Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

Global institutions have issued over CNY1 trillion of panda bonds, highlighting investor confidence in Chinese market;

Guangzhou sees surge in drone exports this year.

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

As of Tuesday, the total issuance of panda bonds, or yuan-denominated bonds issued by foreign financial institutions in China, had exceeded CNY1 trillion, CCTV reported.

It underscores the strong confidence of internationally renowned issuers in the prospects of China’s long-term development, and their continued commitment to deepening their presence in the giant Chinese market.

Since the start of the year, several international development institutions have successively issued panda bonds. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) recently completed an issuance of two-year term panda bonds worth CNY2 billion in China’s interbank bond market, according to the report.

To date, panda bonds have been issued by more than 90 institutions, and renminbi-denominated international financing, including panda bonds, now ranks as the second largest bonds globally by volume.

In recent years, inspired by favorable policy and market conditions, the panda bond issuance market has seen continuous expansion.

Launched in 2005 with modest issuance volumes and initially considered a trial innovation, it has now become a crucial strategy for foreign institutions seeking financing through China's bond market.

GBA express

Drone makers in Guangzhou exported more than 6,100 drones in the first five months, up 252 percent year-on-year, and achieved a record for the period, according to a statement released by the municipal commerce bureau. More than half of the drones delivered are for agricultural use, and most of the drones were exported to markets in Southeast Asia, South America and Central Asia. Liu Qing, director of the foreign trade management office of Guangzhou's municipal commerce bureau, attributed the surge of the city's drone exports to local drone enterprises' greater efforts in exploring the global market since the beginning of the year, leading to bigger brand influence and global market share.

E-commerce giant JD.com becomes a leading investor in three fast-rising robotics startups, positioning it at the center of China's industrial technology shift, alongside rivals like Alibaba and Baidu. Shenzhen-based LimX Dynamics said its full-size humanoid robot will enter commercial production in late 2025 for use in JD's retail and supply chain networks. Hangzhou's Spirit AI raised nearly CNY600 million in a round of financing, debuting its Moz1 robot powered by a vision-language-action model. EngineAI, also Shenzhen-based, secured almost CNY1 billion as it scales up production of its PM01 humanoid robot.

Industry and company news

A total of 16 centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have pledged their support for the development of Southwest China's Xizang autonomous region, with 75 investment deals worth CNY317.5 billion concluded. The agreements, covering energy, power and telecommunications infrastructure and other sectors, were signed on Sunday at a conference focusing on SOEs' contribution to the region's high-quality development. Since 2021, China's SOEs have invested CNY145.8 billion in more than 8,800 projects in Xizang, generating CNY276.7 billion in business revenue, according to data unveiled at the conference.

Chinese car giant BYD confirmed today that its premium brand Yangwang will enter the European market, media reported. Launched in China two years ago, Yangwang aims to compete with luxury car brands such as Bentley, Porsche, and Ferrari.

JD.Com has opened its first self-operated physical restaurant that offers only food delivery and pick-up services, with no dine-in option. 7Fresh Kitchen, located on the ground floor of a building in Beijing’s Dongcheng central district, received 800 orders on opening day yesterday, according to media reports.

Cotti Coffee's super factory in the Chinese coffee chain's global supply chain base in Ma'anshan, China's Anhui province, broke ground yesterday, media reported. The factory, with a building area of around 340,000 sqm, has an annual production capacity of 4 billion cups.

China's electricity use in June grew 5.4 percent from a year earlier to 867 billion kilowatt hours, according to the National Energy Administration. Consumption rose 4.9 percent in primary production and 10.8 percent in households. In the first half, electricity use was up 3.7 percent to 4.84 trillion kilowatt-hours. The figures reflect both continued recovery in China's economy and modest growth in manufacturing.

Asia-Pacific highlights

The number of new users in Thailand on Taobao has increased nearly 60 percent since the Chinese e-commerce platform launched a Thai version over a month ago, media reports today. The Thai language version of Taobao features an AI translation service developed based on Alibaba's LLM TongyiQianwen.

Chinese new-style tea brand ChaPanda has entered Singapore to further speed up its coverage in Southeast Asia, opening two stores in the SCAPE and Northpoint shopping malls, media reported yesterday. The SCAPE shop saw long queues on the first day, with an average waiting time of over 2 hours.

Argentina on Monday announced a loosening of visa requirements for Chinese citizens. Under the new policy, effective Tuesday, Chinese nationals with US visas will not need Argentine visas to enter the country for tourism or business. The move comes after China in May announced a trial policy that unilaterally grants visa-free entry to citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay.

As the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) marks its 11th anniversary, China-Malaysia cooperation has entered a new phase of multi-dimensional and deeply integrated engagement, spanning infrastructure, the digital economy and green transformation — with vast potential ahead, Loh Wee Keng, chairman of the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China (MayCham China), told Chinese media during the 2025 China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing. One of the most iconic achievements of China-Malaysia cooperation under the BRI, Loh said, is the "Two Countries, Twin Parks" model — the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park and the China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park, which has been operating for over a decade. Loh also highlighted that the flagship BRI project jointly built by Malaysia and China, the East Coast Rail Link, is now in its final phase of construction and is expected to become operational by late 2026 or early 2027. Loh expressed hope that more large-scale infrastructure projects would be successfully launched and implemented in Malaysia in the coming years.

Panda bond issuance hits CNY1 trillion amid growing confidence in Chinese market