Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.
Coming up on today’s program
China vows to build itself into an agricultural powerhouse, with food security and rural revitalization prioritized;
Mainland suspends some tariff cuts on Taiwan imports.
Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours
China has laid out the priorities for the country's rural work in 2024 at a key meeting held from Tuesday to Wednesday, stressing the target to build China into an agricultural powerhouse and the importance of advancing rural revitalization across the board.
Analysts said the conference has set a tone for the country's rural work in 2024 by clarifying the target, mission and path of achieving modernization of agriculture and rural areas.
Food security will still be among China's most fundamental interests and rural work will be focusing on strengthening food security, including increasing the area of farmlands and grain yield, accelerating invigoration of the seed industry, and intensifying research on core technologies.
China emphasized the importance of maintaining the area of farmlands, which it has set a red line of no less than 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares). Efforts have also been made to prevent farmland from becoming non-agricultural use, the meeting said.
Again, China sets the target of grain output for 2024 - staying above 1.3 trillion jin (650 billion kilograms) in 2024.
Meanwhile, the country will build a diversified food supply system. China has achieved basic coverage of seed supply in grain, cotton, oil, sugar, pig, cattle, sheep, poultry, fish, shrimp, crabs and shellfish, and the seed supply guarantee rate has increased to more than 75 percent so far, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
To inject momentum and vitality into agricultural modernization, it is important to strengthen the driving forces of science and technology as well as reform, intensify efforts to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies, and improve work mechanism for agriculture, rural areas and farmers, the meeting said.
Apart from food security, the key agricultural meeting urged efforts to improve rural industrial development, rural construction and rural governance, and to strive for substantive progress in promoting rural revitalization across the board.
It also stressed that rural revitalization work should start from the practical problems reflected by farmers. The key to advancing rural revitalization is the promotion of rural industry development, experts said, suggesting that efforts should be made to thoroughly implement policies to support rural industries, develop industries with distinctive characteristics, and upgrade and foster new industries and other forms of businesses in response to demand.
The spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council on Thursday voiced support for the suspension of tariff reductions on some chemicals from the Taiwan region, a decision which was earlier announced by the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council. Chinese mainland announced on Thursday the termination of tariff concessions for 12 kinds of products including propylene imported from the island of Taiwan starting from January 1, 2024, as the island was found to have violated Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) rules by discriminatory restrictions on the mainland's exports.
China has ramped up its funding efforts for the restoration work in the earthquake-affected provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Water Resources, allocated a total of 220 million yuan of funds to help restore agricultural and water conservancy infrastructure damaged. In addition, donations from organizations, enterprises and local governments have been sent to the quake-hit regions. More than 8 million yuan of relief supplies and around 24 million yuan in funding were donated to aid the regions, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Greater Bay Area, Greater Future
Macao Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng said that the city's gaming revenue in 2023 is expected to exceed 180 billion patacas, and the goal is to achieve pre-pandemic levels next year. The forecast surpasses the previous estimate of 130 billion patacas by over 20 percent. Ho said Macao's recovery remains uneven and revenue has not yet reached the level of 2019, adding that he hoped for a more balanced recovery, where everyone can share the fruits of the revival.
Import and export volume of Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, hit 3.51 trillion yuan during the first 11 months this year, up 6.3 percent from previous year, according to data released by Shenzhen Customs, ranking first among Chinese cities. Shenzhen's exports in the first 11 months hit 2.24 trillion yuan, increasing by 13.6 percent year-on-year. Shenzhen Customs said the city's export volume was forecast to remain first among Chinese cities in 2023 for a 31st consecutive year.
Middle East companies consider Hong Kong an ideal listing destination, according to a report by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and CCB International Capital. The report said many firms in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia eye the city as their first choice when it comes to securing funding, building stronger ties with Asia, with China in particular, and enjoying greater global recognition. The research suggests that several Middle East business sectors in particular - energy and renewable energy, healthcare and high-tech, infrastructure and finance - will benefit the most from a Hong Kong listing.
First direct regular flight from China landed at Port Moresby International Airport on Wednesday morning, marking a step forward for China and the South Pacific island country, Papua New Guinea. Operated by China Southern Airlines, the round flights between Guangzhou and Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea, will set off every Wednesday and Thursday.
Next on industry and company news
Gree Electric Appliances expects its 2023 net profit to have climbed up to 19.6 percent in a late-night earnings forecast, after shares of the white goods manufacturer plunged to a new low this year yesterday. Net profit may rise 10.2 percent to 19.6 percent to between 27 billion and 29.3 billion yuan this year from 2022, the firm announced today. Revenue will likely reach between 205 billion and 210 billion yuan. Shares of Gree dropped 7 percent on Wednesday after it announced to spend 1 billion yuan to increase its shareholding in a loss-making subsidiary. Gree said it will pay 12 shareholders to hike its stake in Gree Altairnano New Energy by 24.5 percent to 72.5 percent and aims to buy the remaining shares within the next 12 months. Gree Altairnano, formerly known as Yinlong New Energy, specializes in making lithium-titanate batteries and electric buses.
The first battery pack has rolled off the production line at Chinese battery maker Svolt Energy Technology’s plant in Thailand. The battery pack that was produced yesterday at Svolt’s Sriracha Chonburi plant is an LCTP battery pack, a 60-kilowatt-hour lithium phosphate battery pack, that allows electric vehicles to run at least 500 kilometers, the company said. Mass production is expected to kick off in February.
Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee has not yet verified a rumor about a new court case filed by its Thai competitor that registered an almost identical logo, asking for a compensation of THB10 billion (USD286 million) for loss linked to an earlier intellectual property dispute. Luckin, on Wednesday, posted on its official Weibo account, saying the claim has “yet to be verified,” and added it’s really shocked about how the lawsuit is progressing. Thailand's 50R Group formally submitted a lawsuit to the local court requesting China's Luckin Coffee compensate for economic losses, per Thailand local news.
Alibaba Group Holding’s supermarket chain Freshippo has reportedly suspended new membership subscriptions. Freshippo halted new member subscriptions on Dec. 13, media reported today citing an insider at the firm. To renew their membership, customers with a valid membership can regularly do it on the app, while those with expired membership need to visit Freshippo X physical stores, the insider noted.
Chinese real estate developer Longfor Group Holding has completed the issuance of its fourth batch of medium-term notes since August last year. The notes, worth a total of 1.2 billion yuan, have a term of three years and a coupon rate of 3.66 percent. Longfor completed the early repayment of syndicated loans worth a total of HKD15.3 billion due in January, after paying off the last portion of HKD2 billion yesterday.
Chinese automaker BYD's third-quarter battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales tied Tesla's, reaching 17 percent of the global BEV market, and the company is expected to overtake the US automaker in the fourth quarter to become the global leader, a report by market research organization Counterpoint Research showed. BYD said in a statement that from January to November of this year, its new-energy passenger car exports exceeded 200,000 units, close to four times the full year of 2022.
China and the United States led with 291 and 246 companies respectively, in a global cheetah index, a list of the world's start-ups founded in the 2000s and most likely to become unicorns within five years, according to the Hurun Research Institute. It was the first time Hurun launched the cheetah index on a global level, which found 747 cheetahs in the world, based in 198 cities from 34 countries and regions. By city, Shanghai is the world's cheetah capital with 64 such companies. Beijing is second ahead of San Francisco and Hangzhou. More than half of the Chinese cheetahs were in biotech, health technology, enterprise services and smart chips, according to the index.
Switching gears to financial news
Chinese holdings of US Treasury bonds fell further to USD769.6 billion in October, marking a seventh consecutive monthly drop, according to data released by the US Department of the Treasury on Tuesday. As the second largest holder of US government debt, China’s holding in October came down by USD8.5 billion from September. It marks the 19th consecutive month that China's holdings of US Treasury notes have been below USD1 trillion.
Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market
Chinese stocks rebounded on Thursday as the benchmark Shanghai Composite gained 0.6 percent and the Shenzhen Component rose 1.1 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index barely moved while the TECH index fell 0.4 percent.
Biz Word of the Day
The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) is a comprehensive economic pact, intended to lower commercial barriers, signed by the two sides across the Taiwan Strait in June 2010 and which is based on the 1992 Consensus. The ECFA includes an 806-item list of goods approved for tariff reductions.
Executive Editor: Sonia YU
Editor: LI Yanxia
Host: Stephanie LI
Writer: Stephanie LI
Sound Editor: Stephanie LI
Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni
Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.
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编委: 于晓娜
策划、编辑：李艳霞
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