People do shopping at the Sanya Haitang Bay International Shopping Mall in Sanya, south China's Hainan province, Sept. 1, 2014. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng)
#Five-year development plan
The 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China started its fifth plenary session in Beijing to discuss proposals for the nation's next five-year development plan from 2016 to 2020.
The Economist published an article to tell readers the significance of the plan in China.
It said the plans are important because "they are large neon signs of where the party wants to take the country."
The "most-watched" part of the new plan will still be its target for GDP. The Economist said the new plan would change the old practice that the targets were often set well below the potential growth rate.
There will also be some other targets to aim for during the key meeting, for example, lifting more people out of poverty, adjustment of population policy and objectives for reductions in carbon emissions, investment in high-tech industries.
Reuters said the meeting will focus on financial reforms and how to maintain growth of around seven percent and more broadly map out economic and social targets for the next five years. Wall Street Journal also have similar reports on key meeting which opened on Monday.
#China's retail industry
Reuters tried to solve "a China twist: why are malls closing if consumption is rising?"
Chinese malls and department stores are enduring a harsh time with rising vacancy rates and plummeting rents as even some major mall operators such as Wanda and Parkson are restructuring and have closed some of its stores in China.
Reuters said that the growth in retails sales slowed mainly due to China's lower GDP growth. It also pointed out that China's official retail figures were not exclusively reflective of rising household consumption because some government purchases are captured in calculating the data.
China's e-commerce sites seems to continue to flourish with double-digit growth rates but the growing speed is declining.
Reuters noted that "shopping overcapacity" is another main cause for China's slumping retail sector as much of the surge in retail space construction came at the behest of local governments, who were rushing to push real estate development as part of attempts to stimulate the economy in the past several years.
#No.1 smartphone vendor in China
Forbes Tech News reported that Huawei became the biggest smartphone vendor in China in the third quarter, unseating the dominant Xiaomi from the top spot.
It is the first time Huawei has taken the No.1 position and it is considered as a "remarkable feat" especially in the context of an increasingly cutthroat and maturing Chinese smartphone market.
