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Key CPC gathering puts focus on a stable economic rebound and is set to boost market confidence;
China's consumer inflation fell for a second month in November.
A meeting attended by China's top leaders on Friday called for strengthening economic vitality, containing risks and improving social expectations so as to cement and strengthen the positive momentum of economic upturn, as part of the economic assessment and policymaking for 2024.
The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday held a meeting to analyze and study the economic work of 2024, arrange Party conduct and anti-corruption work, and review regulations on the CPC's disciplinary action, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The country should strengthen counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments of macro policies and continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy. The proactive fiscal policy should be appropriately intensified and improved in quality and efficiency, while the prudent monetary policy should be flexible, appropriate, targeted and effective, according to the meeting, calling for more consistency in macro-policies.
Efforts should be made to expand domestic demand and form a virtuous cycle in which consumption and investment promote each other. We need to deepen reforms in key areas and continuously inject strong impetus into high-quality development, the meeting said, noting that a modern industrial system will be built led by sci-tech innovations so as to increase the resilience and security of supply chains.
The meeting also stressed the country's commitment to high-level opening-up, and vowed to strengthen the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment. Meanwhile, the country will continue to effectively prevent and defuse risks in key sectors and resolutely safeguard the bottom line against systemic risks.
The December meeting of the Politburo of CPC Central Committee - which is routinely held a few days before the tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference - is seen as a prelude to the keenly watched gathering which provides clearer clues to where the Chinese economy is heading over the next 12 months.
Friday's meeting indicates that the upcoming work conference may emphasize ensuring stable economic recovery, highlighting potential risks and accelerating the building of a modern industrial system for high-quality development, experts noted.
China's consumer prices fell for a second consecutive month in November while factory-gate prices declined at a faster pace, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Saturday. The country's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, dipped by 0.5 percent year-on-year in November, the NBS said, after a 0.2 percent drop in October. Food prices fell 4.2 percent year-on-year in November, compared with a 4 percent drop in October. The decline in pork prices, in particular, widened from 30.1 percent in October to 31.8 percent in November. And the energy prices dropped by 1.3 percent in November after a 1.2 percent rise in October. The growth in core CPI came in at 0.6 percent year-on-year in November, the same as October. Meanwhile, China's producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, dropped by 3 percent from a year ago in November, following a 2.6 percent fall in October, the NBS data showed. On a month-on-month basis, the PPI dipped by 0.3 percent, after a flat reading in October.
China has registered a grain harvest of over 650 billion kilograms, laying a solid foundation for accelerating the building of a strong agricultural sector, official data showed on Monday. According to the NBS, China’s total grain output this year reached 1.39 trillion jin (695 million tons), an increase of 1.3 percent year-on-year, thanks to the government’s effective efforts to bolster food production.
Chinese mainland residents can take international flights directly from Hong Kong International Airports through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge starting Tuesday, without having to pass through mainland immigration checkpoints. The same deal in reverse will be in place for those flying domestically to Zhuhai and then abroad from Hong Kong, with passengers skipping the SAR's border clearances as they are taken straight to their boarding gates. Shuttle buses will whisk transferring passengers from one airport to the other via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. The new “Fly from Hong Kong via Zhuhai” policy will more effectively link Zhuhai's 90 mainland air routes with Hong Kong’s nearly 200 international destinations.
Richard Liu, founder of JD.Com, said he feels self-condemned for what has gone wrong at the Chinese e-commerce giant. "I will absolutely not lie flat and do nothing and hope my fellows won't either," he noted. JD.Com has been sticking to the principle of customers first, but in its work, it puts itself first, according to Liu. Many call for innovation but plagiarize and copy others, he pointed out. Liu's comments come after JD's employees made posts about operational issues at the firm, such as a complicated promotion scheme.
ByteDance’s TikTok agreed to invest $1.5 billion in a joint venture with Indonesia’s GoTo Group that it will control, part of a pact that lets the Chinese company restart its shopping app in its biggest online-retail market. The social media giant will combine its Indonesian TikTok Shop business with GoTo’s e-commerce unit Tokopedia, the companies said Monday. TikTok gets a 75 percent stake in that combination, which will run the shopping features of TikTok’s social media app in Indonesia.
Shares in Li Ning tumbled as much as 16 percent on Monday as investors rebuffed the Chinese sportswear-maker’s plan to buy a commercial building in Hong Kong. The company said in a filing on Sunday that it agreed to buy a commercial building in the city for HK$2.2 billion from local developer Henderson Land Development. The block in North Point includes a 22-story commercial space and two floors of retail areas, which Li Ning intends to use as its headquarters in Hong Kong.
China’s wholesale volume of passenger cars is expected to exceed 25 million units this year, achieving a new record high, according to an industry association. Chinese carmakers sold 2.5 million passenger cars to retailers last month, an increase of over 25 percent from the same period last year, thanks to surging new energy vehicle sales and exports, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Saturday. China’s BYD, Chery Automobile, and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group were the three domestic automakers with the most wholesales of passenger cars in November, with 301,000 units, 203,000 units, and 200,000 units, respectively.
China Eastern Airlines said it will welcome the third homegrown C919 aircraft soon, according to information released through a China Eastern investor interactive platforms on Monday -- the latest progress of the five C919 planes which are scheduled to be introduced into China Eastern's flying fleet this year. The third C919 was delivered to China Eastern on Saturday morning in Shanghai.
The ZQ-2 Y3 rocket, developed by Chinese privately-owned aerospace company LandSpace, blasted off on Saturday morning from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu Province, taking three satellites into planned orbit. Meanwhile, LandSpace unveiled a reusable stainless steel carrier rocket ZQ-3, which is scheduled to test its first flight in 2025. The first stage of the rocket can be used at least 20 times. The engine system can commence its next flight after refueling without inspections by taking the system off the rocket, and reduce the general launch cost by 80 to 90 percent from regular carrier rockets, said LandSpace.
China's largest third-party payment platform Alipay has become the latest internet giant to team up with Huawei Technologies to start developing a mobile application that is native to the Chinese tech giant’s Harmony operating system as Huawei moves to introduce an independent HarmonyOS ecosystem.
Fixed-asset investment in China's road and waterway transport networks expanded in the first 10 months of this year, official data showed. The combined investment in roads and waterways stood at 2.57 trillion yuan, up 4.1 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Transport.
China and Singapore will allow travelers from both countries to use e-CNY for tourism spending in both countries, providing more convenience for shopping during their overseas travel, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Friday. It is part of Singapore's new digital finance and capital markets initiatives to expand its financial cooperation with China, it added in a press release.
Chinese stocks rose on Monday with the benchmark Shanghai Composite gaining 0.7 percent and the Shenzhen Component adding 0.8 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.8 percent and the TECH index shed 1 percent.
A reusable launch vehicle has parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space. Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as rocket engines and boosters can also be reused, though reusable spacecraft may be launched on top of an expendable launch vehicle. Reusable launch vehicles do not need to make these parts for each launch, therefore reducing its launch cost significantly.
Executive Editor: Sonia YU
Editor: LI Yanxia
Host: Stephanie LI
Writer: Stephanie LI
Sound Editor: Stephanie LI
Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni
Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.
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策划、编辑：李艳霞
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