Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI. Coming up on today’s program Sales at Chinese NEV makers rebounded in December; Guangdong leads the way with 18.07 million registered businesses. Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours  Having become a new export spotlight for the Chinese economy, the new-energy vehicles (NEVs) industry experienced a hard-won year in 2023, with sales estimated to have hit a new high. Most automakers reported a yearly sales growth.  BYD, dominating the domestic market, sold 341,043 NEVs last month, a 45 percent rise year on year, which led to full-year sales of 3.02 million units, up by 62.3 percent yearly. Li Auto met all 2023 goals by delivering 376,000 units last year and 50,353 last month, up by 182 percent and 137 percent respectively from one year ago, founder and chief executive Li Xiang said. For this year, the company is setting itself the challenge of hitting 800,000 EV sales, 113 percent higher than the performance in 2023, according to Li on social media. Nio said its full-year deliveries hit 160,038, up by 30.7 percent, after last month's figures rose 13.9 percent to 18,012. While XPeng's annual deliveries grew 14 percent yearly to 141,601, after reaching a new monthly record of 20,115 last month. Zeekr under Geely Automobile reported December sales of 13,476 units, climbing 18.9 percent yearly, and the full-year number jumped 65 percent to 118,685 vehicles. Huawei's AITO delivered 24,468 units last month, up by nearly 30 percent month on month, bringing the whole-year results to 94,380 vehicles. Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology delivered 144,155 units in 2023, up by 29 percent. Industry insiders remain optimistic about the stable market growth for NEVs in 2024, as the technologies related to NEVs are expected to continue to advance. However, they also warned that there could be fiercer competition among NEV brands, especially in the domestic market, resulting in a stronger desire to go global. It is estimated that NEV sales in 2024 could reach 11.5 million units, up from an estimated 9.4 million in 2023, according to the latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), expected that the NEV market will continue to maintain strong growth momentum in 2024 with sales expected to top 11 million units, a net increase of 2.3 million units, or an increase of 22 percent year-on-year. The market penetration rate could reach 40 percent, according to Cui on Monday. Meanwhile, the complete supply chain and rapid strides in technology had greatly boosted the exports of China-made NEVs. According to statistics from the CAAM, China's NEV exports stood at 1.091 million in the first 11 months of 2023, up 83.5 percent year-on-year, accounting for 24.7 percent of total automobile exports.  China is estimated to ship 4.41 million vehicles from January to November, a 58 percent jump from one year ago, data from the CAAM reveals, which is higher than Japan's 3.99 million vehicles with a growth of 15 percent. Greater Bay Area, Greater future Guangdong province has 18.07 million registered business entities as of the end of 2023, accounting for one-tenth of the country's total. Over 1.73 million new business entities were registered in the province last year, showing the highest growth rate in five years, according to the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation. Its foreign-funded enterprises continue to rank first in the country, with more than 199,000 registered by the end of last year, accounting for a quarter of China's total. Meanwhile, efforts have been made to accelerate the connection of rules and mechanisms in the field of market supervision in the Greater Bay Area. More than 8,000 Hong Kong and Macao-funded legal entities were registered in Guangdong last year, a significant increase of 64.4 percent year-on-year, bringing the province's total to more than 96,000 by the end