China has unveiled its "No. 1 central document" for this year, stressing efforts to comprehensively accelerate rural vitalization and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

As the first policy statement released by China's central authorities each year, the document is seen as an indicator of policy priorities. Work on agriculture and rural areas has been high on the agenda for 18 consecutive years.

Current forecasts by many banks, central banks, and other institutions suggest that inflation will not be a problem in the foreseeable future.

But some economists, like Axel Weber, say today’s economic conditions have no precedent in the past 50 years, so the current forecasts are no guarantee that inflation will actually remain low.

So, what could be the consequences of the huge fiscal and monetary expansion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Could it pose an even great inflation risk?

Facebook has blocked news content from being read and shared in its news feed in Australia.

It comes on the heels of a proposed Australian law that would require Facebook and Google to pay the country's news publishers for content.

Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia if the proposed law is passed.

But Google has now said it has agreed to pay Murdoch's News Corp for content from news sites across its media empire.

With the rapid development of Internet technology, people’s daily lives have become inseparable from the network.

More and more business activities in the real world have moved unto the internet.

For China’s internet giants, one business model that has really caught on is "community buying".

Tens of millions of consumers across China are purchasing their groceries online and having them delivered to their front doors.

The consumers can take advantage of the extremely competitive market, in which internet companies are spoiling them with mega deals and discounts for group buying.

But where does all this leave the traditional grocers? What kind of opportunity awaits tech giants like Meituan and Pinduoduo? Does internet services bring you more good, or more harm?

Mercedes-Benz will earn as much from electric cars as its luxury combustion models by the end of this decade, its chief executive said.

It is the first premium German automaker to provide a precise target for the turning point in profits.

Ola Källenius, boss of Mercedes owner Daimler, revealed the timetable after the company announced it would divorce its car arm from its trucking unit, in an attempt to copy the soaring market valuation of Tesla.

China's January factory gate prices rose for the first time in a year due to rising demand, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Wednesday.

The producer price index, or PPI, rose by 0.3 percent from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, China's consumer price index, or CPI, decreased by 0.3 percent year-on-year in January, due to the high base of the same period last year.

China is reporting a drop in its foreign exchange reserves.

The amount fell to 3.2 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of last month, down by 0.2 percent from the end of 2020.

Officials say the country's forex market remained stable in January, adding that one of the reasons for the decline is the devaluation of non-U.S.-dollar currencies.

The semiconductor shortage is continuing to cause problems for all the major auto firms. Japan's Mazda and U.S.-based General Motors have become the latest to warn of fewer cars coming off the production line this month.

Meanwhile, regulators in London and Brussels are to investigate the planned takeover of the UK chip designer Arm by Silicon Valley software giant Nvidia, as demand for its products booms globally.

2021 is the second year of a three-year action plan for the reform of state-owned enterprises.

It aims to make SOEs more competitive, innovative, and resistant to risk.

SOEs are being positioned as a major driver of China's economic and technological future.

The three-year plan also calls on SOEs to improve their productivity and sustainability.

The reform also emphasizes the SOE role in safeguarding national economic security.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is to step down as chief executive of the e-commerce giant that he started in his garage nearly 30 years ago.

He will become executive chairman, a move he said would give him "time and energy" to focus on his other ventures.

Bezos, the world's richest man, will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who currently leads Amazon's cloud-computing business.

The company said the change will take place in the second half of this year.