The appetite for property investment among urban Chinese households dropped to a 20-month low in November, according to a survey conducted by global market research company Nielsen for the Bank of Communications (BoCom), China’s fifth-largest bank by assets. The bimonthly property investment index dropped to 109 last month from 113 in September, its lowest since March 2016, the Shanghai-based bank said.

“Property investment enthusiasm from top urban households was dampened by governmental measures to cool down speculation, and the number of rental houses added to supply,” said the bank. The findings are part of a broader index that has gauged urban wealth based on the opinions of 1,800 well-off Chinese households every two months since late 2010. Nielsen was commissioned to conduct a survey of households with an annual after-tax income of more than CNY100,000 in the top five cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu, as well as those with incomes of at least CNY80,000 in another 21 major cities. The drop in enthusiasm was felt more among the most affluent households, as the index dropped by 10 points to 114 for families with non-fixed assets of more than CNY1 million.

In the first 10 months of this year, home sales by area grew by 8.2%, down from a pace of 9.3% in the first three quarters of last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Sales growth also slowed down by value by 2 percentage points to 12.6%.

There could be a limited upside to China’s property prices going into 2018. Property transactions will shrink in volume, according to a majority of the 51 financial institutions and more than 20 developers who assembled for a meeting on November 16 organized by the China Index Academy in Beijing.

The value of China’s property loans, loans for developers and mortgages grew at a slower pace during the first three quarters to CNY31.1 trillion, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). The growth rate slowed by 2.4 percentage points to 22.8% compared with last year, the South China Morning Post reports.

The number of property developers in China could fall from around 30,000 to only the single-digit thousands or even hundreds in the next five years as the country’s red-hot market cools, according to Swiss bank UBS Group

Technology companies and banks have the most valuable brands in China, as Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao held onto the top spot from the company’s rivals, Tencent and Baidu, in the latest brand value rankings by Shanghai-based media and research firm, the Hurun Report. The top 10 brands saw their total brand value rise by nearly 40%, as the strength of new economy brands continued to grow.

Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings each had two brands among the 10 most valuable. Tencent’s WeChat was China’s fifth most valuable, and Alibaba’s Tmall, the tenth. They were joined in the top 10 list by two of the big four banks, China Construction Bank (CCB) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), and insurer Ping An Insurance (Group).

“This year, brands belonging to science and technology and lifestyle services companies saw the greatest increase in value. From this we can see the greater influence that new economy companies are having on our lives,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman of the Hurun Report. For example, China’s two largest bike-sharing companies, Ofo and Mobike, both entered the top 200 this year, with the brands worth USD640 million and USD450 million respectively, according to the report. They still have a way to go to catch up with the most valuable brands in China. The Taobao brand was worth USD68 billion, the Tencent brand USD53 billion, and the Baidu brand USD48 billion, the South China Morning Post reports.

Apple succeeded in preventing Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi from registering its “Mi Pad” tablet as an EU trademark because the name was too similar to Apple’s “iPad”. The European Union’s second-highest court, the General Court, ruled that Mi Pad should not be registered as a trademark because consumers were likely to be confused by the similarity of the signs. Xiaomi’s Mi Pad and Apple’s iPad are both tablet computers.

“The dissimilarity between the signs at issue, resulting from the presence of the additional letter ‘m’ at the beginning of ‘Mi Pad’, is not sufficient to offset the high degree of visual and phonetic similarity between the two signs,” the Court said in a statement. Xiaomi filed an application in 2014 with the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register Mi Pad as an EU trademark. Apple subsequently lodged a complaint that the EUIPO upheld in 2016 on the grounds that consumers would think Mi Pad was a variation on Apple’s iPad trademark. The court agreed with the EUIPO’s decision and said English-speaking consumers were likely to understand the prefix “mi” as meaning “my” and therefore pronounce the “i” of Mi Pad and iPad in the same way. Xiaomi can appeal against the ruling at the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the South China Morning Post reports.

Lego has won a landmark case in China against two companies that manufactured and sold toys almost identical to its LEGOFriends range but branded Bela, the Danish toymaker said. It is the first time that Lego has succeeded in a copyright competition case in China, where copies of its colorful bricks and figures have been a recurrent problem as it seeks to gain a share of the multibillion-dollar toys and games market. Earlier this year, the Beijing Higher Court passed a ruling that recognized the Lego logo and name in Chinese as “well-known” trademarks in China, putting the toymaker in a better position to act against infringement of its trademarks. The Shantou Intermediate People’s Court had ruled that certain Bela products infringed upon Lego copyrights and that manufacturing and selling those products constituted “acts of unfair competition,” the Shanghai Daily reports.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in its first position paper for Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, also listed burdensome governance, a loss of skilled workers, an uncompetitive work visa and permit system, limited options for international education and poor air quality as factors that have reduced the city’s ability to attract foreign investment. If no improvement is made, Shenyang may “risk losing out on potential foreign investment to other Chinese cities”, the Chamber’s report said.

“Instead of continuing to engage in high-level discussions and developing more broad policy goals that merely scratch the surface, the city needs to dig deep and plant the seeds of reform,” it said. The assessment comes amid a debate over how to improve economic performance in this heavy manufacturing region. The Chamber’s report detailed the “day-to-day challenges and opportunities” foreign businesses in the city face while painting a broader picture of the difficulties they encounter when doing business in China’s rust belt.

The Chamber, which opened its Shenyang office in 2007 and has 49 local members, said the lack of clarity, transparency and trust in policymaking and enforcement in Shenyang have created uncertainty for foreign companies.

Owing to the market’s size and growth potential, European companies “have accepted the uncertain nature of governance in Shenyang for several decades,” according to the Chamber’s report. Companies, however, are “increasingly intolerant of poor governance, the lack of transparency in policy making and inconsistent enforcement of regulations”. Companies also reported a lack of clarity regarding which government departments had authority over a given issue, the South China Morning Post reports.

A share offering this week of up to HKD2.32 billion by China’s Hebei Construction will be the first listing in Hong Kong of a company linked to Beijing’s ambitious Xiongan special economic zone project. The Xiongan New Area, established in April and just a couple of hours south of Beijing, is part of China’s efforts to transfer some functions out of the increasingly crowded capital and find new growth drivers led by innovation and technology.

Some analysts have put the possible investment in developing infrastructure in the area, which is currently mostly farmland, at up to USD583 billion over the next 20 years, although the government has yet to unveil its blueprint for the zone. “For sure we can have a finger in the pie,” said Shang Jinfeng, President and Executive Director of Hebei Construction, at a media briefing on the listing in Hong Kong. “We have geographical advantages, advantages in transporting equipment and ‘green infrastructure’ experience, which is in line with the state’s goal to build Xiongan into a green, liveable and modern urban area,” he said.

Hebei Construction, China’s second-largest privately owned construction contractor, plans to issue 433.334 million shares in the Hong Kong IPO, with an expected price range of HKD4.46 to HKD5.36 per share. The stock is set to start trading on Hong Kong’s main board on December 15. In the listing prospectus, Hebei cited an estimate by research firm Frost & Sullivan of CNY400 billion in fixed-asset investment in the Xiongan project in the next five years. Shang said the company had already set up three joint ventures with local county governments. “We expect massive infrastructure construction projects in the initial development of the new Xiongan city, followed by building projects in the later stage,” he added.

In 2016, Hebei Construction recorded a 89% jump in net profit to CNY768 million, while for the first half of 2017, net profit increased 77% year-on-year to CNY503 million. The company’s debt to capital ratio stood at 152.7% at the end of June, and it had a total of CNY3.77 billion of interest-bearing loans, the South China Morning Post reports.