Trade

  • Agricultural machinery tires: Brazil initiated the first anti-dumping sunset review investigation. Brazil’s foreign trade secretariat recently issued an announcement saying that at the request of the Brazilian Tire Industry Association, the first anti-dumping sunset review investigation was initiated on agricultural machinery tires originating in China.
  • Kazakhstan: In 2021, the import and export trade volume will exceed 100 billion US dollars, reaching more than 101.5 billion US dollars. Among them, about 20% of the products are imported from China, with an import value of about 8.3 billion US dollars.
  • South Korea: According to a report by Yonhap News Agency on February 23, data from South Korea’s trade promotion agency showed that South Korea’s exports to China reached a record high of US$213.6 billion last year; however, the growth rate of Korean-made consumer goods to China slowed down.
  • Japan’s January imports from China hit a record high. The import value in January was 8,523.1 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 39.6%, of which imports from China were 2,127.7 billion yen (about 117 billion yuan), an increase of 23.7%.

Industry

  • Auto chip prices rose across the board. A core chip of the body electronic stability system produced by STMicroelectronics is sold from 20 yuan to 2,800 yuan. Since last year, due to the impact of the epidemic, the production capacity of chip factories in Southeast Asia and other places has fallen sharply, and the supply of automotive chips has fallen short of demand. The stockpiling of chip dealers is also an important reason for the soaring price of automotive chips.
  • Photovoltaic Industry Association: In 2021, China’s newly installed photovoltaic capacity is 54.88 million kilowatts, which is the largest annual production in the past years. Driven by the huge reserves of domestic photovoltaic power generation projects, the newly installed photovoltaic capacity in 2022 may reach about 75-90GW.
  • In 2021, China’s textile and apparel exports will reach US$315.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8.4% and a record high. The annual export of clothing was 170.28 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 24.0%, an increase of 16.0% over the pre-epidemic level, the best level since 2015, driving the export of textiles and clothing to a record high.
  • The global second-hand ship transaction volume and amount set a new record. The latest report from Clarksons pointed out that there were 2,507 transaction records in the second-hand ship market last year, with a total of 148 million DWT ships changing hands, and the estimated total expenditure exceeded 47 billion US dollars, successfully breaking the previous record of 46 billion US dollars created in 2007.
  • ONE publishes regulations for the shipment of non-hazardous batteries. A few days ago, ONE issued guidelines for the declaration of non-hazardous batteries (including lithium batteries), explaining that doing so ensures that the container can be placed in the correct and safe position on the ship, which is a key step in preventing accidents and ensuring the safe handling of goods.

Company

  • Amazon plans to roll out new AWS services globally.
  • eBay launched a service provider cooperation website for sellers.
  • SpaceX announced the split of common stock, and its market value rose sharply.
  • Macy’s revenue and net profit both soared. Macy’s recently announced that sales in 2021 would be $24.46 billion, compared with $17.346 billion in the same period last year; net profit was $1.430 billion, compared with a net loss of $3.944 billion in the same period last year. Among them, the fourth-quarter net profit increased by 363.8% year-on-year.
  • Vipshop: In 2021, revenue will increase by 15% year-on-year to 117.1 billion yuan; net profit will reach 6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.76%. The number of active users increased by 12% year-on-year to 93.9 million; GMV increased by 16% year-on-year to 191.5 billion yuan.

China

  • Ministry of Education: As of the end of 2021, the reduction rates of offline and online institutions for subject training are 91.45% and 87.07% respectively, and the chaos in the expansion of training institutions has been effectively curbed.
  • State Grid: vigorously strengthen the construction of pumped storage power stations with mature technology, actively support the large-scale application of new energy storage, and strive to increase the installed capacity of pumped storage power stations in the company’s operating area from the current 26.3 million kilowatts to 100 million kilowatts by 2030, and electrochemical energy storage by 2030. 3 million kilowatts increased to 100 million kilowatts.
  • Raw material prices have continued to show strong growth this year, with the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index and Bloomberg Commodity Index surging 13% to record highs. Brent is up 20%, with commodities such as aluminium (16.4%), nickel (15%), soybeans (20.5%) and coffee (8%) the most bullish this year.

World

  • The U.S. added nickel and zinc metals to its latest list of 50 critical minerals identified by an interagency assessment as critical to the U.S. economy and national security. The U.S. Energy Act of 2020 defines “critical minerals” as non-fuel minerals or mineral materials that are critical to the U.S. economy or national security and whose supply chains are vulnerable to disruption.
  • United Arab Emirates, Philippines: Plans to launch negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to strengthen trade and investment ties between the two countries.
  • Dozens of countries have announced multiple sanctions against Russia. Recently, since Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the “two countries” of Uruguay, dozens of countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, and Japan have announced sanctions against Russia, including economic sanctions, military sanctions, and energy sanctions against Russia.
  • The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development recently released a report showing that in 2021, the total global foreign direct investment (FDI) rebounded strongly, an increase of 77% over 2020, from $929 billion to $1.65 trillion, exceeding the level before the new crown epidemic.