Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

• China adopts first law promoting private sector, underscoring “nation's commitment to safeguarding rights of private businesses”;
• China expects to handle 144 million railway passenger trips over May Day holiday.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

China's national lawmakers on Wednesday voted to adopt the country's first fundamental law dedicated to promoting the private sector, underscoring support for a key part of the world's second-largest economy.

After over a year of legislative process, the private sector promotion law, passed at a session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, will take effect on May 20, 2025.

The adoption of the private sector promotion law marks a milestone in the development of the nation's private economy, a major economic driver, since the beginning of reform and opening-up, experts said, noting its importance as the country ramps up efforts to foster new quality productive forces.

Comprising 78 articles in nine chapters, the law covers such areas as fair competition, investment and financing promotion, scientific and technological innovation, regulatory guidance, service support, rights and interests protection and legal liabilities.

The law aims to further improve the environment for the development of the private sector and ensure fair market competition for all types of economic entities. It also promotes the healthy development of the private economy and supports the comprehensive growth of entrepreneurs.

During the drafting and deliberation process, lawmakers solicited public opinions through 54 legislative outreach offices and gathered broad feedback from private enterprises in various sectors, according to the members of the NPC Standing Committee.

Private enterprises have long been a key driving force behind China's economic ascendance, contributing more than 60 percent of GDP and 80 percent of urban employment. 

In the first quarter, 1.979 million new private enterprises were registered, marking a 7.1 percent year-on-year increase - surpassing the average growth rate of the past three years. By the end of March, the number of registered private enterprises surpassed 57 million, accounting for 92.3 percent of all businesses nationwide, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation.

New quality productive forces have become a key highlight of China's private sector. In the first quarter, 836,000 new private firms were registered in the "four new economies" - new technologies, industries, business formats and models, accounting for more than 40 percent of new private enterprises.

GBA express

• Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), operator of Asia’s third-largest stock market, said its first-quarter profit reached a record high, thanks to more new listings and increased turnover. Net profit rose 37 percent to HK$4.08 billion in the first three months, the exchange said on Wednesday. HKEX also topped its record profit of HK$3.84 billion posted in the first quarter of 2021.
• Nansha District in Guangzhou said children of non-local residents who purchase newly built homes in the area will be given access to school placements. This "home-for-school" policy is the first of its kind among China's major cities and comes as Nansha marks its 10th year as a free trade zone. 

Industry and company news

• China's railway network is expected to handle approximately 144 million passenger trips during the eight-day May Day holiday travel rush, which kicked off on Tuesday. The figure represents a year-on-year increase of 4.9 percent, according to China State Railway Group. To cater to this surge in traffic, China's rail authorities have scheduled additional train services, operating an average of more than 12,000 passenger trains each day.
• The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector came in at 49 in April, down 1.5 percentage points from March, official data showed Wednesday. China's non-manufacturing PMI came in at 50.4 in April, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous month.
• Xiaomi today open-sourced its first LLM designed for reasoning, namely Xiaomi MiMo. According to the Chinese tech firm, MiMo outperformed OpenAI's closed-source reasoning model o1-mini and Alibaba's reasoning model QwQ-32B-Preview, with just seven billion parameters.
• Alibaba's Taobao joined the instant retail war by renaming its one-hour delivery service to “flash buy”, a joint effort of Taobao and its affiliate food delivery platform Ele.me. The service is available in 50 cities today and will expand nationwide on May 6.
• Kweichow Moutai's net profit widened 12 percent to 26.8 billion yuan in the first quarter from a year earlier, the Chinese liquor giant said yesterday. Revenue rose 11 percent to 51.4 billion yuan in the period, with overseas revenue surging 38 percent.
• China's three biggest airlines reported deeper first-quarter losses on Tuesday from the same period a year ago. Air China, the country's flagship carrier, reported a net loss of 2.04 billion yuan for the quarter, 22 percent lower than the prior-year period. China Southern, the country's largest carrier by capacity, moved into a net loss of 747 million yuan in the first three months of this year, having posted a comparable quarterly profit of 756 million yuan last year. And Shanghai-headquartered China Eastern Airlines reported a quarterly net loss of 995 million yuan, down 24 percent from last year.

Asia-Pacific highlights

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that China always gives China-Thailand relations high priority in neighborhood diplomacy when meeting with his Thai counterpart. Wang said China is ready to work together with Thailand to deepen practical cooperation across various fields and bring more certainty to regional peace and stability. China welcomes Thailand's participation as a BRICS partner country and supports its full engagement in BRICS cooperation, he added.
• Australian wine exports recorded a strong rebound in the 12 months to March 2025, driven by surging demand from China after the removal of tariffs on Australian bottled wine. According to the latest export report released on Tuesday by Wine Australia, the country's wine industry regulator, wine exports to the Chinese mainland soared to 96 million liters, valued at AU$1.03 billion, accounting for nearly 40 percent of Australia's total wine export value.
• Against the backdrop of profound global geopolitical shifts, China and ASEAN are focusing on building a China-ASEAN Common Market. Rebecca Fatima STA Maria, former APEC Executive Director, said during an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that the building of a common market presents a key opportunity for ASEAN, prompting reflection on the sufficiency of intra-ASEAN integration efforts. With the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations concluding with substantial results, she stressed that ASEAN must integrate trade and investment environments, reduce barriers, and strengthen regional economic unity. Under U.S. unilateralism, she pointed out that ASEAN and Asian nations should leverage frameworks like RCEP to deepen regional cooperation, forming tighter economic partnerships with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand to enhance resilience against unilateralist impacts.

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

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