China

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce firm Pinduoduo Inc said on Tuesday that it had raised $1.1 billion in a private share placement, bolstering its ability to finance growth, despite recent market volatility.

Undeterred by the coronavirus epidemic that has rocked financial markets around the world, Nasdaq-listed Pinduoduo has secured several long-term investors including Chinese private equity firms Hillhouse Capital and Boyu Capital and tech giant Tencent Holdings for the deal, said three sources.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China will delay its national college entrance exam by a month as it grapples with a coronavirus pandemic as travellers returning from abroad are fuelling new cases and boosting concern over the threat of a second wave of infections.

The two-day “gaokao” annual test will be pushed back to July 7 and 8, China Central Television said on Tuesday, with Hubei province, where the virus emerged late last year, and Beijing, the capital, being given more leeway in scheduling it.

BEIJING (AP) — Nineteen people have died while fighting a raging forest fire in southwestern China and hundreds of reinforcements were sent to fight the blaze and evacuate nearby residents, officials and state media reported Tuesday.

The area threatened by the fire in Sichuan province is thinly populated, but there was no estimate on how many people were leaving the evacuation zone. State media have described villages, a school, a chemical plant and other places as under threat.

SHANGHAI, March 30. /TASS/: The current novel coronavirus pandemic is likely to ebb around autumn, but there is no time frame when it will end, the Shanghai Daily quotes Dr. Zhang Wenhong, of Huashan Hospital, as saying.

"The most beautiful season of the year might be autumn as there is a possibility that the virus might ebb in October. But after that, it will persist for a long time," Zhang said during the second COVID-19 multidisciplinary forum, which was held online with experts from home and abroad.

WUHAN, China (Reuters) - China ramped up efforts on Monday to heal the world’s second-biggest economy as health authorities reported a further drop in new coronavirus cases, although the country remains wary of carriers of the disease coming from abroad and infected people who exhibit no symptoms.

The city of Wuhan, the source of the pandemic, reported no new cases for a sixth day, as businesses reopened and residents set about reclaiming a more normal life after a lockdown of almost two months.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s largest state banks said the impact of restrictions on movement imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus could pull down asset quality as borrowers struggle to repay loans, though they are likely big enough to weather any fallout.

The comments come as five of the country’s largest state-backed lenders posted estimate-beating fourth-quarter profit - but they bode ill for smaller lenders, who have less capital reserves and can call on fewer state borrowers.

Beijing, Mar 30 (AFP/PTI) China's central bank on Monday cut an interest rate on loans to banks by the largest margin in five years and injected 50 billion yuan (USD 7 billion) into the financial system to help the world's second-largest economy weather the coronavirus impact.

The People's Bank of China (PBoC) said it launched a 50-billion-yuan reverse repurchase operation on Monday and lowered the seven-day reverse repurchase rate from 2.40 percent to 2.20 per cent.

29 March 2020; AFP: Digital surveillance and smartphone technology may prove helpful in containing the coronavirus pandemic -- but some activists fear this could mean lasting harm to privacy and digital rights.

From China to Singapore to Israel, governments have ordered electronic monitoring of their citizens' movements in an effort to limit contagion. In Europe and the United States, technology firms have begun sharing "anonymized" smartphone data to better track the outbreak.

BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority said Sunday it received reports of 45 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Saturday, of which 44 were imported.

A new domestic case was reported in Henan Province, the National Health Commission said.

BEIJING, Mar 28 (APP): A renowned Chinese scholar has suggested that the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic could be effectively slowed down in Pakistan by blocking the flow of population and keeping everyone home as much as possible.

“By blocking the flow of population and keeping everyone at home as much as possible, we can effectively slow down the spread of the virus,” Cheng Xizhong, special commentator of China Economic Net and visiting professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law said in his article.