CX Daily: Meituan Hopes Middle East Expansion Will Deliver Growth
TOP STORIES
Meituan?/
Among the delivery drivers that crisscross streets and zip between buildings in Riyadh, there is a growing consort of riders and e-bikes donning Meituan’s characteristic black and yellow. Soon, drones clad with the same colors could take to the skies over the Saudi Arabian capital.
After pulling off a rapid takeover of the Hong Kong market, Meituan has taken its sister food delivery platform Keeta to the Middle East for its first foray outside China. ?
Central bank?/
China’s central bank governor has renewed his call for reform of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) quota system to give emerging market economies, key drivers of global growth, a bigger say in the running of the multilateral lender.
“The IMF quota realignment is critical for the IMF’s governance, representativeness, and legitimacy,” Pan Gongsheng said Sunday at a conference co-hosted by the IMF and Saudi Arabia in the Arabian oasis city of Al Ula. ?
FINANCE & ECONOMY
Bankruptcy?/
China's economic slowdown has led to a growing accumulation of personal debt, placing increasing pressure on both individual borrowers and financial institutions. Meanwhile, the lack of a well-established bankruptcy system leaves many without a clear path to resolve their financial problems.
The lack of an effective legal avenue for personal debt relief in China has driven many debtors to turn to debt intermediaries, some of whom engage in illegal practices, further trapping borrowers in financial distress. ?
Finance Movers and Shakers?/
BUSINESS & TECH
E-commerce?/
Facing rising trade barriers and regulatory scrutiny in the United States and Europe, Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms are scrambling to diversify their markets and reduce reliance on any single region.
On Feb. 1, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports and ending duty-free treatment for small parcels from China. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency enforced the order on Feb. 3, requiring all Chinese goods, including those from Hong Kong, to be formally declared and taxed. ?
BRIEFING
A rundown of the news making headlines in and around China:
Price decline ends: New home prices rose month-on-month across 31 second-tier cities overall last month, marking the first increase since June 2023 and reflecting the impact of a slew of measures rolled out to prop up the property market since September...
Top grossing animation: Chinese blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” had taken in some 12.3 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) at the box office since being released three weeks ago, making it the highest grossing animated movie of all time, ahead of 2024’s “Inside Out 2”...
Open source AI: Following the example set by DeepSeek, Geely Auto and AI startup Stepfun jointly announced that two speech and video generation models they co-developed are now open source. Its been argued that using an open source model will help drive China’s AI ecosystem...
Nickel business buyout: China's MMG Ltd. has agreed to buy Anglo American’s Brazilian nickel business for up to $500 million. MMG, which is backed by state-owned China Minmetals Corp., said the deal should be completed by the third quarter... Huawei’s hospital AI: Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital has unveiled its RuiPath pathology AI model developed with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd...
More graft busted: Over 22,000 people were prosecuted for embezzlement and bribery in 2024, up 36.8% from the previous year, according to China’s top prosecutor’s office... ?
Long Read?/