Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.
Coming up on today’s program
New Year’s Day holidays see spike in train ticket booking as residents embrace winter travel rush;
Emergency response mechanism has been launched to ensure aid to a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in Gansu province.
Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours
Train tickets for the first day of the upcoming New Year's Day holidays went on sale on Saturday, with some popular routes sold out within seconds, data from online travel platforms showed.
China's major railway ticket booking platform 12306 showed that, as of 15:00 p.m. on Sunday, tickets for a number of trains are sold out, including those departing from Beijing to Wuhan, Nanjing to Hefei, Hangzhou, Chengdu to Chongqing, and Xi'an.
Data from Chinese travel agency Ctrip showed on the first day of the holiday, tickets for short-distance travel in urban areas such as Beijing to Tianjin, Shanghai to Nanjing, Shenzhen, Guangdong province to Guangzhou, and Chongqing to Chengdu are in high demand. The travel demand is mainly to visit relatives.
This year's New Year's Day holidays extends from December 30, 2023, to January 1, 2024.
In terms of hotel booking, home stays and hotel rooms for New Year's Eve are popular choices for tourists. Data from travel portal Qunar showed hotel rooms for Dec 31 - Jan 1 in Harbin, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shanghai and Beijing, especially those in luxury hotels, have higher bookings. Tickets for Universal Beijing Resort, Disneyland in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai, Guangdong province and Harbin Ice and Snow World are rapidly booking out in advance.
In addition, Tongcheng Travel's data also showed that the popularity of domestic islands travel on its platform for the New Year's Day holidays increased by 72 percent year-on-year, and the popularity of Southeast Asian islands travel increased by three times year-on-year.
The New Year's Day holidays is a traditional golden season for consumption. According to an analysis by the Tongcheng Research Institute, the combination of family visits and tourism during the upcoming holidays, coupled with the popularity of "ice and snow" tourism, is expected to increase traffic on high-speed rail routes from cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Zhengzhou to popular winter destinations including Harbin, Shenyang, Urumqi, and Hulun Buir.
Additionally, there is anticipated high demand for dedicated "ski trains" from Beijing to Zhangjiakou in North China's Hebei Province during the holiday period, Tongcheng said. An earlier report released by Tongcheng showed that travel enthusiasm for the New Year's Day holidays has seen a year-on-year increase of 465 percent in the seven days leading up to Monday.
Per data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday, the service industry experienced rapid growth in November, as year-on-year growth of the national service industry production index came in at 9.3 percent, accelerating 1.6 percentage points compared to the previous month.
Over 100 people have been confirmed dead after a magnitude 6.2 earthquake with a hypocenter depth of 10 kilometers struck Jishishan county, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, in China's northwestern Gansu province at 11:59 p.m. yesterday. The National Development and Reform Commission has launched the emergency response mechanism and taken timely measures to ensure stable supply of energy, electricity and essential materials in response to the quake. The ministries of emergency management and finance have allocated 200 million yuan to Gansu and Qinghai to help disaster relief operations in jolt-stricken areas in the two provinces, according to a media release from the Ministry of Emergency Management.
Below-average temperatures will continue across the country this week due to the lingering effects of a cold wave that will affect the country's transportation system, heating supplies and agriculture. The China Meteorological Administration again issued a yellow cold wave warning on Monday, the second highest of the three-tier system, as temperatures across the nation remained well below average for this time of year. Low temperatures are expected in various regions over the next three days, and also over the next 10 days in some areas, the National Meteorological Center said.
China is on track to achieve the major targets for economic and social development of 2023, and consumer inflation is expected to grow mildly in 2024, a spokesperson with the National Development and Reform Commission said Tuesday. With the economic recovery continuing to gather steam and the effects of pro-growth policies, the country has the conditions and the capability to enhance economic operations, boost endogenous impetus, improve public expectations and fend off risks, the spokesperson said.
Next on industry and company news
Nio’s shares advanced after announcing that CYVN Holdings, an investment firm focused on smart travel backed by the Abu Dhabi government, plans to invest USD2.2 billion to almost triple its shareholding ratio in the Chinese new energy vehicle startup. CYVN will subscribe 294 million Class-A common shares of Nio for USD7.50 apiece, the Shanghai-based company said in a statement yesterday. With the transaction, CYVN will raise its stake in Nio to 20.1 percent from 7 percent, becoming the carmaker’s largest shareholder.
Chinese new energy vehicle startup Xpeng Motors followed its peers, including BYD and Li Auto, in joining the year-end price war in China’s automobile industry. Xpeng yesterday announced it would cut the price of its G6, a model that has been on the market for less than six months, by 10,000 yuan. The firm had already lowered the prices of the G9 and the P7i by 19,000 and 26,000 yuan, respectively, earlier this month. Nearly 20 carmakers have launched promotional policies this month.
Lei Jun, founder of Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi, said he was ready to bring the company’s first electric vehicle to the market, having spent over 10 billion yuan developing a prototype with a team of 3,400 engineers. In an interview on Sunday, the entrepreneur said he was confident that the debut vehicles, which cost 10 times the industry average to develop, would be competitive in a crowded market that includes Elon Musk’s Tesla. However, Lei expressed concerns about the possibility that the product may not gain immediate popularity, resulting in low sales.
Hu Xiaoming, former chief executive of Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group, founded an agri-tech company aiming to improve agriculture through innovations. The firm 1.8 Meters Agricultural Technology was officially established yesterday, together with its unit 1.8 Meters Marine Technology, which focuses on high-quality seafood. The latter already released its first two seafood products, which will be sold at the online and offline stores of Alibaba Group Holding's supermarket chain Freshippo.
Video-sharing platform TikTok has generated USD10 billion in users’ spending, becoming the first non-gaming app to hit the milestone, according to market data provider data.ai. The seven-year-old infotech brand is on track to see its revenue reach USD14.6 billion in 2024, making it the highest earning mobile app ever, said a report by data.ai released Monday.
China's first ultra deep-water research drilling vessel started its trial voyage on Monday, marking a crucial step in the nation's construction of deep-sea exploration capabilities and the research and development of marine technology. It can travel 15,000 nautical miles and operate for 120 consecutive days without returning to port. The vessel “Mengxiang”, which means "dream" in Chinese, can drill up to 11,000 meters below sea level.
Switching gears to financial news
Singapore’s regulator has ordered remittance companies in the city-state to halt the use of third-party channels when transmitting money to persons in China from Jan. 1. The three-month suspension follows reports of remittances to China through Singapore being subsequently frozen in their beneficiaries’ bank accounts in China by law enforcement agencies, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement on Tuesday. Cross-boarder remittance to China can only be done in a bank or using UnionPay, it said.
Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market
Chinese stocks slightly rebounded on Tuesday with the benchmark Shanghai Composite inching up 0.05 percent and the Shenzhen Component gained 0.1 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.75 percent and the TECH index lost 0.6 percent.
Biz Word of the Day
A remittance is money that is sent from one party to another. Broadly speaking, any payment of an invoice or a bill can be called a remittance. However, the term is most often used nowadays to describe a sum of money sent by someone working abroad to their family back home.
Executive Editor: Sonia YU
Editor: LI Yanxia
Host: Stephanie LI
Writer: Stephanie LI
Sound Editor: Stephanie LI
Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni
Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.
Presented by SFC
编委: 于晓娜
策划、编辑：李艳霞
播音：李莹亮
撰稿：李莹亮
音频制作：李莹亮
设计：郑文静、廖苑妮
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