Tencent to invest US$70b in tech infrastructure

TECH giant Tencent Holdings will invest 500 billion yuan (US$70 billion) over the next five years in technology infrastructure including cloud computing, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, the company said yesterday.

The announcement comes after calls by the government last month for a tech-driven structural upgrade of the world’s second-largest economy through investment in “new infrastructure.” Other key sectors of the investment include blockchain, servers, big data centers, supercomputer centers, Internet of things operating systems, 5G networks and quantum computing, said Dowson Tong, senior executive vice president of Tencent.

Profits at State-owned firms fall 63%

PROFITS at China’s State-owned enterprises (SOEs) fell 63 percent year on year in the first four months of 2020, official data showed.

This came after a decline of 59.7 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to data from the Ministry of Finance. Total profits at the SOEs stood at 412.01 billion yuan (US$57.79 billion) during the January-April period. SOEs have generated combined revenue of 17.03 trillion yuan during the period, down 9.2 percent from a year earlier, and its operating costs saw a 6.2 percent fall to 16.92 trillion yuan, the ministry said. SOEs’ debt-to-asset ratio edged up to 64.6 percent at the end of April, compared with 64.5 percent at the end of March.

China defends tariffs on Australia barley

CHINA was prudent and restrained in its use of trade remedy measures according to the nation’s commerce minister, who defended the recent decision to impose anti-dumping duties on Australian barley as being based on evidence.

“We have found out that Australia has subsidized the grain, and there has been dumping in the Chinese market which caused damage to local producers,” Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said Monday.

Meituan Dianping posts first-quarter loss

FOOD delivery giant Meituan Dianping posted a smaller-than-expected fall in revenue Monday after its business was hit by nationwide virus curbs.

After three consecutive profitable quarters, the company said the loss for the first quarter was 1.58 billion yuan (US$221.27 million), compared with a 1.43 billion yuan loss for the year earlier period. Total revenue fell to 16.75 billion yuan from 19.17 billion yuan a year earlier.