Siemens has opened its first innovation center for intelligent manufacturing in Qingdao, Shandong province, to enhance innovation in the fields of robotics, modern logistics, big data, information security and smart city. “The innovation center will bring advanced digitalization and automation technologies to China’s intelligent manufacturing and create innovation platforms integrating both the virtual and real worlds,” said Zhu Xiaoxun, Director of Siemens Corporate Technology China.

European Union countries will find it difficult to grant market economy status (MES) to China because its efforts to achieve that transformation have fallen short, according to a report by the European Chamber of Commerce in China. It said industrial overcapacity had worsened since 2009 and this was a problem that could not be solved by the “One Belt, One Road” initiative or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Deep changes in the government and its approach to managing the economy were required, it said. “China has not managed to actually become a market economy as its leaders anticipated in 2001,” Chamber President Joerg Wuttke said. The EU is about to review whether it should grant market economy status to China this year as part of Beijing’s accession agreement to the World Trade Organization (WTO), but the bloc’s member countries are divided on the move, while the United States has opposed it, arguing the economy relies heavily on central organization and government-set pricing. Wuttke said it was widely held inside the European Parliament that China was challenging jobs in Europe. He said concerns over job losses had fueled protests in Brussels. A weakening yuan could give China’s exports a boost, making it more difficult for the EU to reach a decision, he added. Conferring market economy status on China would mean Chinese firms could have a better defense against allegations of anti-competitive trade behavior. The Chamber believes protectionism at the local government level is a main reason for China’s growing overcapacity. Beijing should address the roots of overcapacity by reforming its fiscal system to give local governments more funding options, Wuttke said, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

China has a shortage of pediatricians, with a little more than 93,400 practicing in 2014, half the number needed. Medical experts expect the situation to worsen as the switch to the two-child policy begins to have an effect. About 3 million more children are expected to be born every year under the two-child policy, which came into effect on January 1, and applies to all married couples. National Health and Family Planning Commission announced it would bring back pediatrics as a major in medical schools in an effort to address the severe shortage. By 2020 each province would need to have at least one medical school offering an undergraduate major degree in pediatrics. In addition, by that time each province would also need to have at least 10,000 postgraduate students who had majored in pediatrics at undergraduate level. The news is likely to be welcomed by doctors who have been petitioning for the return of the major since it was cut by the Ministry of Education in 1999. The move had been blamed for a gradual loss of interest in the speciality by medical school students, who were also put off by its long hours, low pay and potential for tension with patients’ families. The National Health and Family Planning Commission said the number of pediatricians had dropped from 105,000 to less than 100,000 in the past five years, or 0.43 to every 1,000 children, as opposed to 2.06 doctors to every 1,000 patients in general. The Chinese Medical Doctor Association estimates 200,000 more pediatricians are needed.

China leads the world in the number of graphene technology patent applications, according to the 2016 Report on Global Patents in the Graphene Industry. The report recognized 40,344 graphene technology patents worldwide, 17,702 of which are held by China. “The number of patent applications in the graphene industry is very high, and the competition is growing,” said Bao Ningzhong, Executive Director of the Jiangnan Graphene Research Institute. Graphene is a form of carbon in a two-dimensional, honeycomb lattice. It has many extraordinary properties, such as super hardness, and is about 100 times stronger than the strongest steel. It also can conduct heat and electricity efficiently. It is widely used in the semiconductor, electronics, battery and composites industries. The report predicts the global market for graphene will be nearly USD300 million by 2020.

An average of 12,000 new companies were registered every day in China last year as deepened reforms in the business sector boosted market vitality. Two years ago the number was only 6,900, according to Zhang Mao, Director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC). “With China’s economy entering the new normal phase, maintaining sustainable growth is really about maintaining market vitality,” he said. Two years ago reforms were introduced to lower the threshold for setting up businesses and simplify the process for entrepreneurs to register or cancel their businesses. Zhang said newly-registered small and micro-businesses employ 7.9 people on average compared with an average of 2.9 people for individual businesses. “More than 14 million jobs were created in 2015 by newly-registered companies, compared with 12 million in 2014,” he said. “Employment is increasing rather than decreasing, and a massive wave of entrepreneurship and innovation is sweeping across the nation. These factors could offset the pressure brought by the slowing economy,” he added. Zhang also said more efforts would be made this year to improve a credit system for companies and to enhance information-sharing between market watchdogs, to create a fair competitive environment.