1.Personal income tax reformed to better benefit people's livelihood

 

The recently released 2023 "bill" on cutting taxes and fees showed the new tax cuts of special additional deductions in personal income tax. As an item closely related to people's daily lives, the tax cuts amounted to RMB 39.18 billion, indicating that to raise thresholds for three additional deductions in personal income tax has brought dividends to people.

 

2.Booming supply and sales in home appliance market

 

Home appliances function as an important area to boost consumption. During the Spring Festival, home appliance manufacturers seized the business opportunities to stimulate market enthusiasm for consumption, through activities, innovative supply, and marketing innovation, to better meet consumer demand. It also helps home appliance replacement, and the accessibility of new home appliances.

 

 

1.The No. 1 central document for the year that the central government released on February 3 focuses on rural development, and calls on local authorities to learn from the successful experience of the Rural Green Revival Project. The document outlines six major undertakings for the year aimed at comprehensively promoting rural vitalization. They are ensuring national food security, forestalling any large-scale relapse into poverty, improving the development of rural industries, strengthening rural construction, enhancing rural governance, and strengthening the leadership of the Communist Party of China on rural work.

 

2.Opinions on promoting the construction of Xiong'an New Area as a model city for green development was released recently by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Government of Hebei Province. According to the opinions, achievements will be made by 2030 in the construction of Xiong'an New Area as a model city for green development.

 

3.The General Office of the State Council recently issued the opinions on accelerating the construction of a waste recycling system. According to the opinions, a waste recycling system covering all fields and segments will be initially built by 2025, with the annual output value of the recycling industry reaching RMB 5 trillion; a comprehensive, efficient, and standardized waste recycling system will be built by 2030, and the overall level of waste recycling will be at the forefront of the world.

 

 

1.According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce on February 4th, China's outbound investment and cooperation have developed steadily in 2023, with a total industry outbound direct investment of RMB 1041.85 billion, an increase of 5.7 percent compared to the previous year.

 

2. The Agricultural Development Bank of China, the country's rural policy bank, has said that it issued loans totaling approximately RMB 2.78 trillion (about USD 391.35 billion) in the country in 2023. Among them, RMB 58.481 billion was in inclusive small and micro loans, a year-on-year increase of 26.32 percent.

 

3.China's e-commerce logistics index, an indicator of logistics operations in the e-commerce sector, stood at 112.8 points in January 2024, up 0.4 points from a month earlier, according to the latest data released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. Specifically, the sub-index tracking logistics volume stood at 125.3 points in January, the highest level in 23 months, the organization said.

 

4.According to the press conference of the State Council Information Office, China's total retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country's consumption strength, climbed 7.2 percent year-on-year to reach RMB 47.15 trillion ($6.56 trillion) in 2023. The significant contribution of consumption to economic expansion, accounting for 82.5 percent, had solidified its role as a primary driver of growth last year

 

5. The latest official reserve assets was announced by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. As of the end of January, China's gold reserves rose to 72.19 million ounces, an increase of 320,000 ounces compared to the previous month.

 

6.The central government allocated approximately RMB 1 trillion in basic old-age insurance subsidies in 2023, with a focus on the central and western regions and old industrial bases that face difficulties in fund income and expenditure, according to the Asset Management Department of the Ministry of Finance.

 

7. China continued to expand its optical fiber network in 2023, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Last year, the country installed nearly 4.74 million km of optical fiber cable, bringing the national total to 64.32 million km, said the ministry. The country had nearly 1.14 billion internet broadband access ports at the end of last year, 64.86 million more than in 2022.

 

8.China's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reported an improvement in business performance in January, an industry index showed on Feb. 14. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Index, based on a survey of 3,000 SMEs from eight major industries, came in at 89.2 last month, up from 89 in the previous month and higher than the reading of a year earlier, according to the China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises.

 

9.The second round of central ecological environment protection, inspection and rectification plan has identified 2164 tasks, with an overall completion rate of 79 percent as of the end of 2023, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

 

10. China's railway network handled 230 million passenger trips from Jan. 26 to Feb. 14, the first half of the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. said on Feb. 15.

 

 

(Source: Economic Daily)