COME FLY WITH ME An airplane stops beside a bay in Sanya, Hainan Province. Low-altitude flight travel has become very popular in the city (GUO CHENG)

PMI Data

China's purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector dropped to 50.2 percent in February, down from 50.5 percent for January, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) on March 1.

The index shows the manufacturing sector is expanding, but the rate of growth is slowing down, said Zhao Qinghe, a senior analyst with the NBS. A reading below 50 indicates contraction, while that above 50 signals expansion.

Zhao attributed the decline to the Spring Festival holiday, when most enterprises suspended production and workers went back home for the holiday.

The PMI for China's non-manufacturing sector rebounded in February after dropping for three consecutive months. The index reached 55 percent in February, up 1.6 percentage points from January.

CFLP Vice Chairman Cai Jin attributed the rebound mainly to robust business activities after the Spring Festival holiday (January 31-February 6).

FTA Talks

China, South Korea and Japan started the fourth round of negotiations on a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in Seoul on March 4.

The fresh round of negotiations, lasting from March 4 to 7, focused on modalities of tariff reduction, ways of opening service trade between the three countries and investment as well as certain areas and fields of the agreement, according to the Chinese delegation.

South Korea's Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick said although these talks may not always go smoothly, the negotiations are "moving toward an end."

South Korean farmers previously opposed such an agreement, fearing that a free trade pact would flood the market with cheap produce.

The three Asian countries talked about the trilateral FTA's modality such as how to make a draft of liberalization for goods at the third round of negotiation held in Tokyo in 2013.

China, South Korea and Japan have seen increasingly close economic and trade relations and have become important partners and markets to each other.

The FTA is expected to create one of the world's largest markets, as combined gross domestic product of the three countries will account for 20 percent of world total and the combined imports and exports volume will account for 17.5 percent of global trade.

Coal Demand

China's coal consumption will peak in 2020 at about 4.7 billion tons, forecast Li Ruifeng, General Manager of the Coal Industry Planning and Design Research Institute on March 4.

Coal demand will grow by an average of 3.9 percent annually before 2020 and then decrease by about 0.43 percent annually, Li said.

He predicted that annual coal demand would drop to 4.56 billion tons in 2030.

Li advised coal producers to adjust investment strategies to cope with decreases in coal demand after 2020.

China's coal consumption witnessed a slower growth of 2.6 percent year on year to 3.61 billion tons in 2013, according to the China National Coal Association.