China Tech News

MAJOR Chinese cities, developers and the financial sector are moving quickly to join a government-led campaign to develop the rental housing market.

This comes as the country’s top authorities aim to provide a long-term solution to an overheated real estate market by encouraging more people to rent rather than buy.
For a long time, soaring property prices have put urban residents under pressure, making housing affordability a growing problem for policy-makers.

Now the government wants to further tap the rental market to stabilize home prices and curb speculation, and a key is providing tenants with the same access to public services and decent living conditions that owners enjoy.
A new house rental policy in Beijing came into effect earlier this week, guaranteeing the education rights of tenants’ children and allowing those renting government-subsidized housing to have their hukou (household registration) registered and transferred to their rented homes.

more...

MORE than 40,000 spectators, giant screens, players glued to their keyboards and more than US$1 million prize money for the winners — welcome to the world of eSports in China, a country that has become a leader in competitive video game playing.

The final of the world championships for League of Legends, one of the most popular video games, took place on Saturday in Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest,” the national stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games.
“The atmosphere is great! It’s better than at home, no?” said Yu Yating, a 23-year-old dressed in a long green wig, white minidress and a plastic golden scepter.

“I’ve been playing League of Legends since 2013 because I love the monster fights, it relaxes me,” she said, as screams broke out in the stands when the competitors arrived, ready to do battle.

more...

UBER is pledging US$5 million over the next five years to seven organizations that work to prevent sexual assaults, a move aimed at helping the ride-hailing service combat its own problems as well as society as a whole.

The world’s largest ride-hailing company says the money will help the organizations fund their own programs as well train 150 of Uber’s customer service agents as part of a new team to deal with sexual assault reports, including how to interview people reporting improper conduct.

The initiative was announced yesterday and comes at a time when Uber is trying to polish its image, which has been tarnished by investigations that found rampant sexual harassment of employees and multiple reports of drivers assaulting passengers. The issue of sexual harassment has exploded on the national stage as women have been coming forward with complaints against film producer Harvey Weinstein and high-profile influencers in other industries.

more...

CHINA’S forex reserves rose for the ninth month in a row in October as pressure of capital outflow continued to ease, data from the central bank showed yesterday.

Forex reserves had totaled US$3.109 trillion by the end of October, up US$703 million from a month earlier, according to the People’s Bank of China, the central bank.

Although slightly below market forecasts, it is the first time the reserves have risen for so long since June 2014.
In an online statement, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange attributed the rise to stable cross-border capital flows and balanced supply-demand in the foreign exchange market.

more...

REVENUE from China’s competitive video game events will rise more than three times by 2021, powered by aggressive development of games and the country’s large tech-savvy population, PwC said in a report yesterday.
The eSports market is set to reap US$182 million in revenue by 2021, up from US$56 million last year, the report said.

Advertising via streaming will be worth US$84 million and sponsorship will account for US$54 million while consumer spending will total US$31 million and ticket sales should take up US$12 million, all rising at double digits per annum.

more...

CHINA’S Weibo microblogging site said yesterday its third quarter profit jumped 110 percent from a year earlier to US$115.2 million, driven by booming online advertising income.Revenue jumped 81 percent

more...

CHINA has set up a committee under the State Council to oversee financial stability and development, according to an official statement yesterday.The committee will be an office of the council, focusing

more...

ONCE again, China dominated a new list of the world’s fastest supercomputers, not only taking the top two seats, but also pulling ahead of the United States in the sheer number of systems being used.

According to a biannual ranking of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, called the Top500 published yesterday, China’s Sunway TaihuLight maintains the lead as the No. 1 system for the fourth time, with a performance of 93.01 petaflops.

China’s Tianhe-2, or Milky Way-2, is still the No. 2 system at 33.86 petaflops. Intel chip-based Tianhe-2 had topped the list for three years until it was displaced in November 2015 by TaihuLight, which was built entirely using processors designed and made in China.

more...

THE growth of China’s industrial output, retail sales and fixed-asset investment slowed in October and missed market expectations, signaling that economic growth is expected to ease in the fourth quarter.

Value-added industrial output, an important contribution to gross domestic product, grew 6.2 percent year on year last month, 0.6 percentage points slower than in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The growth also missed market expectations of 6.3 percent but was faster than the 6.1 percent increase in October last year. Retail sales jumped 10 percent, 0.3 percentage points slower than September and 0.4 percentage points slower than expected.

Both industrial output and retail sales growth were the second lowest this year.

Fixed-asset investment rose 7.3 percent year on year in the first 10 months of the year, the slowest rise since 1999. The market had expected growth of 7.4 percent.

Investment by the private sector, which accounted for more than 60 percent of total FAI, rose 5.4 percent year on year.

Bureau spokeswoman Liu Aihua said production and demand were balanced, more jobs have been created, prices were generally stable, and the quality of economic growth has improved with better profitability for both industrial and services companies.

more...

China will raise the retail prices of gasoline and diesel today, the 10th increase and by far the largest this year, the country's top economic planner said yesterday.

As international oil prices have increased, the retail prices of gasoline and diesel will rise by 265 yuan (US$40) and 250 yuan per tonne respectively, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

Under the current pricing mechanism, if international crude oil prices change by more than 50 yuan per tonne and remain at that level for 10 working days, the prices of refined oil products such as gasoline and diesel in China are adjusted accordingly.

more...