Top news of the week:

• China's vehicle sales rose 29.7% year on year in July

  August 15, 2022

  Followed China’s act of halving the purchase tax for eligible passenger vehicles and easing restrictions to spur auto sales and underpin consumption in June, China’s new vehicle market surged by 29.7% year on year to 2,420,000 units in July 2022. In particular, the output of new energy vehicles outperformed and achieved 617,000 units. Experts expect the economic recovery momentum to sustain in the future.

• The unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24 has risen to 19.9%

  August 16, 2022

  China’s overall employment rate continued to drop in July, and employment pressure on young people continued to rise. The surveyed unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 24 has risen to 19.9%, growing by 0.6% from June. The National Bureau of Statistics stated that the government will continue to implement a variety of measures to stabilize employment and help young job seekers.

• Premier urges economic powerhouses to consolidate recovery

  August 17, 2022

  At a symposium on the economic situation, Premier Li urged the economic powerhouses to ensure solid implementation of a package of pro-growth policies while leveraging policies to energize market entities, smooth logistics, and stabilize industrial and supply chains. He also called for the six provinces, namely Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Henan, and Sichuan, to promote opening-up at a higher level and stabilize foreign trade and investment to realize mutual benefits and win-win outcomes.

• Authorities implement active fertility measures to further support childbirth and parenting

  August 18, 2022

  The National Health Commission (NHC), in collaboration with 16 other departments, released a guideline introducing a raft of policies for prenatal and postnatal support to promote balanced long-term population development. To help reduce burdens on families, better maternal care services and public-benefit childcare services, improved maternity and parental leave policies, preferential policies on housing and taxation, and the fostering of fertility-friendly workplaces are included in the guideline.

• China issues sci-tech action plan to support carbon reduction

  August 19, 2022

  Nine authorities, including the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), have published an action plan from 2022 to 2030 to support the country’s carbon reduction goal through science and technology measures. The plan features specific actions to promote technological breakthroughs and innovation in the green and low-carbon energy transformation, low and zero carbon industrial process reengineering, low-carbon construction and transport, negative carbon and non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emission reduction, and global cooperation, among others.