The rising cost of labor, overcapacity and falling brand influence are the three major challenges facing the future development of China's manufacturing sector, according to experts at an entrepreneur forum held in the central city of Wuhan, reports the Beijing Business Today newspaper.  read more

China's economy expanded 7.6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012, slowing from 8.1% in the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. The figure, which marked the sixth consecutive quarter of decline, revealed the slowest growth pace since the third quarter of 2009 and was within market expectation of below 8%.  read more

Although China's GDP growth rate slipped only 1.8 percentage points year-on-year in the first half this year, the growth rate of financial income plunged 19 percentage points year-on-year during the same period. As a result, municipal taxation agencies have greatly stepped up their effort to collect tax levies.  read more

China faced 40 trade investigations raised by 18 countries and regions in the first half of this year, according to Shen Danyang, spokesman for the country's commerce ministry.  read more

Software giant Microsoft has selected 10 Chinese companies for an early batch of its business incubation program — affiliated with its cloud computing platform Windows Azure — that will build, host and scale web applications through Microsoft data centers. Pengfei Chen, CEO of MySpace in China, has caught attention in the internet community, according to a report by the technology news site of Chinese web portal Sina. Chen has also formed a team around a company called Atom, which is to offer corporate services based on Windows Azure.  read more

MORE major cities in China saw home prices rise in June from May as the country's property sector showed signs of warming over government stimulus for the slowing economy, official data showed today.  read more

Beijing is planning to make the northwest autonomous region of Ningxia a financial center for business between China and the Arab world, Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Herald reported July 17.  read more

Bosses of companies in China planning to list on the stock exchange often have to spend millions or even tens of millions of yuan on massive PR campaigns or to curry favor with government officials. Owners of some small and medium enterprises have even had to borrow money to cover such expenses in the hope that they can pay the money back after their IPO launch.  read more

China is likely to undergo changes after Xi Jinping establishes his regime as the country's next top leader, says Jon Huntsman, the former US ambassador to China. The former Republican presidential candidate, who was stationed in Beijing between August 2009 and April 2011, made the comments in Taipei on Tuesday during a discussion with Taiwan's main opposition leader Su Tseng-chang.  read more

Demand for workers in China's job market declined sharply from the first to the second quarter of this year, data from the country's Ministry of Human and Social Security shows. Companies in the coastal provinces of eastern China experienced the most significant decline in demand, causing even lower employee recruitment.  read more