the protection of intellectual property rights, raise the competitiveness of the research and development environment and maintain continuity in foreign investment policies, it said.

More companies bet on high valuations in mainland, instead of going overseas

As New York remains on track to knock Hong Kong off its pedestal to become the world's biggest listing venue this year, the Asian financial hub is wrestling with Shanghai for the second place in the league tables.

Over the first nine months of the year, some 106 deals raised HK$85 billion ($11 billion) in Hong Kong, trailing the 105 billion yuan ($16 billion) raised in Shanghai, according to data from global accounting firm Deloitte.

"Though brokers and bankers in Hong Kong are anchoring their hopes on a sharp upturn in business to help the city overtake its mainland peer in the final quarter of 2017, I think Shanghai is likely to hold its lead and secure the second spot throughout this year," said Edward Au, Hong Kong-based co-leader of the national public offering group at Deloitte.

The initial public offering (IPO) market in the Chinese mainland has gained huge momentum so far this year from China Securities Regulatory Commission's efforts to step up IPO approvals, in a sign of its determination to implement IPO reform toward a registration-based system.

"As regulators keep a steady pace to give a green light to no less than 30 IPOs on a monthly basis, more and more mainland companies, betting on higher valuations back home, are relishing the idea of a flotation on the mainland, rather than having their eyes trained on overseas destinations," Au noted.

"Though there is a logjam of roughly 500 firms still lining up to get the nod, you can see policymakers' efforts to ease IPO process really bolster the market a lot," he added.

If regulators could maintain the pace to give the go-ahead to IPOs in the remaining months, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, coupled with the smaller, tech-heavy Shenzhen Stock Exchange, are projected to see as many as 480 companies make their mainland stock market debut, raising up to $250 billion yuan by the year end, Deloitte said.

Following the $1 billion-plus offering from ZhongAn Online Property Casualty Insurance?the very first fintech flotation in Hong Kong?the Asian financial center, which has retained the crown as the world's top fundraising destination for the past two years, is looking to welcome one or two more eye-catching listings from sizeable technology firms in the final three months of the year, said Dick Kay, Shanghai-based co-leader of national public offering group at Deloitte.

"Given that the enthusiasm of investors oversubscribing for ZhongAn's offering runs really high, we have good reasons to believe the upcoming technology flotations could come as a 'booster', putting Hong Kong on course to secure the third spot, with as many as 150 firms raising up to HK$150 billion for the whole year round," Kay said.

China's e-commerce market saw strong growth in the first half of this year, according to a report released Tuesday.

China's e-commerce trading recorded 13.35 trillion yuan ($2.03 trillion) for the first half of 2017, a 27.1 percent increase year-on-year, China Research Center of E-Commerce said in the report.

Business-to-business transactions reached 9.8 trillion yuan, online retail sales were at 3.1 trillion yuan, and e-commerce trading for life services was about 0.45 trillion yuan.

Cross-border e-commerce reached 3.6 trillion yuan in H1, up 30.7 percent year-on-year, accounting for 26.97 percent of China's total e-commerce trade volume, with 2.75 trillion yuan for export and 862.4 billion yuan for import.

With policy support and a relatively complete system, China's e-commerce maintained rapid growth and as China's economy transforms to the "consumer upgrade" era, e-commerce has created many new consumption demands, said Zhang Zhouping, senior analyst with the research center.

This has triggered a new investment boom, created more job opportunities, increased income and provided the space for mass entrepreneurship and innovation in the country, Zhang added.

As of the end of June, more than 3.1 million people worked directly in e-commerce and more than 23 million indirectly, the report revealed.

Revenue for China's express delivery business was 257.29 billion yuan in the first half of 2017 and is expected to reach 600 billion yuan with a projected growth rate of 49.8 percent.

Aerial photo taken on April 1, 2017 shows Anxin county, North China's Hebei province.

Since April 5, nine listed companies have announced plans to set up offices in Xiongan, betting on business opportunities from the construction of the Xiongan New Area, Ifeng Finance reported.

Kaidi Ecological Environmental Technology Co Ltd said in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange late Thursday that the company plans to establish an office in the new area to promote the environment protection and ecological reconstruction project of Baiyangdian?a freshwater lake in Xiongan.

Eight other listed companies that announced plans to set up offices in Xiongan are Yueyang Forest & Paper Co Ltd, CRRC Corp Ltd, Shenzhen Das Intellitech Co Ltd, Hubei Huitian New Materials Co Ltd, Xuanhua Construction Machinery Co Ltd, Wuxi Taiji Industry Co Ltd, Lingyuan Iron & Steel Co Ltd and Juli Sling Co Ltd.

China announced the plan in April to create Xiongan New Area -- about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing -- to promote the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Xiongan-themed stocks have rebounded recently as the planning and design of the Xiongan New Area is expected to be completed by the end of September. Stocks related to infrastructure, finance, technological innovation and real estate all showed upward momentum.

Earlier, some investment institutions also turned more bullish on shares of companies involved in environment protection, garden and architectural decoration.

Zhang Chengyuan, a senior vice-president at China Asset Management, said the demand market of raw materials including steel, cement and glass has been reflected in the construction of the Xiongan New Area.

Zhang added that there will be more investment opportunities in the scientific and technological innovation industry during the construction of the new area.

Advanced city planning, transportation, municipal services and environment protection for new urbanization will not only benefit the Xiongan New Area, but these technologies and services can also be promoted in the whole country, said Ma Tao, chief strategist of BOCOM Schroders.

An international expo featuring trade and economic cooperation between countries and regions related to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road will be held in late September in Guangdong province, according to the organizers.

More than 1,134 companies from 56 nations and regions will participate in the Guangdong 21st Century Maritime Silk Road International Expo, which is scheduled on September 21-24 in Dongguan, a trade and manufacturing hub in the Pearl River Delta region, according to the organizers.

The expo will highlight investment and economic cooperative opportunities along the countries and regions, as well as their cultural, construction, engineering, food and agricultural products.

Former high-ranking officials from 13 nations related to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, as well as 22 international chamber officials have confirmed their participation in the event.

China plans to open the domestic market wider to foreign investment in the financial and new energy vehicles sectors in coming months, said a spokeswoman with the nation's economic regulator Friday.

Meng Wei of the National Development and Reform Commission, said China will open the world's second-largest economy wider to foreign investors, stepping up efforts to attract foreign funds.

While foreign direct investment dropped a little in the first eight months compared to the same period last year, China retains strong competitiveness compared to other countries, she said.

Cybersecurity talents are in short supply in China, and many employers have no choice but to lower their requirements and recruit people with little work experience to fill the gap, a report concludes.

Posts about cybersecurity published on Zhaopin.com, a leading recruitment website, increased from January to June by 232 percent year-on-year, according to the report published by Zhaopin and 360 Internet Security Center.

Work experience was not required for half the posts. On average, the expected salary of job seekers in the field stood at 7,533 yuan ($1,160) a month.

In stark contrast, the average salary employers offer is 25 percent higher, the report found.

Zhaopin didn't disclose the sample size for the report, calling it a business secret, but said the sample was large enough to ensure solid conclusions - the firm has 135 million users.

The difference between the low salary expectation and high offer suggests the supply of candidates is inadequate to meet the demand in the labor market for cybersecurity talents, said Wang Yixin, a senior Zhaopin consultant.

There are more than enough low-skilled candidates for basic posts, but the demand for the highskilled candidates exceeds the supply, she said.

Only 11 percent of cybersecurity job seekers have an education background in cybersecurity or information security - more majored in computer science, communication and information engineering and network engineering.

More than 70 percent of the job hunters are aged 25 to 34.

The shortage of cybersecurity talents will continue in China for some time, the report said.

Zhao Zeliang, director of the Cybersecurity Coordination Bureau at China's Cyberspace Administration, said cybersecurity talent education is urgent and important in the country.

"We can catch up with Western countries' pace of cybersecurity protection by buying their advanced technologies or products, but if we are short of talents, our following generations will be affected," he said.

He also said the administration has paid high attention to and taken measures in education for talents, considering its importance in cybersecurity protection.

Now the administration has joined hands with the Ministry of Education to set up an academic institute to cultivate cybersecurity talents, "hoping to improve our capabilities in cybersecurity protection and make our talents more competitive in the world," he said.

Young visitors interact with a robot at the 2017 World Robot Conference in Beijing themed "Win-Win Collaborative Innovation Toward the Building of an Intelligent Society".

China is beefing up efforts to attract highly-skilled professionals to work in AI as companies across the world scramble to get an edge in this cutting-edge field.

A report released by Hays showed that Chinese mainland enterprises have stepped up plans to hire staff involved in the artificial intelligence industry from the United States and Europe.

Many firms were offering the right candidates lucrative packages, including a 50 percent salary rise to relocate to China, the global recruitment agency stated.

"We are seeing significant government and private investment in AI across natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition and data science," said Simon Lance, managing director for Hays Greater China.

Earlier this year, the government launched plans to invest heavily in research programs.

The aim is to turn the country's AI sector into an industry worth more than 150 billion yuan ($22.15 billion) by 2020, 400 billion yuan by 2025, and 1 trillion yuan by 2030.

"As a result, employers in the artificial intelligence space are becoming particularly competitive in their efforts to attract top people," Lance added.

But China faces key challenges and a skill gap compared with the US.

A major problem is that the country lags behind the world's biggest economy when it comes to employment numbers.

"China's AI talent (pool) is only half that of the United States, which may (hinder) future development of (the) AI industry (here)," a report from the Tencent Research Institute stated.

The survey, conducted by a division of internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, showed China had 592 artificial intelligence companies with nearly 40,000 employees by June, 2017.

In comparison, the US had 1,078 AI businesses with more than 78,000 employees.

The US is also ahead in four key employment areas, including processor and chips, and machine learning applications, as well as natural language processing and smart drones.

More than 20,000 people work in the natural language sector in the US compared to China's 6,600, the Tencent report highlighted.

Studies also found that Chinese AI staff are concentrated in sectors such as automated vehicles and smart medical treatment.

In the US, the focus is on wider sectors, including the chip industry, big data and storage, as well as technical areas such as image identification and robotics.

Research in automated vehicles was also pioneered there.

"One of the reasons that China lags behind the US in AI is because it started much later", the Tencent report stated.

Among the world's top 20 universities for artificial intelligence research, 16 are in the US, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University, according to the American National Science and Technology Council.

Not one Chinese university made the list.

"Up until now, China has not established a system to cultivate talent in AI," said Yu Youcheng, deputy secretary-general of Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence.

"For example, artificial intelligence science and technology have not been set up as a first-level discipline," Yu added. "This may lead to the loss of core AI talent."

But the problem can be fixed by putting the right pieces of the jigsaw together.

"We should work to develop an ecological chain in the AI field," Yu said. "This would combine AI talent cultivation, technology standards and products and applications.

"But (doing this we can) transform and upgrade the whole industry," Yu added.

A China National Nuclear Corp stand at an industrial expo in Beijing.

China National Nuclear Power Co Ltd (CNNP), a unit of one of the country's three largest State-owned nuclear operators, has announced plans to establish a Hebei-based company to promote the development of traveling-wave reactor, or TWR, technology.

The move will be carried out in partnership with Huadian Fuxin Energy Limited Company, Zhejiang Zheneng Electric Power Co Ltd, Shenhua Group and Jointo Energy Investment Co Ltd Hebei, the CNNP said in a statement with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The new company, located in Cangzhou city, Hebei province, has a registered capital of 1 billion yuan ($153.23 million). CNNP will own 35 percent of the company; Shenhua Group, 30 percent; Huadian Fuxin Energy, 15 percent; Zhejiang Zheneng Electric Power, 10 percent, and Jointo Energy Investment, 10 percent.

CNNP said, in the statement, the establishment of the new company will be in accordance with the strategy for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji) region, and added it would also help support the development of the advanced TWR technology.

In addition, CNNP Technology Investment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNNP, also plans to establish CNNP TWR Technology Investment (Tianjin) Co Ltd together with the four investors, sporting the same investment proportion. The new company, located in Tianjin, has a registered capital of 750 million yuan.

TWR, a new nuclear design using fourth-generation technology, could reduce the need for the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium. CNNP stated the establishment of the TWR demonstration project will be in accordance with, and respond to, the national energy plan arrangement.

Bellevue, Washington-based Terra Power, co-founded by Bill Gates in 2006, is working closely with China National Nuclear Corp to conduct research into the use of the new technology.

Technical workers assemble engines at a plant in Yiwu, Zhejiang province.

Companies should consider outside investment, mergers, premier says

Premier Li Keqiang promised more incentives to boost high-end manufacturing in China during a visit to Huaxiang Group, a private steel-casting company in Linfen, Shanxi province?part of a two-day visit to the area on Monday and Tuesday.

The company's moves to retain top-level professional engineers have brought success, turning it into a major supplier for a number of overseas automobile companies. Huaxiang provides an annual salary of 3 million yuan ($456,000) to some of its top craftsmen, four times that of the company's CEO.

Li spoke warmly about the approach as he talked with some of the craftsmen from whom young workers have learned, noting that providing better incentives to lure talent in high-end manufacturing is also a key strategy for the country as it seeks to shift from old economic drivers to new ones.

"We should pass on the spirit of craftsmanship from one generation to another, so that the idea of Made in China will be competitive not only in terms of prices but also in quality," Li said.

Also on Tuesday, Li visited Linfen Iron and Steel Co to learn about the region's efforts in cutting outdated capacity. The company, which is affiliated with Taiyuan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp, stopped most of its outdated operations in 2016, and 10,000 workers have been relocated with new jobs. Among them, more than 2,500 have started their own businesses.

"These workers may be seen as a burden for a company with outdated capacity, but their talent may be in demand when they find new and more suitable jobs," Li said, calling on companies to focus on developing high-end products.

Companies that rely on traditional models should be open to private investment, mergers and reorganization, Li said, adding that China is determined to phase out outdated and excess industrial capacity as a key part of its structural reform, especially as coal prices have been rising again in recent months. The idea is to truly make room for new economic growth drivers, he said.

Li also visited the Shigejie Coal Mine, which ceased production of low-quality coal in 2016, and poverty-stricken Chengzhuang village in the Taihang Mountains to learn about local poverty alleviation and medical services.

China's biggest online travel agency, Ctrip.com International Ltd (Ctrip), announced that its net revenue surged 45 percent year-on-year to 6.4 billion yuan ($946 million) in the second quarter (Q2) ended June 30.

The company gained a gross margin of 82 percent in Q2, compared to 72 percent for the same period last year and 80 percent for the previous quarter, according to its unaudited financial results.

Net income attributable to Ctrip's shareholders for Q2 was 327 million yuan, compared to net loss of 521 million yuan for the same period last year and net income of 82 million yuan for Q1, the company reported.

"Ctrip maintained healthy revenue growth and achieved continual improvement in operating efficiency," Ctrip CEO Sun Jie said. "We are confident that Ctrip will generate long-term value for shareholders in the years to come."

The company expected its net revenue for the next quarter to grow by approximately 35-40 percent year-on-year.

Strengthening its position in lower-tier cities has been Ctrip's focus of action. The company said both its new customer acquisitions and user engagement in lower-tier cities improved significantly in Q2.

Ctrip and Qunar, a domestic rival acquired by Ctrip last year, had opened over 400 offline retail stores by the end of the quarter, with approximately 200 more in the pipeline, the company reported.

Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Ctrip, said the company will continue to expand into lower-tier cities and invest in international markets.

The company said both its accommodation reservation business and transportation ticketing business delivered healthy growth in Q2.

China's State Council has approved a merger between China's major power generator China Guodian Corporation and coal producer Shenhua Group, an official statement said Monday.

The two companies will be restructured to form a new energy investment company, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said on its website.

The move came with little surprise, as the listed arms of the firms had suspended trading of their stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange since early June, a move widely considered to signal a merger.

Following the announcement Monday, the listed arm of Shenhua Group on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange surged more than 4 percent before falling back slightly.

As the world's largest coal supplier, Shenhua Group had total assets of over a trillion yuan (150.7 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of April this year. It ranked 276th among the global Fortune 500 in 2017.

In the first half of 2017, China Shenhua Energy Company, the listed arm of the group, reported revenue of 120.5 billion yuan, an increase of 53.1 percent year on year.

With total assets of more than 800 billion yuan, China Guodian Corporation is one of the country's largest power generators with installed capacity of over 143 GW. It ranked 397th among the global Fortune 500 in 2017.

The merger between the two power giants was in line with the country's aim to cut overcapacity in the coal and power sectors through restructuring state-owned enterprises (SOEs), analysts said.

SASAC has been actively restructuring SOEs this year in a bid to improve their efficiency, with the number of central SOEs falling to 98 after Monday's announced merger, down sharply from 196 in 2003.

Eastern China's port city Xiamen, the country's largest exporter of fitness equipment, witnessed surge in trade to Russia in the first seven months.

Data from Xiamen Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau showed the city exported $5.35 million worth of fitness equipment to Russia in the first seven months of the year, up 45.7 percent year-on-year.

The city's fitness equipment exports to Brazil rose 32.1 percent year-on-year. Exports to South Africa increased 4.6 percent while exports to India picked up 3.4 percent.

In total, Xiamen's fitness equipment exports to these countries reached $17.5 million, up 15.9 percent from the same period last year.

The trade and economic relations among the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are getting increasingly closer as the leaders are expected to meet in Xiamen on Sept 3-5 for the group's 9th summit.

Xiamen is the country's largest fitness equipment and message apparatus producer and exporter. Globally it accounts for 60 percent of the treadmill output. Its exports of message devices represent more than 70 percent of the country's total.

There are more than 90 enterprises engaged in fitness equipment and related industries, with more than 10,000 employees.

Of these companies, 60 are exporting companies and 10 boast output value of more than 100 million yuan.

Social media is set to become a major gateway to shopping rather than a mere communication portal, as the younger generation of buyers are inclined to make purchases while watching livestreaming shows, according to a latest survey.

Around 70 percent of those aged between 19 and 22 in China said they would place an order online via social networking sites, global consultancy Accenture revealed in research based on 10,000 consumers in 13 countries including China.

Calling them "Generation Z", Accenture found that 31 percent cited social media as a popular source for product inspiration, while 58 percent have increased their use of social media for purchase decision-making in the past year.

One-third of the respondents in China claimed they prefer video and livestreaming sites as avenues for bargain hunting. This contrasts with just 12 percent among those between 23 to 28 years old and 8 percent among those in their 30s.

"Social media has emerged as a real disrupter in targeting true digital natives," said Koh Yew Hong, managing director and retail lead for Accenture Asia Pacific. "Internet celebrities are gaining traction because they grasp what customers want."

This is reflective in the daily operations of e-tailor sites such as Taobao and Mogujie, both of which introduce online hosts or influencers for product endorsement that are broadcast live in a bid to improve traffic and boost sales.

Social media magnet Tencent Holdings Ltd is also empowering e-commerce players through a Mini Program function that incentivizes users to share their beloved goodies with online contacts.

Meanwhile, Generation Z are seeking a sophisticated shopping experience. Over 40 percent said they would search information directly from the brands' indigenous websites rather than third-party platforms, a percentage significantly higher than the millennials who are mostly 30 and older.

It also came as a surprise that young consumers are equally embracing in-store shopping. Compared with virtual shopping, 31 percent reported they prefer brick-and-mortar stores but heavily rely on digital means, such as chat tools and social media reviews, to facilitate the purchase.

Koh said physical stores are projected to enjoy remarkable renaissance as long as they are digital-ready. "It's because Generation Z values the shopping experience over the utilities of merchandise per se. Omni-channel sales are therefore critical to harness that trend."

China's internet giants including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.com Inc have ramped up efforts to deploy offline channels as pure-play e-commerce growth starts to stagnate. Alibaba has completed a series of buyouts including retail chain Intime Retail Group Co, while JD backed Yonghui Superstores and announced plans to open 1 million namesake convenience stores in five years.

Shanghai shares closed higher yesterday as market sentiment rose on news that pension funds have started to flow into the stock market and also on progress in the on-going mixed-ownership reform in state-owned enterprises.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.56 percent to 3,286.91 points.

Investor sentiment soared on news that eight provinces and cities have invested the first tranche of 172.15 billion yuan ($25.8 billion) of pension funds in the stock market, Securities Daily said yesterday.

Joyoung, China's biggest maker of soybean-milk machines, and Yantai Zhenghai Magnetic Material both soared 10 percent. The two companies' interim results showed China's pension fund was their major shareholders in the second quarter.

"The pension funds which flow into the A-share market are going to stabilize the market,"said Li Chao, chief analyst at Huatai Securities.

Investors were also buoyed by progress in mixed-ownership reform in state-owned enterprises.

China Unicom, the country's second-biggest telecom firm, surged by the daily limit of 10 percent to 8.22 yuan ($1.23) after saying yesterday it planned to draw investors such as Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings and Baidu under its reform.

China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said on Sunday night it approved the non-public offering of shares in China Unicom's mixed-ownership reform plan and would handle it as a special case, according to a report by China Securities Journal.

China Unicom can formulate its own non-public offering of shares plan in accordance with the old rules of the refinancing system that were not revised until Feb 17 this year, CSRC said.

On the same day earlier, China Unicom disclosed its mixed-ownership reform plan, announcing it will transfer old stocks, grant employee incentive shares as well as sell shares to strategic investors.

The company will issue 9 billion private shares to strategic investors to raise no more than 62 billion yuan ($9.29 billion), transfer 1.9 billion old shares priced at 13 billion yuan to the structural reform fund and grant no more than 848 million restricted stocks to core employees to raise 3 billion yuan.

The total consideration of the above transaction will not exceed 78 billion yuan, according to the report.

Shares of China Unicom rose by 10 percent, the daily trading limit, to 8.22 yuan per share right after trading resumed Monday morning after months of suspension.

On August 16, China Unicom once published two filings of mixed-ownership reform on the website of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and withdrew them that night.

Analysts said it was because the company's non-public offering of shares plan, the pricing of the new shares and investors' shareholdings might have contradicted February's newly-revised regulations, according to reports by China Securities Journal and caixin.com.

The revised rules require the number of shares issued shall not exceed 20 percent of the total equity base before the issue. However, in China Unicom's plan, the proportion reaches 42.63 percent, China Securities Journal reported.

CSRC said on its announcement Sunday it has recognized that China Unicom's mixed-ownership reform is significant for laying a foundation for and deepening the reform of State-owned enterprises.

The company's strategic investors include domestic tech titan Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Baidu Inc and JD.com Inc and Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd.

"Beijing Afraid of Wife Technology" and "What You Looking at Technology" are just two examples of the kind of company name that will soon be a thing of the past.

After launching a campaign to eliminate public signs with poor English translations, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) is targeting firms attempting to register names that are excessively long or strange.

The Legal Daily paper cited names of existing firms that would not be allowed under the new rules, including "Shanghai Wife Biggest Electronic Commerce" and "Hangzhou No Trouble Looking for Trouble Internet Technology".

The newspaper also gave the example of a condom company called "There is a Group of Young People with Dreams, Who Believe They Can Create Wonders of Life Under Uncle Niu's Leadership Internet Technology".

The restrictions were introduced by the SAIC this month, while also banning company names deemed offensive or racist or having religious or political connotations.

Outside China, other countries have also made moves to regulate "inappropriate" company names.

According to China National Radio (CNR), companies in Russia can use only Russian words when registering businesses. Untranslated foreign words are banned by the administration.

Although the UK has few rules governing what name a company may trade under, firms are forbidden from using any words related to royalty, such as king, queen or prince.

Government-related words like Government, British and Britain are also taboo for local companies to use in their names, said CNR.

He Zhiqiang, president of Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, and Sun Zhongchun, general manager of Haima Car Co Ltd, at a news conference in Zhengzhou, Henan province, Aug 16, 2017.

China's biggest personal computer giant Lenovo and domestic auto maker Haima will join forces to promote the use of big data and artificial intelligence technology in the auto manufacturing industry.

Under the deal announced on Wednesday, Lenovo will examine Haima's sales data to come up with solutions to help the car maker target potential customers. In the future, the two companies will collaborate in areas like new car design and development, and smart manufacturing.

The move comes as the hardware veteran is gearing up its expansion in big data to go with its traditional strengths in manufacturing.

In 2016, the company's big data arm began offering services to other companies, before that it was an internal operation. By utilizing its own big data analysis platform, Lenovo has provided solutions to clients from various industries including metallurgy, medicine and tobacco.

Relying on its experience in manufacturing and its big data technologies, Lenovo is making efforts to drive China's manufacturing enterprises to transform and upgrade, He Zhiqiang, president of Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, said at the strategy cooperation signing ceremony held in Zhengzhou, China's Central Henan province.

JD Finance promotes its online financing products to consumers in Nanjing.

JD Finance, the finance unit of China's second biggest e-commerce player JD.com Inc, has been deconsolidated from JD as a result of the reorganization as of June 30, 2017, which is expected to pave the way for the former's eventual listing.

Accordingly, JD Finance's historical financial results for periods prior to July 1 are reflected in JD's consolidated financial statements as discontinued operations, according to the company's second quarter financial results.

Analysts said JD Finance's spinoff is seen as a preparatory move towards it listing on a domestic stock exchange, as well as obtaining more financial licenses.

Yu Baicheng, an expert at wangdaizhijia.com, a web portal that tracks the internet finance industry, said the move will let JD Finance develop its businesses more independently.

"The spinoff will allow JD Finance to move more aggressively, as it could carry out more financial business easily, as well as help JD focus on its core e-commerce business," said Li Zichuan, an analyst at Beijing-based internet consultancy Analysys.

"We don't rule out the possibility that JD Finance will seek an initial public offering on a domestic stock exchange in the next few years," Li added.

JD Finance has sought privatization and a split from JD at the beginning of last year. In January 2016, JD Finance raised 6.65 billion yuan ($992 million) from investors such as Sequoia Capital China, China Harvest Investments and China Taiping Insurance.

Its business scope now covers supply chain finance, consumer finance, wealth management, crowd funding, insurance and security. The company is applying for financial service licenses as the country's middle class surges in size.

In November 2016, JD announced it would reorganize JD Finance, to make it a wholly Chinese-owned entity to facilitate its development in certain licensed financial service businesses and take advantage of the liquidity provided by the Chinese capital market.

In March, JD agreed to sell its 68.6 percent stake in its finance unit, JD Finance, for 14.3 billion yuan in cash by the middle of this year, and post-deal, JD will hold neither legal ownership nor effective control of JD Finance.

The spinoff of JD's financial arm is similar to that of Ant Financial Services Group, the financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. It was split off from Alibaba and obtained business independence in 2014, making it a powerful financial player.

JD also announced that its net revenue reached 93.2 billion yuan in the second quarter, an increase of 43.6 percent year-on-year. Its gross merchandise volume in the second quarter increased 46 percent to 234.8 billion yuan, from 160.4 billion yuan in the same period last year.

China continued to see a stable job market in July, with the unemployment rate at a relatively low level, data showed Monday.

The country's urban surveyed unemployment rate was around 5.1 percent last month, lower than that for July 2016, according to Mao Shengyong, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics.

The surveyed rate in major Chinese cities continued to stay at a relatively low level of less than 5 percent, Mao added.

"It was not easy to maintain the low unemployment rate in the month when college students graduate," Mao said. College graduates this year reached 7.95 million, up about 300,000 from 2016.

Some 8.55 million new jobs were created in China's urban regions from January to July, up 200,000 from the same period of last year, he said.

The Chinese government aims to create 11 million new jobs this year.

Banks in China should focus on clients to pursue higher profit and reduce reliance on capital expansion as part of reforms in the industry, McKinsey said in a report yesterday.

Banks will usually spend between 5 and 15 years on reforms in order to improve asset quality, said John Qu, senior partner of McKinsey & Company.

"Reforms in China's banking industry is an all-out battle that involves retail, corporate, asset management, organization, information technology, and risk management risks," said Qu. "Banks need to focus on all these six sectors to ensure success."

Profit growth of Chinese banks hit a brake in the past five years amid interest rate liberalisation, slower economic growth, and tighter regulation against leverage.

The overall profit growth in the banking industry slowed from 13.1 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2013 to 4.6 percent in the first three months of this year, data from the China Banking Regulatory Commission showed.

McKinsey said Chinese banks will have to prioritize improving client experience across retail, corporate, and asset management units as part of their reform process, said McKinsey's quarterly Chinese banking industry CEO report.

General Electric (GE) announced late Tuesday that it will close its manufacturing facility in Rochester, New York and move the work to China.

GE told Xinhua on Wednesday that "the assembly of the electronic boards at this facility is not core to GE's manufacturing capabilities," and the company has already contracted 80 percent of these products to external partner suppliers.

The company said it will close the site by June 2018 and about 90 employees will be affected by the decision.

The work will be moved to China, where it will be done by GE's partner supplier, a U.S. manufacturing services company called Jabil, GE said.

Photo taken on April 21, 2017 shows the scenery of the county seat of Rongcheng, north China's Hebei Province.

The management committee of Xiongan New Area has announced that a special company has been established to fund construction of the area.

With registered capital of 10 billion yuan (about 1.47 billion U.S. dollars), China Xiongan Construction & Investment Group is a state-owned company.

The Hebei provincial government approved its founding in July.

The company will raise fund to build houses and apartments, develop the Baiyangdian water area, and to build transport links, energy infrastructure and public facilities in Xiongan.

China announced plans in April to establish the Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. It covers Hebei's Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin counties.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou has announced the company plans to increase investment in both China and the United States, according to a report released by the Securities Times on Monday.

"We are doing business. Foxconn has ambition. Market and technology are both directions we are chasing for," Gou said in a recent interview with the newspaper.

"In terms of technology, Foxconn will have big development in China and the United States, with large investments on both sides. However, investing in one market does not mean other market's investment will reduce."

Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contractor, announced on July 27 the company will invest $10 billion to build a liquid-crystal display panel manufacturing facility in Wisconsin, United States, in the next four years.

The investment will be the largest new greenfield investment made by a foreign company in the history of the US, and will create a total of 3,000 new jobs and an additional 10,000 more in the future, Foxconn revealed in a statement.

On Aug 2, media also reported Foxconn planned to spend $30 billion on the project, which would be three times the amount of money the company has previously pledged.

"We are not sure if the investment figure will reach $30 billion in the United States," Gou said.

"Besides Wisconsin, Foxconn is also in talks with other states. We will cooperate with Michigan on next generation auto technology, such as Internet of Vehicle (IOV) and self-driving cars."

"The Michigan investment will be unveiled soon, yet the transaction amount cannot be released," Gou said.

Gou refused to comment on whether an Apple supply chain will partly transfer to US, but added the most important thing is to complement each other's strengths.

Taiwan-based Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, is a major supplier to Apple Inc for its iPhones.

Despite rising housing prices, Han Jianhua, an assistant director of a furniture company in east China's Fuzhou City, felt confident about buying a home in the near future.

"A bicycle was all I owned when I started working five years ago. Now I drive my own car to work. My next plan is to buy an apartment and settle in the city," he said.

Han's monthly pay was about 3,000 yuan (440 U.S. dollars) when he started as an ordinary employee. Thanks to multiple promotions, his income has doubled.

"Including my wife's salary, we believe it will not be a problem to buy a home after some time," he said.

The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012 proposed to increase people's income and boost their "sense of gain." A series of measures have been implemented over the past five years, making sure the country's "centenary goal" of building a "moderately prosperous society in all respects" will be realized by 2020.

In addition to continuous job creation in both urban and rural areas, the central government has worked with local authorities to raise standards for pensions, minimum wages and social welfare in recent years.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita disposable income of the country was 23,821 yuan in 2016, up 44.3 percent compared with the 2012 figure, and an actual increase of 33.3 percent after adjusting for inflation.

In the meantime, the income gap between urban and rural residents is also narrowing. Statistics show that the per capita disposable income of rural residents was 12,363 yuan last year, an actual increase of 36.3 percent over 2012.

Zhang Yan, in Taiping Town in Changchun, provincial capital of Jilin, never thought he could step away from farm work and spend weeks traveling around the country each year.

"I make tens of thousands of yuan from farming and machinery rentals each year," he said. "We no longer need to worry about food. We now want to see more of the world."

Higher incomes have changed consumption in China.

Han Haoxuan, a native of Nanchang in east China's Jiangxi Province, enjoys going to see movies and theater in his spare time.

"The performance market has boomed in recent years, so we have more opportunities to go to the theater and enjoy the shows," he said.

China's box office reached 45.7 billion yuan (6.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, attracting 1.3 billion movie-goers, data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television showed.

Meanwhile, per capita consumption in the country was 17,111 yuan in 2016, up 33.1 percent from 2012. Average per capita consumption in cultural, educational and entertainment activities registered an annual increase of 9.1 percent between 2012 and 2016.

Spending on meat, egg, dairy and sea food products in rural areas grew as people sought better living standards, as did purchases of electric appliances and private cars.

In 2012, rural residents owned only six vehicles per 100 people. Last year, it was 17.

"The change in consumption habits leads to transformation in supply and demand, and in the end promotes the growth of relevant industries and economic development," said Jin Xiaotong, professor at the business school of Jilin University.

Since the 18th CPC national congress, poverty eradication has been a priority for officials at all levels. Targeted poverty alleviation has transformed the lives of tens of millions of Chinese people below the poverty line.

According to official data, there were 98.99 million impoverished rural people in 2012. By the end of 2016, the figure was reduced to 43.35 million. About 14 million people shook off poverty each year on average.

Rural residents in far west Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have become paid workers at workshops in their villages thanks to assistance programs that pair companies and provincial governments from China's developed eastern and southern regions with poor areas in Xinjiang.

Kiwi fruit, peppers, peaches and tobacco produced in the remote mountains of central China's Hunan Province, home to one of the poorest regions in the country, have become hot sellers, thanks to better transportation and preferential agricultural policies.

The 18th CPC national congress set a goal for rural and urban residents' per capita incomes to double by 2020 compared with 2010. Official data showed that by 2016, the per capita disposable income of the country registered an actual increase of 62.6 percent over the 2010 level.

A promising employment situation and economic development have provided powerful support for the rapid growth of incomes in China, said Gao Wenshu, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Looking at the current situation, the 'income doubling' goal is likely to be realized before 2020," he said.

After graduating from the Communication University of China in Beijing, Chen Xiao left the capital to work for an education institution in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality.

"I don't have a sense of belonging in Beijing. It is hard for me to get used to the climate and life style," Chen said.

"Rent, traffic expenditure, and meals take a large bite out of our salaries," Chen said. "And if I stay in Beijing, it's likely that most of my time will be occupied by work." Life is not only for working, she added.

"I know it is very hard to live there. Many people work in Beijing for some years and then return to their hometowns, saying their work experience can help them gain better jobs. But I think it is better to return after university," she said.

Chen is one of a growing number of graduates who choose to leave first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and work in second-tier cities such as Wuhan, Changsha and Chengdu.

Although small and less developed, these cities have favorable conditions, including entrepreneurial incentives, housing subsidies, registered residence permits, or Hukou, and settlement policies, to encourage talent to live and work here.

Instead of swarming to first-tier cities, more students said salary and development space were more important factors than city size when they came to decide in which cities to start their career, a recently survey found.

The survey, which was conducted by a research center under China Youth Daily, canvassed 2,002 college students and graduates, and found 64.3 percent said salary was the first thing they considered when choosing which city to base themselves in, followed by the potential for career development, at 59.3 percent, and city size, 43.9 percent.

Around 59.9 percent said they hoped second-tier cities could provide a more relaxing environment for employees and entrepreneurs, while 49.7 percent said the cities' preferential terms were attractive.

Compared with first-tier cities, second-tier equivalents needed to improve public service systems, according to 63.7 percent of respondents, with 58.3 percent saying they hoped these cities could expand their economic volume and create more jobs. About 33 percent of respondents said promoting cities' soft power was crucial.

This year, the number of college graduates in China is expected to reach 7.95 million, an increase of 300,000 over last year, according to the Ministry of Education.

Some second-tier cities have offered various preferential policies to attract talents during graduation season. The most alluring policies for graduates are incentives for employment or starting up businesses (65.9 percent), favorable housing policies (64 percent) and easier Hukou policies (51 percent), the survey shows.

Jian Xinhua, a professor with Wuhan University, said high-quality labor was an important factor that could drive city development. Higher living costs and cut-throat competition in megacities was daunting. With favorable employment terms, second-tier cities would become more attractive to college graduates, it was added.

Live-streaming host is a most sought-after job for more and more Chinese college students.

Though the new profession is not well accepted by society, especially by parents, nowadays it is not rare to see college students hosting online broadcasts.

A junior student from Tsinghua University has earned at least 10,000 yuan (close to $1,500) since she started teaching high school students on a major live-streaming platform a month ago. In fact, this is a common story for a great number of Chinese college students.

Huajiao is the first Chinese live-streaming platform that offers a "college channel." According to the site, more than a million college students from 98.7% of the country's universities are using the platform to host shows. More than 10,000 of them are students from elite universities, 1,000 of whom are studying at Tsinghua University and Peking University, China's top two schools.

College students have improved people's impression on the profession. Rather than low-quality and vulgar performances, they are providing shows with more intelligence and talents.

Flexible working hours and high income are the major reasons for students to choose the emerging profession. Statistics show that the average monthly salary of college broadcasters on the platform of Huajiao is 16,000 yuan. Some earn as much as 1.9 million yuan a month, 275 times of the 2016 average monthly salary of white collar workers in Beijing.

A survey conducted by Communication University of China found that a quarter of China's college students have hosted shows on live-streaming sites.

With further development of the industry, there will be more and more college students taking up the profession.

MIUI 9 has been leaked already and we learned Xiaomi will bring picture-in-picture and split-screen features. Global Beta ROM has started rolling out and Xiaomi has been busy preparing for its official launch on July 26. It will be unveiled together with a new phone in a special event in China.

Beta testers are still needed to evaluate the MIUI 9. If you own a Xiaomi smartphone, you can volunteer to join the program. The Chinese OEM is recruiting more Beta Testers for MIUI 9 China ROM. The Global ROM is almost ready but this testing is only for China, at least, for now.

If you are already part of the MIUI community, you are automatically given the privilege to test MIUI 9 without having to apply. The first batch will be open to a limited number of testers for certain mobile devices.

Here is a list of Xiaomi phones that can test the MIUI 9:

Mi 6, Mi 5s Plus, Mi 5s, Mi 5c, Mi 5, Mi 4S, Mi 4c, Mi 4, Mi 3, Mi 2/2S, Mi MIX, Mi Max 2, Mi Max, Mi Note 2, Mi Note/Pro, Mi Pad 2, Mi Pad 1, Redmi Note 4X (MTK), Redmi Note 4X (SD), Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 3 (MTK), Redmi Note 3 (SD), Redmi Note 2, Redmi Note, Redmi Pro, Redmi 4X, Redmi 4A, Redmi 4, Redmi 4 Prime, Redmi 3S/Prime, Redmi 3, Redmi 2A, Redmi 2/Prime, Redmi 1S, Redmi 1

Some of these latest Xiaomi models will get the MIUI 9 immediately: Redmi Note 4 (Qualcomm), Redmi Note 4X, and the Mi 6.

Last year's graduates of local colleges started in jobs at wages 25 percent higher than their predecessors — more than 6,000 yuan ($886.75) a month.

But still over 21 percent have hopped from their first jobs, said a survey released by the city's employment promotion center and the students' affairs center.

The conclusions were based on officially registered information from the 97,000 students graduating from local colleges and who began working in Shanghai in 2016.

The report showed that those graduates' average term of employment was 29.2 months — 0.4 months longer than their peers graduating in the previous year.

Now, 95.9 percent of the these graduates choosing to work in Shanghai are still employed, 1.2 percentage points more than the survey result in the previous year.

Almost 70 percent of them worked in areas related to what they had learned in colleges, said the report.

About 80 percent of them said they were very satisfied or relatively satisfied with their jobs, while 6.1 percent said they were not quite satisfied or very dissatisfied.

Their average salary one year after graduation was 6,236 yuan per month, up 25 percent from their starting pay.

The average salary for 2015 graduates was 5,659 yuan a month after the same period of working.

The current average pay was 4,645 yuan a month for junior college graduates, 5,495 for those with a bachelor's degree and 8,972 for those with master's or higher.

The finance industry still leads the pay level with 8,216 yuan per month, followed by education and health at 7,908 and 7,653 yuan per month respectively.

The proportion of job-hoppers was 2.6 points higher than that of graduates in 2015 during the first year after graduation.

Beijing was recently named the best mainland Chinese city for entrepreneurship in 2017.

The ranking emphasized the impact of a city's policies and talents on its entrepreneurship. The main gauge was the enthusiasm of establishing start-ups, government policies and intellectual support.

Report shows that there are five major entrepreneurship regions in China, one of which is the North China region with Beijing and Tianjin at its core.

As the birthplace of the policy of innovation and entrepreneurship, Beijing has demonstrated increasing competitiveness in this aspect. A total of 1,450 Beijing enterprises are listed in the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, roughly equal to the combined total of those in Shanghai (878 enterprises) and Shenzhen (686 enterprises).

Beijing is also home to 174 national innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, still roughly the sum of those in Shanghai (89 platforms) and Shenzhen (86 platforms).

In addition, Beijing continued to relocate non-capital functions in 2016, which will grant more development opportunities to neighboring cities including the newly established Xiongan New Area.

A new Beijing Hyundai plant was completed in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality Thursday, raising the company's annual capacity by 22 percent to 1.65 million units.

The plant, the fifth factory of the company, will start operation in August, with an annual production of 300,000 automobiles and 200,000 engines.

Construction of the plant started in June 2015 with a total investment of 7.75 billion yuan (1.15 billion U.S. dollars).

Beijing Hyundai is a joint venture between Beijing Automotive Industry Holding and the Republic of Korea car maker Hyundai Motor.

Chongqing's auto output continued to take the lead in China, with automakers churning out 3.16 million cars last year, 11 percent of the country's total.

The output values of the automobile and electronics manufacturing industries climbed 11.7 percent and 17.7 percent respectively in 2016, and the two industries contributed 55 percent to the city's gross industrial growth last year.