A Japanese zoo said Thursday it was searching for its giant tortoise, which has escaped for the second time in less than two weeks.

The reptile, measuring about one metre (three feet, three inches) in length, was captured on security cameras as she wandered out of the main entrance of Shibukawa Animal Park in western Japan’s Okayama prefecture on Tuesday morning, according to zoo staffer Yoshimi Yamane.

The tortoise “won’t immediately die because it will eat grass available around the zoo, but we’re all very worried”, Yamane told AFP.

“She’s quiet and gentle,” Yamane said, adding that the zoo has received no reports of sightings of the approximately 35-year-old tortoise.

Tuesday’s escape was the second time in less than a fortnight that the fleet-footed reptile, which is allowed to walk freely inside the park during opening hours, fled the zoo.

Yamane said it was found walking down the road 150 metres away from the zoo on July 21.

“I spotted her on the way to the zoo. I stopped my car and asked my colleagues to help,” she said.

“She can walk faster than we can ever imagine.”

Najib, then defence minister, oversaw the deal worth nearly one billion euros ($1.18 billion) to buy two Scorpene-class submarines and one Agosta-class submarine from French naval dockyards unit DCN, which is linked to French defence group Thales.

Abdul Razak Baginda advised Najib at the time. An investigation into the deal was launched in 2010 in response to a complaint from Malaysian rights group Suaram, and investigators allege Abdul Razak received kickbacks.

He was charged in July in France with “active and passive complicity in corruption” and “misappropriation of corporate assets”, a French judicial source told AFP this week.

He denies wrongdoing, saying in a statement after the news broke that he had “not committed any crime of corruption or breached any laws in the matter”.

On Thursday Suaram, in a joint statement with NGO The Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, urged Malaysian authorities to take action.

“It is no longer tenable for the Malaysian authorities to dismiss the Scorpene deal as above board and keep silent on the damning developments in France,” the statement said.

“Najib was the defence minister that signed on the contract then — we urge for him to answer for what happened then, and what would be the steps taken by Malaysian institutions.”

A spokesman in Najib’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Najib has previously denied any link to the graft allegations, rejecting them as a politically motivated smear by the opposition.

As part of the deal DCN agreed to pay 30 million euros to Thales’ Asian unit, Thales International Asia (Thint Asia).

The investigation revealed that another company, Terasasi, whose main shareholder was Abdul Razak, received an equivalent sum for what was billed as consultancy work, but which investigators believe was really a front for kickbacks.

Under the French legal system, a suspect is charged if there is “serious” proof of wrongdoing. The case is examined by an investigating magistrate, who has the power to decide either that there is no case to answer, or to send the matter for trial in court.

The person who has been charged will almost certainly be interviewed by the magistrate investigating the case.

The affair emerged spectacularly in 2006, when Abdul Razak’s Mongolian mistress — who was said to have demanded a payoff for working as a language translator in the deal — was shot dead and her body blown up with plastic explosives near Kuala Lumpur.

He was later cleared of abetting the murder.

But his year-long sanctuary overseas was brought to an abrupt end last month in dramatic circumstances that could be culled from a spy thriller.

German media reported that Thanh, the former head of a state-linked construction firm, was bundled into a car on July 23 as he visited Tiergarten park in downtown Berlin by several armed Vietnamese security agents.

The alleged operation was unprecedented — even for an authoritarian country that closely tracks its critics at home and routinely throws them behind bars — and quickly triggered a diplomatic bust-up.

Germany, one of Vietnam’s largest European trading partners, on Wednesday decried the “scandalous violation” of its sovereignty, furiously dressing down the Vietnamese ambassador and booting out one of the country’s spies.

The official narrative from Vietnam is that Thanh, a former communist party member, turned himself into authorities in Hanoi on Monday to face corruption charges, including one that carries the death penalty.

On Thursday a spokeswoman for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the German response to the matter “very regrettable”.

Observers say Thanh’s downfall is a sharp warning by an increasingly strident ruling communist party to its enemies and the business-political elite.

His slow-motion downfall began in 2013 at the end of his tenure as head of the powerful PetroVietnam Construction (PVC) — a subsidiary of the state oil giant.

He was shuffled into several other official jobs, including as the deputy head of Hau Giang province, a powerful government position in the south.

But in May 2016 photographs emerged of his luxury Lexus tagged with government plates — a brash violation of regulations on owning expensive cars while in office.

Local media ran the photos, prompting public outrage in a country where the communist party has been stung by graft allegations and is waging an anti-corruption purge.

Mismanagement charges followed, related to Thanh’s time at PVC — he was accused of causing losses worth $150 million.

Additional accusations cascaded down, including an embezzlement charge related to real estate deals, which carries the death penalty.

Two months after the photos were shared, Thanh quietly slipped out of the country.

‘Jungle law’

His escape turned him into Vietnam’s most wanted man.

“We are determined to catch Thanh. He cannot hide forever,” communist party chief Nguyen Phu Trong said in state media in December.

Thanh, an urban planning graduate, sought asylum in Germany, where he had spent a five-year stint working during the 1990s.

The alleged operation to snatch him from the streets of a major European capital is an extraordinarily brazen and risky move by Vietnam and a dramatic escalation for the one-party state, which has waged an aggressive anti-corruption drive in recent years.

“It was very, very surprising because they think that Berlin is like Hanoi or any small city in Vietnam where they can exercise the law of the jungle,” political observer and dissident Nguyen Quang A told AFP.

Vietnam has witnessed a broader crackdown in recent months since a new administration came to power last April.

A record number of dissidents have been jailed, many with heavy prison terms, as well as officials accused of wrongdoing.

Thanh’s unravelling is not the first time the communist party has gone after one of its own, but analysts say anti-corruption punishments are normally driven by party infighting rather than a real commitment to reform.

It is not clear what is next for Thanh, who has still not been seen since he handed himself over to officials this week.

Vietnamese media was silent on the allegations emerging from Germany on Thursday morning.//AFP

MA was reportedly caught red-handed by village residents as he attempted to remove the amplifiers on Tuesday afternoon . He fled the scene, throwing himself into a nearby river separating Suka Tenang and Muara Bakti village.

However, as he reached Muara Bakti, other residents were waiting for him. They beat him before pouring gasoline over him and setting him on fire.

MA died at the scene. The body, with 80 percent burns, was taken to Kramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta, said Bekasi Police chief Sr. Comr. Asep Adi Saputra.

Following the incident, the police seized the amplifiers along with a motorcycle suspected of belonging to MA.

“We must not commit vigilante attacks like this because Indonesia has laws to deal with crimes,” Asep said as quoted by tempo.coใ

For Cambodian organic farmer Por Koung, the journey to Bangkok was more than just a chance to exhibit his products at an international expo, it was an opportunity to glean some experience from fellow organic farmers in Thailand, a country that is spearheading the region’s commercialisation of organic agriculture.

Koung, CEO of Orchel Organic Farm, which produces organic pepper on an 80-hectare farm in Mondulkiri province, said Cambodia’s nascent organic agriculture sector has a lot to learn from Thailand’s better developed and regulated industry.

“In Thailand, organic cultivation and processing industries have grown together and are under strict government control, while in our country we’re still trying to set a basic standard for organic production,” he said.

Thailand’s organic agricultural sector is growing at about 7 percent a year. Last year, the country produced $80 million of organic food products, generating about a third of this revenue from exports. Cambodia, by comparison, produced less than $4 million in nominally organic food products last year, with only two organic-certified products – Kampot pepper and Kampong Speu palm sugar – accounting for nearly all exports.

Although Thailand ranks as a top producer in Asean, its organic agricultural sector is just a drop in the bucket at the world level. The global organic food market is valued at over $80 billion, with organic sales in the US alone topping $47 billion last year.

Koung, whose products were on display last week at his small booth in the Organic and Natural Expo (ONE) 2017 in Bangkok, hopes to one day see his products on supermarket shelves in Europe and the US. And for that, he is watching closely how Thailand has built up its organic food sector.

He said Thailand’s farmers and investors had recognised the value and growing market opportunities of organic production, but most Cambodian farmers simply had not grasped the potential. Moreover, government officials were not much further along, offering little guidance and nothing in the way of a national standard.

“We have a lot of potential resources for organic farming, but we’re only selling the raw produce [and not value-added products],” he said. “We not only have a lack of government technical support, the capacity of our human resources is low, we face capital shortages, and the growth of processing industries is limited due to a lack of investor interest.”

Officials from Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce said during the ONE event that the country was implementing a strategy to raise the total organic farm area to nearly 100,000 hectares, and the number of organic farmers to 30,000, by 2021.

They said the government’s National Organic Agriculture Development Strategy 2017-2021, aims to “install Thailand as the internationally recognised and sustainable hub of organic manufacturing, consumption, trading and services in the Asean region”.

To achieve this, the ministry is establishing “organic villages”, where at least half of the local families are engaged in organic farming, consuming the products they produce and selling the surplus. Four organic villages have already been set up under the project, and the ministry plans to add another four every year.

Nong Bua Daeng Natural Dye Colours, an organic farming cooperative with 160 members and 80 hectares in Thailand’s Chaiyaphum province, was one among the first four organic villages to be established. Its director, Sasikul Onchavieng, said the government has offered full support in finding markets for the cooperative’s products and members were comforted knowing that the demand far outstrips supply.

However, quality control presents a challenge.“We are a model for an organic village so we need to comply with organic regulations and must follow up with our members to ensure compliance with the IFOAM standard,” she explained.

The IFOAM standard, though not strictly speaking a true accreditation scheme, is a global platform for organic standards that can be used to obtain certification and assure consumers of organic food quality.

Sasikul said the cooperative pays $600 to $900 every year for an IFOAM audit, but if even one farmer fails the inspection the entire cooperative fails. This would result in losing the non-refundable fee, but even more damaging would be the loss of consumer confidence.

So far, that has never happened. Wuttipong Krobbuaban, managing director of Phuchiangta Herbland Co Ltd, which cultivates various organic fruits and vegetables on a 10-hectare farm in Chaiyaphum province, said certification was essential for building the confidence of consumers. However, each export market has its own certification requirements, and the cost of the inspection visits can quickly add up.

“Since we adopted organic standards we have been able to add value to our products and worry less about finding a market for our products,” he said. “But every organic standard is different, and as a farmer and producer we must comply with all of them.”

Altogether, he estimated the certification inspections amount to about $2,400 a year.

That is relatively cheap compared to what Cambodian organic farmers are paying. Ochel’s Koung said he paid about twice that amount last year to get EU market certification from Ceres South East Asia Co Ltd. Moreover, in the absence of a national standard it has been entirely up to local organic farmers to select and adopt a certification scheme.

That could soon change, according to Kean Sophea, deputy director of the Horticulture Department at Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, who said the government was preparing to issue a national standard for organic agriculture.

“Our national organic agriculture standard will be adopted by the end of the year,” he said, adding that it “will build the trust of consumers and protect the interests of organic farmers.”

Tammy Davis-Charles, 49, has been in custody since her arrest in November last year, weeks after Cambodia abruptly banned commercial surrogacy.

Authorities moved to shut down the trade, which critics say exploits poor women, after a similar ban in Thailand pushed the shadowy industry across its borders.

Davis-Charles is accused of moving from Thailand to take advantage of the surrogacy boom in Cambodia, which lacked regulations at the time and quickly mopped up demand from foreign couples, mostly from Australia.

Police said her clinic charged would-be parents up to $50,000, while Cambodian surrogates received around $10,000 each — a vast sum in a nation where the average annual income is around $1,200.

Davis-Charles, who advertised surrogacy services online, was accused of bringing more than 23 Cambodian women into the trade for 18 Australian and five American couples.

“Tammy Davis-Charles was an intermediary between intended parents and Cambodian surrogate mothers,” Judge Sor Lina said delivering the ruling.

The Melbourne native was also convicted of falsifying documents.

“The court sentences Tammy Davis-Charles to one-and-a-half-years in jail,” the judge added.

Two Cambodian colleagues were convicted of the same charges and also jailed for 18 months.

Pushed underground

In her defence statement in July, Davis-Charles broke down in tears in front of the court appealing for mercy from the bench, saying she had already “lost everything” during her six months in custody.

During the trial she denied recruiting the surrogates, saying her role was limited to providing medical care.

Davis-Charles had twins through a Thai surrogate before going into “the surrogacy business full-time… to help people everyday,” according to her post on the website of her Bangkok-registered company.

Surrogacy agencies started sprouting up in Cambodia in 2015 after neighbouring Thailand shut down the trade following a series of scandals, including tussles over custody.

With cheap medical costs, a large pool of poor young women and no laws excluding gay couples or single parents, Cambodia quickly absorbed demand.

But in late 2016 authorities shut down the trade and refused to recognise birth certificates for babies, leaving many foreign couples in limbo.

In April this year the government said it would allow foreign couples to return home with babies if they could prove they were conceived before the ban on commercial surrogacy.

While Cambodia’s crackdown has slowed the tide of foreign couples, it has failed to snuff out an industry that remains a lure for some of the country’s most vulnerable women.

“There is certainly still surrogacy going on underground,” said Sam Everingham, director of the Australia-based consultancy Families Through Surrogacy.

The trade has also shifted over to neighbouring Laos which has yet to criminalise commercial surrogacy.

Laos’ role as the new surrogacy destination emerged after Thai authorities arrested a man attempting to smuggle six large refrigerated vials of sperm into the Communist country — presumably for use in the booming surrogacy clinics.

Some offer to carry out the embryo transfer in Laos and then provide pregnancy care for the surrogate in Thailand, a wealthier country with vastly superior medical facilities.

Thai authorities banned the trade in late 2014 following a slew of scandals, including the discovery of nine babies in a Bangkok apartment fathered by a rich Japanese man using Thai surrogates.

Four men were arrested in Sydney on Saturday accused of planning an attack using an improvised explosive device, prompting authorities to tighten security at airports across the nation.

But pilots, who have to be screened alongside air crew, retail workers and passengers, said similar requirements were not in place for ground staff, who are instead issued with security cards.

“Pilots and cabin crew are routinely screened along with passengers but a lot of ground staff can access aircraft on the tarmac without the same level of scrutiny,” Australian Airline Pilots Association president Murray Butt said late Wednesday.

“We believe it would enhance airport security if all airline staff who have access to aircraft, were screened to the same level as personnel entering through the terminal.”

The concerns came as Sydney’s Daily Telegraph cited sources alleging the plot involved using an unwitting passenger to carry a bomb onboard, with Etihad Airways confirming this week it was helping the investigation.

Aviation experts have also warned about loopholes, such as the use of private-sector security guards instead of government employees at airports, and no photo ID checks for passengers at domestic terminals.

Butt said Australia needed to emulate the US requirement for photo ID checks for passengers, while a former Sydney Airport security chief said security databases should be linked to booking systems.

“The scary thing is domestic airlines have no idea who is really on their aircraft,” Mike Carmody told The Australian Financial Review.

“There is very little coordination. Unless you happen to be someone who really stands out, you are going to fly right through security.”

‘No room for complacency’

In response to calls for ID checks, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Thursday airport security measures were “constantly under review”.

He told reporters in Perth that the times passengers had been advised to arrive at airports would return to normal after being extended following the alleged plot which “has been disrupted and it has been contained”.

Transport Minister Darren Chester defended the current security measures, saying workers with access to large passenger planes must hold a security card only issued after thorough checks.

“We’ve endeavoured to toughen up regulations around getting access to those cards, and making sure that people who have access to the airport environment are trusted,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“So it’s been recognised that there are issues around the world in relation to the threat provided by the so-called trusted insider… and we are taking measures to keep the Australian travelling public safe.”

One of the four men was released without charge Wednesday. Police have until the weekend to hold the other three after obtaining a court extension.

“The evidence gathered is very strong,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said Thursday of the allegations against the trio.

Australia’s national terror alert level was raised in September 2014 amid concerns over attacks by individuals inspired by organisations such as IS.

A total of 12 attacks, before the latest one, have been prevented in the past few years and 70 people have been charged.

Several terror attacks have taken place in Australia in recent years, including a Sydney cafe siege in 2014 which saw two hostages killed.

Hema Xiansheng’s fresh approach appears to be paying off in the cut-throat world of hybrid shopping.

Rolled out by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in 2015, the online-to-offline or O2O retailer has successfully combined bricks-and-mortar stores with online services.

Known for its fresh food, this O2O startup has steadily expanded its network of supermarkets since it opened its first outlet two years ago. Now, it has 10 stores in Shanghai, two in Beijing and one in Ningbo, Zhejiang province.

“Having both an online and offline outlet should create synergies by aligning two sets of customers under one grocery brand”, said Matthew Crabbe, Asia Pacific research director for consultancy Mintel.

“That is important for Alibaba, as the company gets a better understanding of online and offline customers, and the data about their spending habits”, he added.

Hema is a prototype of “New Retail” for the e-commerce behemoth as it cements its position in the online marketplace, despite fierce competition from domestic and overseas rivals.

During a visit to the flagship supermarket in Shanghai’s Jinqiao area in July, Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma and CEO Daniel Zhang were delighted at what they saw.

“The store leverages data and smart logistics technology to seamlessly integrate online-to-offline systems” said Zhang. “This means we can deliver fresh food to customers in just 30 minutes”

The online grocery market is expected to reach 678 billion yuan ($100.8 billion) this year, nearly 10 times the value of the sector back in 2013, consultancy Mintel pointed out in a report.

Indeed, the shift to O2O has been pioneered by major internet players such as Alibaba, Tencent Holdings Ltd, Baidu Inc and JD.com Inc.

“The real spurt in growth came from 2015 onwards, which followed Alibaba setting up Hema and JD.com collaborating with convenience stores”, Crabbe, of Mintel, said.

Since then, the sector has grown rapidly. At hyper-local Hema, customers can either shop from the comfort of their own homes by using the supermarket’s app or pop into the store. Once there, they can handpick their food, have it delivered or eat it on the spot.

In one 10,000 square-meter outlet located in a shopping mall in Shanghai’s downtown Changning district, every item had a bar code. When scanned, this showed the price, product information and origin of purchase.

Before leaving the store, customers scan the code and complete their electronic purchase through Alipay, Alibaba’s homegrown payment system, at a checkout register.

Nearly all of Hema’s products come in single-meal portions. This is to address the demand for high-quality food with unnecessary waste.

“Unlike in the past, city dwellers seldom cook for at least half of the week”, said Zhang Guohong, general manager at Hema. “They tend to dine out or order food in”

The O2O supermarket’s fresh seafood section, such as king crabs and lobsters, has proved to be extremely popular. Shoppers can purchase what they want to eat from large tanks, have it cooked and then tuck into their food in the dining area.

Alternatively, they can have it delivered to a location within a radius of three kilometers from the store. Fuelled by the voracious appetite for fresh food in China, Alibaba has expanded its seafood and fruit sectors.

Fresh produce, in fact, now accounts for more than half of all Hema’s stocks. In some stores, it is as high as 70 per cent.

“If we can handle fresh fruit and seafood, then learning to handle all the other kinds of imports becomes relatively easy, said Ma when Alibaba’s business-to-customer site Tmall first introduced Canadian lobsters.

Naturally, online retail is expected to grow from 15 per cent of overall sales in 2015 to 47 per cent through to 2022, according to KPMG, the professional service company and one of the big four auditors.

“That is evident from the rise of the likes of Hema”, said Jessie Qian, head of Consumer Markets for KPMG in China.

“Hema achieves a 50 per cent split between offline and online sales through a business model integrating showrooms and online delivery of fresh products”,she added.

Statistics suggest that Alibaba’s early venture into O2O retail is paying off, although financial figures are sketchy.The online giant reported that Hema’s Jinqiao store in Shanghai, the first to open in the country, is now profitable.

Shoppers on average make 4 to 5 purchases a month and visit the supermarket 50 times a year, the group revealed. Among Hema app users, the conversion rate for making a purchase was as high as 35 per cent, although again detailed figures were not disclosed.

Finally, stores’ sales per unit area are three-to-five times those of other supermarkets, Alibaba stressed.

Since the shops are also giant warehouses, Hema has cracked the problem of how to deal with 1,000 deliveries per outlet a day. Big data and cloud computing, as well as an innovative distribution system, have been crucial to making that work.

In particular, big data has become a vital pillar of the information industry, and is used to crunch vast amounts of complex statistics to show patterns and trends in business and consumer habits.

In store, “order-fulfillment” specialists move up and down the aisles with scanners, reusable shopping bags and special bar codes for each order. The bar codes not only help customers trace the origin of their goods but they also track deliveries.

Once an order has been put together in shopping bags, they are placed on hangers and swept off on overhead conveyor belts. Normally, it takes about three minutes to put a small order together after receiving it online. Again, big data is key to this operation as the process goes through an app.

Hema is able to collect reams of statistics for physical and virtual stores, which allows it to track and analyze the shopping patterns of customers. Every purchase is logged and preferences noted, with items promoted that appeal to the tastes of individual shoppers.

But the supermarket chain faces challenges as it expands, such as delivery delays and logistical problems.

“If the Hema group is to continue to expand, it will have to take this into account”, Crabbe, of Mintel, said. “It must learn how to avoid such problems in new cities and districts they open stores”.

The Deputy Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr Ounethouang Khaophanh,  told the Vientiane Times recently that the Lao World Heritage Site has the potentials to gain the certification.

“We expect the certification will be granted at the 2018 Asean Tourism Forum to be hosted by Thailand in January,” he said.

If the effort is a success, this will be the first time the ACTC certification is granted after Asean, the 10-member regional bloc, adopted the standard.

Mr Ounethouang added that other Asean members have voiced their support for the move by Laos to promote Luang Prabang as an ACTC.

The ministry has been working with authorities of Luang Prabang province to develop the well-known tourism site to meet the ACTC criteria.

After an initial assessment by Lao authorities based on the criteria, Mr Ounethouang said, “there is a possibility” to gain the certification.

The ACTA standards are based on seven indicators to evaluate a city, including environmental management, waste management, awareness-building about environmental protection, and cleanliness.

Availability of green spaces, health safety and urban safety, security and tourism infrastructure and facilities are also taken into account.

The Director General of the ministry’s Tourism Marketing Department, Mr Soun Manivong, said seminars had been organised to inform Luang Prabang provincial authorities how they could prepare the city to meet the criteria and two assessments had also been conducted.

“We have looked into not only tourism matters, but environmental protection, waste management, security standards and related facilities,” he said.

Asean members are required to submit their applicant cities to a body in-charge of certifying the ACTC award by October, before the 2018 Asean Tourism Forum scheduled to be held in Thailand’s Chieng Mai province.

If the  ACTC certification is granted, Luang Prabang will be in the regional and global tourism spotlight again after being voted as the world’s top tourism destination for many years, Mr Ounethouang said.

Readers of the influential US travel magazine “Travel + Leisure” voted Luang Prabang among the world’s top 15 cities in the Travel + Leisure World’s Top 15 Cities 2017.

In addition, readers of “Wanderlust”, a leading British travel magazine, voted Luang Prabang as the world’s best city to visit in 2015, and from 2006 to 2008 as well as from 2010 to 2012.

“Visitors to Luang Prabang enjoy diverse attractions, such as well-preserved culture, ancient cultural sites and numerous temples. There are awesome waterfalls and adventure treks in forests and caves that tourists can enjoy,” the Director of Information, Culture and Tourism Department of Luang Prabang province, Mr Soulithip Norkhounphon, said.

By dishing out a slew of incentives, such as cash rebates, free bus rides and even a chance to win gold, the companies are taking the cashless payment fever to new heights. The battle comes after UnionPay and Apple both rolled out similar programs in June and July to cultivate customer loyalty.

During the promotional period, consumers who use Alipay, the world’s top mobile payment tool, for their transactions stand to earn up to 4,888 yuan ($727) in cash rebates if they make purchases at any of the 10 million-plus brick-and-mortar stores across the country accepting the service.

Using the e-payment service automatically gives the consumer a chance to win a piece of the jackpot — an 18.888 kilogram slab of gold.

Tencent’s WeChat Pay (Wallet), which comes in as a close second in China’s red-hot mobile payment arena, also unveiled a raft of promotions during the same period.

Apart from a similar cash rebate scheme, WeChat users can accumulate savings and spend them on Aug 8. Consumers also gain additional cash rewards by sharing promotions with their WeChat contacts.

Alipay and WeChat Pay controlled more than 92 per cent of China’s 18.8 trillion yuan mobile payment market in the first quarter of 2017, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys.

According to research group eMarketer, China is the world’s largest proximity mobile payment market — making payments by tapping, swiping or checking in with a mobile phone — and nearly half of smartphone users in the country are expected to use such payment methods by 2020.

“This widespread adoption is fueled by growing smartphone usage and the expansion of e-commerce to rural areas,” said eMarketer analyst Shelleen Shum.

A study by consultancy Ipsos and Tencent found that mobile payments have become an intrinsic part of life for many Chinese people today, with 14 per cent of them carrying no cash and 26 per cent carrying less than 100 Yuan, when they head out.

Eric Jing, chief executive of Ant Financial, the parent company of Alipay, said the main objective of mobile payments is “by no means to eliminate cash but to give equal access to a wide array of merchandise and services that were previously unattainable for an underbanked population.”

Chen Xuejun, a qipao seller in Shanghai, said more than half of his transactions are made through Alipay, and this has improved business efficiency while greatly reducing the risk of him being paid with counterfeit notes.