Food delivery firm Meituan Dianping launches IPO in Hong Kong
Sep-25-2018 By : fcccadmin
Meituan Dianping, an online food delivery-to-ticketing services firm, closed 5.29% higher on its trading debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange as investors were confident that such platforms would continue to expand. Meituan priced its initial public offering (IPO) at HKD69 per share and aimed to raise USD4.9 billion as investors were banking on the growth potential of the online lifestyle services platform. At the listing ceremony in Hong Kong, Wang Xing, Meituan’s CEO, praised the role of the company’s almost 600,000 delivery persons and 50,000 employees in fueling its growth. “I also want to thank Steve Jobs, thank Apple, without iPhone, without mobile internet, everything we do today wouldn’t have been possible,” he said.
Founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, Meituan merged in 2015 with its then main rival Dianping. In 2017, the Meituan Dianping platform generated over 5.8 billion transactions, with total transaction volume of CNY357 billion. Meituan’s total revenue in 2017 amounted to CNY33.9 billion, up from CNY13 billion the year before. In the 12 months ended April, Meituan saw more than 6.9 billion transactions valued at CNY410 billion. It has been expanding services from food delivery to ordering groceries, booking hotels, paying bills and bike rentals. CEO Wang Xing pointed out that the firm has expanded the search and booking of restaurants to include online information for entertainment services and food delivery. Meituan’s USD4.2 billion IPO was Hong Kong’s second-biggest tech-related IPO this year, and lifted 39-year old Wang’s net worth to USD5.3 billion based on his 11% stake in the company. At the company’s IPO roadshow in Hong Kong earlier this month, Wang told investors that Meituan “will be an indispensable part of the Chinese people’s lives and it’ll help Chinese eat better and live better”.
The overall size of China’s on-demand food delivery market is projected at CNY360 billion by the end of this year, according to mobile internet research firm Trustdata.
Italy aims to be China’s first G7 partner for the Belt and Road Initiative
By : fcccadmin
Italy wants to become the first G7 country to endorse China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) and plans to do so before the end of the year, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said. “I hope very much we can complete a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China within 2018,” Di Maio told reporters in Beijing at the end of a two-day visit. His next trip would be in early November for the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Di Maio is the 32-year-old leader of the anti-establishment right-wing Five-Star Movement (M5S).
More than 80 countries have already signed MOUs to work with Beijing on the BRI, the most recent being Greece last month. But they have yet to be joined by any of the Group of 7 nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States.
Beijing was keen to sign MOUs with Britain and France when British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron visited China earlier in the year, but neither of the visiting leaders put pen to paper, and Macron said the Belt and Road plan should not be a “one-way” project. There are also concerns that China’s flagship project does not meet international standards and is an attempt by Beijing to extend its geopolitical influence.
Di Maio said that Italy would also like to increase mutual investment with China, regardless of the fact that the European Union and several of its key members, including Germany, France and Britain, have recently been paying Chinese investments much more scrutiny. “I believe we could find common ground to work together,” Di Maio said. Commenting on the ongoing trade war between China and the United States, the Deputy Prime Minister said the Italian government did not support unilateralism in trade and favored multilateralism. “Italy is a big exporter. We would not like to see such measures,” he said. Italy had a USD17 billion trade deficit with China in 2017, the South China Morning Post reports.
Market share of electrical vehicles (EVs) in China expected to reach 30% by 2030
By : fcccadmin
The market share of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to reach 30% of China’s total vehicle sales by 2030, thanks to fast growth momentum due to technological breakthroughs in fuel cells, the car-sharing economy, and the younger generation’s green lifestyle. Wan Gang, Chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, said as the mileage of electric vehicles in China is still relatively limited, the country will deploy more resources in the research and development of fuel cells to improve the endurance capacity of batteries. Wan is China’s former Science and Technology Minister.
Many Chinese cities such as Taiyuan, Shenyang and Shijiazhuang have encouraged clean energy-powered transport as part of the nation’s efforts to protect the environment. Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, plans to more than triple the number of full-electric buses on its roads to 10,000 this year. A work plan issued by the provincial government in 2017 required that all of Guangzhou’s buses should be electric by 2020. The city currently has more than 14,000 buses powered by both electricity and gasoline. With more than 16,000 electric buses on its roads, Shenzhen has also set targets to upgrade its city buses to electricity by the end of this year and transfer all its taxis to electric power by 2020.
The government should also step up the transformation of the country’s diesel-powered trucks in the logistics and mining sectors as they generate a large amount of carbon emissions, said Luo Xin, CEO of GCL System Integration Technology Co, a Jiangsu-based energy company specializing in clean and sustainable power generation. “China also needs to accumulate more technologies and practical solutions to produce batteries for electric vehicles in a cheaper way and handle old batteries in a sustainable way,” he added, as reported by the China Daily.
China taking new measures to punish publication of false statistics
By : fcccadmin
China has introduced a new 20-clause regulation, focusing on preventing and punishing statistical fraud. It was approved at a meeting of the Committee for Deepening Overall Reform on July 6 and has been in place since August 24, the China Daily reports. According to the new regulation, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is responsible for organizing and conducting statistical inspections, building a mechanism to prevent and penalize fraud, and making sure violators are held accountable. Special inspection teams will be organized to fulfill the mission. The NBS has established a Department for Statistical Law Enforcement and Supervision, focusing on preventing and punishing statistical fraud.
The regulation is the latest move to improve the accuracy of statistical data. Between January 2017 and April this year, the NBS uncovered 72 key cases of statistical fraud that involved 26 provincial regions, 2,051 enterprises and 2,942 fixed-asset projects. Last year, 7,479 cases of statistical fraud were investigated by local statistical authorities. The government needs authentic economic data for making policies in line with actual national conditions, and false data can mislead economic policymaking, said Zhu Lijia, Professor of Public Management at the Chinese Academy of Governance.
China has second largest number of AI companies
By : fcccadmin
China has the second-largest number of artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the world, trailing only the United States, according to a blue paper published by Gartner and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) in Shanghai at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2018. “The number of AI-related companies in China continues to grow and now ranks second in the world,” said Liu Duo, President of CAICT. She said the number of AI-related patent filings has increased in China since 2015 and the scale of the AI market has also developed drastically, especially concerning voice and image recognition technology. Domestic AI companies are developing the fastest in Beijing, Shanghai as well as Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu provinces, Liu added. Phil Todd, Managing Vice President of Gartner, said that research covering over 3,000 companies showed that only 4% of them have invested in and utilize AI technology. The country accounted for 48% of the world’s total AI startup funding last year, consultancy CBInsights said.
During the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the opening of its AWS Artificial Intelligence Lab in Shanghai, which is dedicated to making advanced AWS AI and machine learning services available. The three-day conference has attracted experts, scholars and entrepreneurs from nearly 40 countries and regions. More than 200 top companies in AI participated in the conference and the exhibition. Underlining the importance that the Chinese government attaches to AI, a letter by Chinese President Xi Jinping was read out at the opening ceremony by Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang. Vice Premier Liu He attended the opening forum of the conference.
The WAIC ended after holding one main forum, 33 themed forums, five brain-storming discussions and 22 kick-off events. As the world’s top AI platform for cooperation and exchange, 335 speakers ranging from top science experts to business executives gave their opinions on stage. A total of 40,000 visitors from more than 40 countries attended the three-day event, including 700 journalists from 30 countries.
Shanghai has opened more public roads for testing of intelligent and connected vehicles (ICVs) to further accelerate industry development and commercialization of ICVs. The length of roads for testing was extended from 5.6 kilometers to 37.2 kilometers, and there are now a total of 12 public roads that can be used for testing of ICVs, as revealed at the 2018 World Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem Conference in Shanghai. Shanghai is the first city in China to move road tests of ICVs from enclosed areas to public roads. By the end of this year, about 10 auto companies will have received road testing licenses.
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