Opinion

1. Advancing high-level financial opening up

China has achieved remarkable progress in opening up the financial sector, significantly expanding market access and deepening interconnections between domestic and international financial markets. We should steadily expand institutional opening up, refine supporting reform measures, and coordinate opening up and security to sustain this momentum.

2. Legal protection to boost the development of China's private sector

As China's first fundamental law dedicated to the private sector, the private sector promotion law is poised to strengthen oversight of administrative law enforcement, optimize the development environment, and foster the healthy growth of both private businesses and private entrepreneurs. The law regulates public power across all domains and stages, from policy access and market opening to organizational support, information disclosure, and fund disbursement, marking a milestone bolstering legal safeguards for the sector.

Policy

1. China will implement reform measures enabling free electricity connection for private enterprises. Individual businesses, farmstay owners, and others requiring new power access will benefit from waived fees, and the number of new users will be about 1.5 million in the next five years, the National Energy Administration said.

2. China announced a set of guidelines to promote the southern city of Shenzhen as a reform pioneer. The city is encouraged to take new steps in reform, innovation and opening up, according to the official document.

3. China endeavors to build more than 20 biomanufacturing pilot-scale testing platforms by 2027, serving more than 200 enterprises and incubating more than 400 products, according to a notice jointly released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission.

Data

1. China's railway system transported more than 4.31 billion passengers in 2024, up 11.9 percent year on year, according to the National Railway Administration.

2. China reported continued improvement in its water use efficiency in 2024, according to the water resources bulletin released annually by the Ministry of Water Resources. Last year, China's water consumption per 10,000 yuan (1,391.5 U.S. dollars) of GDP declined 4.4 percent year on year. And water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value dropped 5.3 percent.

3. The National Development and Reform Commission announced that with the release of a new list of 19 national backbone cold chain logistics bases, China has established a comprehensive "four horizontal and four vertical" national cold chain logistics network.

4. The China marine economy development index, a key gauge of progress in the country's ocean economy, revealed that China's gross ocean product exceeded 10 trillion yuan for the first time last year, a year-on-year increase of 5.9 percent. The index was released by the Ministry of Natural Resources on June 8 to mark the World Oceans Day.

5. According to the Ministry of Transport, China has completed the digital transformation and smart expansion of over 500 kilometers of highway trunk lines as part of the demonstration project for upgrading transportation infrastructure.

6. China saw a vibrant surge in inbound consumption following the rollout of its refined tax-refund-upon-departure policy, with notable increases in both the number of tax refund stores and the total amount refunded. Between April 27 and May 26, the number of departure tax refund transactions processed by the country's tax authorities jumped 116 percent year on year, and sales at tax refund stores climbed 56 percent, the State Taxation Administration said on June 10.

7. Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that NEV production in China had surged 45.2 percent year on year to nearly 5.70 million units in the first five months of 2025, with sales up by 44.0 percent year on year to nearly 5.61 million units. NEVs accounted for 44.0 percent of total new vehicle sales in China in the January-May period this year.

8. China's total imports and exports with African countries increased from less than 100 billion yuan (about 13.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2000 to 2.1 trillion yuan in 2024, marking an average annual growth of 14.2 percent, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC). China had been Africa's largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years by the end of 2024, and the growth of bilateral trade has continued to pick up pace so far in 2025.

9. China recorded a 5.4-percent rise in inter-regional passenger trips last year as travel activity steadily recovered, official data showed on June 12. Nearly 64.6 billion inter-regional passenger trips were made across the country in 2024, according to a report by the Ministry of Transport.

10. Chinese seaport cities saw the added value of their port economy hit 6.7 trillion yuan (about 933 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, up 360.6 billion yuan over the previous year, according to a report released by an institute under the Ministry of Transport on June 12. The report provides a comprehensive evaluation of port-related economic activity across 59 Chinese seaport cities. Port economy accounted for 13.6 percent of the 59 seaport cities' total economic output.

(Source: Economic Daily)