国内英语新闻:Weekly policy snapshot of Chinese economy

BEIJING, March 2 (Xinhua) -- The following are the key moves taken by policymakers in the past week to enhance China's economic strength and sustainability.

-- MORE DETAILS ABOUT NEW TECH BOARD

China's top securities regulator on Wednesday unveiled more details about the new science and technology innovation board designed to boost financial reform and development of the high-tech sector.

The tech board will ease the listing criteria, such as allowing firms that have yet to make a profit to list, but adopt higher requirements for information disclosure, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

The new board will follow a market-based approach to determine the prices, scale, market value and pace of new initial public offerings.

Most of the potential firms are located in regions with clusters of technology firms, including Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and are in such industries as new-generation information technology, biopharmaceuticals, high-end manufacturing and new materials.

-- IRON ORE FUTURES TRADING

China will allow overseas individual investors to participate in the trading of iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange starting Wednesday, the exchange said in an online statement Tuesday.

The announcement came after the country opened iron ore futures to foreign institutional investors in May last year as part of the financial opening-up efforts.

Iron ore contracts were launched in 2013 and broadly traded among producers and traders, with futures prices closely correlated to spot prices.

-- AUTONOMOUS DRIVING

China encourages exploration and opposes monopoly in developing autonomous driving technologies and products, the country's top transport regulator said Thursday.

Failure can be tolerated but safety should be ensured during the development process, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Last year, China issued a guideline to regulate road tests of autonomous driving and another on closed testing ground development. Three sites, located in Beijing, Chongqing and Xi'an, have earned the official nod for such testing.

-- EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO WORK SAFETY ACCIDENTS

China has issued regulations to improve emergency response to work safety accidents.

The State Council will be in charge of the overall national task, while local governments at county-level and above are responsible for local emergency response to work safety accidents, according to the regulations issued by the State Council made public Friday.

The regulations also emphasized emergency rescue, requiring production and business units to initiate emergency response plans immediately, taking rescue actions and reporting related information to regulators in case of safety accidents.