Australian private equity group Blackstone has sold a piece of real estate overlooking the landmark Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House for AU$415 million ($327 million) to Chinese property giant Dalian Wanda Group. The transaction is expected to close in March.

Wanda bought Gold Fields House in Sydney's business district from Blackstone's portfolio company, Valad.

Gold Fields House had been owned by Blackstone since 2011 when it bought up the interests of Australian property group Valad, its first major Australian acquisition. The property was built in the 1960s and has been used as offices.

GDP Farewell

Shanghai, China's largest business hub, has abandoned GDP growth targets to emphasize the quality and efficiency of the economy, Mayor Yang Xiong said on January 25.

Shanghai will continue to optimize its economic structure and focus on innovation, Yang revealed in a government work report at the annual meeting of the municipal legislature.

The report shows Shanghai's ambition to become an international center for technological innovation. It said that research and development expenditures will account for above 3.6 percent of the city's GDP in 2015. Aircraft engines, scientific research of the human brain and artificial intelligence will be the main focus.

Hello Moto

Motorola announced its return to China's mobile phone market on January 26, two years after abandoning the world's largest smartphone market.

Motorola Mobility, the American mobile device subsidiary of Chinese IT company Lenovo, unveiled three smartphones in Beijing that day to appeal to a market that sees intense competition between Apple, Samsung and homegrown brands Xiaomi and Huawei.

Motorola Mobility, headquartered in Chicago, quit selling phones in China as well as some other markets in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe in 2013, after it was bought by Google Inc.

Lenovo acquired the company from Google for $2.9 billion early last year and has since prepared to re-launch the brand in more emerging markets.

Company officials said that coming back to China and other emerging markets will help Motorola Mobility become profitable.

Landmark U.S. Deal

China CNR Corp. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of locomotives in China, announced a subway export contract with the United States on January 26. It is the country's first foray into the U.S. rail transit market.

China CNR will sell 284 subway trains worth $670 million to the transportation regulator in Massachusetts to equip Boston's Red and Orange subway lines, according to the announcement.

The subway trains are designed to run 102 km per hour and up to 129,000 km a year on regular maintenance for at least 30 years.

The Chinese company also plans to tap markets in New York, Washington and other U.S. cities. It will set up a R&D base in the United States to promote localized production by recruiting and training locals.

The United States contract means that , throughout the value chain, China's rail companies now cover the world's six continents.

China has been accelerating attempts for overseas investment in its rail technology, with cooperative talks with 28 countries underway.