POPULAR FINE CHINA: Staff from Jinchang China Co. Ltd. in Beiliu, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, organize chinaware in a workshop on July 24. Facing fierce competition, the city in southwest China has turned to producing high-end fine china (ZHOU HUA)

Telecoms Boost

In the first half of the year, telecommunications revenue increased by 8.9 percent year on year, and the number of 3G users reached 319 million, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on July 24.

From January to May, the information consumption scaled up to 1.38 trillion yuan ($224.9 billion), up by 19.8 percent year on year. The number of WeChat users exceeded 400 million, driving the revenue growth from mobile traffic up by 56.8 percent, said Zhu Hongren, chief engineer of the MIIT.

WeChat is a text and voice message app of the Chinese technology company Tencent.

In the first half this year, the market scale of the e-commerce industry reached 5.4 trillion yuan ($880.04 billion), surging 38.5 percent. Sales volumes of smart phones and TVs both went up by more than 25 percent. The investment in telecommunications infrastructure was 129.7 billion yuan ($21.14 billion).

Loosening Controls

China will expedite foreign exchange (forex) transactions in the services trade by cutting more red tape, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) announced on July 24.

Under the new rules, which will be effective from September 1, a forex payment or settlement transaction in the services trade that is equivalent to $50,000 or less can proceed without having its transaction documents verified, the SAFE said in an online statement.

The simplified procedure is expected to benefit about 88 percent of China's services-trade-related forex transactions, according to the SAFE.

Other measures include allowing services trade forex transactions to be handled directly at financial institutions and to permit companies in the services trade to deposit their foreign currency earnings overseas.

More Competition

Upcoming reforms will completely open China's railway construction market and invite more competition to the sector.

Reforms concerning investment and financing in the sector will be sped up, covering the areas of planning, multi-channel investment, market-based operations and policy coordination, said the State Council.

A railway development fund will be established using government investment and social capital while local regions and social capital will have ownership and management rights for inter-city railway links and municipal rail links.

Multiple reforms are being made in the sector following the separation of the Ministry of Railways in March into administrative and commercial arms, a move that was made to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency.

Government investment and the railway system's financing have long been the primary sources of capital for railway construction. However, these limited channels have become increasingly unable to meet demand for capital.

Analysts said the sector should diversify and attract more social capital for construction projects by breaking up monopolies and investment barriers.