The government is planning to roll out a tax concession for single family offices among other policies, according to Hong Kong Secretary for Financial Services and Treasury. Hong Kong has made attracting family offices, set up by the super rich to manage their lives and finances, a key mission under Chief Executive John Lee. In a statement announcing the event, officials said it would build stronger connections and encourage more of them to come to the city. Once an easy sell to the global rich thanks to its low taxes, connectivity to China and a vibrant arts and philanthropy scene, Hong Kong has set a modest target of getting at least 200 family offices to either set up or expand operations by the end of 2025.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang has urged efforts to prioritize high-quality development, place emphasis on the development of the real economy, make a big push to develop advanced manufacturing, advance high-end manufacturing, and accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system. During his visits to several Zhuzhou-based enterprises, including CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co., Ltd., the premier learned in details about the production, research and development, and market development of the enterprises. He said promoting the development of advanced manufacturing fundamentally depends on innovation and talent. The enterprises should accelerate to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields and in major technology and equipment. He urged greater synergies between industry, academia, research and application, and called for the standard and quality of products to be raised.

Xiong'an New Area in North China's Hebei province is continuing to grow as a development hub for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration just six years after its establishment, with relocated industries, offices and workers benefiting from the convenience provided by world-class infrastructure. The area's key role is to facilitate noncapital functions transferred from Beijing, including some company headquarters, higher education institutions and financial institutions. State-owned enterprises have set up more than 140 institutions or departments in Xiong'an. Three State-owned enterprises, including Sinochem Holdings and China Huaneng Group, are building their headquarters in the area. 270 key projects are expected to be carried out in the area this year, with a total investment of 664 billion yuan ($96 billion).

Various measures will be rolled out from now to 2025 to fine tune science and technology organisations and perfect the legal foundation for state management of science, technology and innovation. The aim is to boost development to support the country's socio-economic growth, Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat told the Vietnam News Agency. The minister said that resources will be focused on stepping up science and technology research, transfer and application to serve socio-economic development and security-defense protection, to speed up digital transformation, green transition and circular economic development. In order to achieve this goal, the ministry will effectively implement national-level science and technology programmes in line with the sector's restructuring plan in the 2021-2025 period with a vision to 2030, with businesses playing a core role in transforming science for commercial use.

The Commerce Department plans to begin accepting applications in late June for a $39-billion semiconductor manufacturing subsidy program. The law also creates a 25% investment tax credit for building chip plants, estimated to be worth $24 billion. The proposal limits recipients of U.S. funding from investing in the expansion of semiconductor manufacturing in foreign countries of concern such as China and Russia, and limits recipients of incentive funds from engaging in joint research or technology licensing efforts with a foreign entity of concern. It also classifies some semiconductors as critical to national security, defining these chips as not considered to be a legacy chip and therefore subject to tighter restrictions. This measure covers chips "including current-generation and mature-node chips used for quantum computing, in radiation-intensive environments, and for other specialized military capabilities."

The two sides agreed to follow the principles of good-neighborliness, friendship and win-win cooperation in advancing exchanges and cooperation in various fields and deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era. Noting China-Russia cooperation enjoys significant potential and space and is strategic, reliable and stable, Xi said that the two sides need to strengthen overall coordination, boost trade in traditional areas, such as energy, resources, and electromechanical products, continuously enhance the resilience of industrial and supply chains, expand cooperation in such areas as information technology, the digital economy, agriculture and trade in services. They should step up cooperation in areas of innovation and facilitate cross-border logistics and transportation, he added.

The Tianjin Artificial Intelligence Computing Center, which was established by Huawei and the city's Hebei district, was inaugurated in Tianjin. With total investment of up to 1.27 billion yuan ($184.6 million), the center's construction began in August. The first phase was completed on Dec 30. Composed of 41 modular computer rooms and a planned computing power of 300 petaflops, it is capable of being the "super brain" of the modern city. At present, the center has 58 contracted users, including 35 enterprises and 23 scientific research institutes and universities.

The centrally-administered SOEs should adhere to market-oriented, law-based and international reforms, improve the modern corporate system with distinctive Chinese features, accelerate the establishment of a flexible, efficient and market-oriented operating mechanism, and enhance their core competitiveness and functions, said Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. SOEs are an important element and force in promoting Chinese modernization that the enterprises should shoulder their new responsibilities and missions in promoting Chinese modernization. Currently, there are 98 central SOEs in China.

The figures, released by the municipal government, show China's capital city of 21.84 million that is 43,000 fewer than the end of the previous year. The death rate in Beijing rose to 5.72 deaths per 1,000 people, while the birth rate fell to 5.67 births per 1,000 people, official statistics released by the Beijing government showed. Beijing's natural population growth was minus 0.05 per 1,000 people last year.

Affected by cold air, sandstorms and high winds will sweep eastward across the north and northeast parts of China, likely to cause the most severe sandstorm weather to hit China in 2023, according to China's top meteorological authority which issued a third-level yellow sandstorm warning in more than 10 provinces. China's National Meteorological Center warned on the morning 21 March that the weather will be sandy and dusty across Tuesday to Wednesday in the south part of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as well as in the northeast part of China including Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Heibei, Beijing, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin.

EVE Energy Co., Ltd, one of China's leading lithium-ion battery manufacturers, broke ground on its battery production base in Shenyang City, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. With a total investment of 10 billion yuan (about 1.46 billion U.S. dollars), the project will cover an area of 374,000 square meters in the Tiexi District of the city, featuring the AI-supported plant. The project will include workshops to produce the battery cells and structural components, NMP distillation tank, and other facilities, with a total floor area of about 420,000 square meters. Along with German auto behemoth BMW's battery production project in Tiexi, the project will connect the upstream and downstream industrial chains, contributing to the district's construction of a battery industrial center.

The construction of a new commercial development project is underway in Beijing's suburban district of Changping. Since last year, progress has been made on the construction of the consumption and recreation area in the eastern area of Changping New Town. A sprawling commercial zone of nearly 1.2 million square meters will be built to integrate business streets and waterfront promenades. The officials expected the eastern area of Changping New Town to become a modern urban area by the end of 2030, which will also have high-quality residential communities and a high-tech innovation and research zone.

China's one-year loan prime rate (LPR), a market-based benchmark lending rate, came in at 3.65 percent, unchanged from the previous month. The over-five-year LPR, on which many lenders base their mortgage rates, remained unchanged from the previous reading of 4.3 percent, according to the National Interbank Funding Center.

China dished out steep fines to UK professional services network giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its client China Huarong Asset Management last week. China fined Deloitte a record CNY212 million (USD30.8 million) for serious deficiencies in assessing the asset quality of Huarong, the country's biggest state-owned bad loan manager, the Ministry of Finance said on March 17. The world-renowned auditing firm's Beijing office has been suspended from operating for three months and the ministry has issued a warning letter to Deloitte's London head office. The two people who signed the auditing reports have had their certified public accountant certificates revoked while another 12 have been banned from practicing.

According to its annual work report published by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the number of people prosecuted for illegally buying and selling phone cards and bank cards and helping others withdraw and transfer money increased from 137 in 2018 to 130,000 last year. Statistics released by the SPP showed that the majority of suspects involved in aiding and abetting cybercrimes generally have low education and income levels, with 66.3 percent having a junior high school education or lower, and 52.4 percent having no steady employment. The crimes have become the third most prosecuted offenses nationwide, behind reckless driving, most of which are drunk driving, and theft. Telecom fraud is a contactless crime, often not noticed by victims at first, and is well-organized, cross-border and has high-tech involvement.

According to a work plan released by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, Party committees at all levels were required to carefully organize the research and study work, with leading officials and Party members actively involved. Research subjects can also include challenges in ideological domain, major issues in the promotion of common prosperity and improvement to people's well-being. Problems that are of the greatest and most direct concern to the people, such as employment, education, medical service and housing, as well as environmental protection, social stability, and full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, should also be covered by the campaign, said the plan.

Hundreds of thousands of North Korean troops are mobilizing to help plant and harvest crops. The country's military is rejiggering some of its munitions factories to produce tractors and threshing machines, while also converting some airfields into greenhouses. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, who has called for his military to become "a driving force" in increasing food production. North Korea's grain production plummeted to 3.4 million tons in 2020, from the previous year's 4.6 million tons. Although production recovered in the past two years, the country still fell short of what it needed by 1 million tons, according to the estimates of the South's Rural Development Administration. For three years, North Korea was forced to close its border with China, its only major trading partner. Only a bare minimum of trade was allowed.

Shares in China Huarong Asset Management plunged as much as 9.3 percent on March 20 after the country's biggest state-owned bad debt manager said that it is expecting to run up losses of CNY27.6 billion (USD4 billion) last year, in the second loss-making year in the past three years. Overall, the disappointing performance was due to outbreaks of Covid-19, macroeconomic pressure, the downward spiral of the real estate market and volatility in the capital markets, a company spokesperson said.

China has asked the European Union to justify its incoming carbon border tax at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO envoy from Beijing proposed on March 15 to use the Committee on Trade and Environment to conduct multilateral talks on "environmental measures that have given rise to controversies", starting with the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) proposed by the EU. CBAM, which is scheduled to go into force this October. Once implemented, the CO2 border tax will require companies wanting to import goods into the EU to buy certificates that show the emissions generated by those goods. The CO2 credits will reflect the difference between CO2 prices in the origin countries and the CO2 prices of the EU emissions trading system (ETS). At first, the EU carbon tax will cover emissions from the iron, steel, cement, aluminum, fertilizer, and electricity sectors.

A train carrying cargo containers from Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries, including Laos, Vietnam and Japan, departed from the Chengtong Trade Port Free Trade Zone in Shenbei New District, Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, on the morning 18 March. The train marks the opening of a new international freight route for RCEP member countries through Shenyang to Europe via entrepot trade. With rich rail resources, the Chengtong Trade Port connects different logistics routes, such as China-Europe freight trains and the China-Laos Railway, which facilitates the collection and transportation of general trade goods, cross-border e-commerce goods, transit goods, and bonded goods at the same venue.

The first batch of two fully-driverless ride-hailing platforms, which were operated respectively by Chinese tech giant Baidu and autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai, received approval after a three-month pilot program on public roads. The pilot program involved the unmanned autonomous vehicles' ability to deal with complex scenarios such as intersections, narrow roadways, as well as extreme weather conditions like rain, snow and sandstorms. The permit allows Baidu and Pony.ai to provide fully driverless rides without a safety supervisor aboard in a 60-square-kilometer area of the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area. Residents can summon a driverless car without a safety supervisor inside to travel to various destinations, such as subway stations, key commercial areas, public parks and residential communities, through mobile applications.

The People's Bank of China said it would cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 0.25 percentage points for financial institutions from March 27 to keep liquidity reasonably ample and serve the real economy. After the reduction, the weighted average RRR for lenders, except those already implementing a 5% ratio, will drop to around 7.6%. The latest RRR cut would lend significant support to sustaining the economic recovery that has become increasingly palpable since the beginning of the year.