Opinion

1. Turning more rural roads into pathways for revitalization

China has unveiled regulations to promote the high-quality development of rural roads so that they meet the needs of advancing rural revitalization across the board and accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. The new regulations will provide better communication for the production and daily lives of residents in vast rural areas.

2. Regulating unrestricted corporate competition

Free meal vouchers flooding the market, automakers engaging in price wars, and photovoltaic companies competing for orders with razor-thin margins - behind the seemingly lively market lies the risk of excessive or even unrestricted competition among enterprises. The recent meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee openly called for regulating unrestricted corporate competition according to law, charting the course for optimizing market order.

Policy

1. China has deployed the construction of 10 national comprehensive data resources pilot zones in Beijing, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, and Guizhou. Local governments will advance the pilot zone construction based on local conditions, according to the National Data Administration.

2. China on July 27 released a set of guidelines to boost consumption of agricultural products, with efforts to optimize supply and stimulate demand. These guidelines, jointly issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and nine other government departments, urge efforts to make the most effective use of the supply of green and high-quality agricultural products to meet multi-tiered consumer demands.

3. China has introduced a nationwide childcare subsidy program starting in 2025, as part of broader efforts to support families and encourage childbirth. The program will offer families RMB 3,600 (about USD 503) per year for each child under the age of three.

Data

1. In the first half of the year, national general public budget expenditures reached RMB 14.1271 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 3.4 percent, according to the data released by the Ministry of Finance on July 25.

2. In the first half of the year, China's cross-regional passenger flow reached 33.76 billion trips, up 4.2 percent year-on-year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Transport on July 25.

3. In the first half of the year, China issued RMB 7.88 trillion in government bonds, an increase of RMB 2.0547 trillion or 35.28 percent year-on-year at an average interest rate of 1.52 percent, down 43 basis points year-on-year. Investor demand for bonds remained strong, according to the Ministry of Finance.

4. The 2025 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance was held from July 26 - 28 in Shanghai. The exhibition area exceeded 70,000 square meters for the first time, attracting over 800 companies showcasing more than 3,000 cutting-edge exhibits, including more than 100 global or China debut products, setting a record in scale.

5. The China Auto Finance Company Industry Development Report (2025) issued by the China Banking Association showed that by the end of 2024, the total assets of 24 auto finance companies nationwide stood at RMB 855.134 billion, maintaining a high level, with retail financing balances reaching RMB 690.024 billion.

6. China's top economic planner said that another RMB 69 billion (about USD 9.65 billion) in ultra-long special treasury bond funds had been allocated to support the country's consumer goods trade-in program. The Ministry of Finance, together with NDRC, has this year earmarked RMB 300 billion in such funds to back the consumer goods trade-in program.

7. China's cultural industry sustained steady revenue growth in the first half of 2025 as the cultural services sector expanded solidly and new business models continued to flourish, official data showed on July 30. The combined operating revenue of major cultural companies amounted to over RMB 7.1 trillion (about USD 996.9 billion) in the January-June period, up 7.4 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

8. The steel industry performed better than expected in the first half of the year. Key steel enterprises reported total profits of RMB 59.2 billion, up 63.26 percent year-on-year, with an average profit margin of 1.97 percent, an increase of 0.83 percentage points, according to the China Iron and Steel Association.

9. In the first half of the year, the total value of national social logistics or the sum of physical goods in logistics operations reached RMB 171.3 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent, according to the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing.

10. Data showed that from January to June, China's charging infrastructure expansion nearly doubled year-on-year. By the end of June 2025, the cumulative number of EV charging infrastructure facilities nationwide reached nearly 16.10 million at the end of June, a 55.6-percent increase year-on-year.

(Source: Economic Daily)