Weekly snapshot of China's local business news

The following are highlights of China's local business news from the past week. ALIBABA

East China's Zhejiang Province and the country's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group jointly launched an initiative to boost the digital development of small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to the initiative, the two sides will tap the digital potential of Zhejiang's manufacturing industries, help SMEs to build digital production and marketing systems, and expand digital international marketing channels of "Made in Zhejiang" products.

SHANDONG PORT

Shandong Port Group, which administers seven ports along the coastline of east China's Shandong Province, saw cargo throughput rise 5.1 percent year on year to 340 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2020.

Its container throughput reached 7.14 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) in the three months to March, up 4 percent year on year.

BYD

China's leading new energy vehicle (NEV) manufacturer BYD continued to report sluggish NEV sales in March due to COVID-19.

The Shenzhen-based company sold 12,256 NEVs last month, down about 59 percent from the same period a year ago. In the first quarter of this year, its NEV sales plunged nearly 70 percent year on year to 22,192 units.

GREAT WALL MOTOR

Chinese carmaker Great Wall Motor saw a strong month-on-month sales rebound in March as the COVID-19 epidemic waned in the world's largest auto market.

The leading sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pickup maker said it sold 60,048 vehicles last month, a month-on-month surge of 499 percent. The sales, however, were still down 41.8 percent from the same month a year ago as the epidemic continued to weigh on the weak auto market, the carmaker said.

CATL

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL), China's largest automotive lithium-ion battery maker, forecast a 20 percent to 30 percent year-on-year decline in net profit for the first quarter of 2020 as the COVID-19 epidemic hit the new energy vehicle market.

CATL said the net profit for the January-March period was estimated between 733 million yuan (about 104 million U.S. dollars) and 838 million yuan, compared to 1.05 billion yuan in the same period a year ago.

BILIBILI

China's popular video sharing platform Bilibili announced that it will receive approximately 400 million U.S. dollars equity investment from Sony Corporation of America (SCA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation.

Bilibili and Sony will further pursue collaboration opportunities of the entertainment business in the Chinese market, including anime and mobile games, according to Bilibili.