Covid-19 and Vaccine

  • China has granted visa convenience to those who have been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines. Applicants can go to the website of the embassy and consulate to check the materials needed to apply for a visa before the epidemic. The embassies and consulates abroad that have issued relevant notices include: embassies in the United States, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Israel, Thailand, Gabon and other countries.
  • The British government announced that it will test the “vaccine passport” policy in England to ensure the safe return of major sporting events and other large-scale indoor events. The vaccine pass will contain information about whether you have been vaccinated, whether you have been tested for the new coronavirus recently and the result is negative, and whether you have been immunized naturally.
  • A vaccine factory in the United States was scrapped due to misuse of employees. 15 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines were scrapped. A vaccine factory in Maryland, China originally produced two new crown vaccines at the same time. One was developed by Johnson & Johnson in the United States and the other was jointly developed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom and the University of Oxford. Factory employees mistakenly confuse the raw materials of the two vaccines. As many as 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine were scrapped. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requires this factory to only produce Johnson & Johnson vaccines in the future to avoid making similar mistakes again.
  • Brazil issued a new round of emergency relief funds. This round of emergency relief funds will be issued in 4 months, that is, from April to July this year, the amount of relief will be adjusted according to the different circumstances of each family. In general, the average amount of assistance received per person per month is between 150 reais and 375 reais (approximately 178 yuan to 445 yuan); in terms of the number of recipients, Brazil will have 45.6 million residents. Accepting this round of rescues reduced 22.6 million people from the 68.2 million people in the middle of last year. In addition, compared with the aid standard of 600 reals (approximately RMB 711) per person per month in the middle of last year, the amount distributed this time has also dropped significantly.

Industry

  • In recent years, with the continuous advancement of China’s ecological and environmental protection efforts, the degree of dependence on imported wood has also increased year by year. According to the industry, the increase in timber prices is due to the epidemic and weather. Some timber-producing countries have reduced log logging, reduced supplies, and superimposed shipping costs are at a high level.
  • Kuaishou: Starting from the Tomb-Sweeping Day in 2021, the first and second phases of the mourning account will be launched successively, including but not limited to the display of the year of birth and death of the deceased user, candle marking, and setting of account trustees. Kuaishou has become the first short video platform in the industry to launch the “memorial account” function, and will further explore the issue of digital heritage processing in the future.
  • Lighthouse data: As of 09:40 on April 4, the box office of Qingming movies in 2021 reached approximately 370 million yuan, setting the highest record in single-day box office movie history for Qingming movies. At present, the top three movies at the box office are ” Sister” 166 million, “Godzilla vs. Kong” 137 million, and “Monkey King Reborn” 24.52 million.
  • Clarkson: In the first quarter of this year, global new ship orders were 10.24 million revised gross tonnage (323 ships), and South Korea received 5.32 million revised gross tonnage (126 ships). In the first quarter of last year, South Korea only received 550,000 revised gross tonnage out of the global total of 3.97 million revised gross tonnage orders. In the first quarter of this year, South Korea’s shipbuilding industry won ten times as many orders as in the same period last year, and its market share also increased from last year. The 14% in the quarter rose to 52% in the same period this year.
  • Saudi Aramco: Saudi Arabia raised the price of crude oil exported to Asia in May. The prices of light crude oil and ultra-light crude oil were raised by US$0.4/barrel, the price of extra-light crude oil was raised by US$0.2/barrel, and the prices of medium and heavy crude oil were raised. US$0.5/barrel. (Ps. 1ton≈7 barrels)

World

  • Starting in June, Malaysia will impose a recycling fee of 20 ringgit (about 35 yuan) per kilogram of “foreign garbage” imported from the country.