Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

• China's 2024 box office reached 40 billion yuan, showcasing market resilience;
• China is set to see 100,000 eVTOLs for taxi and personal use by 2030.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

China's 2024 box office revenue reached 40 billion yuan as of Wednesday, according to film data platform Maoyan.

While this figure marks a decline of 21 percent from the same period last year, analysts nonetheless highlight the resilience and potential of the country's evolving film market.

Currently, eight of the top 10 highest-grossing films of the year are domestic productions. Leading the pack are Jia Ling's weight-loss comedyYOLO, Han Han's car-racing comedy sequelPegasus 2, andSuccessor, a comedy starring Shen Teng and Ma Li -- each earning between 3.3 billion and nearly 3.5 billion yuan at the box office.

Hollywood'sGodzilla x Kong: The New Empireand Japanese animated featureThe Boy and the Heronare the most successful foreign films so far this year, ranking ninth and tenth, while earning 957 million yuan and 791 million yuan, respectively.

Experts noted that the movie market is advancing amid fluctuations, with periods like the Spring Festival continuing to exhibit strong audience demand.

Notably, comedy has emerged as the standout genre of 2024, as films with comedy as a core element have collectively earned nearly 20 billion yuan, accounting for half of the year's total box office revenue to date, according to an analyst with box office tracker Beacon.

Greater Bay Area, Greater future

• Hong Kong will leverage its international capital markets and professional financial services to provide financing and overseas promotion services for mainland new energy vehicle enterprises, said Chief Executive John Lee at Wednesday's International Automotive and Supply Chain Summit Forum. The city leader outlined HKD750 million in subsidies for electric taxis and buses in his latest policy address. “We will also launch a new HKD300 million scheme to subsidize the private sector’s installation of rapid charging facilities,” he said, noting the initiative would support 160,000 electric vehicles.
• Hong Kong Chief Secretary Eric Chan on Wednesday said a three-day visit to the Greater Bay Area has offered authorities insight into developing the Northern Metropolis project in the New Territories. The delegation also learnt about a “large-scale, land-disposable” development model used in mainland cities, which the SAR administration hopes can be used to expedite development in the Northern Metropolis. The group also visited Huizhou as part of the GBA tour, focusing on understanding the city's business environment and industrial systems, at the China-Korea (Huizhou) Industrial Park.

Next on industry and company news

• China will likely see 100,000 eVTOLs serve as family vehicles or air taxis by 2030, according to a report released by the China Low Altitude Economic Alliance. Major cities will complete air transportation networks within two or three years, it added.
• China's National Healthcare Security Administration said it had benefited 830 million people as of the end of last month via medication pricenegotiation and reduced cumulative burdens of 880 billion yuan for patients over the past seven years.
• China's domestic phone shipments rose 1.8 percent to 29.7 million last month from a year earlier, with 5G handsets accounting for 90 percent of the total, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology said yesterday.
• China on Wednesday issued an action plan to cut logistics costs to boost economic efficiency, targeting a reduction in the ratio of social logistics costs to GDP to around 13.5 percent by 2027. Key goals include breakthroughs in integrated transport reforms, optimizing freight transport structure, increasing the share of railway freight volume and railway freight turnover to 11 percent and 23 percent, and boosting growth in port container rail-water intermodal transport.
• Tencent Holdings, the distributor of the Nintendo Switch in China, will gradually close the console's Chinese online store and stop providing related network services. The Nintendo eShop will halt the sale of games and other software in the Chinese market on March 31, 2026, Shenzhen-based Tencent announced yesterday.

Switching gears to financial news

• Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai made its debut on Nasdaq on Wednesday evening, with the pricing of its IPO of 20 million American depository shares at USD13 each. It is also the largest IPO in autonomous driving sector on the US stock market this year.
• China's five biggest banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China andBank of China, continue to be critical to global financial safety, according to the latest ranking of systemically important banks by an international organization.

Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market

• Chinese stocks fell on Thursday as the benchmark Shanghai Composite lost 0.4 percent and the Shenzhen Component retreated 1.3 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also closed 1.2 percent lower, and the TECH index dropped 1.5 percent.

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

Presented by SFC