In the first half of 2026, funding for Chinese AI startups exceeded RMB 300 billion, surpassing the full-year 2025 total, as venture capital activity rebounded. High-tech industry investment rose 4.6% year on year. Inno Fund held 10 investment committee meetings from March to July 2026, matching its 2025 count, but with more projects and capital deployed. Quantum technology companies report a surge in investor interest, with funds increasingly concentrated in AI, quantum computing and computing power.
The Australian government has finalised its News Bargaining Incentive Bill, requiring large tech companies without content licensing deals with local media to pay a levy of 2.5% of their in-country digital advertising revenue. Up from 2.25% in the April 2026 draft, the rate now applies to digital ad revenue rather than total local revenue. Firms with over A$250 million in local revenue are covered, and LinkedIn is now included, alongside Google, Meta, and TikTok.
China's goods exports in 2025 totaled nearly RMB 27 trillion, up 6.1% year on year, with ASEAN accounting for 17.64% of total exports. Chinese firms are expanding across ASEAN in electronics, new energy vehicles, digital economy, cross-border logistics, and solar. Singapore remains a top regional headquarters choice despite high costs, with companies like Global Transport and Logistics serving 2,600 multinationals and setting up regional hubs. The city-state offers an international headquarter scheme with a 10% preferential tax rate, while a global minimum tax of 15% applies to large firms.
In the first half of 2026, services added value in the Yangtze River Delta grew steadily. Shanghai reached RMB 2.2154 trillion, up 5.9% year on year; Jiangsu RMB 3.8936 trillion, up 5.5%; Zhejiang RMB 2.8678 trillion, up 5.5%; and Anhui RMB 1.545 trillion, up 5.2%. Information technology and leasing services led growth, while provincial plans target expansion through 2030.
As of August 2, 2026, local government bond issuance totaled approximately RMB 6.61 trillion, including RMB 2.41 trillion of new special bonds. This represents 55% of the annual quota of RMB 4.4 trillion, below the 63.1% pace in the same period of 2025. Guangdong led with RMB 287.025 billion, followed by six other provinces. The Politburo has urged faster use of fiscal funds and bond proceeds.
The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, concluded on July 19 after a final marred by controversy surrounding US President Donald Trump. Appearing at the award ceremony, Trump drew boos from the crowd, having earlier demanded the rescission of a red card against a US player and intervened in delays to Iran's visa processing. The tournament generated a US$20 billion economic boost, with more than 78 matches held in the US without major security incidents.
China's National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration have issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a New-Type Power System, requiring existing coal-fired units to undergo wide-load high-efficiency retrofits and limiting the coal consumption increase under low-load operation to within 25%. The plan supports coal power and new energy integration projects, and calls for flexibility retrofits of all eligible existing units by 2030. Combined heat and power units must achieve minimum power output below 40%, with heat-power decoupling encouraged to maintain stable heating.
In the first half of 2026, China's individual income tax revenue reached approximately RMB 900 billion, up about 13% year on year, making it the third-largest tax category for the first time. The growth reflects new rules on CRS and offshore trusts, which have brought cross-border facts into the tax system's purview. Capital income's share continued to rise, cross-border income tax top-ups became more routine, and the taxpayer base grew more diverse.
The European Commission has approved a $55 billion all-cash acquisition of Electronic Arts by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, with Silver Lake and Affinity Partners. The deal, which will take EA private and delist it from Nasdaq, includes a $210 per share cash payout, a 25% premium. PIF will hold about 93.7% of the company. EA's recent financial performance has been weak, with net income down 69.97% in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, amid a shift to games-as-a-service.
The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided on July 30 that the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee will convene in Beijing in October 2026. The meeting analyzed the economic situation and set second-half priorities, stressing accelerated fiscal spending and bond fund use. New special bond issuance in the first half hit RMB2.07 trillion, or 47% of the annual quota. Consumption growth slowed to 1.3% in H1, with auto sales down 12.6% and appliance sales down 7.4%. The meeting pledged to expand domestic demand, build a modern industrial system, and advance opening-up, while setting a 2030 target of 100 trillion yuan for the services sector.
The central government has earmarked RMB100 billion in 2026 to roll out a fiscal-financial policy package aimed at spurring domestic demand. The package combines two consumption measures (interest subsidies for personal consumption and service-operator loans) with four investment measures (subsidies for MSME and equipment-upgrading loans, a private investment guarantee plan, and a bond risk-sharing mechanism). In the first half, new loans in these four categories exceeded RMB17 trillion, a 4.6% year-on-year increase. The consumption policies supported about RMB1.31 trillion in household spending, benefiting 99 million person-times. Service retail sales outpaced goods, and credit lines for private MSMEs expanded markedly. The leadership has signaled further policy refinement in the second half.
China is accelerating major infrastructure construction under the ‘two priorities’ and ‘six networks’ plan, with 2026 investment estimated to exceed 7 trillion yuan. The Three Gorges New Waterway started construction in June, marking a landmark project. In the first half, internet services investment rose 39.9%, water transport 19.8%, power supply 19.4%, and air transport 11%, while private capital in water network projects surged 85.8%. Full-year ultra-long bonds of 800 billion yuan have been allocated, and projects are entering the peak construction season to translate policy into tangible progress.
In the first half of 2026, China launched 25 major water conservancy projects, including the Three Gorges New Waterway and Liaodong Peninsula water allocation scheme, while completed water conservancy investment reached RMB515.1 billion. The national water network now covers 80.3% of the country's land area, with 35 of 40 planned backbone channels and 473 of 588 key storage nodes built or under construction. Annual investment has exceeded RMB1 trillion for four consecutive years since 2022. Flood control, irrigation and regional water supply projects advanced, with 387 million mu of farmland drained during flood season. Irrigated land contributed 88.11% of summer grain output.
Preliminary data show new growth drivers, including high-end manufacturing, the digital and intelligent economy, and modern services, contributed more than 40% of China's economic growth in the first half of 2026. Industrial value added above designated size rose 5.4% year on year, while high-tech manufacturing grew 13.3%. Industrial profits totaled RMB 3,947.99 billion in January–June, up 18.7%. Output of 3D printing equipment rose 48.5%, lithium batteries 39.3%, and industrial robots 28.0%. Fostering new growth drivers was made a key 2026 task.
The National Development and Reform Commission has issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for Circular Economy Development, targeting an output value of 8 trillion yuan from the resource recycling industry by 2030. The plan aims to raise main resource productivity by about 16% from 2025 levels, when it was already 77% higher than in 2012. It also outlines measures to improve recycling of spent power batteries, wind turbines, and photovoltaic panels as large-scale decommissioning begins.
The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region released an 'AI+' industry action initiative at the 2026 Supply Chain Promotion Conference, aiming to build a globally influential AI innovation highland and industrial collaboration demonstration zone. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, regional GDP approached 12 trillion yuan in 2025, surpassing three trillion-yuan thresholds. The initiative addresses uneven development and insufficient industrial coordination, while a new spatial coordination plan (2023-2035) outlines a development framework of 'one core, two wings, two cities, multiple points, two corridors, multiple circles'.
China's national student loan program disbursed RMB 127.7 billion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 34%, bringing cumulative disbursements to RMB 695.8 billion and benefiting over 30 million students. The program has expanded eligibility, raised loan ceilings, and introduced remote processing for co-signers, while anti-fraud measures are being strengthened during the admission season.
In H1 2026, the PBOC introduced a RMB1 trillion private-enterprise relending facility and expanded the sci-tech innovation and technological transformation relending quota to RMB1.2 trillion, adding new overnight reverse repo operations. By end‐June, aggregate social financing stock exceeded RMB460 trillion, M2 rose 8% to RMB356.71 trillion, and outstanding RMB loans gained 5.2%. The weighted average new corporate loan rate fell to around 3%, down 20 basis points year‐on‐year. The yuan appreciated 4.7% against a currency basket, cross‐border receipts and payments hit a record USD9.2 trillion, and foreign investment inflows continued. External debt safety ratios remained comfortably below international warning lines.
Guangdong's banking and insurance sectors led the nation in H1 core indicators, including total assets, liabilities, deposits, loans, insurance premiums, and underwriting profits. Manufacturing loans rose by RMB 560.4 billion, with over 40% directed to high-tech manufacturing. Foreign trade enterprise loans grew 11.44%, and export credit insurance coverage increased 7.3%. Regional loan growth in northern Guangdong reached 6.22%, while small business and agriculture loans expanded 9.25% and 6.04% respectively.
The State Council approved four nuclear power projects totaling eight units on July 31, the first batch of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, with estimated investment exceeding RMB 170 billion. The projects are owned by China National Nuclear Power, China General Nuclear Power and SPIC Capital, using Hualong One 2.0 and Guohao One technologies. China had 59 commercial nuclear units with 62.52 million kilowatts of installed capacity at the end of 2025 and 41.9 million kilowatts under construction. On August 3, A-share nuclear power stocks surged, with multiple limit-up moves and net capital inflows exceeding RMB 2.6 billion.
On July 30, the Politburo set the second-half economic agenda, emphasizing stronger domestic demand and deeper capital market reforms. First-half GDP grew 4.7% to RMB 69.57 trillion, with the largest increment in five years. High-tech manufacturing expanded 13.3%, while fixed-asset investment fell 5.7% and retail sales rose only 1.3%. The meeting also called for enhancing market resilience and confidence.
After pulling five-year CDs in late 2025 to manage costs, state-owned banks including Bank of China, ICBC and CCB resumed issuance from July 2026, with rates up to 1.6%. Joint-stock banks such as Ping An and Huaxia offer up to 1.8%. The transferable CDs are in strong demand. Agricultural Bank, Bank of Communications, Postal Savings and China Merchants have not yet followed. The National Financial Regulatory Administration reported state-owned banks' net interest margin at 1.29% at end-Q1 2026, down 0.01 percentage point from end-2025.
Wanhua Chemical Group has obtained China's first electronic certificate for bonded warehouse registration, issued through the "Internet + Customs" integrated online platform in Yantai, Shandong province. The certificate, secured within minutes, carries the same legal effect as a paper version and meets requirements for full traceability, tamper resistance, and paperless management, enabling businesses to complete procedures without in-person visits and with instant processing.
The Ministry of Commerce has assessed the 2024 performance of 228 national-level economic and technological development zones. The zones generated RMB 10.6 trillion in total imports and exports and US$26.84 billion in actual foreign investment, each nearly a quarter of the national total. They host over 110,000 foreign trade enterprises and over 70,000 foreign-invested enterprises. Five zones, in Guangdong, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning and Heilongjiang, were removed from the national-level sequence after weak assessments. MOFCOM will refine evaluation indicators and strengthen dynamic management.
On August 3, 2026, five-year China government bond futures were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), becoming the first and only such product in the offshore market. International investors can trade and settle these contracts using their existing Hong Kong accounts. Financial Secretary Paul Chan said the listing enriches RMB risk management tools and provides a standardized, exchange-traded offshore hedging instrument for government bonds. He cited Bond Connect, Southbound Connect, and the Interest Rate Swap Connect as prior steps, with this new product further completing the risk hedging framework. The move reinforces Hong Kong's role as the global hub for offshore RMB business.
Wuxi has listed 56 projects on the 2026 provincial major implementation list, six more than in 2025, with annual planned investment up RMB16.98 billion. The city plans to carry out 760 industrial projects worth at least RMB100 million each, up 9.5% from 2025. In the first half, it signed 78 industrial projects worth over RMB1 billion each, up 5.4% year on year, and contracted value reached RMB175.838 billion, up 51.8% from a year earlier.
In the first half of 2026, Beijing's dual-hub airports—Capital International and Daxing International—handled a total of 63,000 inbound and outbound flights, while the value of import and export cargo reached RMB 410.98 billion, marking a year-on-year increase of 18.7%. Strong demand for biomedicine, integrated circuits and precision equipment underpinned the performance, with high-value-added products becoming the main driver of air cargo growth during the period.
The Bank of Japan left its policy rate at 1% at its July meeting, with an 8-1 vote rejecting board member Hajime Takata's proposal to raise rates to 1.25%. Governor Kazuo Ueda said underlying inflation had a risk of exceeding 2%. The bank's outlook projected GDP growth of 0.6% in fiscal 2026, 0.8% in both 2027 and 2028, and core CPI of 2.5%, 2.4% and 2.0% respectively. Future tightening depends on Middle East developments, AI-related demand and exchange rates.
The National Development and Reform Commission said on July 28 that the China-Europe Railway Express, operating under a unified brand since 2016, has seen annual shipments rise from 1,702 to 20,022 trains, with cumulative departures exceeding 130,000. The network now reaches 236 cities in 26 European countries, serving as a major land trade corridor. Inland Chinese hubs have developed export-oriented industries, while return trains carry European goods and Central Asian resources. The 15th Five-Year Plan calls for upgrading corridors, safety, diversification and innovation.
American historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published The Fourth Turning in 1997, proposing that Anglo-American history moves in cycles of roughly 80 to 100 years through four stages: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. Each turning lasts about 20 to 25 years. They argued that the current fourth turning began around 2008, catalyzed by the global financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2022, major central banks conducted about USD 20 trillion in asset purchases through quantitative easing, while asset prices rose sharply and wealth concentration increased.