Lucrative Crop Farmers in Xili Town in Yiyuan County, east China's Shandong Province, harvest peach flowers on April 15. As peach flowers blossom in the spring, local farmers harvest, process and sell them for tea drinking as a new means to increase income (ZHAO DONGSHAN)

Aircraft Leader

The Chinese mainland led the region in possessing the number of business aircraft in 2012, with 187 aircraft, up by 103 percent from 2002, said market researchers JetNet.

The number of business aircraft in the Asia-Pacific region jumped from 947 in 2002 to 1,566 in 2012.

"The Asia-Pacific region continues to be a large growth market for business aviation, fueled by some of the most exciting economies in the world," said Ted Farid, Vice President of sales for the Asia-Pacific region of Beechcraft Corp., a U.S. business aircraft manufacturer.

Business leaders and entrepreneurs in the region know more about the usefulness and convenience of business aircraft, he added.

Around 58 percent of the region's business fleets are jets and 42 percent are turboprops, although the latter is growing in popularity.

Slower FDI Inflow

China attracted $29.91 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first quarter of 2013, up only 1.44 percent year on year.

In March alone, FDI growth also eased to 5.65 percent to reach $12.42 billion, compared with a growth of 6.32 percent in February.

The Ministry of Commerce said in the first quarter, most of the FDI flocked to China's service and manufacturing sectors, which attracted 48.24 percent and 44.05 percent of the country's total FDI, respectively.

Foreign investors set up fewer new firms in the manufacturing and service sectors in the first three months, but the sectors still managed to post FDI growth.