The UAE construction market size was $94 billion in 2023 and the market will achieve an average annual growth rate(AAGR) of more than 3% during 2025-2028, according to a report released by GlobalData, a data analytics and consulting company, headquartered in London.

The growth is attributed to the increase in investments in transport and renewable energy infrastructure, with improvements in the electric vehicle market, according to the report.

Residential construction captured the highest share of the UAE's construction market last year, according to the report, which indicated that the real estate sector continued its growth momentum with expectations that the sector will maintain good growth rates during the current year 2024 supported by the launch of qualitative infrastructure projects and investments by the government and the private sector.

Sony said its several businesses including its mobile phone business are operating normally in China, and the company has confidence in staying in the Chinese market.

The comments are in a response to some users on China's Weibo claiming that new mobile phones Xperia 1 VI and Xperia 10 VI will not be launched on the Chinese mainland.

"Our several business sectors including the mobile phone business are operating steadily in China. China is one of Sony's most important overseas markets, and we are full of expectations for our future development in China, the company said in a note sent to the Global Times on Sunday.

Xperia Z1 was first sold in Chinese mainland as early as 2013. Previously, Sony announced its financial results from July to September 2023, which showed that the revenue of the mobile division, which includes Xperia smartphones, fell significantly year-on-year, according to a report by yicai.com on Saturday.

The performance of Sony mobile phones in the Chinese market has always attracted much attention. In recent years, with the rise of local Chinese mobile phone brands, Sony has faced fierce competition in the Chinese market.

Despite this, the Global Times found that Sony is still selling mobile phone products on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com.

In earlier comments shared with the Global Times, Sony said the company has always attached great importance to the personalized and diversified needs of the Chinese market, and actively joins hands with outstanding domestic partners in order to bring high-tech, high-value products and solutions that are more in line with local needs.

China's Government Work Report submitted on Tuesday to the national legislature for deliberation during the annual two sessions has generated strong confidence among Japanese enterprises in China as it shows the Chinese government's determination to keep promoting opening-up and optimizing the business environment for foreign-funded enterprises.

Multiple Japanese enterprises stated in interviews with the Global Times that they are looking forward to further exploring the market as "China cannot do without the world, and the world cannot do without China."

A survey by the Japan External Trade Organization found that 90 percent of Japanese companies hope to expand their business in China or maintain their current status. Another survey conducted by the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China among its 1,700 member companies indicated that 88 percent of them still consider China as an important market.

China officially kicked off the two sessions this week, and the highly-anticipated Government Work Report, which contains a cluster of key economic goals, will be delivered. What we most look forward to is the formulation of some economic development indicators this year. Ultimately, it's about how the central government sets economic growth targets, especially regarding how to focus on the transformation of China's economy, while tackling with downward pressure and external uncertainties.

In fact, everyone is looking forward to what kind of signals the two sessions will bring to China's social development and how it will properly guide social expectations. The tone-setting political gathering is also a timely, clear response to certain pessimism voices on Chinese economy, especially from the international society. I think this is also the most important aspect of this conference.

There have been a lot of hypes on Chinese economy in recent days, ranging from rhetoric such as the collapse of the Chinese economy, economy hitting a ceiling, to economy recession claim. But all of them are groundless and those Chinese economy doomsayers basically don't understand the governing mechanism of Chinese economy and the course of its development. They interpret Chinese economy through the lens of basic theories and values derived from modern Western economics, as well as Western market economy theories.

But the reality of Chinese economy requires the international community to understand it from China's own perspective. For example, in the field of economics what the US scholars and politicians have experienced is only the scenarios involving marketization and modernization of a 300-million population. And obviously when it comes to the Chinese modernization involving a country with 1.4 billion people, it's very challenging for them to understand the development vigor and potential the economy could release, with their limited tools and methodologies in hands. China's uniqueness is undeniable, and it is essential to recognize the special characteristics of the Chinese economy.

Also, many people who study Chinese economy tend to amplify negative data they see, and this is how rumors are being spread internationally.

We've been hearing bearish views on Chinese economy not just today, but since the 1990s. It has been approximately 30 years, yet China is still standing firm here. Even though we currently face downward pressure, including insufficient demand and weakened expectations, if you look at the fundamentals of China's economic development, it's still very robust - no matter from the aspects of people's improving livelihood, stable consumer price, rising residents' incomes or better corporate profits.

The smearing against Chinese economy is clearly inconsistent with the positivity it has been released. Last year, our residents' incomes - both urban and rural - outpaced GDP growth, and rural residents' incomes even surpassed those of urban residents. This actually contributes to social stability and the sense of security and happiness of Chinese people.

There's more potential to be tapped into with China's gradual expansion of middle-income group in the years to come. We currently have only around 400 million middle-income population, and when China achieves the income levels of a moderately developed country in the future, there will likely be 700 to 800 million middle-income population. And that will bring a multiplier effect of China's demand and investment, which may even surpass the readings that a moderately developed country could achieve.
Rebutting 'Chinese economy Japanization'
Some foreign media outlets have also peddled the so-called "Chinese economy Japanization" since last year, with sensational headlines claiming that China's economic slowdown bears resembles to that of Japan three decades ago, and concluded that the world's second-largest economy could risk facing "lost decades" in the near future.

We must acknowledge that the slowdown of the Chinese economy is an inevitable trend for all economies as they progress, as development always involves the core issue of economic structure transition. And also, GDP won't always fly high as development quality improves.

But it is important to note that the Chinese economy is fundamentally different from that of the Japanese economy back then. Firstly, the scale is different. The Japanese economy didn't have a vast domestic market like China and because of a narrow domestic market space, a large amount of Japanese capital had to fleet into the world. On the contrary, China has a huge domestic demand. Even though many Chinese companies now seek opportunities internationally, the reality is that with the expansion of domestic demand and the development of the domestic economy, the space we provide for Chinese companies to develop domestically is also enormous.

Second, Japan has a population of 200 million, while we have 1.4 billion people, which carries ramification for abundant labor supply despite aging issues. Our incremental labor force is decreasing, but China's existing stock of labor force is still significant. The quality of China's existing labor force, along with the cultivation of our own Chinese entrepreneurs through decades of marketization and internationalization, also presents an overwhelming edge in human capital. And potential labor shortage issue could be gradually resolved through structural optimization and policy adjustments.

The Western distortion narrative against Chinese economy, which has persisted for years, is also fueled by their ideological biases. They always seated nervously with China's rise.

However, regardless of how external situation evolve, China needs to focus our efforts on doing our own things well. Chinese policymakers are sober and their approach to economic development - as shed light by the Central Economic Work Conference and the Government Work Report - is very clear. As long as we improve our economy, enhance people's livelihoods, and ensure employment, it is probably the most effective way to deal with all challenges. And the Chinese doomsayers could do nothing but sit there uneasily.

The opinion is based on an interview with Han Baojiang, a member of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a professor at Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National Academy of Governance).

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Friday called on the business communities in China and the US to consolidate the foundation of their friendship and mutual trust and expand cooperation scope.

Han made the remarks when attending the annual appreciation dinner of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) in Beijing at invitation. Approximately 500 representatives from Chinese and American businesses attended the event.

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and US, Han remarked that the business circles of the two countries are participants, witnesses and contributors to the bilateral cooperation, and will be pioneers in the future, Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

Han said the Chinese economy has strong resilience, potential and vast room to grow. China will unswervingly expand opening up at a high level, continue to reduce the negative list for foreign investment access, effectively guarantee the national treatment for foreign enterprises, and foster a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment to provide more opportunities for foreign companies to develop in China, Han said.

Han welcomed more US companies to invest and develop in China, calling on AmCham China to keep in mind its original intention and forge ahead, strengthen communication with the Chinese organizations, and jointly push for more results in China-US economic and trade cooperation.

US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said in a speech at the event that "China remains the number two source of imports to the US of any countries in the world, and the number three destination point for exports from the US."

"As President Biden, Secretary of the Treasury Yellen, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Commerce Raimondo and I have all made clear publically, the US wants to keep trade going forward with China. We are not seeking the decoupling of these two major global economies," Burns said.

There are increasing signs of improved engagement between the Chinese and US business communities, sending positive signals for economic ties between the two countries. One of the latest examples was the visit by the delegation led by the US Chamber of Commerce. During the visit from Tuesday to Thursday, the delegation held discussions with US enterprises operating in China and relevant industry associations as well as government officials.

China's continuous improvement of domestic business environment has also injected more confidence for foreign companies including the US to put more weight on Chinese booming market.

About half of US companies surveyed view China as a top three global priority despite challenges such as tense China-US relations, the AmCham in Beijing said on February 1.

American companies in China have recognized the improvement in China's economy and the continuous improvement of the business environment, which reflects the confidence of those investing in China and deepening their roots here, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) spokesperson He Yadong said at a regular press conference on Thursday, referring to the results of the latest report from the AmCham China.

Increased engagement between China and the US is offering vital reassurance to businesses in both nations and the global community, particularly in the face of escalating global challenges, analysts said.

Chinese chip producer Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co on Wednesday said that it welcomed a US court ruling, as the company was cleared of economic espionage and other criminal charges after being blacklisted by the US Commerce Department for more than five years.

Analysts said that many accusations made by the US against Chinese enterprises have been fabricated and were based on inferences, as political accusations have no bottom line. They said that the ruling was made based on facts and laws, while urging Chinese companies to take legal measures to protect their legitimate rights.

Fujian Jinhua was put on the US Entity List in 2018 amid former US president Donald Trump's trade war with China, with the US Commerce Department citing "a significant risk of becoming involved in activities that are contrary to the national security interests of the US."

On Tuesday, US District Judge Maxine M. Chesney in San Francisco found the company not guilty following a non-jury trial. The ruling may temper the Biden administration's pursuit of aggressive prosecutions to protect American technology, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Chesney concluded that US prosecutors failed to prove that Fujian Jinhua misappropriated proprietary data from Micron Technology - America's largest memory chip producer.

In 2017, Micron sued Fujian Jinhua and Taiwan island-based United Microelectronics Corp in the US courts, accusing the two of stealing the company's memory chip trade secrets.

In December 2023, Micron said that it had reached a global settlement agreement with Fujian Jinhua, according to media reports.

The US Justice Department in 2018 announced an indictment against Fujian Jinhua regarding the trade secrets issue, and later the US Commerce Department added the firm to a list of entities that cannot buy components, software or technology goods from US firms.

Many allegations raised by the US against China might be overturned if they were actually heard in the US court system, as a lot of allegations have been fabricated and based on inference, He Weiwen, senior fellow from the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Political accusations have no bottom line, said Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade.

Stamping rising Chinese enterprises with a bad name like 'spies' showed the how the US political ecosystem is like, and the smearing of Chinese companies demonstrated the bigotry driven by US politicians," Li told the Global Times on Wednesday.

According to the Bloomberg report, the verdict is significant because while the US has pursued and won numerous convictions of individuals for unlawfully transferring intellectual property to China, the Justice Department has rarely prosecuted Chinese companies in US courts.

The report noted that the case against Fujian Jinhua, filed in 2018 amid Trump's trade war with China, was touted as a high-profile effort to crack down on Chinese spying at US companies and research universities. The case was still in the courts when the Justice Department under the Biden administration ended Trump's "China Initiative" in 2022.

This ruling has a significant meaning as it can provide references for similar cases, Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who closely follows China-US trade issues, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

All three experts stressed the significance for Chinese enterprises to actively take measures to protect their legitimate rights in response to unwarranted sanctions and smears.

Chinese enterprises operate in accordance with regulations while advancing their technology and complying with legal requirements, Li said, adding that Chinese firms should utilize the law in response to politically driven smears.

Chinese experts and officials have repeatedly slammed the unreasonable US crackdown on Chinese enterprises, as such suppression will only harm normal trade and economic exchanges and interrupt global industry and supply chains.

Having a "small yard and high fence" will not stop China's innovation-driven development, nor will it do any good to US companies or the entire semiconductor industry, Mao Ning, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told a press conference on Tuesday, commenting after Nvidia included Huawei among its current competitors in artificial intelligence, chips and various areas for the first time, which showed that its competitive position may be harmed if there are further changes in the US government's export controls.

The US needs to follow the principles of the market economy and fair competition, and support companies around the world in advancing science and technology through healthy competition, Mao said.

China's first artificial intelligence-generated animation Qianqiu Shisong was put on air via  CCTV-1, part of China Media Group (CMG) on Monday, which illustrated scenes and figures described in China's ancient poems and verses done by generative AI, the Securities Times reported. 

Industry observers said that the broadcast of the first AI-generated animation program may accelerate the application of text-to-video program-making in China, further optimize the production process for making film and drama, game development and advertising, said the Securities Times report.

Qianqiu Shisong includes 26 episodes in total, each lasting about seven minutes in length. It was made by the generative-AI model co-developed by Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the CMG, under the brand of CMG Media GPT and launched in July 20, 2023. 

CMG Media GPT can learn Chinese ancient poems and verses by "being fed" with the massive data of past CCTV poem-relevant programs, said researchers from the laboratory, noting that the technology significantly compressed the animation making time.

"AI will not replace human but increase human's working efficiency. For example, our team used to make on episode each month, but now we can make three episodes each month with assistance from AI," said the director of the Qianqiu Shisong, whose name is not revealed. 

Followed by the released of text-to-video model Sora by the OpenAI, price of related stocks in Chinese capital market remained high.

On Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo, many netizens said that animation generated by AI was a smart approach to popularizing Chinese culture as the cutting-edge technology can inject new life into ancient poems and verses. 

Other netizens noted that it was a valuable opportunity to practice China's AI technology but Chinese AI researchers should see the gap between world-leading AI models and theirs, and make more efforts to catch up.

Chinese oil giant CNOOC said on Sunday it has made a significant discovery in the Bozhong 26-6 oilfield in the country's northern Bohai Sea, revealing additional proven reserves exceeding 40million cubic meters. The oilfield's petroleum reservoir now boasts an accumulative 200 million cubic meters, making it the world's largest metamorphic oilfield.

Located in the southern waters of the Bohai Sea, about 170 kilometers offshore Tianjin city, drilling and exploration at Bozhong 26-6 area has kept on. 

Of which, the Bozhong 26-2 North 2 Well encountered a 118-meter-thick oil and gas layer during the drilling process. 

The test results showed that the average daily oil production of the well exceeded 390 cubic meters, and the daily gas production exceeded 50,000 cubic meters, setting a record high for the test productivity of new drilling wells in the oilfield.

It is expected that the Bozhong 26-6 oilfield can extract more than 30 million cubic meters of crude oil, meeting the daily transportation needs of urban residents with a population of one million for more than 20 years, after being refined into gasoline. 

At the same time, it can extract more than 11 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which can satisfy the household gas needs of urban residents with a population of one million for more than 60 years, the company said. 

The reservoirs of the Bozhong 26-6 oil field are buried in seabed hills thousands of meters deep below the surface. They are mainly composed of metamorphic rocks. 

Traditional theories believe that due to the continuous strong activity of faults in this area, deep oil and gas reservoirs are easily destroyed and it is difficult to form large-scale oil and gas accumulation. Previously, more than 80 deep-water wells drilled by many well-known foreign oil companies have not made meaningful discoveries.

"To better guard against risks, it is necessary to take an unequivocal stance to deal with market wrongdoings, and financial regulators should clarify their responsibilities and strengthen policy coordination to ensure a healthy financial industry development," Zhang said.

And, promoting self-reliance in technology also requires the support of the financial sector. When financial institutions serve the national strategy, they must sacrifice temporary short-term interests, Zhang noted.  

China sent a strong and renewed signal on building itself into a financial powerhouse as part of its efforts to pursue high-quality development of the financial sector.

Chinese leadership said last week that a country with a strong financial sector should have a strong economic foundation, and lead the world in infrastructure, technology and comprehensive national strength.

Such a nation should be backed up by a series of core financial fundamentals, such as a strong currency, a strong central bank, strong financial institutions, strong international financial centers, strong financial supervision, and a high-caliber team of financial talent, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

To be a financial powerhouse shows that China has taken financial development from a strategic perspective, which is unprecedented and shows the central government's emphasis on finance, said Wang Wen, professor and executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.

"We must look at the current difficulties and challenges, for China is not a financial powerhouse yet," Wang said. 

It's important for China to boost the yuan's role in international financing in international trade in a bid to pursue high-quality development of the financial sector, said Wang. 

"Monetary policy is one of the main means of macro-control and plays a key role in the stable operation of Chinese economy. We must maintain the basic stability of the exchange rate and prioritize a strong currency as the key element of a financial power," Zhao Xijun, a professor of finance at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.

Zhao underlined that the Chinese yuan's exchange rate should be kept generally stable at a reasonable and balanced level, "because money is also economic language that represents state power and national identity and it can invigorate the capital market and boost investor confidence."