Month: July 2021

(China Daily)11:52, January 12, 2021

Investors check share prices at a securities firm in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. (Photo by Xing Qu/For China Daily)

International investors trust in Chinese equities has been enhanced after tougher regulations took effect to weed out listed companies indulging in misconduct or with weak fundamentals, experts said.

We welcome the new set of rules as it has raised costs of misreporting or committing financial fraud and will therefore improve corporate governance in the A-share market, said Lynda Zhou, chief investment officer for equities in China at Fidelity International, a global asset manager.

This will help more A-share listed firms become qualified to be part of the investment universe of foreign investors, Zhou said.

The risk of forced delisting has increased considerably due to the new rules, serving as an effective deterrent to potential misconduct of listed companies, she said.

The new delisting regulations were released by the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges on Dec 31 and have since taken effect across the whole A-share market. The rules have shortened the delisting process and tightened the delisting criteria for financial indicators, trading, noncompliance and violation.

For instance, after the revisions, listed companies will be forced to delist if they indulge in misreporting for two consecutive years and the total fabricated revenue exceeds 500 million yuan ($77.4 million) and half of the total disclosed revenue for the period.

Companies that are seriously defective in information disclosure or in compliance and fail to rectify the flaws will also be delisted due to the new rules, in a bid to improve the governance and quality of listed companies.

The revised rules will also look to eliminate firms with limited operational abilities from the market by refining the financial-indicator delisting criteria and adding a delisting threshold based on market value.

Companies will be forced to delist if their closing market value falls below 300 million yuan for 20 consecutive trading days. Share prices of the more than 30 A-share companies with closing market value of less than 1 billion yuan as of Dec 31, which are liable to delisting under the new rules, dropped by an average 7.2 percent in the first four trading days of 2021, according to market tracker Wind Info.

The latest rules are in keeping with Chinas multiyear market reforms that help buffer investors confidence in the quality of onshore listed assets, said Han Tan, a market analyst at FXTM, a United Kingdom-based global trading platform.

Chinese equities will benefit further as more of these market reforms take hold, especially as many global investors are looking to ride on Chinas stellar economic recovery from the COVID-19 outbreak, he said.

China has made improving its delisting system one of its key financial reform tasks during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

Related efforts have been stepped up since 2019, with reformed delisting rules trialed on Shanghais STAR Market and Shenzhens ChiNext. The new delisting rules effective across the whole market came in after the two bourses solicited public opinion on draft revisions earlier in December.

From 2019 to 2020, 26 listed companies were forced to delist from the two bourses, more than double the number seen in the previous six years, said the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the top securities regulator.

The regulator will work to further strengthen delisting rules while improving the related investor protection mechanism, it said, aiming to crack down on companies that violate rules and minimize investors losses.

(Xinhua)09:19, January 13, 2021

KIEV, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — Ukraines trade turnover amounted to 103.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 and China remained Ukraines largest trading partner, the press service of the State Customs of Ukraine reported on its official website on Tuesday.

According to the data published by the agency, Ukraine saw a 20.8 percent year-on-year growth in trade with China in 2020 with the value at 15.42 billion U.S. dollars. Exports grew by 97.7 percent to 7.11 billion U.S. dollars, while imports droped 9.4 percent to 8.31 billion U.S. dollars.

Ukraines main export products to China remained ore, grains, fats and oils, and metals, while the country imported electronics, machinery, equipment and vehicles.

Bilateral trade turnover between Ukraine and China was 12.76 billion U.S. dollars in 2019.

(Xinhua)09:49, January 13, 2021

URUMQI, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — Northwest Chinas Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region connected 10.84-GW installed power generating capacity to its grid in 2020, up by 11.76 percent year on year.

The yearly record came after a construction boom of new energy-powered projects in the region due to a government subsidy policy for wind and solar power projects.

New energy projects contributed about 5.8 GW, or over half of the newly installed power generating capacity last year, said the State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co., Ltd.

Xinjiangs total installed power-generating capacity has exceeded 100 GW, accounting for about one-twentieth of the countrys total, according to a white paper on Chinas new energy development.

New energy power projects contributed 35.61 GW or over one-third of the total power-generating capacity in Xinjiang. It is of the largest reserves of wind and solar resources across the country.

(Xinhua)09:51, January 13, 2021

HONG KONG, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) — Hong Kongs food safety authority decided on Tuesday to suspend the import of poultry meat and products from different areas in France, Britain, Germany, South Korea due to the bird flu outbreaks.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) governments Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said this was in view of notifications from the World Organization for Animal Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of South Korea about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza in Pyr茅n茅es-Atlantiques Department and Hautes-Pyr茅n茅es Department of France, Mid and East Antrim District in Antrim County of Northern Ireland in Britain, Nordhausen District in the State of Th眉ringen of Germany and Jinju-si and Geochang-gun of Gyeongsangnam-do Province of South Korea.

The CFS has instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and products, including poultry eggs, from these areas with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong.

(Peoples Daily Online)11:07, January 13, 2021

Faced with the impact and challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinas Internet marketing not only showed great resilience, but also provided a basic guarantee for fighting the pandemic, resuming production and boosting the real economy, says a report released on Jan.12, 2021.

The China Internet Advertising Data Report says in 2020, Chinas Internet advertising achieved advertising revenue of 497.2 billion yuan (excluding Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan province), maintaining an annual growth rate of 13.85 percent, which was 4.35 percentage points lower than the previous year.

The entry of small, micro and cutting-edge advertisers has not only filled the market share, as a result of big brands’ investment slowdown, but also supported the double-digit growth of the Internet advertising market, opening up a new path in the local era for the real economy’s recovery.

In 2020, the tendency that Chinas Internet marketing extended from advertising to services was more obvious. The total scale of the market for Chinas Internet marketing reached 1.05 trillion yuan. The revenue of Internet marketing services (excluding advertising) reached 549.4 billion yuan, which has exceeded Internet advertising revenue. With the continuous innovation of Internet marketing models, Internet marketing services have shown diversified growth, which has blazed a path for China to drive the real economy growth.

Compared with 2019, the advertising investment costs of small, micro and cutting-edge brand advertisers in 2020 increased by 50 percent, 5 percentage points higher than that of mature brands. Small and micro, cutting-edge advertisers have become a new force supporting the Internet advertising market in 2020.

Video platforms grew the fastest in 2020, an increase of 64.91 percent from 54.8 billion yuan in 2019 to 90.4 billion yuan. Among them, short video ads are the most eye-catching, with an increase of 106 percent, far exceeding the 25 percent increase of long video ads.

In 2020, Internet advertising on e-commerce platforms increased by 17.26 percent, and its share increased slightly from 2019 to 37 percent. E-commerce live stream marketing has become an important channel for retail digitization and e-commerce breakthrough. According to statistics, in the first half of 2020 there were more than 10 million e-commerce live streaming sessions, more than 400,000 active anchors, more than 50 billion viewers, with over 20 million products hitting the store shelves. The focus of live stream marketing has shifted from the sale of commodities to the emotional connection of people.

In 2020, consumer demand for various industries showed different flexibility with the pandemic. Under the pandemic situation, consumers demand for education and medical care was strong. Therefore, the advertising growth of these two industries was the most significant, reaching 57.1 percent and 40.28 percent respectively. In contrast, financial insurance, tourism, entertainment and leisure saw a decrease of 46.43 percent and 28.65 percent respectively.

It is believed that in the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan,” in the context of normalization of pandemic prevention and control, industry insiders should give full play to the innovative advantages of Internet marketing, jointly maintain a good market ecosystem, and create a fair and competitive market environment, in order to move forward steadily amidst uncertain factors, serving the development of the real economy.

The report, which has been released for five consecutive years, was jointly released by the Interactive Marketing Lab in Zhongguancun in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Miaozhen Marketing Science Academy and College of Journalism and Communication of Beijing Normal University.

(Xinhua)14:29, January 13, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has highlighted green and social infrastructure which will shape Asias post-COVID-19 recovery.

Post-crisis recovery programs should not be carbon-dependent, which presents policymakers with an opportunity to align public policies more closely with climate objectives, the bank, which began operations in January 2016, said Wednesday on its website.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the world to probe the linkage of the virus and other diseases with future eco-catastrophes. This necessitates ESG (environmental, social and governance) standards in all business activities. ESG is the next growth frontier in asset management, according to the Beijing-headquartered bank.

Meanwhile, one of the weak links on the global production chain that COVID-19 exposed is social infrastructure, which has suffered from chronic underinvestment in many countries at various income levels. According to estimates from the Global Infrastructure Hub, transactions in social infrastructure fell from 19 billion U.S. dollars to less than 3 billion dollars in 2019.

Given the limited public spending in social infrastructure and the challenges of a post-COVID-19 recovery, catalyzing private capital flows into public investment takes on more relevance and is absolutely necessary, AIIB said.

The bank said its next chapter includes expanding into social infrastructure and ramping up its investments in digital infrastructure as a timely response to the medium- to long-term needs of its clients in the post-COVID-19 era.

As always, trend-savvy investors in infrastructure financing will need to remain flexible to navigate the turbulent times ahead if they wish to stay the course, said AIIB President and Chair of the Board Jin Liqun. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to economic growth and social progress that is inclusive and sustainable.

Green and social infrastructure are part of five emerging trends in infrastructure the bank identifies as important in preparing economies for the post-pandemic future. The other three fields are asset recycling or privatization, technology-enabled infrastructure, as well as connectivity infrastructure.

(Xinhua)15:14, January 13, 2021

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The number of automobiles sold in China totaled 25.31 million last year, down 1.9 percent from 2019, data from an industry association showed Wednesday.

The drop narrowed 6.3 percentage points from the decline seen in 2019, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.