China Tech News

Volkswagen AG, the world’s biggest automaker, is in talks to form a joint venture with China’s Didi Chuxing to manage part of the ride-hailing company’s fleet of cars and help develop “purpose-built” vehicles for Didi’s services.

As part of the deal between Volkswagen and China’s biggest ride-hailing service, expected to be signed early next month, the German automaker will initially manage a fleet of about 100,000 new vehicles for Didi, of which two-thirds will be Volkswagen Group cars, said a senior executive at the carmaker.

Volkswagen will also jointly buy some new cars with Didi to allow the Chinese company to expand its fleet. The two eventually plan to collaborate to design and develop dedicated vehicles, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the details are still private.

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CHINA’S largest trade fair concluded its 123th session on Saturday in Guangdong Province, reporting more foreign buyers and deals.

The China Import and Export Fair, known as the Canton Fair, had received 203,346 buyers from 214 countries and regions by Thursday, said fair spokesman Xu Bing.

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THE China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently fined three commercial banks for improper practices in wealth management.

China Merchants Bank, one of the country’s biggest, was fined over 65.7 million yuan (US$10 million) for 14 violations, including guaranteeing principle on some wealth management products, the CBIRC said in an online statement on Friday.

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank was fined more than 58.5 million yuan for 19 offences including allocating too much money raised from WMPs to risky assets.

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SHANGHAI's existing housing index fell for the fifth consecutive month in April amid sluggish sentiment among home buyers.

The index, which tracks month-over-month price changes in 130 areas citywide, lost 16 points, or 0.43 percent, from March to 3,959 last month.
Some 13,550 pre-occupied homes changed hands around the city, down 22 percent from March and a drop of 9 percent from the same month a year earlier, Shanghai Existing House Index Office said in a report released yesterday.

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CHINA’S growing thirst for wine has spawned a new crop of connoisseurs, inspired prize-winning domestic producers and even attracted a top international tasting competition.

More than 300 experts from around the world gathered at a luxury hotel in Beijing last weekend to taste 9,000 wines from some 50 countries.

After sniffing, tasting and spitting the various vintages, they recorded their notes on touchscreen tablets for the 25th Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, which awards coveted gold and silver medals that producers can then tag on their bottles.

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FOREIGN direct investment into China's mainland fell in April but the FDI inflow edged up in January to April, with capital going into high technology industries growing rapidly.

FDI declined 1.1 percent year on year to 59.24 billion yuan (US$9.3 billion) last month, and the number of newly-set up foreign companies in the mainland rose 39.5 percent year on year to 4,662, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed yesterday.

In the first four months of this year, the total number of newly-formed enterprises funded by foreign investors jumped by 95.4 percent to 19,002, while foreign funds that were actually used added 0.2 percent from a year ago to 286.78 billion yuan.

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AIRBUS said yesterday it had taken steps to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling on subsidies for its A350 and A380 jets, which has seen the United States and Europe trade legal blows on behalf of Boeing and Airbus.

The move comes days after the US won a partial victory against European Union support for Airbus at the WTO, clearing the way for possible US sanctions in a 14-year-old dispute over claims of illegal handouts for planemakers.
The EU says it expects to strike a similar legal blow later this year in a parallel WTO case about US support for Boeing, raising the prospect of a tit-for-tat sanctions battle.

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CHINA is working to revise the negative lists for foreign investment as the country fulfills its promise to open wider.

The country is working on the revision of two negative lists for foreign investors, namely, a national negative list and a negative list for foreign investors in the free trade zones, said Tang Wenhong, head of the department of foreign investment of Ministry of Commerce.

China started to pilot a negative list approach in the Shanghai FTZ in 2013. All sectors are open to foreign investors except for those outlined in the negative list.

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GLOBAL rating firms are planning to set up independent branches in China as the country continues to open up its financial market.

Standard and Poor's seeks to set up a stand-alone rating firm in China, while Fitch Ratings also plans to apply to Chinese regulators for such a license, said a report from Shanghai Securities News.

China's central bank unveiled rules on inter-bank bond market credit ratings services by foreign rating firms last July, marking the first step in opening the domestic rating market to foreign players.

Previously, foreign rating agencies could only hold minority stakes in joint-venture operations in China.

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ONCE considered a risk, 40 years on, reform and opening-up in the financial sector has proven to be a risk well taken.
Critical to opening-up, a fresh push in the financial sector is providing opportunities for both domestic and global businesses.

In 1984, Shanghai Feilo Acoustics Co issued 10,000 shares at 50 yuan (US$7.80) per share. It was the first listed firm on the Chinese mainland.

Feilo remained largely unknown outside China until two years later, when a stock certificate of the company was given by Deng Xiaoping, architect of reform and opening-up, as a gift to visiting John Phelan, then chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.

Phelan then made a trip to Shanghai, home to China’s first stock exchange, especially to transfer ownership of the certificate. China's first stock exchange counter, measuring about 10 square meters, had been open to the public for just two months.

The formative years of China's equity market accompanied the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, a journey of many twists and turns.

Changes to financial markets will bring ample benefits, and are a necessary step for economic transition, said Zhu Min, former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

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