Australian coal will be exempt from controversial new import tariffs imposed by China when the two countries sign a free-trade pact, Australia’s Treasurer Joe Hockey said after a meeting in China, although the timing of a deal has yet to be finalized. Australia and China are trying to seal a free-trade agreement (FTA) before the end of this year after nearly 10 years of talks, in a bid to boost two-way trade already worth more than AUD150 billion.

China is set to start testing to curb the spread of hepatitis C. High-risk populations to be screened first in pilot areas include gays, drug users and dialysis patients, Wei Lai, President of the Chinese Society of Liver Diseases of the Chinese Medical Association, said at the 2014 Hepatitis C Prevention and Treatment Forum. Currently, fewer than half of the sufferers in the country are detected, and only 2% of those diagnosed with hepatitis C have sought treatment. Last year, more than 200,000 cases were detected, nearly a 200% increase since 2004, he said. The national prevalence of hepatitis C stands at 0.43% of the population, an estimate based on investigations conducted in 2006, but others estimated a prevalence of 2.2%. With timely detection and treatment, 90% of the infections could be cured.

China needs a new prescription for growth: promote migration of even more people to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Failing to expand and improve the urban areas of the biggest cities could have negative consequences because they drive innovation and specialization, with easier-to-reach consumers and more cost-efficient public transport, according to Huang Yukon, a former World Bank Representative in China. “China’s big cities are actually too small,” said Huang, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Asia Program in Washington. “If China wants to grow at 7% for the rest of this decade, it’s got to find another 1 to 1.5 percentage points of productivity from somewhere.” A strategy that supported the expansion of the biggest cities would add USD2 trillion to China’s output in 10 years, more than India’s 2013 GDP, said Andy Xie, a former Chief Asia-Pacific Economist at Morgan Stanley. The country should have big, densely populated urban areas, Xie said. The mega cities needed to build up, not out, he added, citing Tokyo and its population of about 37 million. Beijing and Shanghai have about 20 million people each, while Guangzhou and Shenzhen both top 10 million. Even so, given China’s 1.4 billion population, their concentration is low by global standards. In the United States, the largest 10 metropolitan areas account for about 38% of GDP, about double that in China. China’s urbanization policy decrees that populations will be “strictly controlled” in metropolises with more than five million people while expansion is allowed in mid-sized cities and encouraged in small ones, the South China Morning Post reports. A further 4.2 million people could be added to Guangzhou and 5.3 million to Shenzhen if those cities had the same population density as Seoul, according to a March report by the World Bank and the State Council’s Development Research Center.

China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in more than five years in the third quarter, but major activity indicators in September point at stabilization. Analysts said the third quarter growth of 7.3% – the weakest since the first quarter of 2009 – was led by the property sector. It compared with the rise of 7.5% in the second quarter and 7.4% in the first three months. However, massive policy easing is unlikely due to recent stabilization, and the country will stick to its efforts on economic restructuring on the road to a state of “new normal,” analysts said. In the first three quarters, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to CNY41.99 billion, up 7.4% on an annual basis. “Despite the slowdown in the third quarter, China’s economy managed a generally stable growth this year with relatively low inflation and high employment,” said Sheng Laiyun, Spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). He added that the third-quarter moderation was the result of the high comparative base last year, the deepening of economic restructuring and a weak real estate market. Wang Tao, Economist at UBS, described the third-quarter growth as “not so bad”. Industrial production expanded 8% in September from a year earlier, up from the pace of 6.9% in August. Retail sales grew 11.6%, keeping up with the increase of 11.9% a month ago. Fixed-asset investment (FAI) accelerated 18.3% in the first three quarters, faster than the gain of 16.5% in the January-August period. Tang Jianwei, Economist at the Bank of Communications (BoCom), said the rebounding trade performance, the improved industrial structure and better production efficiency in the country will sustain growth momentum in the fourth quarter at around 7.4%. In the first three quarters, people’s disposable income rose 10.5% to CNY14,986 and more than 10 million new jobs were created, the Shanghai Daily reports. Premier Li Keqiang said the economy has remained running within “a reasonable range” in the first three quarters of this year, with evidence of some “positive and profound changes”. A growth rate of above 7% should be high enough for an economy the size of China, but what matters most is that the quality of growth is maintained, the World Bank’s Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati said. She suggested that China’s social and economic policies should focus on areas such as land liberalization and capital reforms.

China is aiming to raise the value of its sports industry to CNY5 trillion by 2025, the government announced, as it released a nationwide plan to develop the industry by pushing foreign investment, cutting red tape, and encouraging a new generation of sports enthusiasts. In 2012, the sports industry comprised just 0.6% of China’s gross domestic product (GDP). If the industry expands to CNY5 trillion it is expected to account for 1% of GDP in 2025. “There are great opportunities for foreign investors, particularly in areas such as sporting events, overseas sports tourism and venue management, where their strengths are clear,” Liu Fumin, Director of Finance at the General Administration of Sport told China Daily. Liu said that the number of foreign sports goods companies account for 23% of the total in China, meaning there was “great potential to increase”. The announcement calls for expanding the sports goods industry, promoting the development of competitive sports and accelerating the construction of new sports arenas. It also said that promoting fitness will become one of the government’s national strategies. The government will also encourage the involvement of private capital and the listing of sports companies on the stock exchange.