HONG KONG
Growth slows to 1.5% in Q4
The economy last year stalled as the ongoing China-US trade dispute and retail woes dragged down local business, Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) said on Sunday. “The impact of China-US trade frictions on Hong Kong’s exports has clearly emerged at the end of last year,” Chan said. Economic growth last quarter was less than 1.5 percent — the weakest since the first quarter of 2016 and a “significant slowdown” from the average growth rate of 3.7 percent in the first three quarters, Chan wrote on his official blog. The slowdown brought last year’s growth rate to an estimated 3 percent, down from 3.8 percent recorded in 2017, he added.
THAILAND
GDP growth accelerates
The economy grew at a faster pace in the fourth quarter of last year than the previous three months as local demand helped to offset a slide in exports. GDP rose 3.7 percent from the same period in 2017, up from a revised 3.2 percent in the third quarter, the National Economic and Social Development Council said yesterday. The economy expanded 4.1 percent for the whole of last year, compared with a revised 4 percent for the previous year. The council expects growth of between 3.5 and 4.5 percent this year, driven by household spending, investment and tourism, it said.
METALS
India copper smelter blocked
The Indian Supreme Court yesterday set aside an order by an environmental court that had cleared the way for reopening Vedanta’s south Indian copper smelter, in a blow to the company’s plans to begin operations. Tamil Nadu State ordered the smelter shut permanently in May last year, after violent protests at the plant in the city of Thoothukudi killed 13 people. In December, the National Green Tribunal revoked the state decision to shut the plant, prompting the state government to appeal to the Supreme Court.
AUTOMAKERS
China sales decline further
Car sales in China continued to decline last month, after their first full-year slump in more than two decades, adding to pressure on automakers who bet heavily on the market amid waning demand for cars from the US to Europe. Wholesale passenger vehicle sales fell 17.7 percent year-on-year, the biggest drop since the market began to contract in the middle of last year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said yesterday. The wholesale decline last month, to 2.02 million units, accelerated from a 15.8 percent annual slump in December last year. For last year as a whole, the drop was 4.1 percent, the first decrease since the early 1990s.
VENEZUELA
Russia bank obeys sanctions
Russian lender Gazprombank has decided to freeze the accounts of state oil company PDVSA and halted transactions with the company to reduce the risk of the bank falling under US sanctions, a Gazprombank source told reporters on Sunday. “PDVSA’s accounts are currently frozen. As you’ll understand, operations cannot be carried out,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Reuters this month reported that PDVSA was telling customers of its joint ventures to deposit oil sales proceeds in its Gazprombank accounts in a move to sideline fresh US sanctions on PDVSA.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last