Top 10 economic events in 2014 (2)

2. Alibaba goes public

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba went public at the NASDAQ in New York on Sept 19, 2014, and its market valuation surged to $21.8 billion on the first trading day, making it the largest-ever IPO event in the US stock market.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, with a $28.6 billion fortune became Asia's richest person after his company went public, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

3. Restart of IPO

China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) gave the green light to five Chinese companies on Dec 30, 2013, signaling a restart of the initial public offering (IPO) review that has been suspended for over a year.

A total of 67 companies completed listing since the CSRC announced the move to restart IPO in Chinese mainland stock market by Dec 18.

4. Interest cut

On Nov 22, 2014, China's central bank adjusted the benchmark rates for the first time since July 2012.

After the cut, one-year deposit rate will stand at 2.75 percent, while one-year lending will be at 5.6 percent.

5. Antitrust investigation

To protect customers' interests, China's regulator launched an antitrust investigation into more than 1,000 Chinese and overseas companies involving the auto and telecommunications sectors.

On July 28, 2014, nearly 100 SAIC inspectors visited Microsoft's offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, taking internal documents and two computers amid an investigation of chipmaker Qualcomm's monopoly status.

As the probe went ahead, four BMW dealers were the first to be fined a total of 1.63 million yuan for deceptive pricing and setting unified prices for pre-delivery inspections in Hubei province. Then, 10 of the 12 Japanese companies were fined a total of 1.24 billion yuan ($202 million) for price fixing.

Some automakers, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover, cut the prices of spare parts in after-sales maintenance in response to the anti-monopoly probe.

6. Private bank

China's financial regulator approved Webank to start business on Dec 12, 2014.

Webank, whose 30 percent stake is held by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, has a registered capital of 3 billion yuan ($490 million) and its business scope includes personal banking, corporate banking and international banking.

In 2014, five applications to set up private banks were approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Previously, China had only one private bank, China Minsheng Bank, which was founded in 1996 in Beijing.