The pace of growth of new energy vehicles in China last year was beyond market expectations with production and sales reaching 794,000 and 777,000 units, up 53.8 and 53.3 percent year-on-year. With 449,000 units sold, electric cars contributed to 80.7 percent of the total sales of new energy vehicles, an increase of 81 percent year-on-year. And the number of new energy vehicles has crossed 1.8 million, accounting for more than half of the 3.4 million such vehicles in the world.
Over the past five years, people's living standards have improved, and the basic health insurance plan now covers 1.35 billion people, making it the largest social safety program in the world, Premier Li Keqiang said at this year's annual sessions of China's top legislature and political advisory body.
A cronyism scandal is damaging the credibility of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet members. The Japanese finance ministry has admitted that its documents related to the sale of a plot of state-owned land in Osaka prefecture to private school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which the ministry's officials called a "special deal" in the original files, were altered. The edited parts include the names of several politicians and Abe's wife Akie Abe who had visited Moritomo Gakuen several times.
The average price of beer in China has gone up sharply as consumers demand higher-quality products, boosting sales for medium - and high-end beers, according to industry observers.
Property markets in major Southeast Asian and South Asian countries will benefit from China's Belt and Road Initiative in the coming five years, with Indonesia and the Philippines likely becoming the biggest winners, a Colliers International report said.
More individual investors in the Chinese stock market prefer a value investment strategy than engaging in speculative trading, according to a recent report released by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
China Wedding Expo, the world's largest wedding exposition in terms of scale and revenue, is expanding its online presence.
China reduced its holdings of US treasuries to a seven-month low in January, amid concerns that the world's largest bond market might suffer headwinds from impending interest rate increases.
Meeting China's rising demand for natural gas, especially in the heating season, could prove to be challenging due to limited domestic output, slow pipeline imports and distribution network bottlenecks. However, experts believe a natural gas shortage is unlikely this coming winter as higher liquefied natural gas imports will help bridge the supply demand gap.
Baidu Inc has invested 1.01 billion yuan ($159.7 million) in Coocaa, a smart television unit owned by consumer electronics producer Skyworth Digital Holdings Ltd, as part of the search giant's wider push into the smart hardware sector.
The First Plenary Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference closed on Thursday, with 5,360 proposals received from its 2,158 members, covering a wide range of issues in such fields as politics, the economy, culture and ecology.
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263 Registration Number: 20100000002731 
Raymond Zhou
Op Rana
Berlin Fang
Zhu Yuan
Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua
