Earlier this month, one of China's largest conglomerates held a conference in Beijing to address what the company plans to do in support of the government's environmental targets.   One by one, every one of the company's dozens of large subsidiaries, from its financial arms to its specialty steelmaking unit, announced ambitious goals.   Such events are now a feature of corporate life in China. Beijing's ambitious plans to move to peak carbon emissions ...

The Chinese government has unveiled the summary of the country’s five-year plan for 2021 to 2025, amid a heavy smog in Beijing. Among other things, the plan sets a target of “basically eliminating” heavy air pollution days by 2025.   As China is responsible for almost 30% of global energy sector CO2 emissions, and emissions have returned to growth in recent years, the new plan gives critical insight into how fast the country is planning to start limiting emissio ...

China’s annual National People’s Congress parliamentary session will take place in March to approve the country’s social and economic development plans for the period 2021-25. This 14th Five-Year Plan (Plan) will be released against a backdrop of a challenging domestic economy, an increasingly complex international environment, and China’s plans to play a bigger role in the global economy.   An outline of the Plan was released late last year,  ...

A slew of Chinese startups went public in 2020, and it looks like Chinese tech IPOs will keep booming through 2021. Three of China's "four AI dragons" (AI四小龙) are almost certain to go public this year. Some of China's biggest unicorns, such as ByteDance and Didi Chuxing, are also likely to join them. Here are the China tech IPOs you need to know for 2021.     Companies gearing up for IPOs Megvii One of China's largest facial-r ...

2020 was not an easy year for Chinese tech companies. Officials around the world became warier of the potential national security threats posed by their growing power. A slew of bans, restrictions, and sanctions on Chinese tech companies strengthened China’s resolve to shore up indigenous innovation and self-reliance. And while the Biden administration will likely take a more measured policy approach than the Trump administration, it is unlikely that things will get much easier for ...

In 2008, Alibaba founder Jack Ma famously declared, “if the banks don’t change, we will change the banks.” His words sparked an entrepreneurial renaissance in China’s fintech industry. ‘Fintech’ (金融科技), a portmanteau of financial technology, refers to the application of new technologies to “improve and automate the delivery of financial services.” Since Ma’s pronouncement, mainland China has produced eight fintech ‘unicorns,& ...

Chinese electric automaker NIO will use NVIDIA DRIVE for advanced automated driving technology in its future fleets, marking the genesis of truly intelligent and personalized NIO vehicles.   During a global reveal event, the EV maker took the wraps off its latest ET7 sedan, which starts shipping in 2022 and features a new NVIDIA-powered supercomputer, called Adam, that uses NVIDIA DRIVE Orin to deploy advanced automated driving technology.    ...

Should the EU – China Investment agreement be ratified, European companies should receive preferential market access in a number of these sectors in China and Chinese companies will be permitted to push forward on their green energy and NEV investment strategies into the EU. The Key elements of the agreement are layed out below.   The cumulative EU foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from the EU to China over the last 20 years have reached more than €1 ...

Asia may be leading the transformation in B2B e-commerce but there are still untapped opportunities. If 2020 becomes known as the year e-commerce erupted, then Asia will be remembered as the epicentre of the transformation. In a region that was already emerging as the global hub for e-commerce in 2019 – the top seven countries for online consumer spending growth were all in Asia – the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the pace.   Now, as broadband access widens, 5G ne ...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Africa was supposed to be China’s new stomping grounds. Instead, the novel coronavirus has spawned a growing backlash that threatens to unwind the ties Beijing has carefully cultivated over decades.   The trigger for the burgeoning diplomatic crisis: Anger over the treatment of African citizens living in China and frustration at Beijing’s position on granting debt relief to fight against the outbreak.   China has spent untold ...

The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), known as the "China Tianyan", has officially begun the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, looking for signals from intelligent life deep in the universe, the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said today.     The search for and monitoring of radio pulsars is a core scientific objective of FAST. And the search for extraterrestrial civilizations is one of the scientific g ...

Decades of rapid economic growth have dramatically expanded China’s energy needs. China is now the world’s largest consumer of energy, the largest producer and consumer of coal, and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. However strong growth of renewable power is currently the key driver of China’s energy transition.     Projections for 2050 2% to 14% Increase in primary energy between 2018 and 2050 -44% to -94% Decline in coal consumption betw ...

The UAE has set its sights on boosting trade and investment ties with the world's second largest economy – China. While the economic powerhouse of Asia has been a strong market for UAE oil exports, the relationship between the two countries has deepened over the past few years as they find synergies and areas of co-operation in a wide range of sectors that go beyond hydrocarbons. China and the UAE launched a US$ 10 billion fund in late 2015, which focuses on sectors of strategic imp ...

Despite a precipitous plunge in March, the price of copper has risen 7.6% since the start of 2020 and looks set to maintain momentum in the coming months and beyond as China's economic recovery gathers steam. Copper prices plummeted from a high of US$6,270 per tonne in mid-January to a low of US$4,617.50/t in late March after the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 to be a pandemic but has since recovered to levels last seen in 2018. China's appetite for  ...

Chinese electric vehicle startup and Tesla challenger Xpeng Motors has exported its first batch of vehicles to Europe, expanding its global presence. It's the first time the automaker is selling its electric vehicles outside of its home country.     Xpeng loaded 100 of its G3i fully electric SUVs on a cargo ship which will be shipped to Norway, which has the highest EV adoption rate. Roughly 75% of all new vehicles sold in Norway are plug-in hybrids of fully-electric ...

Aldi has become the latest overseas supermarket operator to open stores in China, the 8th was recently opened in Shanghai,  but the German company faces a battle to win over customers in a fragmented market in which foreign operators have traditionally struggled: Tesco and Spain’s Dia abandoned operations in the country and Germany’s Metro is selling its China unit. Walmart and Carrefour have struggled to gain more than a single-digit market share.      ...

Even before Covid-19, mobile payment platforms were experiencing a boom in the U.S. and China. Apple Pay (U.S.) and Alipay (China) have radically changed the way people transact, offering secure, contactless payment options through mobile phones. Though both platforms are growing, Alipay is outperforming its U.S. peer: As of late 2019, Bain & Company found that only 9% of American consumers had adopted Apple Pay while 81% of Chinese consumers used Alipay. Given the size difference between ...

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China has released its European Business in China – Position Paper 2020/2021 (Position Paper). This annual publication delivers to the Chinese Government over 800 detailed recommendations for improving the business environment, spread across 34 industry sectors and horizontal issues. The Position Paper details how persistent issues, such as limited market access and a complex regulatory environment, prevent European businesses from contributing  ...