China will impose tougher penalties for financial violations in the banking and insurance sectors, according to a new regulation on administrative punishments in the sectors that will come into effect on August 1.
The regulation, issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, integrates and optimizes the administrative penalty procedures for the banking and insurance industries and establishes the basic principles on which such penalties are based.
An increase in the severity of punishments is highlighted in the regulation, particularly for repeat offenders, those failing to cooperate with regulatory enforcement and violations causing serious consequences.
The regulation stipulates both the punishment of institutions and the holding to account of individuals responsible for transgressions.
Foreign investors
Some 99.1% of respondents in a recent survey, conducted by the Ministry of Commerce (MoC), said their companies’ operations in the world’s second-largest economy will continue.
China will provide more quality services to foreign firms and create a more law-based, internationalized and convenient business environment, said MoC spokesperson Gao Feng.
Foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland, in actual use, fell by 1.3% year on year to 472.18 billion yuan (US$67 billion) in the first half of 2020, with the second quarter registering 8.4% year-on-year growth.
Manufacturing PMI
The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s manufacturing sector rose to 51.1 in July from 50.9 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
“Policies of balancing epidemic control and economic development further yield tangible fruit, as economic vitality continues recovering and enterprises keep registering better operational outcomes,” NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said, citing the sub-indices of the manufacturing PMI as evidence of economic recovery across the board.
The sub-index for production edged up 0.1 points to 54 in July. New orders picked up 0.3 points to 51.7, rising for three consecutive months, while the sub-index measuring new export orders gained 5.8 points to 48.4.
Online retail sales
China’s online retail sales reached 5.15 trillion yuan in the first half of 2020, up 7.3% year on year, according to the MoC.
The number of e-commerce users in China rose by 100 million compared with last year, while the number of stores on major online retail platforms went up 3.8% year on year, MoC data showed.
Mobile gaming industry
China’s mobile gaming industry gained momentum with a greater market share in the first six months of this year, according to an industry report released Thursday.
The actual sales revenue of the sector rose 35.81% year on year to 104.67 billion yuan during the period, stated the report released during the 2020 China Digital Entertainment Congress in Shanghai.
The figure accounts for 75% of the total revenue of the country’s gaming industry, expanding from a 68.5% market share in 2019.
The report showed that the sectors of cloud gaming and e-sports are booming amid technological upgrades across the country, with their actual sales revenue registering a year-on-year growth of 79.35% and 54.69%, respectively.
China’s gaming industry saw actual sales revenue of 139.49 billion yuan, up 22.34% year on year, the report added.
Company news
Chinese tech giant Tencent has teamed up with the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH), a non-governmental organization within UNESCO, to explore China’s experience in digital cultural production.
The two sides will work together to strengthen the integration of technology with human sciences, as well as to promote the global digital cultural industry and relevant academic research, according to a memorandum of strategic cooperation signed at an online ceremony.
In the Cloud & AI Session at the Better World Summit 2020, Huawei Technologies announced it will continuously work with global carriers to build new ICT infrastructure that runs on innovative 5G, cloud and AI technologies to enable intelligent transformation across numerous industries.
Also at this event, China Telecom shared how they develop differentiated 5G + cloud + AI service capabilities based on cloud-network synergy and introduced the latest application practices.
The story was written by Xu Jiangshan and Liu Licong and first published at ATimesCN.com. It was translated by Nadeem Xu.