Chinese automated convenience stores operator Guangzhou Tengshi Information Technology has completed its third round of funding, from four investors, including two Chinese venture capital firms, as it looks to invest in store expansion and technology. Founder and Chief Executive Luo Jiecheng said that Zhejiang Youchuang Venture Capital and Lanshan Venture Capital (Beijing) Consulting were part of the financing that brought in over CNY10 million. The other two investors included a food manufacturing company and an individual investor.

The new capital will help Guangzhou Tengshi expand the number of its stores, which operate under the brand name “Magic House”, in Guangzhou to between 300 and 500 next year, with each shop 60 square meters in size. It currently operates six stores in the city’s Tianhe district. Unstaffed and automated convenience stores have mushroomed in China in recent months as retailers look to improve slim profit margins by reducing staff costs.

E-commerce companies Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com have moved into the business, while Bingobox runs completely unstaffed convenience shops of about 10 square meters in size in Shanghai, with products supplied by French supermarket chain Auchan. Typically, customers use a mobile phone to scan a QR code to gain entry, and then pay for goods with mobile wallets. However Luo said he believed that Chinese consumers were not yet ready for a completely unmanned shopping experience, as people still required a level of human guidance. Hence all Guangzhou Tengshi stores would still be staffed by two people, contrasting the do-it-yourself approach of other competitors in the field, he said. But the company will continue to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. It currently uses AI in the areas of facial recognition and the management of big data related to customer shopping frequency and the types of product bought, the South China Morning Post reports.

Luo added that currently all six stores are profitable. The firm has no plans to expand outside Guangzhou.

China is set to surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy by 2028, with growth above 5% over the next two decades, Bank of Communications (BoCom) said in a report. The bank’s baseline forecast sees China’s gross domestic product growing at 6.5% in the next three years, and the average annual growth rate will be at 5% between 2021 and 2035. China’s GDP will exceed those of the U.S. and Europe combined by 2050, according to BoCom. The bank said the target will be met if reforms progress steadily and production continues to improve efficiently.

Essential reforms, BoCom said, include cutting capacity within traditional high consumption industries, encouraging innovation and advanced technology, expanding the opening up process, balancing regional economic development, and drafting effective and prudent policies. “China’s economy could yet grow relatively fast if reforms progress steadily,” said Lian Ping, Chief Economist of BoCom. “The strict bottom line is to prevent systematic financial risks.” He said household consumption and higher added value exports will be the main drivers for China’s economic growth.

China’s GDP grew 6.9% in the first three quarters, above the official annual target of 6.5%, and 6.7% in 2016. But official economic indicators showed growth of factory output, investment, and consumption in October all slowed from September. November’s retail sales amounted to CNY3.41 trillion, a slight drop from CNY3.42 trillion in October, and 10.2% higher than a year earlier. Industrial output rose 6.1% in November, a slight slowdown from 6.2% in October, while fixed-asset investment in the first 11 months also slowed slightly to 7.2%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Real estate development investment increased by 7.5% year-on-year in the first 11 months. China’s exports surged 10.3% in November, much higher than market expectations.

Driven by burgeoning demand for innovation in China, worldwide filings for patents, trademarks and industrial designs reached record highs last year. The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2017 report, released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on December 6, found that last year China received more patent applications than the combined total from the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Patent Office.

The top five IP offices – the State Intellectual Property Office of China, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office – accounted for 84% of the world’s total patent filings last year, 9 percentage points higher than their combined share 10 years earlier. “Developments in China increasingly leave their mark on the worldwide totals,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “China is increasingly among the leaders in global innovation and branding.”

China remained the main driver of global growth in patent filings, as applications jumped by 21.5% to 1.3 million. Asia’s share of all patent applications worldwide increased from 49.7% in 2006 to 64.6% in 2016, primarily boosted by strong growth in filings in China, which accounted for around two-thirds of total applications filed in the region. China has been the largest source of patent applications since it topped Japan in 2012. Yet the report noted that around 96% of all applications from China were filed in the country and only 4% were filed abroad. China ranked No 3 for the number of international applications via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) worldwide in 2016, after the U.S. and Japan.

With roughly 3.7 million applications, China was also the largest trademark filer last year, followed by the U.S. and Japan. China accounted for 75% of the annual increase in global trademark filing activity. Applicants from China filed about 1,860 more international applications via the Madrid system in 2016 than in 2015, a surge of 94.7%, which pushed the country up from eighth largest origin in 2015 to fourth largest in 2016, the China Daily reports.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has raised its interbank policy rates by 5 basis points on December 14, hours after the Federal Reserve (FED) hiked the U.S. benchmark. By raising the rates, the central bank is charging banks a higher price on loans. The central bank raised the 7-day reverse repo rate, a liquidity management tool, to 2.5%, while the 28-day reverse repo rate was increased to 2.75%, according to an online statement released by the PBOC. It is the first hike of its kind since March, when the Chinese central bank responded to a similar move in the U.S.

Hong Hao, Chief Strategist at BoCoM International in Hong Kong, said the PBOC was forced to announce a less eye-catching interest rate because an increase in benchmark deposit or lending rates would be too dramatic. “It’s hard for China to touch benchmark rates because it conveys a strong signal of policy loosening,” said Hong. The central bank tried to play down the move. In a statement, the PBOC said the 5 basis-point increase is more of a market response to the FED’s decision instead of a central bank act. “The small rise in interbank policy rate will help narrow the gap with the market rates, change the market distortions and improve monetary policy mechanisms,” it said.

China will likely tighten monetary policy next year while increasing policy flexibility to ensure sufficient credit supply and to prevent overtightening from hurting the economy, economists said after the U.S. Federal Reserve rate hike. Some analysts forecast the PBOC will raise benchmark rates in 2018. Others expressed concern about the risk of overtightening given slower growth prospects next year.

Beijing aims to build a world-class national cybersecurity industrial park, which will help cultivate a CNY100 billion cybersecurity industry in the Chinese capital by 2020 and help the country better implement the big data strategy. The industrial park will be jointly built by the Beijing municipal government and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Officials expect it to help contribute more than CNY330 billion to GDP growth by 2020.

Chen Zhaoxiong, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said the booming big data industry is injecting new impetus into China’s economic growth and spurring demand for safer information infrastructure. “More efforts are needed to promote innovation, as well as the research and development of cybersecurity solutions,” Chen said. Currently, half of China’s major cybersecurity companies are registered in Beijing and six of them generate over CNY1 billion in annual revenue. Officials hope that by 2020 the new cybersecurity park will host at least three companies whose annual revenue can exceed CNY10 billion. The Beijing municipal government and MIIT will offer financial support and favorable fiscal policies to facilitate the construction of the new industrial park. In May, a CNY10 billion fund was launched by CSC Financial Co and Beijing Daily Group to invest in promising companies in the information security industry.

According to Liu Duo, Director of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, MIIT has selected 82 pilot cybersecurity projects in the past three years, whose experience can be emulated nationwide to prevent internet attacks and other online crimes. There are 10 listed companies in China that purely focus on cybersecurity. They posted a combined annual revenue of CNY14.7 billion in 2016, up 34.9% year-on-year, the China Daily reports.