Per capita disposable income rises

PER capita disposable income in China rose 7.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2017 from a year earlier, the fastest pace since the same period in 2015, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday.

That compares with 7.3 percent growth in the first half of the year and 6.3 percent in the year-ago period. The pick-up in income growth this year reverses a steady downward trend since the current dataset began being released in 2013 and is a positive sign for an economy that the government says needs a bigger contribution from consumers.

Aluminum production slips in September

CHINA’S aluminum output fell a third straight month in September, official data showed Thursday, although it remains on track to hit a record high in 2017 despite capacity cuts.

The world’s top aluminum producing country churned out 2.61 million tons of the metal last month, down 1.1 percent from 2.64 million tons in August and 5.6 percent from 2.751 million tons in September 2016, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Year-to-date aluminum production still came in at 24.66 million tons, up 5 percent year on year, the NBS said.

Meituan-Dianping raises US$4b

MEITUAN-DIANPING said Thursday it has raised US$4 billion in a funding round that values China’s largest on-demand services provider at US$30 billion, as part of a strategy to compete with the country’s leading e-commerce firms in offline retail.

Meituan-Dianping said the round was led by existing investor Tencent Holdings Ltd., with participants including Sequoia Capital Ltd., Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd. and Tiger Global Management LLC.

Coal output rises slightly in September

CHINA’S coal production rose slightly in September from a month earlier, as miners increased operations to take advantage of rising prices after environmental and safety checks in August curbed output, data showed Thursday.

China produced 298 million tons of coal last month, up 2.4 percent from August and 7.6 percent from a year ago, data released by the National Statistics Bureau showed Thursday. Over the first nine months of the year coal production reached 3 billion tons, up 5.7 percent from the same period a year ago.