How Well Did You Follow Chinese Business News in 2014? Find Out

Our little year-end quiz will tell you if you are up-to-date on Chinese business news ranging from Alibaba’s mega IPO to China’s economic growth. Go ahead and score! 

2014 has been a challenging year for the Chinese economy—in the midst of a property market downturn, severe overcapacity and mounting local government debt, the country may very well miss its growth target for the first time in 15 years.

However, some economists have argued that China has to sacrifice short-term growth in order to push forward reforms that’ll benefit the country in the long run. In the past 12 months, the Chinese government put the shadow-banking system under the scanner, made new moves to liberalize interest rates, loosened its grip on the RMB exchange rate and kick-started a pilot program to further open up the country’s stock market.

On the other hand, reforms are never plain sailing. For example, Beijing’s policy support of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone came across as both weaker and slower than many expected; speculators found loopholes created by the stock market overhaul, which is supposed to bring more market freedom, to illegally pocket profits; and the newly introduced municipal bond program was regarded as inefficient at the current stage to reflect real financial risks of local governments.

On the bright side, some Chinese companies, especially those in the technology sector, did very well in 2014, despite challenges in the macro-economy. Alibaba, the country’s largest e-commerce platform, pulled off a successful initial public offering (IPO) that is known as the largest float in world history; Xiaomi, a four-year old smartphone maker, became a global top seller as well as the world’s most valuable start-up.

Besides all the above, there’re still many stories in the past year that we think are worth your attention as a China business watcher. But instead of listing them in plain text, we put together a fun quiz below, where you can test how well informed you are about Chinese business news. The quiz is completely “open-book” and you can totally find all the answers in our archives here on CKGSB Knowledge.

(Tip: You can choose “play without an account” after clicking on “start quiz”.)