As 2014 comes to close, China Daily website summarizes 10 economic events that are likely to influence people's lives in the future.

Here are the 10 major events that happed this year.

1. Abolishment of salt monopoly

The 2,000-year-old State monopoly on the salt industry will be abolished, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Nov 20, 2014.

The prices of all salt-related products will be decided by the market from 2016 and private investors can join the salt industry from 2017.

2. Alibaba goes public

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba went public at the NASDAQ in New York on Sept 19, 2014, and its market valuation surged to $21.8 billion on the first trading day, making it the largest-ever IPO event in the US stock market.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, with a $28.6 billion fortune became Asia's richest person after his company went public, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

3. Restart of IPO

China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) gave the green light to five Chinese companies on Dec 30, 2013, signaling a restart of the initial public offering (IPO) review that has been suspended for over a year.

A total of 67 companies completed listing since the CSRC announced the move to restart IPO in Chinese mainland stock market by Dec 18.

4. Interest cut

On Nov 22, 2014, China's central bank adjusted the benchmark rates for the first time since July 2012.

After the cut, one-year deposit rate will stand at 2.75 percent, while one-year lending will be at 5.6 percent.

5. Antitrust investigation

To protect customers' interests, China's regulator launched an antitrust investigation into more than 1,000 Chinese and overseas companies involving the auto and telecommunications sectors.

On July 28, 2014, nearly 100 SAIC inspectors visited Microsoft's offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, taking internal documents and two computers amid an investigation of chipmaker Qualcomm's monopoly status.

As the probe went ahead, four BMW dealers were the first to be fined a total of 1.63 million yuan for deceptive pricing and setting unified prices for pre-delivery inspections in Hubei province. Then, 10 of the 12 Japanese companies were fined a total of 1.24 billion yuan ($202 million) for price fixing.

Some automakers, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover, cut the prices of spare parts in after-sales maintenance in response to the anti-monopoly probe.

6. Private bank

China's financial regulator approved Webank to start business on Dec 12, 2014.

Webank, whose 30 percent stake is held by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, has a registered capital of 3 billion yuan ($490 million) and its business scope includes personal banking, corporate banking and international banking.

In 2014, five applications to set up private banks were approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Previously, China had only one private bank, China Minsheng Bank, which was founded in 1996 in Beijing.

7. Free trade zones

Three new pilot free trade zones will be set up in Guangdong and Fujian province and in Tianjin, China's cabinet decided on Dec 12, 2014.

The new projects will learn from the experience of Shanghai's Pilot Free Trade Zone to test greater opening-up and tap the economy's huge potential to hedge against mounting downward pressure next year.

8. Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connection program

Nov 17, 2014, was the launch of mutual trading access between the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets.

The program allows investors of the two sides to trade shares on each other's exchanges.

Stock Connect allows up to 13 billion yuan of net daily purchases from Hong Kong of Shanghai-listed stocks and 10.5 billion yuan of net purchases from Shanghai of Hong Kong-listed stocks. It also puts a cap of 300 billion yuan in northbound (from Hong Kong to Shanghai) purchases and 250 billion yuan in southbound.

9.APEC

The 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leader's meeting was held in Beijing.

During the APEC meeting, China and the US promised to issue 10-year tourist and business visas and five-year student visas.

Apart from the APEC meetings, this event also brought a six-day vacation and ��APEC�� blue to people living in Beijing.

10. Oil taxes rise

The consumption tax on oil products started to rise from Dec 13, 2014, as the retail fuel prices continued to fall.

Based on the statement from the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation, the tax on gasoline rose from 1.12 yuan per liter to 1.4 yuan and diesel went up from 0.94 yuan to 1.1 yuan. The taxes were previously increased on Nov 29.

The reason to increase the oil taxes is aimed at cutting emissions and improve energy efficiency, the statement said.