China will accelerate the issuance of local government special bonds to ensure the stability of the bond market, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
The issuance of new special bonds should be coordinated with that of special bonds for Covid-19 control and general bonds, the MoF said in a circular.
The issuance will be completed by the end of October. The maturity of the bonds should be decided in accordance with the actual circumstances.
Meanwhile, the allocation of the new special bonds should be optimized, according to the circular, with the funds used in areas including transport infrastructure, energy projects, agricultural and water conservancy and environmental protection projects.
The MoF strictly forbids using the new special bonds for the replacement of outstanding debt, as well as recurring expenditure, unit operating expenses, payment of pensions, paychecks or interest payments.
Special bonds that have been issued should be put to use properly and in a timely manner, said the circular, while the ministry will keep a close eye on the issuance and use of the bonds to ensure the efficiency and quality of the funded projects.
Software and information services
The revenue of software and information services in Beijing exceeded 1.34 trillion yuan (US$192.4 billion) in 2019, accounting for 23% of China’s total, local authorities said Wednesday.
In 2019, the added value of the services in the Chinese capital city reached 478.39 billion yuan, making up 13.5% of the city’s GDP, according to a report released by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology.
The number of employees in the sector stood at 899,000, accounting for 14.6% of those working in the tertiary industry, the report said.
The artificial intelligence industry in Beijing has reached a leading position and has formed a complete industrial chain, from high-end chips and basic software to core algorithms, according to the report.
The application of big data has been expanded in both breadth and depth, with the scale of the industry exceeding 200 billion yuan, the report said.
Trademark review period
China will increase the efficiency in handling trademark applications by further shortening the process of trademark reviews to within four months, an official with the National Intellectual Property Administration said Wednesday.
China’s processing time for trademark applications has been reduced to less than 4.5 months, which is at the forefront globally, and will further be cut to within four months by the end of this year, Cui Shoudong, head of the administration’s Trademark Office, said at the launch of an annual campaign to publicize reform of trademark registrations Tuesday.
Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the office has accelerated epidemic-related trademark reviews, Cui said.
Apart from reducing the review period, the office will launch online application services for trademark oppositions and invalidations this year, and continue to crack down on malicious trademark filings for a fair market, he added.
The story was written by Yang Zhijie and Liu Licong and first published at ATimesCN.com. It was translated by Nadeem Xu.