Opinion

1. Boosting global appeal of China's megacities

Innovation stands as the foremost priority in building modern people-centered cities, as outlined by the Central Urban Work Conference. The recently released guidelines on promoting high-quality urban development advocate support measures targeting three areas in megacities, i.e. institutional innovation, resource allocation, and sci-tech innovation capabilities. This underscores the imperative for these urban hubs to strengthen their nodal connectivity, amplify their global appeal, and foster open environments for technological innovation with international competitiveness.

2. Unleashing private investment potential

China's private investment is poised to showcase three major trends: an accelerated shift toward high-quality development sectors, with increasing capital flowing into new quality productive forces, emerging service industries, and new infrastructure. As policy measures continue to take effect, private investment will play a more significant role across a broader range of fields.

Policy

1. Chinese authorities have issued a work plan to support Beijing for piloting the World Trade Organization e-commerce agreement, according to the Ministry of Commerce on September 12. The plan was jointly issued by five government bodies including the Ministry of Commerce, Cyberspace Administration of China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, General Administration of Customs, and State Administration for Market Regulation.

2. China has unveiled a two-year work plan (2025-2026) to stabilize auto sector growth, targeting sales of approximately 32.3 million vehicles in 2025, up around 3 percent year on year. The plan, jointly issued by eight government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, projects sales of new energy vehicles to hit around 15.5 million units in 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of around 20 percent.

3. China's National Financial Regulatory Administration has recently revised and issued regulatory assessment methods to protect consumer rights of financial institutions. The methods include expanding the evaluation scope, optimizing assessment criteria, and improving review procedures to ensure financial institutions operate in compliance with laws and regulations and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers.

Data

1. Over the past four years, China's economy has achieved an average growth rate of 5.5 percent, contributing around 30 percent to global economic growth, according to the Ministry of Finance.

2. Data shows that in the first eight months of this year, the total import and export value of trade in goods in central and western regions of China reached RMB 5.31 trillion, hitting a record high for the same period, with a growth rate of 10.4 percent, continuing to lead the nation. The proportion of import and export value in central and western regions to the national total has increased to 18 percent.

3. The total number of registered new energy public buses had reached about 544,000 units by the end of 2024 in China, accounting for 82.7 percent of all urban public buses in the country, a transport official said on September 12. As of the end of 2024, the total length of urban public bus lines in operation had reached 1.75 million kilometers, and the total mileage of urban rail transit in operation had reached approximately 11,000 kilometers, ranking first worldwide.

4. A near RMB 2 billion planned investment has been made to launch the construction of China's first R&D and testing innovation base for the entire smart connected vehicle industry chain. In the future, this base will not only focus on smart connected vehicles but also extend to cutting-edge equipment industries such as low-altitude economy and embodied intelligence.

5. China's first batch of large-scale onshore wind power projects using 10-megawatt generators - the Urat Middle Banner 1.5-million-kilowatt wind energy storage base in Inner Mongolia - officially commenced commercial operation on September 14.

6. In the first eight months of this year, the China-Central Asia freight trains made 9,626 trips, setting a new record for the same period, with 751,000 TEUs of goods transported, representing year-on-year increases of 22.7 percent and 31.1 percent, respectively.

7. China's grain production reached a new high during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), surpassing 700 million tonnes for the first time in 2024. The figure represents an increase of 37 million tonnes compared with 2020.

8. China and ASEAN have been each other's largest trading partners for five consecutive years, with ASEAN maintaining its position as China's largest trading partner in agricultural products for eight consecutive years. In the first eight months of 2025, China's imports and exports with ASEAN rose 9.7 percent year on year to RMB 4.93 trillion (about USD 694 billion), hitting a historic high for the period, according to the data.

9. Data shows that the R&D expenditure of China's centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has grown at an average annual rate of about 6.5 percent during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), exceeding RMB 1 trillion for three consecutive years, and reaching RMB 1.1 trillion last year.

10. China's largest shale gas production base in the southern Sichuan Basin, has achieved a cumulative output exceeding 100 billion cubic meters, making it the country's first shale gas field to reach this milestone, said PetroChina Southwest Oil and Gasfield Company.

(Source: Economic Daily)