Sales in Shanghai’s pre-owned home market plunged in October as the government’s measures to curb speculation were effective. The city saw about 22,566 units of pre-owned houses change hands in October, a month-on-month plunge of 32.6%, according to Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co. These pre-owned homes were sold for CNY36,276 per square meter on average, up 13.1% from September and also the highest monthly level seen so far this year. For the last two months of the year, transactions of pre-owned houses are expected to stay around the current level.

Alibaba Group Holding will spend more than CNY2 billion buying 32% of Sanjiang Shopping Club Co, a regional Chinese discount supermarket chain with more than 1 million members. Shares of Sanjiang surged by its daily 10% limit on the news, giving the Ningbo-based company a market value of about USD830 million. Alibaba’s Jack Ma’s goal is to replace distributors and middlemen and let stores buy directly from suppliers based on real-time demand and inventory.

The long-awaited trading link between the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock exchanges will open on December 5, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said, giving global investors greater access to Asia’s third-largest equity market. The new stock scheme will allow international investors to trade 881 Shenzhen-listed tech-heavy stocks, while investors on the Chinese mainland will be allowed to trade 417 Hong Kong stocks. It is similar to the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at a two-week high on November 25, partly aided by steady money inflows via the Shanghai-Hong Kong connect as the market sensed the approach of its sister link. Indexes in Shanghai and Shenzhen both rose more than 0.6%. The launch of the scheme has been anticipated since the opening of the Shanghai-Hong Kong connect in November 2014 but the idea was set aside after the stock market crash in the summer of 2015 wiped out USD5 trillion worth of shares. The trading, clearing and other rules, as well as the daily quota mechanism and other regulatory and operational arrangements for the Shenzhen-Hong Kong link have been finalized. There will be no total quota for the new scheme, analysts said. The total quota of a combined CNY550 billion for the Shanghai-Hong Kong link was removed in August. Gao Ting, Chief China Strategist at UBS, predicts the total trading volume heading to Hong Kong at CNY160 billion through both links next year. For foreign investors, trading activity north to Shenzhen could surpass that to Shanghai, as they may favor Shenzhen’s tech-heavy shares that bring higher growth, the Shanghai Daily reports. The Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock market connect, like the one with Shanghai, has a daily quota of CNY13 billion for international investors buying A-shares in Shenzhen, while mainlanders can buy up to CNY10.5 billion per day worth of Hong Kong stocks.

Construction of China’s “sky train” – its first public suspension railway line – can go ahead after tests have been successfully completed on a test track. The lithium-battery-powered suspension railway line in Chengdu, Sichuan province, began trial operations in September. The train, dubbed the “sky train” by media, will be able to travel at speeds of up to about 60km/h, which is similar to the speed of subway trains. It was innovative because it was powered by a lithium battery rather than the high-voltage electricity used by existing suspension railways in Germany and Japan. The black and white train, which will hang from a rail eight meters above ground, was tested along a 1.4 km route at Zhongtang’s test site, which is not open to the public. Each suspension railway carriage is capable of carrying up to 230 people. Zhongtang Skytrain Group, a newly registered company that has developed the suspension railway, said Chengdu was planning two different routes for its suspension trains. One route will travel to the city’s tourist attractions, with construction work starting next year. The other line, stretching 20 km, will run from Shuangliu Airport to the center of Shuangliu county. Its construction costs per kilometer were between one-eighth and one-fifth of the cost of building a subway and could be completed within one year. The world’s first suspension monorail was built in the beginning of last century in Wuppertal, Germany.

China and Peru signed a range of agreements as the two countries agreed to begin joint research on ways to upgrade their free trade agreement (FTA). The signing ceremony was witnessed by President Xi Jinping and his Peruvian counterpart Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. They agreed to work more closely on energy, trade, minerals, finance, industrial parks and infrastructure. China also agreed to help provide equipment for an archaeological museum in Lima. China-Peru bilateral trade reached USD16 billion in 2015, more than double the amount of trade before the two countries signed the free trade agreement in 2009.