Shares see sharp drop STOCKS plummeted yesterday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 5.13%, closing at 2,928.51 points. The Shenzhen Component Index tumbled 6.08%, dropping to 10,379.28 points. The ChiNext Index, China’s Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, fell 5.56% yesterday to close at 2,169 points. Invention patent volume on the rise CHINA has authorized more than 2.53 million invention patents over the past five years, with an average annual growth rate of 13.4%, according to the country’s top intellectual property regulator Sunday. More than 27.7 million trademarks were registered in the same period, an average annual increase of 29%, Shen Changyu, head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, said at a press conference. In 2021, the country authorized 696,000 invention patents, with the average ownership of high-value invention patents reaching 7.5 per 10,000 people, nearly twice that at the end of 2017, Shen said. Foreign holdings of Chinese govt. bonds dip OVERSEAS institutional investors slightly reduced their holdings of Chinese government bonds in March, official data showed. By the end of March, the country’s central government bonds held by foreign investors topped 2.43 trillion yuan (US$376.2 billion), down by 51.81 billion yuan from the previous month, data released by the China Central Depository & Clearing Co. showed. Foreign investors’ holdings of bonds issued by China’s policy banks topped 1.01 trillion yuan during the period, while their holdings of local government bonds stood at 10.99 billion yuan, the data showed. The outstanding bonds held by overseas institutional investors reached nearly 3.57 trillion yuan as of the end of March. Foxconn’s iPhone plant operating normally FOXCONN Technology Group’s plant in Henan Province continues to operate amid a COVID lockdown of the area, the company said Sunday. “The Zhengzhou campus is still operating normally and the site continues to comply with the government measures to curb the spread of the virus,” Foxconn said in a statement. Passenger and cargo flights to and from the city are operating normally, the Zhengzhou airport said in an announcement Saturday. Foxconn relies on the airport to ship iPhones internationally. | 