Short news
November 28, 2016 Category Short news, Weekly
Automotive
- Daimler has sacked Rainer Gaertner, CEO of Daimler Trucks & Buses China, after he called all Chinese bastards and injured one person with pepper spray in a row over a parking spot in Beijing. Gaertner, driving his black Mercedes, and a Chinese driver were both trying to park in the same space in a residential area in the capital’s Shunyi district when a dispute occurred. Daimler Trucks & Buses’ China sales in the 10 months to end-October accounted for 22.6% of its total global figure.
- Beijing announced stricter emission standards for cars to improve air quality in the capital. Starting on December 15, gasoline cars with National I and II emission standards will be banned from the road in Beijing when the city has an orange or red air-quality alert. Furthermore, those cars will be banned from the road from Monday to Friday starting on February 15 next year. The number of cars with National I and II emission standards make up 8% of the cars registered in Beijing, but the emissions from those cars account for more than 30% of all emissions.
Expat corner
- China’s central bank will allow qualified foreign employees working in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) to open overseas personal free trade accounts. The central bank said the move was aimed at encouraging innovation, and cross-border investment and trade in a bid to make trade more active, and extend the functions of free trade accounts from corporate financing to personal financing.
Finance
- The recent fluctuations in the value of the yuan are largely in line with China’s economic fundamentals, suggesting no urgent need for an intervention by the central bank in the foreign exchange market, David Lipton, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said. He attributed the recent depreciation to a stronger dollar, driven by the U.S. election and possible interest rate hikes in the near future. The yuan’s exchange rate reached an eight-year low in the past several days, but when compared with other emerging market peers, the currency has not seen a major adjustment, according to Lipton.
- Yu Yongding, Senior Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said Beijing should stop intervening to control the value of the yuan and instead allow a fall in the currency’s exchange rate before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. President at the end of January. The government should permit the yuan to fall as much as the markets dictate while maintaining controls on the flow of capital in and out of the country. “From now until President-elect Donald Trump officially takes office is a good window period to abandon market intervention and let the yuan fully release its depreciation pressure,” Yu said.
- Shanghai will strive to draw capital to accounts held in the city’s pilot free trade zone (FTZ), and encourage more professionals and companies to convert foreign currencies to yuan, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said. The city aims to achieve a net capital inflow in 2016 via FTZ accounts and balance capital inflows and outflows to stabilize the financial market.
- China will tighten risk control of commercial banks’ off-balance-sheet activities, which have been growing rapidly to a tremendous size in recent years. Commercial banks should include off-balance-sheet activities in their comprehensive risk management system, according to the draft of a revised guideline on risk management of commercial banks’ off-balance-sheet activities issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).
- China’s five largest state-owned commercial banks are planning to set up their own asset management subsidiaries to carry out debt-to-equity swap programs. The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) will establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, ABC Asset Management Co, in Beijing with a total capital of CNY10 billion.
- Shenzhen customs said it had uncovered 1,012 cash smuggling cases in the first 10 months of this year, as individuals tried to smuggle cash out of China in suitcases and handbags. A senior official with the Shanghai branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said that it would crack down on capital flight and closely monitor abnormal capital flows via the city’s free trade zone (FTZ).
Foreign investment
- In 2015, China surpassed the U.S. as Latin America’s largest foreign investor and top destination for exports. Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in non-financial sectors in Latin America rose to USD21.45 billion last year, up 67.1% from the previous year. During that period, the China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank offered loans worth USD29 billion to the continent, more than the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank combined.
- China is still one of the most attractive destinations for foreign investment because of its streamlined administration and trade facilitation, Premier Li Keqiang said on a trip to the Shanghai Free Trade Pilot Zone. The Premier was speaking at a General Electric technology park, during his third visit to the pilot zone in three years since it was established to boost China’s reform and opening-up.
- China should set up an infrastructure investment fund as a way to ease U.S. concerns over national security and job losses while increasing its chances of participating in U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious infrastructure plan, according to Stephen Orlins, President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR). “The sensitivity in America towards foreign investment is not generally the nationality of the investor, but the nationality of those providing the labor, he said at the Yale Center Beijing. The returns on such an infrastructure fund would be higher than U.S. Treasury bills, which account for 37% of China’s USD3.1 trillion foreign exchange reserves.
Foreign trade
- The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) will review anti-dumping measures it imposed on solar-grade polysilicon imports from South Korea. South Korean firms have increased dumping activities on the Chinese market, according to Chinese firms. The review will cover the period from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015. China slapped five-year duties on polysilicon imports from the U.S. and South Korea in 2014. The rates for imports from South Korea are set between 2.4% and 48.7%.
- The demise of the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could inject momentum into China’s proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the APEC-centered Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), but it might stall needed reforms, observers said. New York University Professor Ian Bremmer said the death of the TPP would make Beijing “less resolute” in various areas from state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform to the free flow of information. Without external pressure, China could continue with business as usual.
- China Communications Construction Co (CCCC) plans to boost its overseas sales revenue to 50% of the total by 2035 via diversified operation models, machinery exports, and overseas merger and acquisitions (M&As). The company’s global sales accounted for 33% of its annual sales revenue in 2015. The company was involved in construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, Gwadar Port in Pakistan, and Sri Lanka’s Colombo International Financial City project.
- The United States and China held the 27th meeting of the China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in Beijing and reached consensus on multiple issues. The two parties discussed export controls, trade remedies, inspections and quarantines of agricultural products, civil aviation services, Chinese investment in the U.S., biotechnology, innovation policies, excess capacity, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and integrated circuits. “No matter how the leadership changes in the U.S., the shared interests of our two countries far outweigh our differences,” Zhang Xiangchen, China’s Deputy International Trade Representative, told a news conference after the conclusion of the talks.
- China and Chile agreed to begin negotiations on deepening a free trade agreement (FTA) signed in 2005. The agreement was among the 12 cooperative documents signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Chile. The agreements also include jointly establishing and operating an astronomy base in Chile and setting up a Chinese culture center in Santiago.
- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said that U.S. policies toward China under President-elect Donald Trump may be uncertain, but he is optimistic because of the American business community’s enthusiasm for U.S.-China trade. At a luncheon with U.S. and Chinese business people and government officials, Wang said he believed that businesses and the U.S. government would ultimately make the “right choices” to take advantage of market opportunities in China’s economy.
Health
- China is to issue a new anti-smoking regulation by the end of the year which will prohibit smoking in public nationwide. Violations by individuals will incur fines of up to CNY500, while companies that breach the rule face fines up to CNY30,000 and the loss of their business license. About 20 Chinese cities had already drawn up no-smoking rules. The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control estimates there are some 316 million smokers in the country, with about 1.5 million Chinese dying every year from tobacco-related diseases.
- Pharmaceutical companies in Hebei, the province which surrounds Beijing, were ordered to temporarily shut down production on days of heavy air pollution. Analysts expect the measure to have a negative impact on their profits. China’s CNY3 trillion pharmaceutical industry contributes less than 3% of GDP, yet accounts for about 6% of pollutant emissions.
- An international team led by Chinese virologists has reported the discovery of 1,445 new virus species before they could cause an epidemic. They discovered that invertebrates carry far more viruses than medical scientists assumed until now.
- Supermarkets in Beijing have stopped selling live fish for fear of being caught in a government crackdown on food safety violations. The China Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would soon conduct random checks for chemical contamination of aquatic products. Inspections would be held at wholesale markets, supermarkets and restaurants in 12 cities including Beijing before December 10.
- Scientists have identified bacterial genes that lead to antibiotic resistance, including several that can be resistant to the most powerful antibiotics, in air samples from Beijing. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden analyzed 864 DNA samples taken from humans, animals and environments worldwide and found Beijing smog carried the largest number and types of genes identical or highly similar to antibiotic resistance genes (ARG).
Macro-economy
- China is expected to name the first state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to be restructured under a mixed-ownership system by year-end. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) plans to hold a meeting with SOEs to advise on restructuring plans. SOE reform is widely expected to include the introduction of private capital and employee stock ownership. The seven industries from which the first batch of SOEs will be drawn to take part in the pilot include power, oil, natural gas, railway, civil aviation, telecommunications and the military. China will cut the number of centrally-administered SOEs this year to 100 from 106.
- Liaoning province’s GDP fell by 2.2% in the first nine months this year. It is the only province to report an absolute fall in economic output over the period when China’s national economy expanded by 6.7%. Only two other provinces reported growth rates below the national average: Shanxi, with a 4% growth rate, and Heilongjiang, with 6% growth.
- The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is working on an index that will measure China’s “new economy” in terms of knowledge, economic vitality, innovation, digitalization, transformation and upgrading. The new economy has seen rapid development in China in recent years, including high-tech industries, internet-based businesses, online retail sales, as well as new products and services. However, China lacks statistical standards and a unified indicator to reflect the development of the new economy.
- China will send inspection teams to investigate and severely punish illegal expansion by coal and steel firms as part of its efforts to slim down the two industries, the government said. Cutting overcapacity is a high priority as the two industries have become a major drag on growth. China promised in February to slash 500 million tons of coal production capacity by 2020, including 250 million tons this year, and to cut 100-150 million tons of crude steel capacity over the next three to five years, with this year’s target at 45 million tons.
- The China Ocean Economic Development Index, which gauges the country’s ocean economic development, rose to 119.9 in 2015, the National Marine Data and Information Service said. During the 12th Five Year (2011-2015) Plan period, the annual growth rate of the index was 3.7%, suggesting a good overall development of the ocean economy.
- Profits at China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) rose 0.4% in the first 10 months of the year from the same period a year earlier, with coal and steel companies leading the growth, the Ministry of Finance said. Their profits totaled CNY1.9 trillion on revenue of CNY26.7 trillion in the January-October period. Over the first three quarters, profits of coal companies surged 65.1% from the same period of last year to CNY35.2 billion, GF Securities Co said. Steel firms generated a profit of CNY25.2 billion from January to September.
- Chinese demography experts have called on the central government to further loosen its birth control policy within two years owing to a predicted population decline in 2018. The warning came as the National Health and Family Planning Commission announced that this year’s number of newborns would exceed 17.5 million – similar to the total number in 2000. All Chinese parents were permitted to have a second child from January 1 this year. China’s 2015 fertility rate was about 1.05 – far below the 2.1 rate needed to keep the population level steady.
- China’s industrial profit growth was 9.8% year-on-year in October, up from 7.7% the previous month. The accelerated profit growth was attributable to the growth of sales revenues, rising producer prices and strong profit growth in the chemical, coal and general equipment sectors, the National Bureau of Statistics said. China’s producer price index (PPI) rose 1.2% year-on-year in October, up from 0.1% in September, showing improvement in domestic demand for industrial products.
Mergers & acquisitions
- Chinese conglomerate Fosun International has acquired 16.7% of Millennium BCP for €175 million, becoming the largest shareholder in Portugal’s largest listed lender by assets. Fosun said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) that the deal will help it extend its business in Europe and Africa. It also confirmed the plan to increase its stake to 30% in the near future.
- The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said that China National Cotton Reserves Corp will no longer be under its supervision and be merged with another state-owned enterprise (SOE), China Grain Reserves Corp, also known as Sinograin. The merger is part of the reorganization of SOEs to cut costs, boost efficiency and make them more competitive.
- Greece’s Public Power Corp has cleared the sale of a 24% stake in the Greek power grid operator ADMIE to China’s State Grid International Development. The Chinese company won an international tender last month and was declared the preferred bidder by offering €320 million.
Real estate
- Anbang Insurance Group Co is in talks to buy as much as USD2.3 billion in Japanese residential property assets from Blackstone Group in what would be Japan’s biggest property deal since the global financial crisis. It would be Anbang’s first foray into Japanese real estate.
- China Evergrande Group has raised its stake in China Vanke to 10%. Evergrande, which is chaired by Hui Ka-yan, named recently by Forbes as China’s ninth richest man worth USD9.6 billion, became the third largest shareholder in Vanke in August when it snapped up a 6.82% stake. In a statement, Vanke highlighted that the change of shareholding did not trigger a general offer, or lead to a change in the company’s largest shareholder.
Retail
- Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, the world’s largest publicly-traded jewelry chain, reported a 21.5% drop in its first-half earnings, due to lackluster consumer demand. The Hong Kong-based jeweler controlled by one of Asia’s richest families saw its net income slide to HKD1.22 billion for the six months ended September 30. Revenue dropped 23.5% to HKD21 billion from the same period last year.
- Alibaba Group generated sales of USD17.8 billion on Singles’ Day (November 11) this year, up 32% from 2015. In both 2014 and 2015, Alibaba recorded about 60% annualized growth of sales during the one-day shopping event.
Stock markets
- The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced a capital market connectivity mechanism between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. Hong Kong Securities Clearing Co is allowed to open a special yuan bank account at a mainland bank, which will deal with businesses on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. China Securities Depository and Clearing Co will open a special bank account at a Hong Kong bank to deal with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE). The mechanism aims to facilitate capital market connectivity between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and standardize cash flow.
- Shares of China High Speed Transmission surged by as much as 8% on news that some 68% of its independent shareholders have accepted a share swap offer from Nanjing tycoon Ji Changqun’s Fullshare, allowing the latter to gain majority control over China’s largest maker of gearboxes for wind power turbines without paying any money.
- Chinese insurers are likely to see a rebound in their valuations, thanks to rising interest spreads. Shares in Chinese insurers were now trading at historical lows of 0.5 to 0.8 times their estimated embedded value in 2017, Citigroup Analysts Darwin Lam and Michelle Ma wrote in a report. Most of them also traded at or even below a valuation that assumed long-term investment returns of just 3.5%. Citigroup said its top picks in the sector were Ping An and China Life. JPMorgan Securities, meanwhile, listed Ping An’s H shares as one of its seven top picks in the Hong Kong market for the next year.
- Shares of China Hongqiao fell by as much as 4.3% after an anonymous online report said the aluminum producer had failed to disclose the connected nature of various transactions and used them to inflate profit and “launder” funds back to firms linked to its majority shareholder.
- Li You, former CEO of Founder Group, was jailed for four and a half years and fined CNY750 million for insider trading and other offenses. Li used inside information to gain from stock transactions and asked others to hide financial information and obstruct the police. Eleven others were sentenced in the same case.
- Four brokerages and three securities software companies have been fined by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) for margin financing activities in the gray market. The four brokerages were punished for failing to check the identity of their customers and their equity trading accounts.
Travel
- The yuan’s depreciation is most keenly felt by China’s airlines, as the weaker currency makes aircraft and jet fuel more costly, while its weaker buying power abroad deters outbound tourism and crimp their revenues. The yuan weakened 3.1% last year, leading to an 18-fold surge in foreign exchange losses, or USD2.5 billion, for China’s three biggest carriers – China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern. As much as 80% of their debt was denominated in dollars last year.
- China’s largest online travel agency Ctrip plans to buy British flight search app Skyscanner for USD1.74 billion. The deal has already been approved by the boards of both firms and is expected to be finalized by the end of this year. Skyscanner helps users compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels and rental cars, with about 60 million monthly active users, mainly in Europe. Skyscanner will still be independently run, with the same management team. Ctrip reported a reversal in fortunes for the third quarter, following two quarters of losses, with its revenue surging 75% from a year earlier to CNY5.6 billion.
- Chinese airports may adopt an ID card check-in system as early as next year, skipping the need to show a boarding pass. Passengers would be allowed go through security checks with just their ID cards, Zhang Baojian, North Asia Vice President of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. The change is expected to save airlines at least CNY1 billion a year, reduce the number of check-in counters by about 5,000 and cut staffing levels.The technology for the system was developed two years ago, but regulatory approval was only granted recently. The number of people flying to, from and within China will almost double to 927 million annually by 2025, from 487 million last year.
- Uber China shut down its old mobile app, to be replaced by a new one that integrates its functions and the drivers’ pool with Didi Chuxing four months after their merger. Didi acquired Uber’s China operations in August and became the No 1 ride-hailing service provider in China with 15 million drivers and over 400 million registered users. Foreigners with Uber accounts are also required to download the new app if they would like to use Uber services in China.
- Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels (HSH), owner of the Peninsula hotel chain, celebrated its 150th anniversary and its position as the oldest registered company in Hong Kong. The company struggled in the first half, with underlying profits falling 43% to HKD152 million. The hotel group currently owns and operates 10 Peninsula hotels, as well as The Peak Complex, The Peak Tram, and The Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. It is developing new hotels in London, Myanmar’s former capital Yangon, and Istanbul in Turkey.
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