Trade

  • Madagascar: The clove industry is developing rapidly. According to the news from Orange, according to statistics from the Ministry of Processing and Commerce of Madagascar (MICC), the export value of martinica quadrupled in the first nine months of 2022, reaching 224.7 million US dollars; 40,000 tons. According to MICC, horses are currently the world’s largest exporter of cloves.
  • Ministry of Commerce: From January to November last year, China’s service exports were 2,583.5 billion yuan, an increase of 15.5%; imports were 2,821.11 billion yuan, an increase of 15.6%; the deficit was 237.62 billion yuan.
  • For the first time, the number of China Railway Express Chang’an trains（中欧班列） exceeded 4,600. Xi’an became the first city in the country where the number of China-Europe trains to operate exceeded 4,600 per year.

Industry

  • According to the British “Guardian” report on January 8, the British government confirmed that in order to reduce pollution, England will ban the use of plastic tableware, plates, packaging boxes and other disposable items. According to the “Daily Mail” report, the ban will cover single-use plastic cups used in restaurants, cafes and takeaway shops, but is not expected to cover plastic products used for packaging in supermarkets, shops and other places. The British “Independent” stated that the Scottish and Welsh governments have banned many single-use plastics used in food and drinks.
  • OECD（Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development）: In November 2022, the inflation rate in the OECD area fell to 10.3%. Inflation fell year-on-year in 25 of the 38 OECD countries in the October-November period. But inflation rose in Chile, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden. Elsewhere, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Turkey had the highest inflation rates during this time period, all exceeding 20%.
  • World Gold Council: In 2022, the global physical gold ETF holdings will decrease by 110 tons (outflow is about 3 billion US dollars), a year-on-year decrease of 3%. In the first four months of 2022, due to the outbreak of geopolitical conflicts, the demand for gold ETFs surged, and then as aggressive interest rate hikes became mainstream, global gold ETFs flowed out smoothly again, reversing the previous large inflows. As of the end of 2022, the global gold ETF holdings will be 3473 tons (about 203 billion US dollars).

Industry China

  • Passenger Federation: In December 2022, the production and retail sales of new energy vehicles will be 751,000 and 640,000 respectively, representing 55.0% and 35.1% year-on-year respectively. From January to December 2022, the production and retail sales of new energy vehicles will be 6.663 million and 5.674 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 101.5% and 90.0% respectively. The new energy penetration rate of passenger vehicles will reach 27.6% in 2022, an increase of 12.6 percentage points from 2021. In the future, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will continue to increase rapidly, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles will reach 36% in 2023.
  • China Coal Industry Association: In 2022, there are 15 enterprises with national raw coal output exceeding 50 million tons, which is the same as last year. The total output is about 2.59 billion tons, an increase of about 130 million tons over last year, an increase of about 4.5%, accounting for about 58% of the national raw coal output. There are 7 enterprises with an annual output of more than 100 million tons of raw coal in the country.
  • China Dairy Association: The consumption of dairy products has decreased, the price of raw milk has continued to slump, and the renewal of contracts on some pastures has been blocked, resulting in a backlog of milk, and the raw milk industry is facing a period of oversupply. In order to resolve the actual difficulties in the industry, the animal husbandry associations and dairy associations in Shandong, Shanxi and other places recently took the lead in holding a raw milk symposium jointly with the upstream and downstream of the industry to discuss rescue plans.
  • Veriflight(飞常准) data: On January 8 and 9, passenger flights on domestic routes exceeded 10,000 for two consecutive days, returning to 70% of the same period in 2019. In terms of international flights, the number of scheduled flights on January 9 is 240, which is more than double that of the same period in 2022. It is estimated that the average daily domestic passenger flight volume will reach more than 10,000 during the Spring Festival travel season in 2023.
  • Securities Daily: On January 9, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate fell below the 500,000 yuan mark, down about 22.83% from the highest point in early November. Industry insiders believe that the supply and demand pattern of lithium carbonate may still be in a tight balance in the future, and the price reduction of lithium carbonate has not yet ended. The price of lithium carbonate will return to a more reasonable range in 2023, which will bring huge growth space for the middle and lower reaches of the industry, OEMs, new energy vehicles and other industries are expected to accelerate development, and the industrial structure will be healthier.

China

  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Since January 10, the Chinese embassy and consulates in South Korea have suspended the issuance of short-term visas for Korean citizens to visit China, business, tourism, medical treatment, transit and general private affairs. Chinese embassies and consulates in Japan have suspended issuing ordinary visas for Japanese citizens to China.
  • Central Bank: At the end of December 2022, the balance of broad money (M2) was 266.43 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.8% year-on-year. The accumulative total was 32.01 trillion yuan, 668.9 billion yuan more than the previous year. RMB loans increased by 20.91 trillion yuan, an increase of 974.6 billion yuan year-on-year.
  • Central Bank: From December 2022, “currency in circulation (M0)” includes digital renminbi in circulation. The balance of digital renminbi in circulation at the end of December was 13.61 billion yuan. After the revision, there will be no significant change in the growth rates of M1 and M2 at the end of each month in 2022.
  • Energy Bureau: In order to gradually transform the form of the power system from the three elements of “source network load” to the four elements of “source network load storage”, energy storage will become the fourth major element of the new power system. In terms of energy storage, during the accelerated transformation period, it is necessary to promote the large-scale development of energy storage with multiple application scenarios and multiple technology routes. Various new energy storage technology routes such as compressed air energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, and thermal energy storage coexist, meeting the system’s intraday balance adjustment needs.
  • Central Meteorological Observatory: Issue a blue cold wave warning. It is expected that from January 11th to 15th, the cold wave weather will affect most parts of Cina from west to east. Among them, the northwestern region will be mainly affected from the 11th to the 12th, and the central and eastern regions of China will be affected from the night of the 12th to the 15th. Temperatures in most parts of China will drop by 8°C to 12°C successively. After the cooling, on the morning of the 17th, the minimum temperature line of 0°C will be pressed southward from eastern Yunnan to southern Guizhou, southern Hunan, northern Fujian, and eastern Zhejiang.
  • China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange: As of the end of December 2022, China’s foreign exchange reserves were US$3,127.7 billion, an increase of US$10.2 billion, or 0.33%, from the end of November of that year.
  • Hangzhou: The Hangzhou Municipal Government signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba Group.
  • Shenzhen Port: According to preliminary statistics, as of December 31, 2022, the cumulative container throughput of Shenzhen Port reached 30.0356 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 4.39%, breaking through the 30 million TEU mark for the first time. It is also the fourth port in the world whose annual volume exceeds 30 million TEUs after Shanghai, Singapore, and Ningbo Zhoushan Port.

Company

  • Moderna: It is considering setting the price of the covid vaccine in the United States at $110-130 per dose, at which time it will shift from government contract distribution to commercial distribution. In October last year, Pfizer also said it planned to increase the cost of its covid vaccine to US$110-130 per dose after the current US government procurement plan expires.
  • LONGi Green Energy(隆基绿能): By the end of 2022, more than 30% of the module orders for 2023 have been signed. According to the supply and demand changes in different links of the industrial chain and its own component shipment plan, the proportion of self-consumption of silicon wafers will be further increased in 2023, which is expected to exceed 60%. The HPBC battery expansion project is progressing smoothly, and the mainstream power of HPBC modules has been increased to 585W.
  • Robin Li, CEO of Baidu: Through the intelligent transformation of the transportation network, traffic efficiency can be increased by 15% to 30%. It is estimated that before 2027, smart transportation solutions can make China’s first-tier cities no longer need to restrict purchases and travel, and smart transportation is expected to reduce 90% of traffic accidents. By 2032, relying on the improvement of traffic efficiency, the congestion problem can basically be solved.
  • General Motors: Will work with Ford, Google and companies including solar producers to develop standards to expand the use of virtual power plants (VPPs), which can alleviate grid load supply shortfalls. Energy transition nonprofit RMI will host the initiative, called the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3), which will also aim to develop rules for the use of VPP systems.
  • CLS: South Korea’s three major battery manufacturers are reconsidering capacity expansion plans. It is reported that SK has suspended plans to build a battery factory in Turkey with Ford of the United States. LG is also reconsidering plans to build a 1.7 trillion won battery factory in Arizona, USA. Since Samsung SDI announced in May 2022 that it will build a joint venture factory with Stellantis in Indiana, USA, it has not announced any follow-up large-scale investment.
  • 2023 WeChat Open Class PRO: In 2022, the broadcast volume of original content on the video account increase by 350% year-on-year, and the scale of live broadcast viewing increase by 300%. The WeChat Souyisou team disclosed that in 2022, the monthly active users of WeChat Souyisou  reach 800 million, and the search volume will increase by 54% year-on-year. Among them, the demand for content and information  increase by 42% year-on-year.
  • TSMC: Sales in December 2022 was NT$192.56 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24%; cumulative sales from January to December will be NT$2.26 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 42.6%.
  • CLS: It is reported that Estee Lauder, Gucci, Dior, Guerlain, Clinique and other international beauty brands plan to raise prices at the end of January. It is expected that the price will increase across the board, and the increase is expected to be 5%-10%..
  • Tata Group may take over the Wistron iPhone factory. Tata will oversee the main production operations, with Wistron assisting on the side.
  • AliExpress was selected as the favorite shopping app of 2022 Koreans.
  • The world’s top five container shipping giants control 64% of the shipping capacity. According to data released by Alphaliner, a global shipping consulting company, the top five container shipping giants in terms of container shipping capacity control a total of 16.9 million TEUs, accounting for 64.3% of the global shipping capacity. MSC, the world’s largest liner company, controls 17.5% of the world’s shipping capacity.
  • Haier Group announced its 2022 performance. In 2022, the global operating income is 350.6 billion yuan, an increase of 5.4%; the ecological income was 45 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3%; the total global profit was 25.2 billion yuan, an increase of 3.7%; the operating income in Shandong reach 149.8 billion yuan Yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.5%.

World

  • United Nations: The food price index for the whole year of 2022 will be 143.7 points, which is 14.3% higher than that in 2021. Among them, the price index of grain, vegetable oil, dairy products and meat all increased by double digits, and the price index of sugar rose by 4.7%.
  • The latest data from Eurostat shows that the inflation rate in the euro zone was 9.2% in December 2022, down from 10.1% in November and lower than analysts’ expectations of 9.5%. In December 2022, euro zone inflation fell for the second consecutive month, below 10% for the first time since August. A slowdown in energy price increases was the main driver, but core inflation, which strips out factors such as energy prices, rose to 5.2 percent from 5 percent in November.
  • Vietnam: In the fourth quarter of 2022, the average consumer price (CPI) in Vietnam rose by 4.41% year-on-year; the CPI for the whole year of 2022 rose by 3.15% compared with 2021, reaching the target set by the National Assembly. Among the 11 categories of major consumer service commodities, the prices of 2 categories of commodities decreased month-on-month, while the prices of 9 categories of commodities increased month-on-month.
  • Singapore: The economy was expected to grow by 3.8% in 2022.
  • Inflation fell to 6.7% in December, according to data released by the French National Statistical Office INSEE. That was down from 7.1 percent in November. Energy prices rose 15.1%, compared with an 18.4% rise in November, as wholesale natural gas prices across Europe fell in recent weeks amid record heat.
  • Mexico’s 2022 annual inflation rate was 7.82%. According to non-seasonally adjusted data, consumer prices rose 0.38% in December. The core index, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.65% in December to an 8.35% annual rate.