Trade alert

  • Bulb flat steel: EU launches anti-dumping investigation. Recently, the European Commission issued an announcement saying that in response to the application submitted by the EU company Laminados Losal S.A.U. on September 30, 2022, the European Commission launched an anti-dumping investigation on bulb flat steel originating in China and Turkey. This case involves products under the EU CN code ex 7216 50 91.
    (ps. Bulb flat steel: medium sectional material in the field of shipbuilding and bridge building, among which marine flat bulb steel is an auxiliary medium sectional material for ship building. In recent years, with the rapid development of the shipbuilding industry, the demand for marine bulb flat steel is strong. Generally, hull of the large ship is mostly designed with marine bulb flat steel as the keel)

Trade

  • EU: Trade with China increased by 29% in the first three quarters. In the first three quarters of this year, the trade volume of the 27 EU countries with China was 641.2 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 29.0%. Among them, exports to China were 170.5 billion euros, an increase of 2.8%; imports from China were 470.7 billion euros, an increase of 41.6%; the deficit was 300.2 billion euros, an increase of 81.6%. China remains the EU’s largest trading partner, largest source of imports, and third largest export market, accounting for 15.5%, 20.9%, and 9.0%, respectively.
  • Egypt: Chemical exports in the first nine months increased by 31% to $6.479 billion, accounting for 24% of Egypt’s total exports and ranking first among non-petroleum product exports. Exports of construction materials ranked second, with an increase of about 7%, and the export value increased from US$4.8 billion to US$5.1 billion; food exports were stable at US$3.1 billion, ranking third.
  • The five Southeast Asian countries will strengthen cooperation to support cross-border payments. Recently, the five central banks of Singapore, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand agreed to strengthen cooperation in payment connectivity to support faster, cheaper, transparent and inclusive cross-border payment transactions. The MoU on Regional Payments Connectivity (RPC) cooperation was signed during the G20 summit. ((MoU=memorandum of understanding,is a type of agreement between two (bilateral) or more (multilateral) parties ))
  • Brazil announced that its foreign trade surplus in October doubled year-on-year. A few days ago, the Brazilian Ministry of Economy announced data that in October, the foreign trade surplus was 3.92 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 100%. In the first 10 months, the main destinations for the country’s product exports were: China 77.78 billion US dollars, the EU 42.76 billion US dollars, and the United States 31.08 billion US dollars and Argentina at $13.16 billion.

Industry

  • IC Insights: It is expected that DRAM revenue in the second half of the year may drop by 40% compared with the first half of the year. It is expected that DRAM revenue in the second half of this year may fall to US$29.3 billion, and the full-year DRAM revenue will decline by 18%. A weak global economy and high inflation have slowed global demand for personal computers, smartphones and other consumer electronics products, which in turn affected the decline in DRAM demand. (DRAM=Dynamic random access memory)
  • U.S. e-commerce grew 10.8% in the third quarter.
  • Shopee Japan Station: Double 11 seller sales increased by about 10 times.

Industry China

  • Shanghai Stock Exchange: From January to October, domestic power battery leading companies have accelerated securitization by “applying for” IPO, implementing fixed increase, and rushing to overseas capital markets.
  • Dongxing Securities(东兴证券): In the current round of LCD panel down cycle, almost all the main specification panel products have fallen below the total cost price, low-end specification products have fallen below the cash cost, and the profits of large panel manufacturers have gradually thinned and even suffered losses. BOE(京东方) A’s single-quarter net profit in the first quarter was as high as 4.389 billion yuan, and in the third quarter, it was a single-quarter loss of 1.305 billion yuan. TCL Technology’s net profit in the first quarter was 1.353 billion yuan, and in the third quarter it was a loss of 383 million yuan. The performance of other panel makers this year is also not optimistic. Rainbow shares lost 2.118 billion yuan in the first three quarters, down 161.05% from the same period last year; Visionox lost 1.958 billion yuan in the first three quarters, down 85.01% year-on-year.
  • Securities Times: From September last year to October this year, LCD panel prices have fallen for 15 consecutive months. TrendForce data shows that in September 2021, TV LCD panels will be sold in 65-inch, 55-inch, 43-inch and 32-inch sizes. The average prices were US$269, US$202, US$114 and US$69; by late October 2022, the prices had dropped to US$107, US$81, US$48 and US$27 respectively; the corresponding declines were 60.22%, 59.90%, 57.89% and 60.86%.
  • In the first three quarters, Shanghai Port continued to maintain its No. 1 position in the world. Recently, the port connectivity index released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD,联合国贸易发展会议) showed that in the first three quarters of this year, Shanghai Port continued to maintain its No. 1 position in the world. From January to October this year, Shanghai sea-rail combined transportation has completed a total of 465,000 TEUs, an increase of about 41.91% year-on-year.

China

  • Energy Bureau: As of the end of October, China’s cumulative installed power generation capacity was about 2.50 billion kilowatts, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. Among them, the installed capacity of wind power was about 350 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 16.6%; the installed capacity of solar power generation was about 360 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 29.2%. From January to October, the cumulative average utilization of power generation equipment nationwide was 3,083 hours, a decrease of 103 hours over the same period of the previous year. Among them, thermal power was 3,619 hours, a decrease of 52 hours over the same period of the previous year; nuclear power was 6,226 hours, a decrease of 245 hours over the same period of the previous year; and wind power was 1,817 hours, a decrease of 10 hours over the same period of the previous year.
  • China has cultivated more than 60,000 professional, precise, featured, and novel SMEs(专精特新中小企业). Recently, it was learned from the 2022 National Conference on Digital Transformation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in China has achieved remarkable results, and the innovation ability has accelerated. Specializing in new SMEs. According to the survey data, in 2021, the profit rate of “little giants” enterprises that specialize, specialize, and specialize is 10.6%, which is 4.4 percentage points higher than that of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises. (SMEs=Small and mid-size enterprises)
  • Hainan: Pilot the “zero tariff” and “low tax” policies on a larger scale.
  • China’s outward FDI flows to grow in 2021. A few days ago, China’s Ministry of Commerce and other three departments released a report that in 2021, China’s foreign direct investment flow will be 178.82 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.3% over the previous year, ranking among the top three in the world for ten consecutive years. At the end of 2021, China’s foreign direct investment stock was US$2.79 trillion, ranking among the top three in the world for five consecutive years. (FDI=Foreign Direct Investment)

Company

  • MSC Announces Early Implementation of Global Freight Services. On the 22nd, the Mediterranean shipping company MSC announced that it would launch its cargo service in early December. MSC air cargo will begin weekly round-the-world flights using a Boeing 777 freighter in early December, according to a new air cargo schedule posted on the company’s website.
  • GoTo released its third-quarter earnings report, with net revenue growth. Recently, GoTo, Indonesia’s largest technology company, released its financial report for the third quarter of 2022. Net revenue for the quarter was 4.6 trillion rupees ($293 million), compared with 1.4 trillion rupees a year earlier. It lost 20.3 trillion rupees in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 75%.
  • Baidu(百度): In the third quarter, revenue was 32.54 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2%; net profit attributable to Baidu reached 5.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16%, exceeding market expectations; Baidu’s core operating profit increased by 14% year-on-year to 6.65 billion yuan. Among them, Baidu Smart Cloud revenue increased by 24% year-on-year, driving Baidu’s core non-advertising revenue to increase by 25% year-on-year. Baidu’s self-driving travel service platform, Carrot Kuaipao, provided a total of 474,000 rides, a year-on-year increase of 311% and a month-on-month increase of 65%. Xiaodu ranked first in China’s smart speaker and smart screen shipments in the second quarter of this year.
  • iQIYI(爱奇艺): In the third quarter, revenue was 7.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2%; iQIYI’s adjusted net profit was 187 million yuan, and its adjusted net loss in the same period last year was 1.4 billion yuan. As of September 30, the number of members reached 106 million, an increase of more than 10 million from the end of the previous quarter; the quarterly average daily number of subscription members was 101 million, a net increase of 2.7 million from the previous quarter.
  • Kuaishou(快手短视频): In the third quarter, the revenue was 23.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%; the adjusted net loss was 671.9 million yuan, and the loss narrowed by 85.4% compared with the same period last year; online marketing service revenue was 11.59 billion yuan; live broadcast revenue was 8.95 billion yuan. Average daily active users increased by 13.4% year-on-year to a new high of 363.4 million; average monthly active users increased by 9.3% year-on-year to 626.0 million. The average monthly paying users of live broadcast business increased by 29.3% year-on-year to 59.6 million, and the monthly payment rate of live broadcast continued to increase year-on-year.

World

  • OECD: Global economic growth is forecast to slow from 3.1% to 2.2% in 2023; the U.S. economy is expected to grow by 1.8% in 2022, 0.5% in 2023, and 1.0% in 2024; the euro area is expected to grow by 3.3% in 2022 , growing by 0.5% in 2023 and 1.4% in 2024; the UK economy is expected to grow by 4.4% in 2022, contract by 0.4% in 2023 and grow by 0.2% in 2024. (OECD:Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development)
  • European ministers are discussing increasing space funding by more than 25 percent over the next three years, as Europe seeks to maintain its lead in Earth observation. The European Space Agency has asked its 22 countries to support a 2023-2025 budget of 18.7 billion euros, up from 14.5 billion euros at the last summit in 2019, amid pressure on public finances and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
  • South America: Affected by the La Niña phenomenon, the crops of South American countries located in the western Pacific are showing signs of reduction in production.
  • Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, South African gasoline and diesel market prices have soared. On November 20, the National Electricity Company of South Africa announced that its diesel reserves are about to run out, and the company will no longer be able to buy diesel before April 1 next year. At present, the whole country in South Africa is in a state of blackout due to insufficient power supply, that is, each household is out of power for about 8 hours a day. It is expected that the contradiction of power supply in the country will further intensify.
  • Philippines: The digital economy will reach 1.87 trillion pesos in 2021. According to the Philippine Star, the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) shows that the size of the Philippine digital economy reached 1.87 trillion pesos last year, up from 1.73 trillion pesos in 2020. The digital economy contributed 9.6 percent to the country’s gross domestic product last year, PSA said. The number of people employed in the digital economy also increased from 5.01 million in 2020 to 5.59 million last year, an increase of 11.6%. (1 US dollar≈57 pesos)
  • South Korea: Incheon Port’s container throughput turned negative for the first time in 3 years
  • Kazakhstan: Economic growth of 2.5% in January-October.
  • According to the latest data released by the Incheon Port Authority (IPA) of South Korea, from January to September this year, the container throughput of the Incheon Port was 2.368 million TEUs, a decrease of 5.9% compared with the same period last year (2.515 million TEUs). If this trend develops, it is expected that the overall throughput this year will be lower than last year’s performance and this year’s target value (3.35 million TEU), and it will turn into negative growth after 3 years since 2019. The IPA noted that new container routes are being actively opened to increase throughput.
  • New EU sanctions on Iran: The EU has increased sanctions on Iran, according to a document published in the EU’s official journal, following the German foreign minister’s statement that the EU will try to impose a new round of sanctions on Iran next week. Two new Iranian citizens and two organizations were added to the list, and it said that more sanctions would not be ruled out in the future.
  • Consumer price inflation in Sri Lanka slowed to 70.6%. Recently, Sri Lanka’s International Statistics Department released data that the country’s consumer price index slowed to 70.6% year-on-year in October after hitting a record 73.7% in September. The country has been battling soaring inflation for nearly a year.