The new rules formalise an earlier anti-monopoly draft law released in November and clarify a series of monopolistic practices that regulators plan to crack down on.

The guidelines are expected to put new pressure on the country’s leading internet services, including e-commerce sites such as Alibaba Group’s Taobao and Tmall marketplaces or JD.com. They will also cover payment services like Ant Group’s Alipay or Tencent Holding’s WeChat Pay.

The rules, issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on its website, bar companies from a range of behaviour, including forcing merchants to choose between the country’s top internet players, a long-time practice in the market.

SAMR said the latest guidelines would “stop monopolistic behaviours in the platform economy and protect fair competition in the market.”

The notice also said it will stop companies from price fixing, restricting technologies and using data and algorithms to manipulate the market.

In a Q&A accompanying the notice, SAMR said reports of internet-related anti-monopoly behaviour had been increasing, and that it was facing challenges regulating the industry.

“The behaviour is more concealed, the use of data, algorithms, platform rules and so on make it more difficult to discover and determine what are monopoly agreements,” it said.

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Source: China issues new anti-monopoly rules targeting its tech giants | Reuters

China will set up a new information platform to allow the public to track the emissions of polluting enterprises and help authorities prosecute those that break the rules or try to “evade supervision”, the environment ministry said.

A total of 2.36 million companies, industrial facilities and institutions in China are legally obliged to obtain permits to emit pollutants like sulphur dioxide or wastewater.

But China has struggled to collect the information required to make the system work, and has also faced obstruction and data fraud from some polluting firms.

According to the environment ministry, the new information platform will allow authorities and members of the public to monitor real-time emission levels and check historical data in order to determine whether rules are being breached. It is set to come into effect on March 1.

Source: China to launch public platform to track, crack down on polluters