Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

Shanghai Composite Index hits 10-year high on Monday, with gross A-shares market cap surpassing CNY100 trillion;

China’s economy remains steady despite July data dip.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

The Shanghai Composite Index surpassed 3,740 points and reached an intraday high of 3,745 on Monday, marking a ten-year record since August 20, 2015.

Since hitting a low of 3,040 points on April 7, 2025, the benchmark index has risen by 22.72 percent. Notably, during the same period, the Shenzhen Component Index gained nearly 30 percent, while the ChiNext Index soared by 47 percent.

Meanwhile, as of 10:34 am on Monday, China's total A-share market capitalization has surpassed CNY100 trillion, setting a new record and marking the first time in A-share history to break the threshold.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.85 percent at 3,728 points today, while the Shenzhen Component Index jumped 1.73 percent to end at 11,835 points, with total turnover topping CNY2.8 trillion.

Hong Kong stocks also opened higher for the week, as the southbound capital accelerates its flow into the city’s stocks market. Last Friday, investors in the Chinese mainland set a new record for the highest single-day net inflow of HK$35.876 billion.

Regarding individual companies, Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) leads the A-share market capitalization rankings with CNY2.19 trillion, followed by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) with CNY2.02 trillion. And, the A-share market capitalizations of Kweichow Moutai, PetroChina, Bank of China, and CATL all exceeded CNY1 trillion.

Pan Helin, member of the Expert Committee on Information and Communication Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), told the 21st Century Business Herald that the latest market rally, which began at the start of the year, reflects the concentrated emergence of China's efforts in advancing technological innovation.

He noted that breakthroughs in areas such as artificial intelligence, large models, and digital transformation have boosted the global appeal of Chinese assets. This, in turn, has drawn overseas capital inflows and fueled the prosperity of China's stock market.

Several of China’s key economic indicators slipped last month due to the difficult external environment and adverse weather at home. Industrial production rose 5.7 percent in July from a year ago, slowing from June’s 6.8 percent, while retail sales of consumer goods rose 3.7 percent, compared with 4.8 percent in the prior month, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed. From January to July, fixed asset investment rose 1.6 percent, down from 2.8 percent in January to June. NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said while the economy is stable overall, further efforts will be made to maintain the continuity and stability of policies, and to enhance their flexibility and foresight.

GBA express

Monday marked the fifth anniversary of the opening of the new passenger inspection area at Hengqin Port in Zhuhai, which has seen 75.64 million inbound and outbound passenger trips in the past five years, as a core hub for personnel exchanges, economic and trade cooperation, and livelihood integration between Guangdong and Macao, as well as a vital gateway for the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, CCTV reported. Data shows that so far this year, the average daily passenger flow at Hengqin reached 76,946, a 1.88-fold growth compared to before the new passenger inspection area was launched in 2019.

UK-based consumer goods multinational Unilever began operation at its new food-production center in Guangdong Province to strengthen its supply chain on the mainland. The company's brands include baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, dairy products, ice cream, instant noodles and soft drinks.

Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi service completed 20,000 kilometers of "safe driving" in Hong Kong road tests, the Chinese company said on Saturday, earning it the go-ahead to expand to another area of the city. City officials approved robotaxi road tests to expand to a technology hub in the southern part of the city.

Industry and company news

Huawei topped China's phone market in the second quarter, followed by Vivo and Oppo, according to data released by IDC today. Global smartphone shipments rose 1.4 percent to 297 million units last quarter from a year earlier. The report also showed the scale of China's AI public cloud service market expanded 55 percent to CNY19.6 billion last year from the year before, with Alibaba Cloud and Baidu AI Cloud jointly ranking first by market share, followed by Tencent Cloud and Huawei Cloud.

JD.Com's first offline catering brand 7Fresh Food Mall is in talks to open new stores in over 10 Chinese cities to expand its services nationwide, media reported today, citing the Chinese retail giant. 7Fresh Food Mall opened its first mall in China's northeastern Harbin in June.

Great Wall Motor has launched production at its factory in Brazil, the Chinese carmaker's first plant in Latin America. The plant will produce Haval H6 fuel and hybrid SUV models, the Haval H9 SUVs, and Poer pickup trucks, with an initial annual capacity of 50,000 units that will eventually reach 100,000 units, according to Great Wall.

China's summer box office, including presale, surpassed CNY10 billion as of 2.28 p.m. today, according to data from ticket info tracker Maoyan. Chinese movie Dead to Rights is leading the summer box office earnings ranking with a market share of nearly 26 percent.

China recorded over 64.7 million air passenger trips in July, up 2.7 percent from a year earlier, of which nearly 7.1 million were on international routes, up 16 percent in the period, CCTV reported, citing the CAAC. Air passenger trips rose 5.6 percent to about 440 million in the first seven months from the same period last year.

Asia-Pacific highlights

WeRide will receive a strategic investment from Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading all-in-one app that covers services from ride-hailing to package delivery, the Chinese self-driving tech startup said. The deal is part of a partnership aimed at fast-tracking the roll out and commercialization of Level 4 robotaxis and shuttles across Southeast Asia. Guangzhou-based WeRide has tested or operated its vehicles in 30 cities worldwide and currently has autonomous driving permits in China, Singapore, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

A direct air cargo route for fruits and vegetables from Urumqi in China's northwest Xinjiang to Dubai launched on Aug. 16, with the inaugural flight moving over 18 tons of melons, tomato products, grapes, dried apples, and others, Xinhua reported.

Zhaowei Machinery & Electronics, which supplies robotic parts to Tesla, said it will invest as much as US$100 million to build a factory in Thailand to expand overseas operations. Shares in the Shenzhen-listed firm have risen about 80 percent this year.

China's benchmark index hits 10-year high