China's service trade deficit rises in December -- China continued to see a deficit in foreign service trade in December and the volume has continued to rise, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed on January 31. Income from trade in services stood at 22.3 billion U.S. dollars last month, while expenditure was 43 billion dollars, resulting in a deficit of 20.6 billion dollars. The deficit rose from the 18.4 billion dollars seen a month earlier.
China's non-manufacturing sector expands faster in January -- China's non-manufacturing sector picked up pace in January, an encouraging sign for the government's push for a services-driven economy. The non-manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) came in at 55.3 this month, up from 55 in December and 54.6 in the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on January 31.
China's entrepreneurial environment improves -- An index tracking China's entrepreneurial environment increased in recent years, indicating a more mature ecosystem for innovation, a report showed. The aggregate index for entrepreneurial environment climbed from 2.87 in 2010 to 3.1 during the survey period from 2016 to 2017, a report from Tsinghua University showed.
China becomes biggest source of FDI in Sri Lanka in 2017 -- China became the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sri Lanka in 2017, according to Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment (BOI). In 2017, Sri Lanka attracted 1.63 billion U.S. dollars of FDI, hitting a record high, of which about 35 percent came from China, making it the largest investor in Sri Lanka last year, said the BOI. Sri Lanka saw its FDI in 2016 reach 802 million U.S. dollars.
China becomes the Philippines' second largest source of tourists in 2017 -- Approximately 968,000 Chinese tourists visited the Philippines in 2017, up 43.3 percent year on year, making China the second largest source of foreign arrivals, according to the Philippine Department of Tourism. Data shows that the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been the largest source of the tourists in the Philippines at present, with about 1.6 million tourists of ROK visiting the county last year. The U.S. and Japanese tourists came the third and the fourth, respectively, with about 957,000 and 584,000 tourists in the Philippines, respectively.
Investment in Xinjiang up 19.6 pct in 2017 -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region attracted more than 538 billion yuan (85 billion U.S. dollars) in investment last year, up 19.6 percent year on year, local authorities said on January 31. The 538 billion yuan excluded foreign and oil investment, according to the investment promotion bureau in the region. Much of the investment came from 19 provincial-level regions, which injected a total of 344 billion yuan in more than 2,650 projects in 2017, an increase of 23 percent from a year ago. The investment has greatly driven the development of labor-intensive industries such as textiles, electronics, agricultural products as well as tourism and cultural services in Xinjiang.
China's listed firms see higher earnings amid economic restructuring -- Listed companies in China reported rapid profit growth in 2017 as the country's supply-side structural reform began to bear results. So far, over half of listed companies on the country's two major exchanges have reported their 2017 performance, and nearly 70 percent of them saw profit gains, according to the Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News.
China's Gansu sees RMB13.5 bln trade with countries along Belt & Road -- Northwest China's Gansu province saw its trade with the countries along the Belt and Road routes stand at 13.5 billion yuan in 2017, up 32 percent year on year, according to Hao Yuan, Vice Chairman of Gansu Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at a recent local meeting.
China's rustbelt province sees fast economic growth in 2017 -- China's northeast rustbelt province Liaoning reported fast economic growth in 2017, reversing the negative growth in 2016, local authorities said on January 27. Gross domestic product in Liaoning, one of the three provinces in the traditional industrial zone, grew 4.2 percent to 2.39 trillion yuan (375 billion U.S. dollars) last year, said Tang Yijun, acting governor of the province, as he delivered a government work report at the ongoing local legislative session.
Jiangsu economy benefits from Belt and Road Initiative in 2017 -- East China's Jiangsu, the country's largest manufacturing province, saw booming foreign trade with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative in 2017, according to the province's annual government work report. The export volume to countries along the initiative exceeded 590 billion yuan in 2017 (92 billion U.S. dollars), up 16.3 percent year on year, accounting for more than 24 percent of the province's total exports, the report said. Jiangsu attracted more than 1.3 billion dollars of direct investment from these countries last year.
China's coal hub Shanxi adds 10 bln tonnes of coal reserves -- North China's coal-rich Shanxi Province has added nearly 10.5 billion tonnes of newly discovered coal reserves over the past five years, local authorities said on January 27. Shanxi produced more than 16.2 billion tonnes of coal from 1949 to 2014, accounting for one-quarter of the total coal output across the country, said the provincial land and resources department. By 2014, the province had found 294 billion tonnes of coal reserves.
China issues more bonds in 2017 -- China issued bonds worth 40.8 trillion yuan (6.38 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, up 12.9 percent year on year, the central bank said on January 26. Treasury bond issuance increased by 1 trillion yuan to reach 3.9 trillion yuan last year, according to the report released by the People's Bank of China. Local government bond issuance slowed in 2017 to 4.4 trillion yuan, compared with the 6 trillion yuan issued in 2016.
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