Covid-19 & Vaccine

  • WHO: Indian variant of the new coronavirus, which has spread to more than 40 countries and territories. The United Kingdom is the country that has reported the most cases of infection with this variant of the virus, in addition to India.
  • Brazil has detected 110 strains of variant neo-coronavirus that have spread in the country.
  • Brazil: Spending heavily to accelerate vaccine production and supply.
  • India: Out-of-control outbreak disrupts Wall Street financial giant’s outsourcing business.
  • Thailand: 45 billion baht to boost local economy.

Trade

  • South Korea: Increased imports of Chinese rice. In the first two months of this year,  imports were about 57,000 tons, up more than 50% year-on-year.
  • Kazakhstan: VAT exemption for automobiles and agricultural machinery parts.
  • Ministry of Commerce: In 2020, China’s trade volume with 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe exceeded 100 billion USD for the first time, reaching 103.45 billion USD, up 8.4% year-on-year.
  • German merchandise exports rose 1.2% in March from a year earlier, and the value of German merchandise exports rose for 11 consecutive months.

Shipment

  • Chinese shipping companies returned to the world’s top position in terms of order intake. According to the latest data released by Clarkson, the global new ship orders in April this year totaled 98 ships and 3.05 million CGT, of which Chinese shipbuilders received 53 ships and 1.64 million CGT, accounting for 54%. And South Korean shipping companies received orders relatively backward, only 34 ships 1.19 million CGT, accounting for 39%. This is the first time since July last year, South Korean shipping companies in a single month to receive orders behind China, lost the reigning champion position for 9 months.
  • Egypt’s claim for the “EverGiven” was reduced to $600 million.
  • Egyptian President Sisi approved the plan to widen the southern section of the Suez Canal.

Company

  • Apple rejected nearly 1 million new applications last year.
  • Israel: proposed to impose a fine on the U.S. social media “facebook”.
  • Germany banned Facebook from collecting user data.
  • Foxconn factory in India was exposed to infection surge, iPhone production capacity plummeted 50%.
  • Musk stops accepting bitcoin to buy cars

Industry & China

  • China Association of Automobile Manufacturers: In April, China sold 2.252 million vehicles, up 8.6% year-on-year; 1.704 million passenger cars, up 10.8% year-on-year; 206,000 new energy vehicles, up 180.3% year-on-year.
  • Charging Union: From January to April, the incremental charging infrastructure in China was 146,000 units, and the incremental public charging infrastructure rose 100.3% year-on-year; the incremental charging facilities allocated with vehicles continued to rise, up 129.8% year-on-year. As of April, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in the country was 1.827 million units, up 42.0% year-on-year.
  • Counterpoint: In the first quarter, the smartphone market in major Southeast Asian countries grew 34% year-on-year to 27 million units. Among them, OPPO’s market share rose to 22%, occupying the first place; Samsung’s market share was 19%, ranking second; Vivo, Xiaomi and realme occupied the 3rd-5th places with 16%, 13% and 11% respectively.
  • Sinopec: Planning to build 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations or oil-hydrogen combined stations, 5,000 charging and exchange stations, and 7,000 distributed photovoltaic power generation sites by 2025, taking advantage of the original layout of 30,000 gas stations and 870 refueling stations.
  • Jitterbug Electricity: April 30~May 9. Shanghai ranks first in the country in coffee consumption, while Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan are the top three cities in the purchase of anti-hair loss shampoo.

World

  • Global gold demand reached 815.7 tons in the first quarter.
  • Eurozone economy contracted 0.6% in the first quarter.
  • Philippines: A state of national disaster was declared due to an outbreak of African swine fever. African swine fever has caused the Philippines to cut production by 3 million pigs and lose up to 100 billion pesos (about RMB 13.4 billion).