The ranks of China’s wealthy will again grow by double-digits this year. The 2017 China Private Wealth Report by Bain Consulting and China Merchants Bank (CMB) put the number of high net worth individuals (HNWI) – those with at least CNY10 million of investable assets – at 1.6 million in 2016, nearly nine times the number a decade earlier. The report, issued every two years, forecasts a slower growth for the wealth business this year, but still sees substantial gains. It projects an 18% increase in HNWIs to 1.87 million by the end of the year, and a 14% increase in China’s private wealth market to CNY188 trillion from CNY165 trillion. In 2014-2016, the market grew 21% a year, the survey said. “Some asset classes like real estate are likely to have a larger impact on the slowing growth rate,” Liu Xin of Bain Consulting said, adding that increased regulation and oversight of investment products including property, wealth management products and insurance will contribute to the slowdown. According to the report, around 120,000 HNWIs had at least CNY100 million of investable assets, compared with fewer than 10,000 in 2006. The percentage of HNWIs with overseas investments increased to 56% this year, from 19% in 2011, but the overall percentage of assets invested overseas has been stable since 2013. The top five destinations for overseas investment were Hong Kong, the United States, Australia, Canada and Singapore although between 2015 and this year Hong Kong’s popularity fell 18% and the United States dropped 3%, the Shanghai Daily reports.

Rio Tinto recommended China-backed Yancoal as the buyer of most of its Australian coal mines, rebuffing a surprise higher bid from Glencore earlier this month. Rio Tinto said in January that it was selling Coal & Allied to Yancoal Australia, majority-controlled by China’s Yanzhou Coal, for USD2.45 billion. But Glencore, which like Yancoal also operates several coal mines in Australia, offered USD100 million more for the assets in New South Wales state. Rio said it spoke to both parties but still favored Yancoal since the deal was expected to be completed faster due to greater funding and regulatory certainty. Yanzhou Coal is one of China’s largest mining groups by capitalization. Under the original proposal, Yancoal was to pay an initial sum of USD1.95 billion and the rest as deferred payments, but it will now make a single payment of USD2.45 billion, Rio said. Yancoal had already been given the green light by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), while the Glencore plan was subject to regulatory approval. Rio Tinto is selling Coal & Allied as part of a divestment drive which analysts expect will lead to a complete exit from the sector.

Fifteen Chinese cities where the strictest measures to curb speculation have been imposed registered slower year-on-year growth in new home prices for another month in May, evidence that the country’s hottest property markets continued to stabilize. The 15 cities, including Shanghai, saw year-on-year price growth decelerating 0.5- 6.4 percentage points compared with April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. On a month-on-month basis, six cities recorded new home price gains, unchanged from April. “Around the country, first- and second-tier cities registered the most notable retreats in price growth in both new and existing markets,” said Liu Jianwei, NBS Senior Statistician. “For instance, in the four first-tier cities, year-on-year price growth of new and pre-owned houses both fell for the eighth consecutive month in May.” In second-tier cities, year-on-year price growth of new homes dropped for the sixth straight month in May and price growth of existing homes declined for the fourth consecutive month. Among the 70 cities monitored by the NBS, 29 recorded slower year-on-year new home price increases in May, compared with 30 cities in April. In the pre-owned home market, 18 cities registered slower year-on-year price rises. On a month-on-month basis, 26 cities registered slower new home price growth, an increase of three from April. In the pre-occupied housing market, 30 cities recorded slower growth, a rise of eight from a month ago. In Shanghai, new home prices remained unchanged from April and gained 12.9% from the same period of last year, the Shanghai Daily reports.

A rising number of Chinese prefer meals delivery from restaurants or dining out, instead of preparing food at home, according to KantarWorldpanel and Bain & Co’s 2017 China shopping report, “China’s Two Speed Growth: In And Out Of The Home”. While food purchases for in-home meal preparation grew by 3% annually from 2013 to 2016, food deliveries rose by 44% and dining out grew by 10% over the same period. Other findings include that e-commerce continued to skyrocket in China, growing by more than 52.6% in value. Online now represents 7% of fast moving consumer goods sales, having doubled its share of the market in the last two years. Hypermarkets declined by 2% and supermarkets or mini-markets dropped by 2%, compared to convenience stores which increased by 7.4%. The health and hygiene related category achieved high and growing penetration, along with personal care, which shows that more Chinese shoppers are willing to pay for higher-quality goods. Local brands beat foreign brands in terms of growth as local brands grew by 8.4% and foreign brands by only 1.5%, the China Daily reports.

China is developing a third prototype exascale computer, also known as a super supercomputer, and plans to launch it by June 2018. The Sunway exascale computer prototype is being developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology (NRCPC) and the National Supercomputing Center in Jinan, Shandong province. The NRCPC also led the team that developed the Sunway Taihu Light, crowned the world’s fastest computer at the International Supercomputing Conference in 2016 and 2017 in Frankfurt. An exascale computer is able to execute a quintillion calculations per second, about eight times faster than the Sunway Taihu Light. The increase in computational speed will advance research in such areas as climate change, space science, medicine and oceanology. Exascale supercomputers are expected to hit the market by 2020