China market research group

It's lunchtime in Shanghai and there are plenty of cooks in one restaurant's kitchen. But when the food is ready, you won't see any waitstaff; instead, dishes are delivered by robot pods on a high-tech track that quickly guides them to their destination. "This is so classy and fun, and the food is delicious, too," one customer told correspondent Ben Tracy. The robot restaurant is inside a rapidly-growing Chinese grocery store chain called Hema (that's "hippo" in Mandarin), where almost everything is done digitally. It's owned by Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce companies on the planet. It also owns Alipay, the most-used digital payment service in China. Its chairman, Jack Ma, is now trying to reinvent brick-and-mortar retail by fully merging it with e-commerce, designing physical stores around our smartphones. He calls it "new retail." That's because China says 98 percent of its internet traffic comes from cellphones, compared to just over 40 percent in the U.S. The entire … [Read more...] about From robot restaurants to automobile vending machines: The e-commerce revolution in China

U.S. financial markets were poised to rise Monday after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a truce in the countries' ongoing trade war. Mr. Trump agreed to hold off on a sharp hike in tariffs on Chinese imports that had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. In return, the People's Republic committed to buy more American farm, industrial and energy goods and tighten restrictions on sales of fentanyl, among other concessions.  The U.S. will postpone until March 1 a plan to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent, with Washington set to resume talks with Beijing in hopes of a longer term deal on trade.  "This agreement at least postpones further escalation in the trade war, avoiding an outcome that would have roiled financial markets," Eurasia Group analysts wrote in a research note. "That appears to have been a key consideration for Trump, who became more open to a deal as US stock markets … [Read more...] about Stocks set to rise after U.S., China cool trade tensions