1. Tesla plans to spend 42 million yuan (US$6.4m)to build a new plant in Shanghai, which is scheduled to be completed in February 2021, with an estimated annual output of 10,000 charging piles. The new plant is built to meet China market’s demand for convenient and fast charging of electric vehicles. Till May this year, Tesla has built more than 2500 supercharging piles in 140 cities, in mainland China.

2. Disney: It will lay off 32,000 employees in the first half of 2021, mainly involving theme park employees.

3. NASA: Assembling the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the launch platform has begun, and plans to make its first flight in 2021. SLS is an important part of NASA’s “Artemis” return to the moon plan. It is a giant rocket that will send astronauts to the moon. The first manned mission to the moon is scheduled for 2024. At present, engineers have begun to stack the components that make up the rocket’s two solid rocket boosters, and the rocket is scheduled to debut in November 2021

4. Effective from January 1, 2021, China prohibits the import of solid waste. The dumping, stacking, and disposal of imported solid waste in China is prohibited.

5. Britain, France, and Germany intend to relax the Christmas epidemic prevention blockade, allowing people to reunite with their families and hold celebrations during Christmas. At the time of the introduction of these measures, EU and World Health Organization officials warned that if governments still cannot establish the necessary systems to contain new infections, Europe will encounter a third wave of epidemics in early 2021.

6. South Korea’s exports in the first 20 days of November increased by 11.1% year-on-year, reached US$ 31.3bn. In terms of export categories, wireless communication equipment (36.2%), semiconductors (21.9%) and passenger cars (11.9%) contributed to overall export growth. However, exports of petroleum products (-48.2%), home appliances (-3.1%) and computer peripheral equipment (-1.9%) have decreased. In terms of export destinations, exports to the EU (31.4%), the United States (15.4%) and China (7.2%) increased, while exports to the Middle East (-21.8%), Australia (-15.2%) and Japan (-7.2%) decreased.

7. Kyrgyzstan temporarily banned the export of certain agricultural products. According to a recent report on the Kyrgyzstan gov.kg government website, in order to cope with the impact of the new crown epidemic, prevent severe shortages of goods and ensure food security, the Kyrgyz government decided to temporarily ban Kyrgyzstan’s live cattle, live sheep, live poultry, wheat, A total of 14 agricultural products, including barley, rice, flour, vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, and iodized salt, are exported to countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union.

8. American online grocery sales will grow by nearly 53% in 2020, reaching $89.22 billion, an increase of US$30.86bn year-on-year. It is estimated that by 2023, online grocery store sales will reach US$129.72 billion, accounting for nearly 10% of total grocery sales. eMarketer predicts that there will be 131 million digital grocery consumers in the United States this year, an increase of 41.9% over 2019. And eMarketer does not expect this habit to disappear anytime soon.

9. Western Union takes a stake in Saudi Telecom’s digital payment department. Western Union, the world’s largest money transfer company, spent US$200m to acquire a 15% stake in the digital payment division of Saudi Telecom. Saudi Telecom’s digital payment division is valued at 5 billion riyals (US$1.3bn), and this acquisition will provide the company with capital and support its long-term expansion plans. Saudi Telecom Group Chairman Mohammed bin Khalid Abdullah Al Faisal said the investment reflects the company’s status as a “digital enabler”.

10. The cargo and container throughput of China’s ports from Jan. to Oct. 2020 was released by China Ministry of Transport. From Jan. to Oct., the port completed a total cargo throughput of 11.93381 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.7%; the port completed a cumulative container throughput of 217.23 million TEU, a year-on-year decrease of 0.03%. As of October, the major ports across the country have finally seen a large-scale increase in container throughput, and the cumulative completed container throughput data of national ports has also been almost the same as the same period last year.

11. CMA CGM levies booking cancellation fees on some Chinese export goods. A few days ago, CMA CGM issued a customer notice stating that from December 9th, 2020 (the estimated date of departure from the port of departure), for the value-added service “SEAPRIORITY”, a booking cancellation fee will be charged. The standard is US$150 per container. The applicable scope of this fee includes confirmed “SeaPriority Go” bookings that are exported from China and are not canceled 7 days before the expected departure date of the first voyage. If the ship cancels the booking 7 days before the estimated departure date, this fee will be waived.

12. Apple’s smart car window tinting system has applied for a patent. Using liquid crystal technology to block sunlight and other people from seeing the situation inside the car, so that drivers and passengers have more privacy and are not prying. This system can be started automatically, providing a certain amount of privacy. Window tinting also provides many benefits for the driver, reducing the amount of light entering the car, making the driver’s glasses more resistant to bright local environments.