China Economic Review

The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Politburo announced on Thursday that the Third Plenum, a key policy meeting where the country’s leaders will set out a reform agenda, will be held from July 15 to 18 in Beijing, reports Caixin.

The plenum will “primarily examine issues related to further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization,” a Xinhua report said.

The Politburo said during its Thursday meeting that the main goal of deepening reform is to continue to improve the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and modernize the country’s governance system and capacity, as China aims to establish a high-level socialist market economy and “basically achieve socialist modernization” by 2035.

Beijing’s office rents for grade A office buildings have fallen by 30% between Q2 2019 and Q2 2024, with limited new supply and dwindling rental demand, reports Caixin.

Office rents in China’s capital fell 3.9% from the first quarter to RMB 279.2 ($38.4) per square meter, the fastest quarterly decline in nearly four years, data from Cushman & Wakefield and Colliers International show. The rent for grade A office buildings in 2019 was RMB 396.19 per square meter.

The second quarter of 2024 has seen increasing volume but decreasing prices. With what is now a buyer’s market, property owners are reducing rents to attract tenants and landlords are offering more attractive leasing strategies, such as longer rent-free periods and free renovation, Cushman & Wakefield said in a report.

China’s fiscal revenue has had its steepest drop since February 2023, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from China’s Ministry of Finance, fueling expectations that the government could make another rare mid-year budget revision to aid an economic recovery, reports Bloomberg. Total revenues, including the general public budget and the government funds budget, fell 4.1% this year from January-May 2023 to RMB 11.38 trillion ($1.6 trillion).

The combined spending under the two accounts fell 2.2% on-year to RMB 13.61 trillion in the first five months. That leaves a fiscal shortfall of RMB 2.25 trillion, widening from January-May last year but below the level recorded during the same period in 2022.

The government’s budget has been under strain as slowing economic growth weighed on tax income, while a multiyear property market downturn slashed its income from land sales. Local officials have become more aggressive in chasing companies for taxes dating back decades as they try to plug a hole in their finances caused by the housing crisis.

Zeekr’s electric vehicle (EV) sales in Russia have shot up in the last year, putting Chinese car manufacturers ahead of local competition in the country’s small but expanding EV sector, reports Reuters. Chinese carmakers have already seized more than half of Russia’s car market since Western competitors pulled out, after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Governments in Europe and the United States are growing increasingly wary of Chinese dominance in the EV sector but Russia, rather than imposing tariffs, is embracing Chinese brands across all automobile sectors to prop up its car industry.

From May 2023 to April 2024, more than 20,500 new EVs were sold in Russia, a jump of about 350% on the previous year, with Chinese brands accounting for over half of sales, according to data from the Russian analytical agency Autostat.

E-commerce and cloud computing giant, Alibaba Group Holding, is giving developer access on DingTalk to six Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups including Minimax, Moonshot AI, Orionstar, Baichuan, Zhipu AI and 01.AI., reports the South China Morning Post. The start-ups have been given access to expand generative AI features on the workplace messaging platform in Alibaba’s latest bid to gain an edge in the increasingly competitive market.

The move comes as Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, puts AI at the core of its business strategy and promotes DingTalk to more enterprise clients. DingTalk’s rivals, including Tencent Holdings’ WeCom and ByteDance’s Feishu, are also rushing to incorporate AI models into their products.

For the six start-ups collaborating with Alibaba, the tie-up is expected to help introduce their AI products to more users faster via China’s biggest workplace communication tool by user numbers.