China Trade Import Export/RCEP/OBOR-230303-Abbizi Daily News

Trade alert

• Brazil: Introduced temporary fuel tax measures, stipulating that the crude oil export tax rate is 9.2%. On February 28, the Minister of Finance and Mining and Energy of Brazil jointly introduced to the media the temporary 120-day fuel tax measures promulgated by the Brazilian government on the same day. According to these measures, the Brazilian government will partially resume the taxation of gasoline and ethanol fuel. From March 1 to the end of June this year, each liter of gasoline and ethanol fuel sold in Brazil will be levied 0.47 reais ( 1 real is about 1.33 yuan) and 0.02 real tax. The government also decided to impose a 9.2% tax on Brazil’s crude oil exports.

Industry

• DSCC: In March, Apple’s iPhone 14 OLED panel shipments will drop by 35% year-on-year. As of the end of last year, iPhone 14 series OLED shipments were 102 million units, an 11% increase over iPhone 13 series OLED shipments. In the first quarter, among the iPhone 14 series OLED shipments, Samsung Display’s market share dropped to 70%, and it is expected that its market share will drop sharply to 46% in March.
• Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association: On March 2, the “World Automobile Production Situation and Inspiration in 20222022年世界汽车生产情况及启示” was released. The global automobile production in 2022 was 84.97 million units, an increase of 5.4% over the previous year. However, it has still not recovered to the 2019 level of 92.6 million vehicles.

Industry-China

• Fliggy: The number of car rental bookings in the past week increased by 86.8% year-on-year; in February, the number of car rental bookings in hundreds of cities across the country increased by more than 50% year-on-year, and the average rental duration of tourists was 2.6 days.
• VariFlight飞常准: On March 1, the actual number of passenger flights on international and regional routes reached 513. This is the first time in three years that the number of passenger flights on international and regional routes has returned to more than 500 in a single day. On March 2, 544 international flights are expected to be carried out, and 122 flights will be carried out during the same period in 2022.
• STCN证券时报: Recently, the domestic broiler market has been strong. From January to February, the average price of chickens was 4.43 yuan/catties, a month-on-month increase of 15.97%, and broke through the “5 yuan” mark in late February. At the same time, under the double bullish effect of supply and demand, the price of domestic white-feathered broiler chicks（白羽肉鸡苗） has risen to a new high in nearly three years. The price of chicken fry rose from 1.35 yuan/feather to 5.43 yuan/feather, with a cumulative increase of 302.22%.
• Gamma data: In January, the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market was 24.052 billion yuan, a month-on-month increase of 23.62%, and a year-on-year decrease of 16.89%. Both the mobile terminal and the client end increased month-on-month. The actual sales revenue of China’s mobile game market was 17.619 billion yuan, an increase of 26.88% month-on-month, and the driving effect of top products is obvious.
• Securities Times: According to the industry, many large titanium dioxide enterprises are currently in the state of “sealed orders” and no longer accept low-price orders, and the current orders of enterprises have been scheduled until mid-April.
• Guosheng Securities: The export of titanium dioxide(钛白粉) has maintained a high growth rate. China’s titanium dioxide export volume has increased year by year, from 400,000 tons in 2011 to 1.41 million tons in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 12.2%. From the perspective of China’s titanium dioxide export structure, in 2022, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia accounted for 13%, 5% and 4% of China’s titanium dioxide export volume, and Southeast Asia has become one of the main destinations for China’s titanium dioxide export. In recent years, infrastructure construction projects in Southeast Asia have developed rapidly, and Vietnam’s infrastructure-related investment has increased from 293 trillion VND in 2011 to 704 trillion VND in 2020. It is expected that the rapidly growing infrastructure demand in Southeast Asia will become a new support for global titanium dioxide demand.

China

• Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security: China’s working-age population aged 16-59 began to decline after reaching a peak of 920 million, and it was 876 million at the end of last year.
• Ministry of Commerce: From 2013 to 2022, the volume of trade in goods between China and countries along the “Belt and Road”  expanded from US$1.04 trillion to US$2.07 trillion, with an average annual growth rate of 8%. Two-way investment with countries along the route has accumulated more than 270 billion US dollars.
• China Internet Network Information Center: As of December 2022, the number of Chinese netizens reached 1.067 billion, and the Internet penetration rate reached 75.6%. The total number of domain names reached 34.4 million, the number of IPv6 active users reached 728 million, and the total number of 5G base stations reached 2.31 million, an increase of 7 percentage points year-on-year. The total number of terminal connections on the mobile network has reached 3.528 billion, and the number of mobile Internet of Things connections has reached 1.845 billion. The number of short video users exceeded one billion for the first time, and the user utilization rate was as high as 94.8%.
• China Photovoltaic Industry Association: Preparing for the establishment of the “Photovoltaic Module Recycling Working Group”. It means that the market of photovoltaic module recycling has begun to enter the main line of industry development. The industry believes that it is estimated that by 2040, the amount of discarded components reach 253GW, about 20 million tons, and the output value will reach 150 billion yuan. The 100 billion-level photovoltaic recycling market (千亿级光伏回收市场)will also become a new hot spot for investment layout.
• Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: The annual soybean area reached 154 million mu, an increase of 27.43 million mu, and the output reached 20 million tons for the first time, and the self-sufficiency rate increased by 3% a year. The total output of national oil crops reached 36.53 million tons, and the self-sufficiency rate of edible vegetable oil also increased by 1.6%.
• Liu Kun, Minister of Finance: In 2022, the national science and technology expenditure was 1,002.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%.
  In 2022, the total export volume of China’s photovoltaic industry exceeded US$51.2 billion, an increase of 80.3% year-on-year, and key components such as photovoltaic modules, wind turbines, and gearboxes will account for 70% of the global market share. In China, wind power photovoltaic has also become the main body of new power generation installed capacity and new power generation capacity, accounting for 78% and 55% respectively in 2022, and the cumulative installed capacity exceeded 700 million kilowatts.

Company

• Bilibili(B站): Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 6.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6%. The turnover of mobile games was 1.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12%; the turnover of value-added services was 2.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24%. The total net turnover in 2022 was 21.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13%; the net loss was 7.5 billion yuan, in 2021 a net loss of 6.8 billion yuan in the same period. In 2022, 9.1 billion was allocated to the uploader(UP 主).
• Meta: The company has disclosed the AR/VR hardware development roadmap for the next four years. The plan is to release the first smart glasses with a display in 2025, along with a neural interface smartwatch that can be used to control those glasses. In addition, it is planned to launch the first pair of full-fledged AR glasses in 2027.
• Amazon: AWS, the cloud computing division, plans to invest US$6 billion in Malaysia by 2037 to launch cloud computing infrastructure. There are plans to build an infrastructure region in Malaysia comprising three so-called availability zones, or clusters of data centers(可用性区域，即数据中心集群). These regions will add to the existing 99 such regions around the world.
• Apple has blocked a ChatGPT-based update for an email app over concerns it could generate content inappropriate for children. The app, called BlueMail, seeks to add AI capabilities, using ChatGPT to help write emails automatically.
• South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang announced its results: net revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased by 5% year-on-year to US$5.33 billion, but was about US$70 million lower than analysts’ consensus expectations; gross profit was US$1.279 billion, a year-on-year increase of 59% %; Net profit was US$102 million, compared with a loss of US$405 million in the same period last year.

World

• Singapore Economic Development Board: Applicants for investment immigration need to invest at least SGD 10 million to establish a new business entity; or invest at least SGD 25 million to invest in the Global Business Investor Program Fund of Singapore companies; the requirements for family offices are at least S$50 million. Effective March 15.
• Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare日本厚生劳动省: The number of applications for living security in 2022  increased by 0.8% year-on-year to 236,900, an increase for three consecutive years.
• The Indian Meteorological Department: The national average maximum temperature in February reached 29.54 degrees Celsius, the highest level for the same period since records began in 1901.
• Government of India: Refiners processed crude at record levels in January, with refiners pumping 5.39 million bpd in January, the highest level since 2009.
• South Korea: According to the latest statistics released on March 1, South Korea’s foreign exports in February decreased by 7.5% year-on-year, and its imports increased by 3.6% year-on-year. South Korea’s international trade balance has been in deficit for 12 consecutive months.
• Turkish Statistical Institute: According to data released on February 28, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.6% in 2022, which is higher than outside expectations, but the GDP in the fourth quarter only increased by 3.5% compared with the same period in 2021. There has been a marked decline since then. Last year, Turkey’s financial and insurance industry grew the fastest, reaching 21.8%. The growth rates of the service industry, industry and agriculture were 11.7%, 3.3%, and 0.6%, respectively, and the construction industry shrank by 8.4%.
• French National Institute of Statistics and Economics: According to the initial value of economic statistics released on February 28, the French CPI in February increased by 6.2% year-on-year (the CPI in January increased by 6% year-on-year); the CPI in February increased by 0.9% from the previous month (the CPI in January increased by 0.4%).
• Germany: Nationwide new crown protection measures will be further relaxed from March 1. From now on, the mandatory wearing of masks for employees of clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, and residents of nursing homes will be canceled; mandatory testing will no longer be required to enter medical institutions. According to reports, the German federal states have previously canceled the mandatory isolation obligation for people infected with the new crown. In addition, relevant regulations such as new crown protection measures for entering Germany will also end on April 7.
• U.S. Department of Commerce: the initial value of durable goods orders in January was -4.5%, which was lower than market expectations of -4%, the largest drop since April 2020, and the previous value was revised down to 5.1%,the largest increase in the month.
• Italy: Recently, according to data researched by WeAreSocial and Meltwater, online sales of Italian e-commerce will reach 45.19 billion US dollars (about 42.5 billion euros) in 2022. It is expected that online sales revenue will continue to grow in 2023, reaching 52.889 billion US dollars (approximately 49.966 billion euros), and will exceed 80 billion US dollars (approximately 75.58 billion euros) by 2027.