China to tighten antitrust oversight in sensitive sectors, foreign monopolistic practices

China is set to ramp up antitrust enforcement in strategically sensitive sectors such as semiconductors, new energy, and platform economy next year, so as to safeguard economic security, said the country's top market regulator.

Luo Wen, head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, said at the administration's annual meeting that next year's priorities include fortifying oversight of foreign-related monopolistic practices to secure economic security.

"More antitrust efforts will be made in frontier international areas, and to advance steadily antitrust regulation in sensitive sectors such as semiconductors, new energy, and platform economy to ensure the safety of critical industries," Luo said.

At the same time, he said that the market regulator plans to intensify efforts to curb cutthroat competition among domestic companies, particularly in emerging sectors such as electric vehicles, photovoltaics, and lithium batteries, as well as platform companies.

Malicious pricing practices, false advertising, and damaging behaviors such as mutual slander and sabotage will be strictly cracked down upon to ensure orderly market practices, he said.

According to him, the platform economy, which includes major e-commerce and tech companies, will also come under better scrutiny next year.

He said that the regulator aims to tackle algorithm-driven abuses, such as discriminatory pricing against loyal users and practices that harm smaller players.

A stronger push will be made to ensure platform algorithms are optimized for positive social impact, Luo said, adding that targeted actions will be made to tackle algorithmic abuse that harms workers in new employment forms and price discrimination using big data.