Railway project

THE country’s top economic planner said yesterday it approved a high-speed railway project connecting the Xiongan New Area with Shanxi worth 57.24 billion yuan (US$8.82 billion).

The project is expected to take four-and-a-half years to complete, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement.

First penalties

China’s top banking and insurance regulator has slapped fines totaling almost 200 million yuan on institutions and individuals in its first crackdown on financial violations this year.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has fined seven financial institutions, including State-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The bank was fined 54.7 million yuan due to violations including inadequate information disclosure for its wealth management products.

New taxpayers

A TOTAL of 57.45 million new taxpayers were registered in China in the past five years, surging 83 percent from the 2011-2015 period as multi-pronged measures were taken to bolster high-quality development, according to the State Taxation Administration.

More than 90 percent of the new market entities are privately owned, and the proportion increased year by year during the period, according to the administration.

Heavy truck sales

SALES of heavy trucks in China continued an expansion streak in December 2020 to hit a year-on-year record high, industry data showed.

An estimated total of 114,000 heavy trucks were sold last month, up 24 percent year on year, according to auto industry information service provider cvworld.cn. The annual sales of heavy trucks amounted to around 1.62 million units in 2020, surging 38 percent from 2019.