Unmanned convenience stores, first envisioned by Amazon, are popping up in China, enabled by mobile payment and supported by facial and voice recognition technologies. Little-known tech start-up BingoBox, based in Guangdong province, has made its name in China this summer by opening its first unmanned convenience store in Shanghai. In a container-like structure stocked with products supplied by French supermarket chain Auchan, BingoBox lets customers go shopping after they are admitted via facial recognition to the 10-square meter area. Security measures ensure that those inside the store are customers and not shoplifters who entered illegally. Sensors and cameras scattered throughout the area identify items in the shoppers’ carts and automatically charge the customer’s WeChat Wallet, a smartphone-enabled mobile payment run by Tencent, as they walk out the door. With a dozen such stores under trial operation in China, BingoBox is looking to beat much bigger companies to become the first to commercialize the new shopping model on a national scale. “We want to adopt a rather aggressive approach in terms of expansion,” said Chen Zilin, Founder of BingoBox, adding the goal is to have 5,000 such stores in China in the coming year via a franchise model. More than 10 companies from big retail chains to small start-ups have launched unmanned stores, with more than CNY130 million in venture capital money invested in the sector in the past three weeks, according to Chinese research firm IT Juzi. In theory, unmanned stores that are open 24 hours a day can reduce labor costs and therefore lower retail prices for customers, the South China Morning Post reports.

More than 480 Chinese doctors and academics associated with published research papers that were later deemed to be fraudulent will be punished for damaging the country’s “international reputation”. U.S. academic publishing house Springer in April retracted 107 papers by Chinese authors that had been published in the journal Tumor Biology. After publication, the company discovered that most of the peer reviews were fake. The punishments would range from being deprived of research funding to being sacked and publicly named and shamed.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said that it will maintain a regular pace of approving initial public offerings (IPOs) to help companies raise funds and allow the capital market to better serve the economy. President Xi Jinping has called for the financial markets to better serve the economy and for the expansion of direct financing channels for companies, including stock and bond issuance. China’s two largest stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen have seen a surge of new listings in the first half of the year at 246, raising CNY125.5 billion, up by 336% year-on-year.

Conglomerate HNA Group has disclosed its ownership structure for the first time following questions over its opaque shareholding and the Chinese government clampdown on overseas acquisitions. The company, based in the Hainan provincial capital of Haikou, has expanded since its founding in 1993 with just four aircraft to almost 2,000 planes under operation and management. In the process, it also went on a global buying spree, owning CNY1 trillion of assets, including stakes in Hilton Worldwide Holdings and Deutsche Bank. In a statement on July 24, HNA said it counted Hainan Province Cihang Foundation, Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation, 12 individual shareholders and Hainan Airlines Holding as its shareholders. Businessman Guan Jun, mentioned in a June 2 Financial Times article as among the company’s shareholders, was not listed. In an interview with the South China Morning Post last month, HNA Founder Chen Feng said Guan “holds a tiny stake in the company” but was not a significant shareholder. The two charities own 52% of HNA collectively. One is set up in New York and the other is established under the Hainan provincial government. Chen and HNA co-founder Wang Jian are Directors of Hainan Province Cihang Foundation. According to the statement, Chen and Wang hold the highest stakes with 14.98% each. The statement also said Guan had donated the shares to the charity and no longer holds any stake in the company. HNA said in the statement that while it is a private company with no obligation to disclose its ownership, it would “respect and appreciate the desire for transparency in this regard”.

Three Chinese banks, who were among the eight largest providers of credit lines to HNA as of 2015, have decided to stop extending new loans to HNA. A dearth of fresh credit could further restrain HNA’s ambitions as Chinese regulators clamp down on offshore deals to stem capital outflows and shore up the yuan, the South China Morning Post reports. HNA, which has announced more than USD40 billion of acquisitions spanning six continents since the start of 2016, said its financial position remains “strong” and noted that its debt-to-asset ratio decreased for a seventh straight year in fiscal 2016. HNA reported CNY172.5 billion of cash and cash equivalents at the end of last year. It also disclosed CNY493.7 billion of debt and said it had CNY611 billion of committed credit lines from banks, of which around 40% was unused.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a two-day visit to Manila, said he supported the idea of joint energy ventures with the Philippines in the disputed South China Sea, warning that unilateral action could cause problems and damage both sides. The Philippine Energy Ministry said drilling at the Reed Bank, suspended in 2014, might resume before year-end, and the government was preparing to offer new blocks to investors for bidding in December.