Trade

  • The RCEP will officially come into force for Malaysia on March 18, 2022.
  • Bangladesh: The latest news on February 8, the Bangladesh Congress approved in principle the new Import Policy Regulations (2021-24). The regulation stipulates that Bangladeshi retailers importing goods not exceeding US$500,000 will be exempted from issuing letters of credit and settle settlements in accordance with contracts and wire transfers. The new policy stipulates that exporting products or importing machinery should be completed within 24 months from the date of signing the contract, replacing the original 17 months. Under the new policy, individuals without an import registration can import products up to $10,000, and if the value of the goods exceeds $10,000, a permit is required.
  • Egypt: Imports fully require payment by letter of credit. From March, Egyptian importers can only import goods using letters of credit and instruct banks to stop processing exporter collection documents. There are even Egyptian customers who have requested that the order is being shipped, and the date of the bill of lading should be changed to before 2.12, otherwise the shipping company needs to issue a certificate.
  • On February 17, Egypt’s central bank eased some of the restrictions again, excluding essential goods such as wheat, corn, beans, poultry, milk powder, chemicals and medicines from the list of imported goods to which the new payment rules apply.
  • Algeria drastically adjusts import and export rules. Algeria signed the 2022 Finance Law (LA LOI DE FINANCE POUR 2022) on December 30, 2021, aiming to “encourage domestic production and curb imports”.
  • China and the United Arab Emirates implement mutual recognition of the AEO system.
    When Chinese AEO enterprises export goods to the UAE, they need to inform the UAE importer of the AEO code (AEOCN + 10-digit enterprise code registered and filed in China Customs, such as AEOCN1234567890), which will be declared in accordance with UAE Customs regulations, and UAE Customs will confirm China Customs AEO corporate identity and provide relevant facilitation measures.

Shipment

  • CMA CGM announced an update to the calculation method of demurrage charges for exports to South China.
    • Billing date: from the empty container pick-up date (inclusive) to the ship’s expected departure date (inclusive);
    • Applicable conditions: goods exported from South China (port of departure);
    • Effective date: March 15, 2022 (estimated sailing date).

Details here >>>

China industry

  • According to forecasts, China’s machine vision market capacity is expected to exceed 30 billion yuan by 2025, with an annual growth rate of 24%. According to the industry, at present, the gap of machine vision maintenance engineers is expected to be no less than 500,000. The Academy of Information and Communications Technology predicts that by 2025, the number of jobs driven by the digital economy will reach 379 million.
  • Recently, the global production of rough natural diamonds has continued to decline, the price of natural diamonds has risen significantly, and cultivated diamonds have received more attention. The data shows that the penetration rate of China’s cultivated diamonds will reach 6.7% in 2021 and is expected to reach 13.8% by 2025. According to the industry, the sales of cultivated diamonds in the domestic consumer market, especially in first-tier cities, have grown rapidly, and some stores have even achieved a growth rate of 300%.
  • Since the beginning of this year, the price of fertilizer has been driven up by the price of raw materials. Among them, potassium fertilizer has the largest increase. The market price of potassium chloride is generally 4200-4300 yuan / ton, and the arrival price in some areas reaches 4400 yuan / ton, an increase of more than 10% in the past two months. As many places enter the spring ploughing season, there is a strong demand for potash fertilizer. According to the industry, the overall spot gap in the potash fertilizer market will gradually appear.
  • Zhongjing.com: The film and television category of micro-shorts has gradually changed from sporadic spontaneous creation in the past to a large-scale industry. From January to October 2021, the total playback volume of Kuaishou short dramas exceeded 770 billion; the long video platform has also begun to deploy. Tencent launched Shifen Theater at the end of last year, and more than ten works have been launched.
  • Compared with 2018, the unit price of hair care customers in 2020 has increased by 26.4%, and the unit price of nail art and hairdressing customers has increased by 4.4% and 2.9% respectively. According to the industry, the rising cost of labor and rent has caused the barber shop to increase the service price due to the pressure of survival.
  • Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space project, said that the Shenzhou 13 astronauts have been in orbit for nearly 140 days and are in very good condition. They will return to their homeland on Earth next month.

Company

  • Japanese manufacturing giants Honda Motor Co Ltd and Sony Group Corp said they have agreed to jointly develop and sell electric vehicles. A joint venture will be formed and the aim is to start selling the first model in 2025; Honda will produce the first model, while Sony will develop a mobile service platform.
  • Sunac China: In February, the contracted sales amount was about 22.36 billion yuan, the contracted sales area was about 1.654 million square meters, and the average contracted sales price was about 13,520 yuan/square meter. From January to February, the accumulated contracted sales amount was about 50.28 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 26.5%; the accumulated contracted sales area was about 3.797 million square meters, and the average contract sales price was about 13,240 yuan per square meter.
  • Apple officially announced that it will hold this year’s spring conference at 2:00 am Beijing time on March 9. The theme of this conference is high-energy transmission, which means that Apple may release new products with colorful colors. The products released this time will focus on performance upgrades. It is reported that this conference may bring the purple iPhone 13Pro series, the new iPhone SE, the fifth-generation iPad Air and the newly upgraded Mac computer.

World

  • Statistics Korea: South Korean families with many children spent an average of about 500,000 won per month on education in the fourth quarter of last year, up 6.9% from the fourth quarter of 2019 before the outbreak, among which extracurricular education such as cram schools accounted for the bulk, with an average of 466,000 won. According to the industry, in order to “make up for the lack of online education in schools” under the spread of the epidemic, the demand for extracurricular education has increased, resulting in an increase in household education expenditure.
  • United States: In February, non-farm payrolls increased by 678,000, the largest increase since July last year, and an estimated 400,000. The previous value of 467,000 was revised to 481,000.
  • Agence France-Presse: Due to the depletion of foreign exchange and the inability to import crude oil, Sri Lanka recently announced a daily power outage of 7.5 hours, causing its longest and worst power outage in 25 years. The country’s presidential palace has pledged that there will be no further blackouts from March 5. Its energy minister stated that the essence of the current power crisis is an “economic crisis” caused by a shortage of dollars; the drop in water levels in domestic hydropower dams has also led to a reduction in hydropower generation.
  • From March 1st, the Japanese government will allow foreigners to enter Japan, and foreigners entering Japan (except re-entry) must have a person in charge of reception in Japan.