Trade alert

  • Stainless Steel Refillable Kegs(可再装不锈钢桶): The EU made a preliminary anti-dumping ruling. The European Commission recently issued an announcement to make a preliminary anti-dumping ruling on refillable stainless steel drums originating in China. The preliminary ruling imposed a temporary anti-dumping duty of 52.9% to 91.0% on the products involved, valid for 6 months. The EU CN codes of the products involved are ex 7310 10 00 and ex 7310 29 90.

Trade

  • Croatia: From 0:00 on January 15 local time, the kuna(货币:库纳), which has been in circulation as a legal tender (作为法定货币)for 28 years, has officially ceased to circulate. The euro will completely replace the kuna as the only legal tender in Croatia. Croatia joined the eurozone on January 1, 2023.
  • According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA孟加拉国服装制造商和出口商协会): According to data from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB出口促进局), from July to December 2022, Bangladesh’s clothing exports reach US$22.97 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15.56%. According to BGMEA’s analysis, Bangladesh’s garment exports will reach US$45.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 27.64% over 2021.
  • Anucha, Spokesperson of the Prime Minister’s Office of Thailand and Deputy Secretary-General in charge of Political Affairs of the Prime Minister’s Office: In 2022, Thailand’s total export of animal husbandry products will hit a record high. It is estimated that the annual export will reach 280.326 billion baht, a year-on-year increase of 19.60%. The total export volume will exceed 2.42 million tons, and the live export will be 24 million. It is estimated that the total export of livestock products in Thailand is expected to reach 300 billion baht in 2023. In addition, Thailand is expected to become the world’s third largest exporter of pet feed after Germany and the United States.

Industry

  • Descartes（笛卡尔数据公司）: U.S. ports handled 1,929,032 incoming containers (calculated in 20-foot equivalent units) in December last year, a decrease of 1.3% from November, which was the lowest level of seaborne imports since June 2020. The surge in imports was sparked by a restocking binge fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.
  • IDC: Release “PC Market Shipment Data for the Fourth Quarter of 2022″（2022年第四季PC市场出货数据）Global shipments of traditional PCs in Q4 of 2022 were lower than expected, only 67.2 million units, down 28.1% from the same period last year. In terms of shipments by each company, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Asus ranked the top five.

Industry-China

  • Dengta data(灯塔专业版-是淘票票开发的第三方数据分析的软件): The average pre-sale ticket price for the 2023 Spring Festival stall(春节档) is 53.7 yuan, which is 2.5 yuan lower than the average ticket price for the same stage of the 2022 Spring Festival stalls pre-sale, which is also the first drop since 2016 (except for 2020). The average length of the Spring Festival films this year is the longest in history.
  • National Bureau of Statistics: In December 2022, the sales price of new commercial housing in first-tier cities remained flat from a month-on-month decrease of 0.2%; the sales price of second-hand housing decreased by 0.5% month-on-month. The sales price of new commercial housing in second-tier cities decreased by 0.3% month-on-month; the sales price of second-hand housing decreased by 0.4% month-on-month. The sales price of new commercial housing in third-tier cities decreased by 0.3% month-on-month; the sales price of second-hand housing decreased by 0.4% month-on-month.
  • China Securities Journal中证报: In 2023, the new energy infrastructure will start hotly, and a number of listed companies have issued announcements such as winning bids and investment plans for new energy infrastructure projects. The winning projects cover photovoltaic, wind power and other types, and the winning bid amount ranges from 100 million yuan to 10 billion yuan. According to the goal set by the National Energy Administration, the newly installed wind and solar capacity will reach 160 million kilowatts in 2023, a year-on-year increase of over 33%.

China

  • The 2023 GDP growth targets for 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) across the country have all been announced. The values in 31 provinces range from 4% to 9.5%. Among them, Hainan Province is the highest (about 9.5%) and the lowest is about 4%. The values in other provinces are mostly concentrated in the range of 5% to 6.5%, with 6% being the majority.
  • Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission: On January 11, 2023, the average price ratio of pigs and grains (猪粮比)in Guangdong Province will be 5.6:1, entering the three-level warning of excessive decline interval, which set in the “Guangdong Province Improves the Government’s Pork Reserve Adjustment Mechanism and Prepares a Work Plan for Ensuring Supply and Stabilizing Prices In the Pork Market”（广东省完善政府猪肉储备调节机制做好猪肉市场保供稳价工作预案） (PS. “Pig-to-grain ratio 猪粮比, in layman’s terms, is the ratio of the price of live pigs to the price of corn, which is the main feed for live pigs. According to relevant Chinese regulations, the ratio of the price of live pigs to the price of corn is 6.0 to 1, and pig farming is basically at a break-even point. The higher the ratio, the better the farming profit, and vice versa. However, it is not normal if the ratio of the two is too large or too small.)
  • Hu Wenhui, deputy director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration(国家知识产权局): China is the first country in the world with more than 3 million effective domestic invention patents, among which the number of high-value invention patents has reached 1.324 million, a year-on-year increase of 24.2%, accounting for the proportion of effective invention patents More than 40%.
  • MPS（The Ministry of Public Security 公安部）: The number of motor vehicles in the country reached 417 million in 2022, including 319 million cars. By the end of 2022, the number of new energy vehicles in the country reached 13.1 million, accounting for 4.10% of the total number of vehicles. After deducting the number of scrapped and canceled vehicles, it will increase by 5.26 million vehicles or 67.13% over the previous year. The number of newly registered new energy vehicles increase rapidly from 1.07 million in 2018 to 5.35 million in 2022.
  • “Haixun 156”, China’s first large navigation mark ship with ice-breaking function, was listed in Tianjin and officially put into use.(PS, “海巡156”是中国首艘具有破冰功能的大型航标船)
  • The Fuxing High-cold Intelligent EMU settled （复兴号高寒智能动车组）in Heilongjiang Province, which is the area with the highest latitude and the coldest temperature that the Fuxing EMU has reached at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

Company

  • Didi Chuxing（滴滴出行）: From January 16, 2023, the new user registration of “Didi Chuxing” will resume.
  • Kodak Manufacturing: It is estimated that the net profit in 2022 will be 4.2 billion to 4.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 317.6%-347.42%. The integrated anode material（负极材料一体化）factory of the Fujian subsidiary has gradually released graphitization processing capacity, and the Anhui subsidiary has strengthened its supply capacity, and its output of anode materials has increased by over 80%. The company’s lithium battery material performance has achieved better results compared with the same period last year.
  • Lixiner 新疆立新能源股份有限公司: The company and Xinjiang Yueshui Power新疆粤水电 plan to invest in the construction of a 1 million-kilowatt market-oriented new energy project in Manas County, and will be responsible for the development, construction, and operation of the project, with a total investment of about 6.5 billion yuan.
  • Both Foxconn and Pegatron（富士康&和硕联合科技股份有限公司） announced on January 15, 2023 that they will include Southeast Asia in their 2023 expansion plan. Foxconn did not specify which Southeast Asian countries it plans to expand in. Pegatron also said it would set aside $300 million to $350 million for capital expenditures, partly to expand capacity in Southeast Asia and increase auto parts production in Mexico.
  • Tesla: Price cuts have had an immediate effect on Tesla’s terminal performance. The number of passengers and orders at Tesla stores in second- and third-tier cities has increased sharply after Tesla’s current round of price cuts. The monthly increase reached 500%.
  • Kuaishou快手: Kuaishou has reached a cooperation with China Central Radio and Television’s “2023 Spring Festival Gala”（2023年春节联欢晚会）. Users can watch the 2023 Spring Festival Gala on Kuaishou official platforms such as Kuaishou, Kuaishou Extreme Edition and Kuaishou Concept Edition through live broadcast, on-demand video and short video. This is the fifth consecutive year that Kuaishou has conducted in-depth cooperation with the main station Spring Festival Gala.
  • Meituan美团: As of the end of 2022, Meituan’s drones have delivered more than 120,000 orders in total, of which more than 100,000 orders will be completed in 2022, and more than 20,000 types of goods can be delivered; In terms of delivery time, the average delivery time of drones last year was about 12 minutes, which is nearly 150% more efficient than traditional delivery models, saving users nearly 30,000 hours of waiting time.
  • Himalaya喜马拉雅听书: In the fourth quarter of 2022, it is the first time to achieve a profit of tens of millions in a single quarter, which is the first time it has achieved profit in ten years since its establishment.
  • Bain Capital贝恩资本: It is preparing to list Australia’s second largest airline Virgin Australia. More than two years after Bain Capital bought Virgin Australia out of trusteeship, the airline industry is rebounding as passengers return to air travel.
  • Amazon: Decided to lay off more than 18,000 people. The layoffs were mainly concentrated at the company’s corporate level, including the retail department and the recruitment department of human resources.
  • SHEIN: The most downloaded shopping app in the world in 2022.Mobile intelligence company Apptopia has released data, announcing the top 10 most downloaded mobile apps and shopping apps in the world in 2022. According to the data, SHEIN is the most downloaded shopping app in the world in 2022, with 229 million installations.
  • Wan Hai Lines万海航运: The company’s revenue in December 2022 was NT$11.458 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 50.7%; revenue in 2022 was NT$258.87 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13.54%. The company said the change in revenue in December was due to lower freight rates.

World

  • The United States and the United Arab Emirates announced on January 15 local time that the first $20 billion of its $100 billion Clean Energy Partnership will be allocated to finance 15 new gigawatt-scale renewable energy projects by 2035.
  • The Bank of Japan: The initial value of the domestic corporate price index in December 2022 increased by 10.2% from a year earlier to 119.5. Affected by the high import prices of energy and raw materials, the year-on-year increase has been recorded for 22 consecutive months. The corporate price index for the whole year of 2022 is 114.7, an increase of 9.7% over the previous year, the highest increase since comparable data became available in 1981.
  • The Imperial Credit Bureau of Japan: The number of bankruptcies of Japanese companies due to manpower shortages in 2022 increased by 26% year-on-year, which is the first increase in three years. Japanese companies have begun to fully repay “zero-zero loans” that are actually interest-free and require no guarantees. The number of bankruptcies in 2023 may further increase.
  • Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak: In 2022, Russia’s budget revenue from oil and gas increased by 28% year-on-year to 2.5 trillion rubles.
  • Qatar sovereign wealth fund卡塔尔主权财富基金: to rebalance its $450 billion portfolio amid current economic turmoil. Looking for investment opportunities in venture capital, fintech and sports in Europe, Asia and the US.
  • National Bureau of Statistics of Uzbekistan: The inflation rate in Uzbekistan was 12.25% in 2022, exceeding the 9.98% in 2021 and 11.14% in 2020. Commodities with higher growth rates in the Uzbekistan market in 2022 were grains, sugar, desserts, and candies, all with an increase of more than 20%. Textiles, furniture, medicines, and daily necessities also experienced varying degrees of increase.
  • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand provides electronic visas to facilitate the reception of Chinese tourists.
  • International Monetary Fund: As of the end of September 2022, global foreign exchange reserves will be US$11.5986 trillion, a decrease of 10% from the end of 2021 and the first time since the end of March 2020 that it has fallen below US$12 trillion.
  • South Korea: The Bank of Korea, the central bank of South Korea, announced that it will raise the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.5%.
  • Zambia’s Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane: 2022 Zambia’s economy grew by 3.1% last year.