Tencent

China has granted more than 100 new video game licences in January, regulators said Friday, the highest number of monthly approvals since Beijing lifted a freeze imposed during a sweeping state crackdown on the sector.

The world's second largest economy is also one of its biggest markets for video games, worth some $42.2 billion, according to official figures.

China on Friday announced new plans to restrict the online gaming industry, sending shares in tech giants including Tencent tumbling and wiping tens of billions of dollars off their value.

New draft restrictions published online by the regulator are aimed at limiting in-game purchases and compulsive playing behaviour.

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Chinese tech giant Tencent said yesterday it had fired more than a hundred employees for violating company policies, with some referred to police and later found guilty of bribery and embezzlement.

Ljubljana – The Chinese tech giant Tencent last year acquired a 25% stake in the Slovenian video games developer Triternion in exchange for a EUR 8.2 million recapitalisation of the company, the newspaper Finance has reported. The acquisition of the minority stake was announced on Friday on the website Games Press by Triternion founder and CEO Marko Grgurović.

China Telecom could raise more than $8 billion in a Shanghai initial public offering that would be the biggest this year, months after it was delisted in the United States amid Washington's stand-off with Beijing.

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Greek startup Orfium has grown so much that it is now attracting the attention of foreign senior executives such as Universal Music Group's former general counsel Richard Constant. He is the new chairman at the innovative Los Angeles-based firm that has developed a platform that identifies online music copyright violations.

The European Union is setting up a € 100 billion fund to invest in strategic industries where the community lags behind its global competitors. This is written by the British Financial Times, which has managed to get acquainted with the relevant EU documents.

China's online giant Alibaba can acquire part of the German Metro trade chain operations on the Chinese market. This is what unnamed sources of Reuters say.

Data analysis firm Data Artisans, a Berlin-based startup founded by Greece-born Kostas Tzoumas, has been acquired by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

The deal is reported to be worth around 90 million euros.

Athens International Airport (AIA) presented a mobile app designed especially for Chinese travelers on Wednesday, aiming to make things easier for them when flying into and out of Athens as well as during their stay in the city.