Trade alert

  • Unglazed tiles未上釉瓷砖: Argentina launches second anti-dumping sunset review investigation. Recently, the Argentine Ministry of Economy issued a notice to launch the second anti-dumping sunset review investigation on unglazed floor tiles and facing tiles originating in China upon the application of Argentine enterprises. During the review period, the anti-dumping measures determined in Announcement No. 124 of 2018 will remain in effect. The Mercosur customs tax number of the products involved in the case is 6907.21.00.
  • WAEMU西非经货联盟: Foreign exchange reserves fall to 17.33 billion euros in 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 19%. The above-mentioned foreign exchange reserves can only meet the import needs of the Union countries for 4.4 months, while the Union foreign exchange reserves can meet the import needs of 6 months by the end of 2021.

Trade

  • India: India’s steel imports from Russia rose to an eight-year high in the first 10 months of the fiscal year starting April 2022. India, the world’s second largest producer of crude steel, imported 281,000 tonnes of steel from Russia between April 2022 and January 2023, almost five times the amount imported during the same period in the previous fiscal year.
  • Germany: According to the data of the German Federal Statistical Office, the bilateral trade volume between China and Germany reached 298 billion euros in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 21%. China has been Germany’s most important trading partner for the seventh consecutive year. In 2022, Germany imported 191 billion euros from China, a year-on-year increase of one-third, mainly electronics, electrical, textile, machinery and chemical products; exports to China  increased by 3.1%, or about 107 billion euros.
  • China: In 2022, the freight volume of Russia-China railway increased by 28% year-on-year, reaching 123 million tons. In addition, in 2022, freight volumes in the direction of the eastern belt of the railway reached 276 million tons, which is 3.3% higher than the level in 2021. In 2022, coal exports along the railway in the eastern direction increased by 0.5% to 101.1 million tons.
  • EU: Iran exported goods worth 1.055 billion euros to the EU in 2022, compared to 922 million euros in 2021, a 15 percent year-on-year increase, according to the statistics office. EU exports to Iran also increased by 7% from 3.931 billion euros to 4.183 billion euros.

Industry

  • Clarkson: As of February 9, 88 new orders were signed globally in January, with a total of 2,137,911 CGT, and the corrected gross tonnage decreased by 15.37% month-on-month; the number decreased by 180 compared with the same period last year, and the corrected gross tonnage decreased by 60.75% year-on-year. Chinese shipyards received 49 ships with a total of 1.255 million CGT; Japan received 1 ship with a total of 29,100 CGT; South Korea received 12 ships with a total of 639,500 CGT.

Industry-China

  • Ctrip: The first outbound travel booking peak after the year has arrived. As of February 21, domestic outbound air ticket orders this week have increased by 30% from last week. The top 10 outbound destination cities are Bangkok, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and China. Taipei, London, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Bali. The average tax-included price of one-way air tickets booked out during the “May 1st” period was 3,022 yuan, a decrease of 51% compared with the same period last year.
  • Shanghai Securities News: As of February 21, the price of vanadium pentoxide exceeded 140,000 yuan/ton, up 42.9% from the low point in August last year.
  • QuestMobile: In 2022, the number of mobile Internet users in China exceed the 1.2 billion mark. At the same time, user stickiness further increase. The average monthly duration and number of uses per capita  exceed 177.3 hours and 2633 times respectively. Iconic gateways continue to appear. In terms of applications, short videos are already the application with the highest proportion of user time, accounting for 28.5% of the total user time.
  • Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, predicts that in 2023, China’s newly installed photovoltaic capacity is conservatively predicted to be 95GW, and the optimistic forecast is 120GW; the global new photovoltaic installed capacity is conservatively predicted to be 280GW, and the optimistic forecast is 330GW.

China

  • Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province: For the first time this year, childcare subsidies will be granted to families with two or three children born to the same couple and whose household registration is registered in Hangzhou. It is planned to provide a one-time subsidy of 5,000 yuan to two-child families and a one-time subsidy of 20,000 yuan to three-child families.
  • Beijing: The 2023 construction land supply plan arranges a total construction land supply of 3190-3630 hectares, which is basically the same as that in 2022. Among them, 1060 hectares of residential land.
  • MRM华储网: In 2023, 20,000 tons of the first batch of central reserve frozen pork will be purchased and stored at auction.
  • Chen Maobo, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong: It has been more than ten years since the government raised tobacco tax substantially last time, and the effect of the policy has been gradually weakened due to inflation and other factors. Tobacco taxes currently account for about 62% of retail prices, far below the 75% recommended by the World Health Organization. It is proposed to immediately increase the tobacco tax by six cents per cigarette and increase the tax rate of other tobacco products by the same proportion.
  • Chen Maobo, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong: By the end of 2022, the amount of RMB deposits in Hong Kong will be close to one trillion yuan, and about 75% of the global offshore RMB settlement business was conducted in Hong Kong.
  • State Intellectual Property Office: In 2023, the examination period for invention patents will be reduced to 16 months.

Company

  • JPMorgan Chase: All employees of the company have been restricted from using the ChatGPT chatbot.
  • Bill Gates: Artificial intelligence technology will create a personal agent for everyone, causing a reshuffle of the market dominated by tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple.
  • Baidu: In 2022, revenue was 123.675 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1%; net profit was 20.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%. Promise to train 5 million AI talents for the society, and more than 3 million have been completed. It is planned to integrate a number of mainstream businesses with Wenxinyiyan, including search and smart cloud.
  • iQiyi: In 2022, the total revenue was 29 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5%; the operating profit was 2.2 billion yuan, and the operating profit margin was  7%. In the fourth quarter, revenue was 7.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3%; operating profit was 979 million yuan, and the operating profit margin was 13%. Among them, membership service revenue was 4.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%; online advertising revenue was 1.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%. As of December 31, 2022, the number of iQiyi members has risen to 120 million.
  • SHEIN: The new round of financing is about to be completed. In addition to old shareholders such as Sequoia China 红杉中国 and Tiger Fund tiger老虎基金, new investors include Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and other PE giants. Mubadala’s investment may be as high as $1 billion. This round is mainly for new stock financing, and the post-investment valuation is between 65 billion and 70 billion US dollars, which is basically the same as at the end of 2021.
  • OFILM欧菲光: Relying on its technical advantages in the field of optics and optoelectronics, it has in-depth layout of intelligent driving, body electronics and intelligent central control, enriching the product matrix layout. The company has deployed a variety of products in the direction of 4D millimeter-wave radar, including 4D medium and long-range radar, 4D imaging cabin radar, etc. At the same time, it has accumulated rich experience in radar sensor algorithms and research and development.
  • McKinsey: Plans to cut about 2,000 jobs, one of the largest layoffs in the firm’s history.
  • South Korean Internet giant Kakao: its AI research department plans to release a Korean-based AI chat robot service within this year, tentatively named “KoChatGPT”. It is planned to release version 3.5 of the AI model KoGPT in the first half of this year, and then officially announce KoChatGPT at Kakao’s annual developer conference “If Kakao” at the end of the year.
  • TechWeb: The well-known American science fiction magazine “Clark World” recently announced that it will stop accepting submissions because the flood of AI-generated manuscripts has overwhelmed the editorial team. More than 500 submissions written or polished by programs such as ChatGPT have been received in February.
  • Wal-Mart: In the fourth fiscal quarter, stores and e-commerce businesses performed strongly, with total revenue reaching US$164 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%, higher than market expectations; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was US$6.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 76.2% . In fiscal year 2023, total revenue will be US$611.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%; net profit was US$11.7 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 14.6%, and adjusted earnings per share was US$6.29.
  • Etsy was accused of selling counterfeit goods, and its stock price plummeted 8.4%.
  • Coyote, a UPS subsidiary of UPS, announced layoffs.
  • Air India has ordered 470 Boeing and Airbus planes. The new order includes 250 Airbus planes and 220 Boeing planes.
  • Disney’s first-quarter net profit rose 16% year-over-year. A few days ago, The Walt Disney Company released its first quarter performance report for fiscal year 2023 ending January 1, 2023. Financial report data show that for the three months ending January 1, 2023, Disney’s total revenue was US$23.512 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.76%; net profit was US$1.279 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15.85%.

World

  • The Philippines: On the evening of February 21 local time, it officially joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
  • Vietnam: The Vietnamese e-commerce market will continue to experience explosive growth in 2023. In 2022, the market size of Vietnam’s retail e-commerce industry reached approximately US$16.4 billion. It is estimated that about 57 million to 60 million people will shop online, and the per capita consumption expenditure will be US$260 to US$285. With an average annual growth rate of 20%, Vietnam was rated as the top 5 countries in the world for e-commerce growth by eMaketer, a world-renowned market research institution.
  • Switzerland: The Geneva International Motor Show will officially return in 2024.
  • New Zealand: The central bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points to 4.75%.
  • Germany: On the 22nd, according to the data released by the German Federal Statistical Office, the country’s CPI annual rate in January was 8.7%, a rebound from 8.1% in December last year.