“We should try to solve the economic imbalance, promote a more inclusive economic globalization and let it light every corner of the world,” Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said at the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual summit to deliver Asian voices on global issues. China would “firmly maintain the World Trade Organization-centered multinational free trade system and push forward the early implementation of a China-ASEAN free trade zone, and the early conclusion of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) talks,” Zhang said. The RECP is widely regarded as an alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which has been abandoned by U.S. President Donald Trump, and which did not include China. Trade is expected to be one of the key topics at a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expected to take place at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6 and 7. Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), said at the Forum that globalization was “a challenge that you can’t avoid”. Zhou said that reallocating resources to manufacturing would simply not be efficient for some countries. Instead, he called for nations to give more training to laborers who would move from one sector to another, and to focus on strengthening knowledge-based industries. Zhou said international policy coordination would take time, and that hopefully there would be clearer language on free trade and globalization at the G20 summit in July in Hamburg, the South China Morning Post reports.

China moved one step closer to reducing the number of centrally-administered state-owned enterprises to 100, after Sinolight Corp agreed to merge with China Poly Group Corp. China Haisum Engineering Co, a listed arm of Sinolight, said in a regulatory filing that the latter had signed a restructuring framework agreement with property group China Poly. The move comes as the country drives through consolidation in many of its SOEs, including the railway, shipping, construction materials, and steel sectors. The merger requires regulatory approval, but would not affect normal operations. Two of China’s nuclear power developers also announced plans to merge. The Shanghai-listed units of China National Nuclear Corp, a holding company for reactor design and technology, and China Nuclear Engineering Corp Group, a company focusing on construction, said in regulatory filings that a strategic reorganization was under way. After the two mergers are completed, the number of enterprises listed under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) will be reduced to 100 from the current 102. China’s centrally-administered SOEs performed well in the first two months of this year with combined profits surging 29.1% year-on-year to CNY168.6 billion, the China Daily reports.

China’s CNY6.5 trillion pre-owned home market is attracting growing interest and rising levels of capital. In the latest buyout of a company involved in the sector, in late February Shenzhen-listed Kunming Department Store spent CNY6.18 billion on a 94% stake in property agency Weiye 5i5j Group, through a share swap and cash, with the remaining 6% stake for CNY378 million in a share transfer deal. The total CNY6.56 billion buyout of the country’s second largest property agent valued the company at 32.8 times its 2015 net profit. The deal is still pending due to the securities regulator’s inquiry into whether it is a back-door listing. On January 3, Shenzhen-listed Hubei Guochuang Hi-tech Material Co, an asphalt producer, said it planned to buy Qfang.com, an agent in Shenzhen, outright for CNY3.8 billion. In another deal, Sunac China Holdings bought a 6.25% stake in China’s largest home agent Homelink, for CNY2.6 billion, valuing the online-to-offline agency network at CNY41.6 billion, or 51.4 times its 2015 net profit. The purchase came just nine months after Homelink’s series-B fundraising, when a private equity fund owned by China Renaissance, Baidu and Tencent valued the company at just CNY36.8 billion. In 2015, its after-tax profit surged nearly ten-fold from 2014 to CNY809 million, while last year Homelink handled more than CNY1 trillion worth of transactions, earning an estimated net profit of CNY1.14 billion. Homelink’s core business remains as a pre-owned property agent, which charges 2.7% of any transaction value as commission – the highest of any Chinese agent. The company runs some 8,000 outlets across 28 cities with 130,000 agents. In Beijing alone, it claims over 60% of the market. 5i5j runs 2,215 stores in 15 cities, with 45,000 agents. Experts are predicting the trend to buy second-hand homes will continue to grow in major cities too, the South China Morning Post reports. In Beijing, pre-owned home transactions were 5.67 times that of new home sales last year, according to Centaline Property, and in Shanghai it was worth four times.

Beijing has released a new property purchasing policy, which is likely to cause terminations of existing contracts and help cool down the capital’s property market. Under the new policy, buyers who own a property in Beijing or have loan records in or outside the capital, will face an increased downpayment if they want to move home or buy second properties in the city. “The regulation will have a more direct and obvious effect on the pre-owned property market,” Ren Qixin, Deputy General Manager of Yahao Real Estate, said. Buyers looking to trade their current house for another one need to pay at least 80% of the downpayment for property valued at more than CNY4.68 million, while most Beijing properties are valued at a higher price. “The average price of a Beijing property is CNY6 million per unit,” said Zhang Dawei, Analyst at Centaline Property. The policy raises the possibility that buyers could withdraw from contracts due to the financial pressure of meeting the downpayment. “The deleveraging effect was obvious. Most pre-owned property buyers will have to pay 80% as downpayment. It will cool down the pre-owned market, and slow down the sell-one-and-buy-another situation,” said Ren. “With reducing demand, we hope to see housing prices fall,” Hu Jinghui, Vice President of real estate agency 5i5j said. To target faked divorces, Beijing housing mortgage applicants who have been divorced for less than one year will be regarded as second-home buyers, rather than first-home buyers, and therefore will have to pay a higher downpayment and mortgage rate. In the past, many couples got a divorce solely to buy another property under favorable first-home policies.

The 100 most valuable Chinese brands boasted a combined brand value of USD557.1 billion last year, up 6% from 2015, as consumers focused more on premium instead of price, according to The Brands China Top 100, a study done by WPP and Kantar Millward Brown. Technology firms, banks and telecom providers were the biggest contributors to boosting brand value in China. Tencent remained China’s most valuable brand, growing its brand value 29% to USD106 billion. Education and travel were the fastest growing sectors, up 46%. The ranking combined financial data from Bloomberg News and Kantar Worldpanel with opinions gathered from interviews with over 400,000 consumers. Lenovo was the most export-focused brand in the Brandz China Top 100.