A customer gets ready for QR code payment at BingoBox, an unmanned store in east China's Shanghai, July 21, 2017. The 15-square meter store has no cashier, which accepts self-assisted payments by quick response (QR) codes. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)
Ant Finance, Alibaba's financial affiliate, tracked 450 million Chinese consumers and found 71 percent payments were made on mobile devices. About 90 percent of China's millennials use mobile wallets.
In Q4 of 2016, mobile payment transactions in China reached 12.8 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 126 percent, according to a report released by Analysys, a consultancy firm.
In addition to promotion in China, China's leading mobile payments Alipay and WeChat Pay are making a dent in the global payment market.
WeChat Pay has covered more than 130,000 overseas businesses in 13 countries and regions, supporting settlements in 10 currencies. Alipay has entered more than 200 countries and regions supporting settlements in 18 varieties of currencies with more than 40 million overseas merchants using Alipay for settlement.
HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY
China has built one of the world's most extensive high-speed rail networks in just a few years. It has even been able to offer quality rail products and supplies to other developing countries.
Though a latecomer in the sector after Europe and Japan, China holds many records in high-speed railways. It has the world's longest high-speed rail network, 22,000 km as of the end of 2016, or 60 percent of the world's total. The Beijing-Guangzhou HSR, which extends for more than 2,000 km, is the longest of its kind.
In 2014, China completed its first overseas high-speed rail in Turkey. In June 2015, China and Russia reached deals for pre-construction surveys and design for 770 km of track linking Moscow and Kazan. In October 2015, China and Indonesia signed a joint-venture agreement on the construction of a high-speed link between Jakarta and Bandung.
China's high-speed railway is thriving due to its low cost, quick delivery and reliability. China's high-speed rail has a maximum speed of 250 km per hour and has a construction unit cost of 87 million yuan, which is at most two-thirds of that in other countries, according to a paper released by the World Bank.
BELT AND ROAD
The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed in 2013, aims to link the economies of dozens of countries with a land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and an ocean-based 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, propelling growth and social development along the routes.
The initiative is pioneering a new model of global economics based on the principles of mutual benefit to address myriad challenges facing the world,including sluggish trade and investment and wobbling economic globalization.
"The initiative aims to connect economies, communities and people. It holds great potential to bring benefits in terms of high-quality infrastructure, inclusiveness, and economic cooperation," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May.
So far, at least 68 countries and international organizations have signed agreements with China on Belt and Road cooperation. Trade between China and other Belt and Road countries exceeded 3 trillion dollars between 2014 and 2016, and Chinese investment in these countries surpassed 50 billion dollars.
A multi-dimensional infrastructure network is taking shape, one that is underpinned by economic corridors featuring land-sea-air transportation routes and information expressways and supported by major rail, port and pipeline projects.
