Trade

  • Thailand: Reduced export tariffs on timber, including export tariffs on agarwood down to 10%.
  • Vietnam: Vietnamese fresh chili products have been officially approved to resume export to China.
  • Myanmar and Thailand: Border trade in Myanmar Kyat and Thai baht can be settled directly.
  • Footwear: Brazil made the second anti-dumping sunset review final ruling. Recently, the Brazilian Ministry of Economy issued a resolution to make the second anti-dumping sunset review final ruling on footwear products originating in China, and decided to levy a five-year anti-dumping tax, with a tax amount of 0 to 10.22 US dollars per pair.

Industry

  • Gold: Influenced by the situation in Russia and Ukraine, the retail price of gold in Japan has been rising recently. A few days ago, the retail price of gold announced by Tanaka Precious Metals reached 8,036 yen per gram, breaking the 8,000-yen mark for the first time and hitting a record high. The high price of gold has caused many local people to sell their gold at the high level. About 80% of Tanaka Precious Metals’ recent store transactions are purchases of customers’ gold by store owners. The number of gold acquisitions in a single day even reached 10 times that of the same period last month at the peak.
  • Diamonds: In the field of cultivated diamonds, China’s production capacity accounts for about 50% of the world’s total production capacity of cultivated diamonds, of which 80% is located in Henan. According to industry insiders, the single grain of cultivated diamonds produced by the machine can reach 10-20 carats, and the physical and chemical properties are exactly the same as those of natural diamonds. The cultivation cycle only takes about three weeks. Recently, the production of enterprise-grown diamonds has been in short supply, and orders for the next 6 months have been signed.
  • According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. will add 4.3 GW of rooftop photovoltaic capacity in 2021, an increase of 29%. California was the largest U.S. rooftop PV market last year, with new installations accounting for about one-third of all new additions.

China

  • SAFE: At the end of February, foreign exchange reserves reported US$3,213.827 billion, a decrease of US$7.805 billion from the previous month. Gold reserves were reported at 62.64 million ounces (about 1,948.32 tons), unchanged from the previous month.
  • General Administration of Customs: From January to February, the total import and export value was 6.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.3%. Among them, the export was 3.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 13.6%; the import was 2.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.9%; the trade surplus was 738.8 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3%. The EU surpassed ASEAN in the first two months and became China’s largest trading partner again. The EU, ASEAN, the United States and South Korea are my country’s top four trading partners, with imports and exports of 874.64 billion yuan, 870.47 billion yuan, 785.92 billion yuan and 369.36 billion yuan respectively; an increase of 12.4%, 10.5%, 9.7% and 14.9% respectively.
  • Shanghai: From March 7th to 14th, Shanghai Data Exchange launched Metaverse Global Recruitment and launched the Metaverse Recruitment Hall at the same time. This is also the first recruitment since the establishment of Shanghai Data Exchange. The recruitment released 50 positions, and the goal was to recruit 150 elites from all over the world. The positions mainly involve nine departments, including the Transaction Organization Management Department, the Market Development Department, the Digital Commerce Management Department, the Strategic Development Department, the Risk Control Management Department, and the Product R&D Department.
  • Hainan plans to invest in 669 industrial projects this year. Recently, the Hainan Provincial Development and Reform Commission and relevant departments have researched and formulated the Action Plan for the Year of Industrial Investment Promotion. In 2022, Hainan Province plans to invest in 669 industrial projects with a total investment of 667.1 billion yuan.

Company

  • TrendForce: In the PC or server field in 2022, both Intel and Chaowei will have new CPUs that support the DDR5 generation. With the accelerated withdrawal of Korean factories and the new production capacity of Taiwan factories not yet in place, the supply of DDR3 will decline. On the demand side, due to the increase in the supply of Netcom chips, the gradual improvement of the shortage of materials, and the purchase expectations, the supply and demand of DDR3 will be tight this year.It is estimated that the price of DDR3 in the second quarter may turn to increase by 0~5%.
  • Kweichow Moutai: From January to February, the total operating income was about 20.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 20%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was about 10.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 20%.
  • Microsoft: Recently announced the completion of the $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance. Nuance is a voice recognition technology company that previously helped Apple develop Siri, a voice assistant.
  • Pony.ai: On March 7, it announced the completion of the first delivery of the D round of financing, with an overall valuation of US$8.5 billion. The valuation of this round has increased by about 65% compared with the previous round of financing. Funds from this round of financing will be used for team expansion, technology research and development, Robotaxi and Robotruck fleet expansion, global testing and operations, autonomous driving technology mass production, and commercial deployment.

World

  • The Thai-born population began to decline in 2013, and last year was only two-thirds of what it was in 2013. In order to avoid a population crisis, the Thai government is trying to encourage people to have more children. Thailand’s 544,000 births last year were the lowest in 60 years and below the 563,000 deaths that year. Experts say that Thailand currently accounts for about 18% of the population over the age of 60, and is entering a “super-aging society” in which this age group accounts for more than 20% of the population.
  • Cambodia: Construction projects must have a building permit. According to a recent report by Cambodian “Cambodia Daily”, the Ministry of Land Planning and Construction of Cambodia issued an announcement requiring all construction projects in the country to have a building permit, otherwise the building will be demolished.
  • Greece: Economy to grow by 8.3% in 2021. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of Greece recently, Greece’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 8.3% in 2021. Data show that Greece’s GDP will fall by 8.2% in 2020 due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic.
  • Germany: The value of imports and exports of goods decreased month-on-month in January. According to data released by the German Federal Statistics Office recently, the value of German merchandise exports in January fell by 2.8% month-on-month, and the value of imports fell by 4.2% month-on-month; China was Germany’s largest source of imports that month.