MNI China Press Digest Aug 6: Kindergartens, Banking, Mergers

Highlights from Chinese press reports on Wednesday:

• Public kindergarten students will have 100% of final-year fees waived from September semester 2025 onwards, while children at private pre-schools will see reduced fees, the State Council announced. Less developed provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Qinghai will bear 20% of the cost, while economically advanced regions will shoulder between 40% and 50%. According to Ministry of Education data, in 2024 China had 253,300 kindergartens, with 35.8 million children enrolled. Among them, children in public institutions totalled 32.8 million, accounting for 91% of the total.
• Provinces such as Guangdong and Ningxia are taking steps to tackle involuted competition in the banking sector, Yicai.com reports. Industry insiders noted measures go beyond merely halting rebates, with a broad and determined effort to eliminate harmful, low-level competition across mortgages, consumer loans and wealth management. An insider said that commission rebate, also known as order-snatching, is a grey area, where banks secretly pay commission or cash rebates to intermediaries or personal client managers in exchange for directing clients to apply for mortgages or consumer loans with their bank.
• Authorities have approved the merger of China Shipbuilding and China Heavy Industry, with analysts expecting more CNY100 billion SOE mergers on the way, Yicai.com reports, noting China Shenhua, a state-owned coal mining and energy company, also recently announced plans to acquire assets held by the State Energy Group. Industrial integration has accelerated since the introduction of new rules in September 2024, allowing for the transformation and upgrading of traditional sectors, an industry insider said.