Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are this week's highlights:
- Chinese pharmaceutical pipeline heading out into the world, with an increasing share of licensing and clinical trials
- Foreign companies continue to increase their bets on China, local research and development and supply chains are intensifying
- Humanoid robots enter service, rentals are expanding in large cities
- China accelerates its space ambitions, a record number of launches and tests of reusable rockets
Main News
China has overtaken OPEC+ as the main driver of oil prices
In 2025, China became a major player influencing global oil prices and challenged the traditional dominance of OPEC+. As the world's largest oil importer, it was able to effectively set price floors and ceilings by adjusting the volume of oil stored in reserves.
In the first eleven months of 2025, China had a surplus of approximately 980,000 barrels per day, with imports and domestic production reaching 15.8 million barrels per day, while refinery capacity was 14.82 million barrels per day. This surplus was used to stabilise prices – when prices fell, China increased its reserves, and when prices rose, it restricted imports.
Estimates suggest that China has between 1 and 1.4 billion barrels in stock and plans to add another 500 million barrels to its strategic reserves. If it continues with this strategy, it could absorb a significant portion of the expected global surplus in 2026, thereby supporting oil prices but also limiting them from above if it reduces imports when prices are too high.
China increases its share in global drug development
China is becoming a key source of innovation in biopharmaceuticals and is significantly increasing its share of the global drug development market. As of 9 November 2025, China accounted for a significant share of global transactions in the development of innovative drugs, both in terms of value and number of agreements concluded.
In 2025, there was also a significant increase in new molecules entering the clinical phase and in the registration of new clinical trials. The number of Chinese pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies listed on A/H stock exchanges is growing, as is their market capitalisation, approaching the levels of companies traded in the US. This trend underscores China's growing influence and competitiveness in the global biopharmaceutical sector, driven by higher investment in research and development and a supportive policy environment.
75 % multinational companies maintained or increased their investments in China in 2025, Mercedes invests in a company focused on smart cockpits
Recent KPMG survey A survey of 137 senior managers of multinational corporations operating in China showed that 75% of them maintained or increased their investments in 2025, even though only 52% expect sales to grow and 25% predict a decline.
The survey also shows that 83 per cent of companies have already localised or plan to localise key parts of their activities, particularly manufacturing, supply chains and research and development. Multinational companies remain relatively optimistic about China's economic outlook, with 64% expressing at least moderate confidence in China's growth over the next three to five years, compared to only 42% for the global economy.
Digital transformation is a key strategy for more than 90% of the companies surveyed – 52% focus on data analytics, 46% on IT infrastructure and 36% on new technologies. There has also been a significant increase in merger and acquisition activity, particularly in high-performance sectors such as electric vehicles, medical technology and biotechnology.
German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz invested CNY 1.3 billion (USD 185 million) for a three per cent stake in a Chinese company Qianli Technology, which focuses on intelligent control and smart cockpit technologies, making it its fifth-largest shareholder. The shares were transferred from the existing shareholder. Lifan Holdings after obtaining approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The transaction gives Mercedes access to the Chongqing-based company. The two companies have also signed a long-term strategic agreement on cooperation in the areas of artificial intelligence, intelligent control and smart cockpits.
China has become a dominant producer of luxury foods including caviar, foie gras, premium cherries and macadamias.
China is rapidly becoming a major producer of luxury foods such as caviar, foie gras, macadamia nuts, premium cherries and wild truffles. This is disrupting the traditional dominance of imports and driving down prices in both domestic and global markets.
China now produces most of the world's caviar. Brand Kaluga Queen, developed by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, became the world's largest producer in 2024 with approximately 35% share of the global market. Chinese caviar exports rose from USD 12 million in 2012 to USD 98 million in 2024, giving China a 43% share of the global market.
China is also the world's largest consumer of cherries – consumption is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes in 2025, of which 900,000 tonnes will come from domestic production. Shandong Province has become the largest cherry-growing region thanks to support from local governments. China has also overtaken Australia, from where it originally imported macadamia seedlings, to become the second largest producer of these nuts. This growth is supported by regional government initiatives in agriculturally rich areas such as Yunnan, Shandong and Anhui, which encourage farmers to switch to higher value-added crops.
China launches CNY 1 trillion venture capital fund to support hard tech
China has launched a National Venture Capital Fund and three regional funds with the aim of mobilising one trillion yuan to support businesses in strategic emerging and future industries. The National Investment Fund for Start-ups is supported by CNY 100 billion from the Ministry of Finance, financed through extra-long-term special government bonds.
Each of the three regional funds should exceed CNY 50 billion. The national fund will operate for 20 years – the first 10 years will be devoted to investments and the next 10 years to outputs. At least 70% of investments will go to seed and start-up companies, targeting smaller companies with a valuation not exceeding CNY 500 million, and the maximum amount of a single investment will be CNY 50 million.
The fund will focus on strategic emerging and future industries, including integrated circuits, quantum technologies, biomedicine, brain-computer interfaces, and the aerospace industry. It is expected to fill the gaps in financing capital-intensive hard-tech sectors with long development cycles and support the functioning of the Chinese venture capital market as a unified national market.
Tomáš Kučera & Yereth Jansen
China-insights.com/gnews.cz - GH
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