Business News
Latest business news and updates
Total: 2067
China’s Carmakers Push Upmarket and Cut Prices — From Wuling’s PHEV Flagship to Nissan’s Aggressive EV Discounting
This week’s updates — a premium plug‑in from Wuling, a price‑cut Nissan electric sedan, a value‑trim Toyota Venza, and BYD’s feature‑rich mid‑size EV — show Chinese automakers combining upmarket product moves with aggressive pricing. The pattern underscores intensifying competition that pushes legacy joint ventures to cut prices while domestic groups lean on software, battery range, and novel interior features to defend and grow market share.
China Warns: Memory Chip Prices Surge on AI Demand, Forcing Consumer Electronics Price Rises
China’s price‑monitoring arm says DRAM and NAND prices have surged to multi‑year highs since September 2025, driven by explosive AI server demand, strategic capacity shifts by dominant suppliers, rising materials costs and downstream panic buying. The increases are already being passed on to PCs and smartphones and will weigh on manufacturing input prices and some consumer price categories until new capacity comes online.
China’s 2025 Economy: Modest 5% Growth, Deep Property Slump and Accelerating Clean‑Tech Transition
China’s economy grew 5.0% in 2025 to about 140.2 trillion yuan ($19.6 trillion), driven by services and export resilience even as a deep real‑estate correction and a first population decline in decades weigh on domestic demand. Industrial upgrading and a rapid clean‑energy expansion — notably in solar, wind and new‑energy vehicles — stand out, while investment and fiscal indicators point to a cautious, targeted policy approach.
Trump Media Prepares to Carve Out Truth Social as It Pivots Toward Fusion Energy
Trump Media is preparing to spin off Truth Social into a separate publicly listed company as it pursues a high‑risk pivot into fusion energy following a $6 billion merger with TAE Technologies. The split aims to create two focused businesses but raises questions about monetisation, investor appetite and the political ramifications of placing a major pro‑Trump platform under public‑company rules.
China’s Economic Heavyweights Rebalance: Provinces Pivot from Factories to Services
At their annual “new spring” meetings, China’s leading provinces are prioritizing the integration of production‑oriented services with manufacturing to revitalise growth. Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang are explicitly targeting service‑led upgrades, while other regions combine business‑environment fixes with bets on emerging industries.
China Advances Local Bond Quotas: Guangdong Leads as Provinces Ready 2.4 Trillion Yuan for Early Issuance
Nineteen Chinese provinces have revealed advance allocations of next year’s local government borrowing limits totalling about 2.4 trillion yuan, with Guangdong receiving the largest share. The advance quotas — dominated by special-purpose bonds and often re-lent by provinces to cities and counties — are meant to speed infrastructure financing and stabilise investment, but they raise questions about transparency and contingent debt risks.
When Memory Becomes a Bottleneck: How the AI Chip Boom Is Driving Up Car Prices
A surge in DRAM and other memory prices sparked by AI demand and producers shifting capacity away from low‑margin chips has created acute shortages of car‑grade memory. The result is higher component costs for automakers, with some firms seeing DRAM expenses for a single vehicle nearly triple and potential upward pressure on EV prices unless supply rebalances or manufacturers absorb costs.
Wanda Sheds Shanghai Mall to State-Linked Buyer as Large-Scale Asset Sales Continue
Wanda has sold its Shanghai Zhuanqiao Wanda Plaza for 2.048 billion yuan to a Suzhou-based company ultimately controlled by a Zhejiang trust with state links, part of an ongoing programme that has seen over 80 Wanda Plazas change hands since 2023. The disposals form one prong of Wanda’s effort to shore up liquidity amid large debt maturities, even as state-related and institutional buyers signal confidence in the earnings power of mature shopping centres.
320,000 Down: China’s Smoke-and-Spirits Shops Shrink as Margins Vanish
A steep downturn in China’s dedicated tobacco-and-liquor shops has wiped out margins and closed roughly 320,000 outlets in 2025, reflecting shifts in consumer behaviour, channel strategies and pricing transparency. The result is a structural retail shakeout in which surviving businesses will need new models of service, niche focus or integration with digital channels to stay viable.
Out of Sight, Not Out of Trouble: Why China’s County Housing Markets Have Stopped Falling
While China’s major cities continue to see housing corrections, many county-level markets have stabilised. Steady local demand from civil servants, returning migrants and skilled workers, lower financialisation by local developers, and improved housing products underpin this resilience, making county homes more consumption-oriented than investment vehicles.
Modest Income Gains, Uneven Recovery: Beijing Pushes to Convert Rising Incomes into Stronger Household Spending
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported a 5.0% rise in per‑capita disposable income to 43,377 yuan in 2025, with rural incomes growing faster than urban ones but a large urban‑rural gap persisting. Household consumption rose modestly, with services now nearly half of spending, while Beijing rolls out policy measures aimed at boosting incomes and converting saving into spending.
China’s Provinces Lower Revenue Targets as Fiscal Strains Force a Shift from Growth to Quality
More than half of China’s provinces have lowered or held flat their 2026 general public budget revenue targets, reflecting tighter fiscal conditions, weaker commodity prices and prudential planning ahead of the new five-year cycle. The reprioritisation from growth to fiscal ‘quality’ aims to create space for debt resolution and maintain essential spending, but it limits provinces’ capacity for large-scale stimulus.