China and New Zealand have agreed to start first round talks to upgrade their bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in the first half of 2017, adding the service trade, e-commerce and agricultural cooperation, China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said. Other issues including market competition policies, trade technical barriers, customs procedures, trade facilitation measures and rules of origin will also be negotiated next year. The bilateral trade agreement was signed in 2008. China is now New Zealand’s top trading partner. Bilateral trade was worth USD12.82 billion in 2015, up 1.2% on a year-on-year basis. Unlike free trade agreements between China and Australia and China and South Korea signed in 2015, the existing China-New Zealand FTA lacks articles on services and investment. In addition, exports from New Zealand account for 70% of China’s dairy imports, and China now stands to benefit from the China-Australia FTA by getting cheaper products in the same category. Liu Chenyang, Researcher at the APEC Study Center at Nankai University in Tianjin, said New Zealand, therefore, is keen to talk about dairy products as part of the upgrade. Tourism is another key area of competition between New Zealand and Australia. One million Chinese people traveled to Australia as tourists in 2015, and 400,000 traveled to New Zealand, 42% more than the year before, the China Daily reports.

The Ninth Global Conference on Health Promotion, which includes more than 100 Mayors from around the world, took place in Shanghai last week. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) attended the meeting. Wang Longde, Chairman of the China Preventive Medicine Association, said governments must pay attention to health targets while setting development goals. Innovation and an open attitude should guide the process, he added. For instance, China’s ongoing healthcare reform is shifting more focus from treatment to prevention. Liu Yuanli, Dean of the School of Public Health at Peking Union Medical College, said that human resources and social security authorities should not only handle medical bills, but also play a role helping people stay healthy. He suggested that health promotion should be considered while evaluating officials’ performances, and that governments at all levels set up health promotion committees to put forward measures and policies enhancing people’s health. The Shanghai Declaration was issued at the end of the meeting, calling for “making bold political choices for health”. The Mayors promised to prioritize policies that combine health and other city policies, and develop partnership-based urban planning, the China Daily reports.

China became the first country to file 1 million patent applications in a single year, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said. Chinese innovators filed most of their 2015 applications in electrical engineering, which includes telecoms, followed by computer technology and semiconductors, and measurement instruments, including medical technology. “The figures for China are quite extraordinary. It is the first patent office in the world to receive more than 1 million applications,” WiPO Director General Francis Gurry told a news briefing to launch its report, “World Intellectual Property Indicators.” The bulk of China’s 1.01 million applications were for domestic protection in patents, trademarks and industrial design, with only some 42,154 filed abroad, he said. But there is a “slow and gradual” increase in China’s applications for international patents, Gurry added. “They are in the process of making innovation a central point of their economic strategy.” Worldwide, some 2.9 million patent applications were filed last year, a 7.8% increase from 2014, WiPO said. Roughly two in three patents are ultimately approved, Gurry said. The United States ranked second last year with 526,296 patent applications, followed by Japan at 454,285 and South Korea with 238,015, the Shanghai Daily reports. Huawei topped an international patent system ranking, submitting 3,898 applications. ZTE was third with 2,155 submissions.

China has for the first time released a guideline on better protection of property rights. The country will provide equal, comprehensive and law-based protection to all kinds of property rights and encourage the participation of the public in the process, says the guideline issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council. Secure property rights “raise people’s sense of wealth security, boost social confidence, foster positive expectations and raise the impetus for entrepreneurship and innovation by various economic entities,” according to the document. China will further clarify the relations between owners and managers of state-owned property, and push for diversification of equity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the document says. The Chinese authorities will also conduct research on extending the land-use rights for homeowners, thereby increasing people’s confidence in the safety of assets if reforms are implemented. Most homes bought in China only provide rights to the use of the property for a certain number of years, and questions about future ownership have started to crop up as some contracts near their expiration date. The guidelines call for equal treatment under the law for all property holders, and for fair and clear laws when land or homes are requisitioned.

Europe remains the most attractive region for Chinese buyers with a total of USD73.8 billion of activities taking place across 120 deals in the first three quarters of this year, a 138.8% jump compared to the same period in 2015, M&A data provider Mergermarket said in a report. But the trend could slow in the fourth quarter as the Chinese authorities are concerned about capital outflow through fake trade deals, the report said.