China is confident that it will achieve its goal of importing USD30 trillion in goods in the next 15 years, Ren Hongbin, assistant minister of commerce and deputy director of the Office of the China International Import Expo Organizing Committee, said in Shanghai on Nov.2, the eve of the second China International Import Expo. China's imports, markets and consumption have driven global economic and trade growth and are now the biggest engine driving world growth.

China's manufacturing purchasing managers index registered 49.3 percent last month, down 0.5 percentage points from September and lower than the 49.8 percent the market expected, according to data China's National Bureau of Statistics released on Oct. 31. The non-manufacturing business activity index was 52.8 percent, down 0.9 percentage points from September, while the overall PMI output index ticked to 52.0 percent, down 1.1 percentage points.

China has officially started commercially using fifth-generation mobile network, Chen Zhaoxiong, vice minister of the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced at the opening ceremony of the 2019 PT Expo China on Oct. 31. China's three major telecom operators also released details of their respective 5G packages. The PT Expo China is a four-day event running from Oct. 31 at the China National Convention Center in Beijing. The fair presents products and services from all information and communications technology sectors.

A total of 2,345 foreign institutional investors had joined the inter-bank bond market by the end of last month. They closed CNY4.2 trillion (USD602 billion) in deals in an about CNY870 billion (USD124 billion) net purchase of Chinese bonds, per data the China Foreign Exchange Trade System released on Nov. 1. The number of overseas institutional investors entering the market may pass 1,100 in the first 10 months.

China's central state-owned enterprises realized an aggregate revenue of CNY22.1 trillion in the first three quarters in a 5.3 percent rise from the previous year, Li Mingxing, director of the Research Center of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said in a Nov. 2 report. Central SOEs' revenue held to over 5 percent growth for seven straight months. They posted CNY1.1 trillion in accumulated net profit, up 7.4 percent on the year. The efficient growth rate was 0.5 percentage points more than in the first eight months.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission accepted the applications of the joint venture brokers Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities and Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities for change of equity and actual controller on Nov. 1. These are the latest instances of foreign-invested shareholders in a joint-venture brokerage applying to become controllers since the Office of the Financial Stability and Development Committee under the State Council announced it will bring the time limit for removing the shareholding ceiling on foreign capital in securities, fund management and futures companies forward to 2020 from 2021.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed at 2958.2 points last week in a weekly rise of 0.11 percent or 3.3 points. The Shenzhen Component Index closed at 9,802.3 points in a weekly gain of 1.5 percent or 141.9 points. The Growth Enterprise Index closed at 1,687.0 points, up 0.7 percent or 11.7 points on the week.
Editor: Ben Armour