Covid-19

  • So far, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of COVID19 pneumonia worldwide has exceeded 165.7 million, and the COVID19 virus has taken more than 3.43 million lives from worldwide.
  • The epidemic situation in Europe and America slows down, opening a large-scale unblocking tide
    • In the United States, the number of new additions dropped sharply in a single day.
    • The EU will begin to implement the “COVID19 Passport” on July 1.
    • The UK has further relaxed its anti-epidemic restrictions. After the reopening of many business premises, a huge consumption wave was triggered.
    • France has launched a new wave of measures to slow down the epidemic. Disneyland Paris announced that it will reopen on June 17. The French government has launched a new wave of ban measures to slow the epidemic. Starting from the 19th, except for the curfew time from 19:00 to 21:00, outdoor terraces of restaurants, bars, museums, cinemas, shops, etc. will be reopened, but the number of people still needs to be restricted.
    • Germany plans to open further in mid-June. The German government plans to open hotels, restaurants and holiday apartments across the country from mid-June, and formulate unified sanitation and epidemic prevention rules. It is expected that the final decision will be made at the joint meeting of German governors on June 10.
  • The epidemic in many Asian countries is heating up, and the “country closure tide” has begun
    In the past two weeks, the total number of confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Asia has surpassed that of the Americas, Europe and Africa combined.

    • In the past few days, the number of newly confirmed cases in India in a single day is still at a high level of more than 250,000, and the epidemic is still very severe. The epidemic has several characteristics: rapid concentrated outbreak, rapid deterioration, rapid spread, and obvious spillover effects of the epidemic.
    • Indonesia may become the next India. The severe shortage of vaccines has led to very slow vaccination progress. So far, less than 8% of people in Indonesia have received the new crown vaccine.
    • Thailand extended the state of emergency until the end of July, and Thailand has extended the implementation period for the 12th time since the implementation of the state of emergency law in March last year.
    • Singapore has entered the second stage of the “high alert unblocking” of the epidemic.
    • Vietnam’s first large-scale outbreak of new crown pneumonia.
    • Malaysia has further tightened its anti-epidemic measures after announcing its “closure of the country.”
    • Brunei announced the extension of the entry restrictions for foreigners. The Brunei government announced a few days ago that it will extend the restrictions on the entry of foreigners into Brunei for another 14 days, from May 22 to June 4.

Industry & Raw material

  • Since May, major domestic cultural paper companies and traders have issued a number of price increase letters. Among them, the price of cultural paper has generally increased by 200 yuan/ton, and the price of white cardboard has increased by 1,000 yuan/ton.
  • On May 17, Nine Dragons Paper, which ranks No. 1 in the packaging paper industry in China, launched the third round of price increases in May. Within a week, Nine Dragons Paper’s base paper prices rose on average every three days. Along with the news of Nine Dragons’ base paper price increases, the cardboard market has also ushered in a new round of price increases, and many of them have already experienced the second round of increases.

Company

  • Tencent released the first quarter of 2021 financial report. Quarterly revenue was 135.303 billion yuan (approximately US$20.6 billion per month), a year-on-year increase of 25%. The quarterly net profit was 47.8 billion yuan, compared with 28.896 billion yuan in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 65%. Revenue from online advertising business increased by 23% year-on-year to 21.8 billion yuan. Revenue from financial technology and corporate services business increased 47% year-on-year to 39 billion yuan.
  • Microsoft will suspend support and eliminate Internet Explorer.
  • Microsoft announced that its browser Internet Explorer desktop application will be retired on June 15, 2022. From the same day, Microsoft will delete the IE browser in the personal version of Win10 and replace it with the Edge browser. Microsoft officially recommends that IE Personal Edition users should transition to Microsoft Edge before June 15.

World

  • In April 2021, the U.S. dollar, Euro, British pound and Japanese yen ranked the top four with 39.77%, 36.32%, 6% and 3.45% respectively in the ranking of payment amounts in major currencies. In addition, the Canadian dollar surpassed the RMB with a share of 2.21%, becoming the fifth most active currency in the world.
  • The share of renminbi international payments in April was 1.95%, a decrease of 0.54% from 2.49% in March. The payment amount decreased by 30.49% from March, and the ranking dropped from fifth in the world to sixth.