Passport to the future

Enthusiasm for learning Mandarin is taking hold in Africa as students, workers and businesspeople increasingly see the language as a ticket to academic, career and commercial success.

Kenyan pupils to be Chinese pioneers

Kenya hopes to be the first African country to introduce Chinese language in public elementary schools.

How China wins hearts and minds

Friendship between the China and Kenya has been sustained for many centuries, mainly through trade and tourism, especially along the coast of Kenya.

Mandarin classes should be compulsory

There is a proposal to introduce Mandarin classes in Kenyan schools. More than 25,000 primary and secondary schools are set to benefit from this if the government of Kenya fully implements the project.

Online land of milk and honey

China's e-commerce industry set another jaw-dropping sales record on Singles Day, the world's biggest online shopping event, with Alibaba reporting that about 91.2 billion yuan ($14.3 billion; 13.3 billion euros) was spent on Nov 11.

Today, China; tomorrow, the world

Alibaba sought to transform its Nov 11 shopping extravaganza into a global event this year, featuring many overseas brands and promoting products to more than 200 countries.

A singularly successful sales ploy

If you do not live in China, you can be forgiven for not having heard of Singles Day.

Let's not discount human touch next Nov 11

I had a punishing day's shopping recently. In less than an hour, I bought 12 liter-cartons of milk, the same number of boxes of breakfast cereal, 10 hairy crabs, a dozen pairs of socks, a couple of packs of turtle food, a replacement laptop power cable, and a 4-foot palm tree.

Big vote of confidence in future by consumers

Amid global fears about China's economic slowdown, the jaw-dropping amount that Chinese consumers spent on Nov 11 was a much-needed display of China's huge potential domestic consumption, which if realized, would be a key growth engine for the world's second-largest economy and the global recovery as well.

There's a serious side to the shi-san-wu

Central planning in China has become a lot more fun. A three-minute cartoon video explaining the significance of China's next and 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) has gone viral worldwide.

Highlights of proposals in the plan

China has seen great progress in the past five years, becoming the world's second-largest economy and with per capita GDP increasing to $7,800. Agricultural production has risen continually and the proportion of permanent residents in urban areas reached 55 percent.

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