IN BRIEF (Page 7)

Spanish firm in deal with Alibaba

Europe's biggest department store group, El Corte Ingles, and Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba have signed an agreement to develop "close collaboration" in a range of fields, according to the Madrid-based firm. In a statement, El Corte Ingles said the agreement covered areas such as "retail sales and distribution, cloud computing services, digital innovation and payment using mobile phones".

Minsheng to back private companies