1. Unleashing China's Potential for Economic Growth 

 

A crucial step towards China's economic progress and prosperity is reform and opening up. The Central Economic Work Conference in 2023 underscored the need to intensify efforts towards promoting reform and opening up, coordinate in-depth reform and high-level opening up, give full play to the market's decisive role in resource allocation, improve government performance, continuously liberate and develop social productivity, and stimulate and enhance social vitality. Standing at a new historical starting point, we need to make greater use of this mechanism to steadily raise the productivity of all factors and maximize the structural potential of the nation's economic growth.

 

2. Risk Management for Automobile Financing

 

The National Financial Regulatory Administration recently issued the "Measures for Regulatory Rating of Automobile Financial Companies". To regulate the automobile financial industry, it will restrict the business operations of automobile financial companies with greater risks. After the "Administrative Measures for Automobile Financial Companies" released last year, this new regulation will undoubtedly further eliminate regulatory blind spots and promote the regulated development of automobile financing.

 

 

 

1. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology with other 6 departments jointly issued a post that it will accelerate the green development of manufacturing industry and optimize the green low-carbon benchmark fostering system. By 2030, the output value of green factories at all levels will account for more than 40 percent of the total output value of manufacturing industry.

 

2.The island of Hengqin in south China's Guangdong Province on Mar. 1 started to allow most goods to be moved there tax-free from the neighboring Macao Special Administrative Region. The new customs operation became effective at midnight in the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, in the city of Zhuhai. 

 

3. China will grant a visa-free policy to Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg on a trial basis starting on March 14. According to the Foreign Ministry, from March 14 to Nov 30, ordinary passport holders from the above countries can enter China without a visa for up to 15 days for business, tourism, family visit, and transit purpose.

 

 

 

1.In February, the purchasing managers' index (PMI) of China's manufacturing industry came in at 49.1 percent, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous month; the non-manufacturing business activity index was 51.4 percent, an increase of 0.7 percentage point from the previous month; the composite PMI output index was 50.9 percent, flat from the previous month, indicating that the overall production and operation of Chinese enterprises continued to expand.

 

2.In the first two months of this year, a total of 25 China-Vietnam freight trains were dispatched, carrying 600 TEU of goods, with a year-on-year increase of 56 percent and 35 percent respectively, according to the Nanning Bureau of China Railway.

 

3.In 2023, the students enrolled in all forms of higher education totaled 47.6 million, with an increase of 1.08 million, or 2.32 percent, compared with last year.

 

4.China's Lithium-ion battery sector sustained its growth momentum in 2023, with total output surpassing 940 GWh, rising 25 percent year on year. The output value of the sector exceeded RMB 1.4 trillion in 2023.

 

5.The drilling of the Shenditake-1 well in the Tarim Basin in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region broke through the 10,000-meter depth mark on March 4, making it the first well in China with a design depth of over 10,000 meters, according to its operator China National Petroleum Corporation.

 

6.The 32nd East China Fair ended its 4-day exhibition, with more than 40,000 domestic and foreign traders from more than 110 countries. The turnover of the fair reached 2.21 billion US dollars, with a significant increase over the previous session.

 

7.A total of 10,442 China-Laos freight trains were dispatched by March 4, according to Kunming Customs. The cargo volume continued to grow, and the goods covered more than 3000 kinds, including fruits, grains, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic products etc. The frequency of the train increased from 2 per day to 20 per day.

 

8.According to China Railway, the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush ended with several travel indicators hitting a record high, and passenger flow in railway reached 484 million visits, with safe and orderly travels.

 

9.By February, cross-border RMB settlement in trade transaction accounted for 30 percent of all cross-border settlement, said Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China.

 

10.According to the General Administration of Customs, China's total export and import values in January and February totaled RMB 6.61 trillion, with a year-on-year increase of 8.7 percent, and the trade surplus expanded 23.6 percent to RMB 890.87 billion.

 

(Source: Economic Daily)