CHINA
US trade deal to be signed
A trade delegation plans to sign the first phase of a trade deal with the US in Washington on Wednesday next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan is still to send the country’s top negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴), to ink the deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the private plans. The team will be in Washington from Monday to Wednesday next week, one of the people said. The South China Morning Post earlier reported the dates. The group had originally aimed to travel earlier in the month, but had to alter its plans after US President Donald Trump sent a tweet saying the deal would be signed on Wednesday next week at the White House, the newspaper said.
VIETNAM
Five energy deals signed
Electricity firm EVN has signed five new deals to buy electricity from Laos starting next year, the state-run company said. The southeast Asian nation faces severe power shortages from 2021, as demand outpaces construction of new plants, with demand expected to exceed supply by 6.6 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2021, and 15 billion kWh in 2023. Pacts signed in Hanoi over the weekend with Laos’ Phongsubthavy and Chealun Sekong groups provide for EVN to buy electricity from five hydropower plants, beginning in 2021 and 2022, EVN said. The plants have combined capacity of 363 megawatts, it added, but gave no details.
FRANCE
Growth to remain stable
The economy is to grow 1.3 percent this year, the same pace as last year, as long as a compromise is reached quickly with labor unions that are on strike over pension reform, Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche. “The economic outlook for France is good and solid,” Le Maire told the newspaper. The economy has created more than 500,000 jobs since 2017, and unemployment should drop to 7 percent by the end of President Emmanuel Macron’s term in 2022, he said. The jobless rate was 8.3 percent in the third quarter of last year.
ARGENTINA
FX rules to stay in place
The country’s “strict” foreign-exchange regulations are to remain in force as the government seeks to stabilize the economy, the Pagina/12 newspaper reported on Saturday, citing Minister of Production Matias Kulfas. Lawmakers last month handed President Alberto Fernandez extraordinary powers to renegotiate debt terms with creditors and increase taxes, marking a victory on his first legislation since taking office last month. “In the current context, strict exchange rate regulations are inevitable,” Kulfas, a former central bank official with unorthodox views and close ties to the president, said in an interview with the newspaper.
BANKING
BNP might launch platform
BNP Paribas SA is planning to join JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc by setting up an electronic currency trading and pricing platform in Singapore. The facility would support electronic trading of 50 currencies in spot, forward, swaps, non-deliverable forwards and options, a statement said. It would also allow trading of precious and base metals. Singapore’s currency market saw average trading volumes of US$633 billion a day in April last month, according to the latest data available from the Bank for International Settlements.
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