Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI. Coming up on today’s program. Central government departments list innovation at forefront of 2024 tasks; Xiaomi unveils first electric car, plans to become top automaker. Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours  Following China's tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference earlier this month, various government authorities have convened meetings, making specific arrangements to anchor the growth momentum of the Chinese economy in 2024. Multiple central government departments have aligned their new work plans with a strong emphasis on technological innovation, as the Central Economic Work Conference has declared that "Sci-tech innovation should lead the development of a modern industrial system" as the foremost priority for next year's economic work.  In a meeting with the heads of China's central state-owned enterprises, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council vowed to improve the intensity of research and development investment and technological output efficiency, among the key tasks for 2024. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) highlighted key tasks including promoting stable growth in the industrial economy, enhancing industrial technological innovation and fostering the development of emerging industries. While the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed five key tasks for 2024, stressing breakthroughs in key core technologies related to China's development and national security, development of forward-looking and leading technologies, and creation of a favorable environment to support technology self-reliance. Fiscal and financial departments have pledged to prop up the country's sci-tech innovation drive accordingly. A key meeting of the Ministry of Finance stressed the importance of fully supporting key core technologies and ensuring funding for major scientific projects, while the National Financial Regulatory Administration vowed to facilitate the development of new productive forces and the building of a modern industrial system. The national fiscal work conference also focused on implementing another key decision of the Central Economic Work Conference, namely expanding domestic demand while tapping consumption potential and expanding effective investment. In this regard, the fiscal conference called for efforts including advancing the national unified market, leveraging the additional government bonds effectively, and consolidating the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment. In a similar vein, another meeting on national development and reform work also emphasized the effective usage of the additional 1-trillion-yuan of government bonds, government investment within the central budget plan and local government special bonds. The Ministry of Commerce, on the other hand, concentrated on pushing consumption from post-pandemic recovery mode to broader expansion, promoting the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones, and easing the market access in service industries such as telecommunications and healthcare, among other moves. Moving on to regional highlights China's first indigenously developed automated container terminal in Qingdao, Shandong province, began operations on Wednesday, marking a significant step forward by the nation in achieving core competitiveness in the ports sector. A total of over 200 loading machines of the automated port can be remotely operated by workers, which can save 80 percent of manpower and lift 30 percent of efficiency over a traditional dock, and the constructors and research team of the dock realized localization across over 28,000 parts, said Shandong Port Group Co. Greater Bay Area, Greater future Hong Kong on Wednesday published a public consultation paper to gather views on a legislative proposal to regulate issuers of stablecoin — digital tokens that are pegged to an existing currency or commodity. The paper, jointly i