Asia: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer began a new round of discussions in Beijing today, and reports are that the two sides have made early progress in the current round of negotiations – including perhaps forced technology transfers. The recent issue regarding the Chinese company Huawei seems to be […]
Asia: China Beige Book, the only large-scale independent data provider on the Chinese economy, released a report this Wednesday indicating a first-quarter recovery. After polling 3300 Chinese businesses, the firm found that private borrowing outweighed that of state-owned enterprises. However, the cost of borrowing has risen substantially. Bank loan rates currently average 6.9%, while the […]
Asia: Still more bumps in the road, were the words used by the former treasury secretary Jack Lew regarding the US-China trade deal. Still, if no agreement is reached soon, the US has warned it will up the tariffs from 10% to 20% on the 200 Billion dollars’ worth of trade. A hit to US […]
Asia: Little in the way of news from Asia. China promises wider financial access for foreign investors as US-China trade war talks enter a crucial stage. In an announcement to the UN in Geneva, Japan’s ambassador said his country has not developed fully autonomous weapons systems and has no plans to do so. Most of […]
Asia: The China-France bilateral agreement reached all-time highs. French exports such as luxury goods, agricultural, and pharmaceutical products experienced a huge growth over the past few years. Elsewhere, more reports were released today regarding China’s religious persecution of Muslims and Christians. Japanese inflation slowed in February as can be seen in falling gasoline prices. The […]
Asia: As for the U.S.–China trade deal, there seems to be a disparity (or at least perception of disparity) between the original and current U.S. approach to the deal. President Trump had initially focused on a reduction of U.S. trade deficit by requiring China to purchase more goods from the U.S., whereas now U.S. officials […]
Asia: US-China trade deal remains top-of-mind, yet, as uncertainly looms on progress from here, President Trump stated that the tariffs could remain for quite some time. Separately, pressure is mounting from international countries against Chinese human right violations against the communities in the Uighur region. Wednesday was a mixed day for the major Asian stock […]
Note: Due to technical issues, the delivery of this blog post was abnormally delayed. We apologize for inconvenience. Asia: Denmark’s largest telecom group, TDC, has chosen Ericsson (from Sweden) over existing provider Huawei to roll out its ultra-fast 5G mobile network. This is on the back of recent security concerns regarding China. According to a […]
Asia: Huawei, the Chinese smartphone maker, said the company will look at building its own OS as a plan B if a ban is extended to US-based Google and Microsoft. A green day for the major Asian stock markets: Hang Seng increased 396.75 points (1.37%) to 29,409.01; Shanghai increased 74.67 points (2.47%) to 3,096.42; NIKKEI […]
Asia: At the conclusion of the annual National People’s Congress meeting, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that Beijing is prepared to support a slowing economy by cutting reserve requirements and interest rates if needed. Followed by the good news, the Shanghai Composite index increased 31.07 points (+1.04%) to 3,022 this Friday. The rest of the […]
