China will streamline procedures for the establishment of foreign-funded companies. The time foreign firms need for business registration will be reduced, according to a statement following an executive meeting of the Chinese government presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. The registration procedure will be paperless and free of charge and nobody needs to appear in person to conclude the procedure. The new regulations will come into force on June 30. To facilitate the procedure, banks, customs, taxation and foreign exchange agencies will share business information.

Premier Li said that consolidating the filing and registration procedures for foreign-funded enterprises is a matter of high significance and called for all government departments concerned to fully collaborate and coordinate their work to make things easier for such enterprises. According to the Commerce Ministry, over 35,600 foreign-invested enterprises were set up in 2017, up by 27.8% year-on-year. Foreign investment rose 7.9% from 2016, hitting a new high of CNY877.5 billion.

The meeting also decided to establish an e-platform for accessing inter-connected government services at the national, provincial and city levels. No less than 90% of the services items offered at provincial level and 70% at city and county levels will be available online by the end of 2019. Electronic licenses will be more widely introduced, and their reciprocal recognition will be further promoted.

China’s Tianqi Lithium is about to close a deal to buy a 24% stake in Chile’s Sociedad Quimica Y Minerva (SQM), one of the world’s biggest lithium producers, for around USD4.3 billion. Chengdu-based Tianqi is building the world’s biggest lithium processor in Western Australia. Based on SQM’s market value of USD14.8 billion, Tianqi would pay a roughly 22% premium for the shares. Lithium is a key ingredient of rechargeable batteries. Nutrien, formed by the merger of Agrium and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, must sell its stake in SQM by next March as part of a commitment to regulators approving the deal. Nutrien owns about 30% of SQM, which also has significant fertilizer production.

Chile might still block the deal. Chile’s former government in March asked antitrust regulator FNE to block the stake sale to Chinese firms, saying it would distort the global lithium market and give China an unfair advantage in securing strategic resources. FNE has until August, with the possibility of extensions, to determine whether to launch an investigation.

Tianqi’s interest comes as Beijing aggressively promotes electric vehicles to combat air pollution and help domestic carmakers to build global brands. Tianqi, which is in talks with several institutional investors and banks for financing, plans to fund the deal through bank loans, mezzanine loans and its own working capital, sources said. Citic Group and its unit China Citic Bank are considering providing part of the capital for the stake acquisition. Shenzhen-listed Tianqi, which has a market capitalization of USD9.5 billion, plans to raise at least USD1 billion from a Hong Kong float this year.

Chinese private equity firm GSR Capital has also been vying for the stake. SQM, Tianqi, GSR, and Citic Group did not respond to requests for comment. SQM currently has an annual lithium carbonate production capacity of 48,000 tons in Chile, which it will expand to 70,000 tons by mid-2018 and to 100,000 tons in 2019.

Real estate prices are expected to cool in Beijing and Shanghai, and in lower-tier cities this year, according to the Blue Book of Real Estate by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The report predicted that house prices in first-tier cities were unlikely to bounce back in the short term and that housing prices in Beijing will keep going down, even as new growth points emerge in cities around the capital. The rental market will become the major focus in cities such as Chongqing, Guangzhou and Nanjing.

Investment growth in property development has remained stable in 2017 at more or less the same levels as that of 2016, the report said, adding that the focus of housing policies in 2018 would be to stabilize the market. “The curbs on personal mortgages are unlikely to be relaxed from a short-term perspective in 2018,” said Wang Yeqiang, Researcher at the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the CASS. “In the long term we need to further balance the supply and demand of land, promote the rental market and implement long-term policies to gradually replace the restrictions on personal mortgages,” he added.

Experts said the current ways to cool down the red-hot market, including limits on house purchases and housing loans are only suitable as a short-term solution, but are not good for the property market’s long-term healthy development. “Although over 100 cities have implemented policies to curb personal purchases, it is not a long-term solution,” said Wang. “The nation’s real estate market is in urgent need of long-term reforms.” He added that there is still enough room for an increase in the interest rate on mortgages. Tao Ran, Professor of Economics and Finance at Renmin University of China, said imposing restrictive policies on housing loans is not a sustainable way to regulate the property market. He suggested that one way to regulate the property market is to further develop the rental sector, which will allow developers to earn profits earlier and limit speculation, the China Daily reports.

Property sales growth slowed to 1% in the first four months of the year, compared with 8% growth in the same period last year. In April alone, sales dropped 4% from a year earlier.

Smartphone maker Huawei took the top slot among domestic brands in China for reputation, according to a new report from Racepoint Global, a U.S.-based marketing company and Reputation Institute, an advisory firm. The other Chinese firms that enjoyed high ranking in terms of reputation included Haier, SF Express and Gree. International brands such as Intel and Rolex continued to enhance their reputation in China among the over 280 companies surveyed. Huawei launched its Honor 10 smartphone in Great Britain last week. The Honor brand’s British sales surged 200% year-on-year in the first quarter while its total sales in international markets, excluding China, have more than doubled in the same period.

“Intangible assets are becoming more important than 40 years ago. Up to 87% of global market value was made up of intangible assets at the end of 2017,” said Nicolas Trad, President of the Reputation Institute. “Reputation helps predict a company’s financial performance,” he added. Chinese search firm Baidu, which had enjoyed a high reputation earlier, suffered a dip in fortunes and fell out of the top 120 rankings published by Racepoint. Trad added that reputation stands for the general public’s perspective on the company and it does not actually present the truth. “There is a gap between people’s perspective and the truth, and what companies need to do is to close the gap,” he said. The report pointed out that the quality of products and services is not the only factor deciding a company’s reputation. There are other factors including work ethics and leadership, he said. Reputation becomes more important as Chinese companies are expanding abroad.

“The value of the brand plays a significant role in whether an economy can be involved in the global value chain,” Liu Pingjun, President of the Chinese Brand Promotion Association, said, as reported by the China Daily.

China’s stock market is expected to see a new inflow of global investment after the world’s top index provider MSCI announced the final list of Chinese shares to be included in its benchmark equity indices. Some 234 domestically listed Chinese companies, ranging from China’s biggest liquor maker Kweichow Moutai to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), will be added to MSCI indices on June 1. The inclusion of China’s A shares, yuan-denominated equities traded on mainland China stock exchanges, in the MSCI indices will give foreign investors greater exposure to the Chinese stock market and also marks the further integration of China’s capital market into the global financial system.

MSCI said that the inclusion will be a two-step process with the initial inclusion of 234 Chinese A shares, making them represent around 0.39% of the weighting on the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The second step will take place in September when the list of Chinese shares to be added to the MSCI will be further expanded, likely bringing the representation of A shares to around 0.8%. The inclusion of A shares means that foreign investors such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pension and endowment funds will need to allocate the added Chinese stocks if they want to closely track the MSCI benchmark gauges.

UBS Securities estimated that the inclusion could lead to USD18.4 billion of fund inflows into the A-share market. “Consumer discretionary, consumer staples and healthcare are likely to benefit more from foreign inflows, as we find that foreign investors have persistently favored these sectors,” said Gao Ting, head of China Strategy at UBS Securities, the China Daily reports.