COVID-19 and Vaccine

  • Health Commission: As of 24:00 on March 20, China has reported 74.956 million doses of new crown vaccine.
  • President of the European Commission: If the new crown vaccine jointly developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University is not provided to the EU in accordance with the contract, the EU will not rule out banning the export of this vaccine from EU member states. AstraZeneca promised in the contract that 90 million doses of the new crown vaccine will be delivered to the EU in the first quarter of 2021, but only about 30% have been delivered so far.

Industry Data

  • Affected by the epidemic, global food prices have risen by 20% overall in 2020. In 2021, the prices of most major agricultural products are still on the rise. The food price index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has risen for nine consecutive months, reaching its highest level since July 2014 in February. In February, the growth of sugar and vegetable oil was particularly strong. The prices of major grains increased significantly year-on-year. International sorghum prices rose 82.1% year-on-year, international corn prices rose 45.5% year-on-year, and wheat prices rose 19.8% year-on-year. In terms of meat prices, international beef and mutton quotations rose in February, while pork quotations showed a downward trend.
  • The dairy product price index has risen for nine consecutive months and is close to a 40-month high.
    The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: In 2021, it will formulate more stringent implementation measures for capacity replacement in the iron and steel industry, and gradually study the establishment of a production restriction mechanism based on carbon emissions, pollutant emissions, and total energy consumption. At present, my country’s steel industry has the largest carbon emissions among the 31 manufacturing sectors, and crude steel production accounts for more than half of the global crude steel production.
  • The phenomenon of sleep deprivation among Chinese adolescents continues to worsen. 95.5% of elementary school students, 90.8% of junior high school students, and 84.1% of high school students sleep less than the standard. On the one hand, the average sleep length of adolescents in school days in 2020 is 7.8 hours, which is 0.3 hours lower than in 2009. On the other hand, the length of sleep during the school day showed a downward trend with the increase of grade, and the phenomenon of supplementary sleep on weekends showed a differentiation in the school period; the average sleep time during the school day in elementary and junior high school was reduced by about 40 minutes, and the first and second grades decreased by 10 20 minutes; the average sleep time of elementary school students on weekends decreased by about 12 to 25.2 minutes, the first and second grades decreased by about 20 minutes, and the decline in the third and high school stages was more serious, with a decrease of 40.2 to 51.3 minutes.
  • Random Lengths: Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, global timber prices have risen by 188%. With the expansion of the scope of vaccination, the output of wood processing plants will increase, and the problem of delivery delays will gradually alleviate. It is expected that the supply of wood will increase in the next few months, which will reduce the price of wood.
  • CNOOC: With the end of the heating season in major cities in northern China, the country’s winter gas supply has entered the final stage. During the heating season from the winter of 2020 to the spring of 2021, CNOOC supplied more than 24 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the country, a year-on-year increase of nearly 25%, a record high in gas supply.
  • CCTV Finance: Since February, the price of green onions on the Korean market has soared; in March, the average retail price of green onions per kilogram was as high as 7,400 won, or about 43 yuan. According to statistics, the total output of Korean scallions from January to March decreased by 51.6% year-on-year. The South Korean agricultural department stated that it has put 400 tons of reserved scallions on the market and at the same time expanded imports to curb the excessively rapid rise in onion prices. In addition to green onions, the prices of major agricultural products such as eggs, cabbage, and apples in South Korea have risen by more than 16% year-on-year, and people’s living expenses have increased significantly.

Trade

  • According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the trade volume between China and Central and Eastern European countries will reach 103.45 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, surpassing 100 billion U.S. dollars for the first time, an increase of 8.4%; China-Europe freight trains operated 12,400 trains throughout the year, an increase of 50%, and exceeded the “10,000 trains” for the first time. turn off. As of the end of 2020, China has accumulatively invested US$3.14 billion in direct investment in the entire industry in Central and Eastern European countries, while the accumulated investment in China by Central and Eastern European countries has reached US$1.72 billion in the same period. Since the establishment of the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism in 2012, the volume of trade between China and CEECs has increased by nearly 85%, with an average annual growth rate of 8%.
  • EU: China continues to maintain its status as the EU’s largest trading partner
    Data released by Eurostat on March 18 showed that in January this year, EU exports to China totaled 16.1 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%. The bilateral trade in goods totaled 49.4 billion Euros, and China continued to maintain its position as the EU’s largest trading partner.
  • According to data released by the German Federal Statistics Office, the new crown epidemic has significantly reduced the cargo handling capacity of German seaports. In 2020, a total of 275.7 million tons of cargo were handled, a decrease of 6.4% from 2019. Container loading and unloading is very important for maritime transportation, and it will also decline in 2020. The container loading and unloading volume is 14 million TEUs, a decrease of about 6.9% from 2019.
  • In 2020, India’s imports from China reached 58.7 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing the sum of its imports to the United States, the second largest trading partner, and the UAE, the third-largest trading partner. According to India’s “Financial Express” report, Chinese suppliers such as Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo accounted for 77% of India’s total smartphone shipments in 2020, an increase of 5 percentage points over 2019.
    India will blacklist Huawei and ZTE.
  • South Africa: Retail sales have fallen for 10 consecutive months. In January this year, South Africa’s retail sales fell 3.5% year-on-year. According to industry insiders, with the gradual cancellation of the prohibition, retail sales in South Africa are expected to rebound in the next few months.
  • Vietnam’s exports to Argentina soared by 160%. Recently, the General Administration of Customs of Vietnam announced that Vietnam’s exports to Argentina in February reached US$77.7 million. Among them, the export value of telephones and accessories was 52 million U.S. dollars, and the export of computers, electronic products and accessories was 13.4 million U.S. dollars. In the first two months, Vietnam’s exports to Argentina reached 174 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 163.6% year-on-year, equivalent to a net increase of 108 million U.S. dollars.

Company

  • Because the Apple iPhone 12 is not equipped with a charger, Brazil decided to fine it 2 million US dollars.
    AMC, the largest American movie theater company, announced that 98% of theaters in the United States will open for business, and 99% of theaters will reopen before March 26.
  • A fire broke out at the Renesas plant in Japan and production was suspended, which made the supply of automotive chips worse. Renesas Electronics is one of the largest automotive chip manufacturers, and Renesas is the third largest automotive chip manufacturer in 2019. According to Bloomberg’s supply chain analysis, Toyota Motor Corporation is one of its largest customers.
  • The world’s top three aluminum electrolytic capacitor manufacturers increased their prices. Following Japanese manufacturers Rubycon, land-owned factories Aihua, Jianghai, and Kaimei, Japanese aluminum power plants have joined the ranks of price increases. Nippon Chemicon, the world’s largest aluminum power plant, Nichicon, the second largest aluminum capacitor factory in the world, and Rubycon, the world’s third largest aluminum capacitor factory, have successively announced an increase in the price of aluminum capacitors. From the perspective of demand, aluminum capacitors are suitable for harsh environments such as automobiles, servers, and 5G base stations due to their large size and high current resistance. With the demand for servers recovering this year, coupled with the renewed mining boom, the terminal demand for aluminum capacitors does not lose to MLCCs and resistors, and the boom is quite high. Analysts said that the acceleration of the replacement of electronic products, the rapid development of new energy fields such as wind power, solar power, and electric vehicles, and the large demand brought by the popularization of 5G will promote the rapid growth of the aluminum electrolytic capacitor industry, and the downstream market demand is huge.

World

  • March 21 is World Sleep Day. The “2021 Exercise and Sleep White Paper” recently released by the China Sleep Research Association and other institutions shows that currently more than 300 million people in China have sleep disorders. The more people who love to exercise, the less insomnia, and the proportion of people who exercise insomnia is only 10%.