HK expertise could come in handy

Hong Kong is eminently placed to contribute to, as well as benefit from, the grand plan to create a new economic zone in Hebei province, but efforts in that direction should go beyond stock market speculation, analysts said on Wednesday.

As local market gets tough, world is China startups' oyster

Severe competition and presence of local giants in the domestic market has pushed smaller Chinese app developers to chase success in overseas markets.

Chinese touch key to the success of English product

While some Chinese companies are keen on acquiring technologies from developed countries, Wang Jialiang's high-tech startup survived by providing innovative products for the developed markets.

Quotable

We aim to have at least a million merchants outside the Chinese mainland accepting Alipay within three years. Working with our network of global partners like First Data and Verifone will help us achieve the goal."

IN BRIEF

China, Russia share path to prosperity

At the Europlastic factory in Vladivostok, the largest city in the Russian Far East, workers use Italian-built machinery to make plastic bottle caps out of raw materials imported from China.

Bicycle factories ride sharing boom

In 1999, when he was 18, Ruan Hongming found employment in a Komax bike factory in Shenzhen. But the worker from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region left the job in 2002 as he didn't foresee bright prospects for the industry. Fifteen years on, he has rejoined the business.

'Yellow bike fever' unchained in UK

Chinese bicycle rental startup ofo - pronounced "oh-ef-oh" - is seeking to overtake competitors such as Mobike by venturing overseas.

Mobike's secret to leading two-wheel pack

Bike-sharing service provider Mobike has rolled out a series of tweaks to make its bicycles lighter and more comfortable to ride.

Resorting to happiness

Italian Gino Andreetta, who was named CEO of Club Med Greater China in 2015, finds his latest role no different from a job in his home country.

Debt-for-equity program speeds up

China's biggest banks are accelerating their debt-for-equity program to offload distressed debts and to help reduce high corporate leverage.

Big banks beat analysts' 2016 profit forecasts

BEIJING - Earnings reports this week from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, China Construction Bank Corp and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd showed that their provisions for losses on bad loans - or nonperforming loans - stabilized last year, helping them to post higher-than-estimated profits.