CBN丨Provincial “first meetings” focus on innovation, business environment

Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.Coming up on today’s programMajor provinces held first meetings after the holidays, focusing on developing new quality productive forces and improving business environment;"Ne Zha 2" becomes China's all-time top-grossing film.Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours Multiple provincial-level regions across China have identified boosting technological innovation and improving the business environment as their top priorities during meetings on Wednesday, the first official working day after the Spring Festival holidays, displaying firm resolve to promote high-quality development.At a meeting on Wednesday, Huang Kunming, Party chief of South China's Guangdong Province, said that as the largest provincial economy, Guangdong should play a leading and demonstration role in boosting the modernization of the industrial system.   Huang urged relevant departments and cities to seize and make good use of all favorable conditions to transform positive factors into development achievements and build a modern industrial system with more international competitiveness to support the construction of a prosperous and dynamic new Guangdong with abundant economic and social vitality in the months to come.Among other things, the province will make concentrated efforts in artificial intelligence and robots so as to foster new growth drivers featuring advanced technologies, high growth rates and large industrial volume. Additionally, Guangdong will implement major special projects to strengthen the province's chip industry and strive for breakthroughs in core software.Guangdong has a wide range of manufacturing industries, including traditional, emerging and future sectors, as well as advanced manufacturing and modern services in Guangzhou, technological innovation and high-tech industries in Shenzhen, smart home appliances in Foshan and smart terminals in Dongguan. This integration has resulted in the development of eight industrial clusters, each valued at 1 trillion yuan, according to the provincial chief.East China's Anhui Province focused on new quality productive forces at a meeting on Wednesday. The meeting stressed the need to actively seize crucial opportunities in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, lead the development of new quality productive forces with tech innovation, and accelerate the modernization of the industrial system. Continuously improving the business environment was also a priority in the first meetings of several provincial-level regions. For example, Shanghai's "first meeting" focused on optimizing business environment, and issued an action plan on building a world-class business environment, according to a report on Shanghai's official website. Wang Weizhong, governor of Guangdong, said the province would spare no effort to create a market-oriented, rule-of-law-driven, internationalized and first-class business environment to accelerate the construction of world-class enterprise clusters in 2025.Greater Bay Area, Greater futureMacao recorded over 4.9 million cross-border trips during the Chinese New Year holiday, up 0.6 percent from a year earlier, local authorities announced today. More than 76 percent of the 1.3 million inbound tourists were from the Chinese mainland. Meanwhile, Hong Kong welcomed around 1.4 million visitors during the holiday, which included 1.2 million visitors from the mainland, or 85 percent of the total arrivals.  Hong Kong’s Consumer Council, in cooperation with its Greater Bay Area counterparts, launched a one-stop portal on Wednesday providing guidance for renting and buying properties across the region. The platform offers “GBA housing tips” with essential information for potential homebuyers or tenants, such as each city’s property transaction and rental processes, policies and regulations, terminology explanations and comparisons, as well as cases highlighting potential risks and disputes.Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu left the city for Harbin in Heilongjiang province on Thursday to attend the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games on Friday, and support the city’s athletes. Lee was invited by the Heilongjiang government to conduct a seven-day visit to the province.Next on industry and company newsNe Zha 2 overtook The Battle at Lake Changjin today to become the highest-grossing film in the Chinese mainland after raking in 5.78 billion yuan, according to movie info tracker Beacon. The animated fantasy adventure sequel has taken moviegoers by storm since Spring Festival, leading the lucrative Spring Festival holiday box office, and has made the highest animated grosser in a single market.U.S. carmaker Tesla said on Wednesday that its Shanghai energy-storage battery Megafactory will start official operation next week. The construction of this Megafactory in east China was completed at the end of last year. Following its launch ceremony in May 2024, it took just seven months for the project to be completed. Trial operation began last month.Japanese carmaker Toyota on Wednesday that it will build a wholly-owned subsidiary in Shanghai to develop and produce Lexus-branded electric vehicles and batteries, becoming the second carmaker to do so after Tesla. The subsidiary will start production in 2027, with initial production capacity to be around 100,000 units per year.DeepSeek's daily active users exceeded 20 million as of Jan. 31 since its launch on Jan. 11, becoming the second most-used AI app after ChatGPT, according to data platform aicpb.Com.IM Motors, the EV unit of SAIC Motor, announced yesterday that it is offering a limited-time discount of 30,000 yuan on the L6 electric sedan, with the discounted price starting from 189,900 yuan, from Feb. 5 to 28. While Tesla launched its biggest Chinese New Year campaign ever to provide limited-time insurance subsidies worth 8,000 yuan and five-year zero-interest loans. The revamped Model 3 is now priced from 227,500 yuan.Huawei's overall performance met expectations last year, with ICT infrastructure remaining robust, consumer business restoring growth, and smart car solution business developing rapidly, Chairman Liang Hua said yesterday. Revenue from the smart car BU exceeded 860 billion yuan in 2024, he added.Midea's revenue reached record 400 billion yuan last year, with retail revenue from the robotics and automation business contributed over 30 billion yuan, Fang Hongbo, chairman of the Chinese home appliance giant, said yesterday.Over 18.2 million people traveled by air in China during the eight-day Chinese New Year holiday, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, according to CAAC data. The daily number of international flights averaged 1,888, recovering to nearly 87 percent of the pre-pandemic level in 2019.China's postal and courier industry has collected over 8 billion parcels since the start of the Chinese New Year travel rush on Jan. 14 as of Feb. 4, up 38 percent from a year earlier. Deliveries surged 35 percent to around 8.65 billion parcels in the period.Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock marketChinese stocks rebounded sharply on Thursday with total turnover of the A-share market reaching 1.54 trillion yuan. The benchmark Shanghai Composite rose 1.3 percent and the Shenzhen Component climbed 2.3 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also added 1.4 percent and the TECH index jumped 2.6 percent.