英国海上贸易行动办公室：武装人员在索马里附近控制了一艘船只。

Southbound Stock Connect funds net bought yuan 30.77 bln today. Shanghai leg: Zhipu net bought HKD1.783 bln, SMIC HKD584 mln; Huahong Hongli led net sales at HKD819 mln. Shenzhen leg: SMIC net bought HKD1.19 bln, Tencent Holdings HKD280 mln; Yangtze Optical Fibre & Cable led net sales at HKD143 mln.

On Aug. 17 NBS spokesman and chief economist Fu Linghui told a State Council press briefing that faster build-out of county-level commercial systems and extension of logistics and information networks into rural areas are boosting consumption in lower-tier markets. Jan–Jul rural consumer goods retail sales accounted for 13.4% of total retail sales of consumer goods, up 0.2 percentage point year‑on‑year.