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Hong Kong's property market rallied to a four-year high in 2025 following the city government's easing measures and lower interest rates, according to Centaline Property Agency. In the past 12 months, the number of registered sales agreements for residential units, carparking spaces and commercial and industrial properties increased 18.7 per cent year on year to 80,700, while the amount involved rose 15.4 per cent to HK$616.4 billion, data from Centaline showed. The realtor noted that 2025......

On the last day of 2025, DeepSeek published a new technical paper, with founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng among the 19 co-authors, about “manifold-constrained hyper-connections” – a general framework for training artificial intelligence systems at scale, which suggested “promising directions for the evolution of foundational models”. That release was a fitting reminder to the world, especially during the peak of the Christmas holiday season, about Chinese AI companies' sharpened focus on innovation......

More Chinese and local issuers could tap Dubai to list debt and equity securities, signalling confidence in the Chinese economy and the deepening economic corridor between China and the Middle East, according to the CEO of Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). The momentum would build on Emirates NBD Bank's recent offshore yuan bond of 1 billion yuan (US$143 million), listed on Nasdaq Dubai, marking the lender's return to the dim sum bond market and enabling global investors to access......

Hua Hong Semiconductor, China's No 2 contract chipmaker, on Wednesday announced the acquisition of its sister foundry in Shanghai, days after market leader Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) said it would take full control of a subsidiary. Those big-ticket transactions – 8.27 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) for Hua Hong and 40.6 billion yuan for SMIC – signalled a fresh round of consolidation in the country's semiconductor industry, as Beijing's tech self-sufficiency drive......

China's top party journal has called for a stronger package of policies implemented in one go – rather than through “piecemeal-style steps” – to stabilise the country's struggling property sector, as the market remains vital to the domestic economy and consumer demand. The article published by Qiushi, the Communist Party's leading theoretical journal, said policymakers should take concrete steps to stabilise the property market, urging them to implement measures that are “aligned with market......

Hong Kong's mortgage market lost some momentum in November, official data showed, though activity over the first 11 months of 2025 still points to a full-year recovery from the previous year's slump as borrowing costs eased, home prices stabilised and sentiment improved. Mortgage applications – a gauge of buyer interest – fell 2.9 per cent from October to 8,019, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). Mortgage approvals, representing loans banks agreed to provide, declined 7 per......

DeepSeek's latest technical paper, co-authored by the firm's founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng, has been cited as a potential game changer in developing artificial intelligence models, as it could translate into improvements in the fundamental architecture of machine learning. The paper's theme of Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections (mHC) marks an improvement to conventional hyper-connections in residual networks (ResNet), a fundamental mechanism underlying large language models (LLMs),......

Electric vehicle makers have kicked off a fresh round of price cuts in mainland China at the start of 2026, despite Beijing's repeated calls to curb “involution”, as pressure on margins and survival prospects persists. German luxury carmaker BMW has cut the mainland China price of its all-electric i7 M70L to below 1.6 million yuan (US$225,000) – a reduction of more than 300,000 yuan, or 16 per cent – and lowered prices on other EVs and petrol-powered models by at least 10 per cent, according to......

Hong Kong's momentum as an initial public offering (IPO) venue is set to hurtle onwards in 2026 after funds raised from share sales more than tripled in 2025, placing the city's exchange atop the global rankings for the first time since 2019. A total of 114 companies raised US$37.22 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange's main board in 2025, according to data released on Friday by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). That translates to a 229 per cent increase from US$11.3 billion in......

City University of Hong Kong has bought an office property in Kowloon for HK$1.96 billion (US$252 million), joining a growing list of educational institutions buying office assets amid depressed prices as the city's office market shows early signs of stabilising. CityU Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the university, acquired the low-rise office block at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong from Singapore-based Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust. The agreement was signed on December 10, and the......

Baidu's artificial intelligence chip subsidiary Kunlunxin (Beijing) Technology has confidentially applied for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, as the search and AI giant becomes the latest to join an investment frenzy amid China's drive for tech self-reliance. The Kunlunxin prospectus was submitted on Thursday but details such as the size and structure of the IPO had not yet been finalised, Baidu said in a statement on Friday. Baidu's Hong Kong-listed shares rose 7.5 per cent to......

Hong Kong stocks started 2026 on a positive note on Friday, as investors bet on economic growth after both the mainland and Hong Kong markets recorded bull runs in 2025. The Hang Seng Index rose 1.5 per cent to 26,002.82 as of 10am local time on Friday, the best trading start since 2023. The Hang Seng Tech Index added 3 per cent. On the mainland, the markets were closed for public holidays. The Hang Seng Index ended 2025 with a 28 per cent gain on Wednesday, securing its best yearly performance......

Shares of Shanghai Biren Technology jumped 82.1 per cent to HK$35.70 on Friday in Hong Kong's first listing of the year, as investors piled into the Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) maker amid the artificial intelligence wave. The first of China's up-and-coming GPU developers to list in Hong Kong, the company's shares first changed hands at HK$35.70, up from the initial public offering (IPO) price of HK$19.60, valuing the company at HK$85.5 billion (US$11 billion). Biren raised HK$5.58......

China's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market is poised for another year of growth as investors regain confidence in the country's assets and long-term growth prospects, and look beyond geopolitical and economic headwinds, according to industry experts. Investor optimism in 2026 would build on a deeper understanding of risks associated with regulatory restrictions, improved market conditions and success stories in the past year, said Kevin Yu Zhe, Shanghai-based partner at Zhong Lun Law......

Hong Kong's affluent amass at least HK$10 million (US$1.28 million) in liquid assets by the age of 39, with the majority relying on investments to grow their wealth, according to a survey by HSBC. These wealthy individuals take, on average, eight years to increase their wealth to HK$10 million after they earn their first HK$1 million, the HSBC Affluent Survey released on Friday showed. A similar survey in 2023 showed the average age for Hongkongers to become a millionaire, with HK$1 million in......

The US Federal Reserve under a new chairman in 2026 is expected to press ahead with interest rate cuts of up to 75 basis points, a move that would lower Hong Kong's interbank-linked loan costs but leave prime lending rates stuck at their historical low, according to analysts. The Fed and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) both reduced their key policy rates by a total of 75 basis points in 2025, following a full percentage-point rate cut in 2024. Hong Kong's base rate now stands at 4 per......

Despite the festive atmosphere of the holiday season, suppliers and creditors of US fashion accessories chain Claire's – including about 70 from Hong Kong, mainland China and across Asia – face financial anxieties as they grapple with the uncertain prospects of recovering debts following the retailer's recent bankruptcy filing. Some have already taken legal action, though the outcome of their claims remains unclear. The financial anxieties stem from the company's decision in August to file for......

Wang Nan, a hardware trader in China's eastern city of Yiwu, expected her business to feel some pain when the US-China trade war escalated in April. “Last year, we still had many American clients, but the tariffs changed everything,” she said. Yet, Wang's firm not only survived a rollercoaster year – which at one point saw US tariffs soar to triple-digit levels – it has emerged even stronger. An aggressive push to find new buyers in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa paid off. In the end,......

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has ushered in 2026 with a new technical paper, co-authored by founder Liang Wenfeng, that proposes a rethink of the fundamental architecture used to train foundational AI models. The method – dubbed Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections (mHC) – forms part of the Hangzhou firm's push to make its models more cost-effective as it strives to keep pace with better-funded US rivals with deeper access to computing power. It also reflected the......

Judging by investor sentiment in the final quarter of last year, the spectacular rally in mainland Chinese and Hong Kong equities is over. The CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks declined 0.2 per cent while the MSCI China Index fell by over 7 per cent. The Hang Seng Index, meanwhile, lost 4.5 per cent. While most Wall Street banks remain bullish on Chinese stocks, some have turned more cautious. Morgan Stanley believes 2026 will be “a year of stabilization after 2025's high......