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China yuan slides to four-month low, state banks step in

SHANGHAI, CHINA: China’s yuan declined to a four-month low against the dollar on Friday on expectations of monetary easing, breaching a key threshold and prompting state-owned banks to step in to defend the currency. In the spot market, the onshore yuan fell to the weak side of the psychologically important 7.2 per dollar level in […]

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China regulators, state banks split staff as fears mount about new Covid outbreaks-sources

The Kathmandu Post कार्तिक २०७९

Hundreds of thousands evacuated as floods ravage southern China

JUNE 22: Two provinces upgraded flood warnings on Tuesday as rivers overflowed and floodwater levels broke a 50-year high. Videos on state media show cars being washed down streets, and people being rescued by ropes across swollen rivers. The area is seeing its highest rainfall since 1961, weather officials say. Residents of communities living along river banks and in low-lying neighbourhoods have been asked to move to higher ground. The city of Shaoguan in Guangdong province has been one of the worst affected, prompting officials to raise its flood alert to the highest level as the city charted record rainfall since late May. A similar alert was put in place for Guangdong's Qingyuan city. In the low-lying Pearl basin, which encircles Guangdong and Guangxi, the rain has disrupted supply chains, manufacturing and shipping already suffering under strict anti-Covid measures. Meanwhile in Jiangxi province in the north-east China, authorities raised a flood warning after 485,000 people in nine districts were affected, according to Xinhua News. Xinhua reported that the area had suffered economic damage put at 470 million yuan ($70.2 million, £57 million), with 43,300 hectares of crops destroyed. Local officials have warned the situation is likely to worsen over the coming days and will continue to raise water levels in the Pearl River basin. China's National Meteorological Center said the average rainfall in Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi provinces between early May and the middle of June reached 621 millimetres - the highest since 1961. The summer rainy season regularly results in flooding in southern China, but there are concerns that climate change is exacerbating the situation. In contrast, many areas in the north of the country are experiencing unusually high temperatures, but the rain is forecast to hit there next.

Ratopati English जेष्ठ २०७९

Shanghai lockdown: China eases Covid restrictions after two months

JUNE 1: At midnight local time (16:00 GMT Tuesday), restrictions were relaxed to allow most people to move freely around the city of some 25 million people. But at least 650,000 residents will remain confined to their homes. China's overall policy of "zero Covid" remains in place and people catching Covid face quarantine or hospital. Their close contacts also face the prospect of removal to quarantine and the area immediately around where they live being locked down again. "This is a day that we dreamed of for a very long time," Shanghai government spokeswoman Yin Xin told reporters. "Everyone has sacrificed a lot. This day has been hard-won and we need to cherish and protect it, and welcome back the Shanghai we are familiar with and missed." E-commerce professional Chen Ying was planning to work from home after the lockdown was eased, but she told AFP news agency she might treat her two-year-old son to a long-awaited walk outside. "We should have been free to begin with, so don't expect me to be deeply grateful now they've given it back to us," she added. Lockdown has seen many residents lose income, struggle to find enough food and cope mentally with prolonged isolation. Manufacturers including Western car makers Volkswagen and Tesla have been particularly impacted by the restrictions as staff were kept away from factories or had to work in "closed loop" conditions, where they lived at the plants. A basic service resumed on public transport on Wednesday, and shops opened with larger ones operating at 75% capacity, but cinemas, museums and gyms remain closed. Most children will not return to face-to-face schooling. There are new rules too: -All residents will be required to show a green health code on their smartphone to leave their home compounds or buildings and access most places -All residents wishing to move around the city on public transport and access banks, malls etc will be required to have a negative PCR test certificate valid in the last 72 hours -Restrictions on leaving Shanghai remain, with any resident travelling to another city facing quarantine of 7-14 days on arrival The city has a 50-point plan aimed at revitalising its economy, which before the lockdown was worth more than $600bn (£475bn). New measures include reducing some taxes for car buyers, speeding up the issuance of local government bonds and fast-tracking approvals of building projects. Big bang for Shanghai It was supposed to last just nine days -a staggered lockdown to lessen the impact on Shanghai's economy, state media said. It lasted 65 days. It crippled the city and scarred its people. Restrictions are now being eased as quickly as they were imposed. There's no gradual process over several weeks. Instead there's a big bang - one day when most of the emergency rules and regulations are simply being lifted. The relief is immense - for generations of some families who've lived together behind a locked front door for more than two months; for workers who've lived in tents inside factories where they've carried on working; for the shop and restaurant owners whose livelihood ground to a halt; for the thousands of people forced to leave their homes and sent to quarantine centres. And for the almost 25 million people who live here. The rigidity of the lockdown caused much frustration in the city. Marketing professional Anita Xu, 32, felt "a little caught unawares". "Even if you can go out, I don't know what you can do," she told AFP. But Todd Pearson, managing director of Camel Hospitality Group, which operates restaurants, bars and gyms in and around Shanghai, sounded a cautious note when he spoke to Reuters news agency. "I'm hopeful that they will rush things along to restart the economy," he said. "I just hope it's not at the cost of more outbreaks. I'm not sure many businesses or the people could handle much more." China has registered at least 14,604 deaths and 2,426,568 cases of Covid during the pandemic, with nearly 90% of its population fully vaccinated. Worldwide, Covid has killed at least 6,289,241 people, according to John Hopkins University research.

Ratopati English बैशाख २०७९

Ukraine war: What support is China offering Russia?

APRIL 15: President Putin has said that Moscow will "redirect" its energy exports to "rapidly growing markets" elsewhere. China has sought to remain neutral on the conflict, calling for a peaceful solution. But it has yet to condemn the Russian invasion and has criticised western sanctions. China's trade with Russia has been growing Bilateral trade with Russia surged in the first quarter of the year, rising by 28% from the previous year, according to Chinese customs data. In March, after Russia launched its invasion, overall trade between the two countries rose over 12% from a year earlier. China accounted for around 18% of Russia's overall trade in 2021 - almost $147bn (£110bn) last year . During President Putin's visit to Beijing in February for the Winter Olympics, the two countries said they would boost trade to $250bn by 2024. However, as a bloc, the EU remains by far the biggest overall trading partner with Russia. In 2021, total trade between the two was worth almost twice as much as China's trade with Russia. That could now be changing. "It is inevitable that EU-Russia trade diminishes in the light of sanctions," says trade economist Dr Rebecca Harding. "The current crisis has just sharpened a focus within the EU on the need to diversify supply". Could China buy more Russian energy? China is one of the biggest markets for Russian oil, gas and coal. Just a week before the Ukraine invasion, the two countries agreed on a new Russian coal deal worth more than $20bn. Mr Putin also unveiled new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5bn. The two countries aim to build a new gas pipeline (the Power of Siberia 2). The existing one began operation in 2019, under a 30-year contract worth more than $400bn. However, Russia's biggest energy market by far has been the EU, and it supplies 40% of the bloc's gas and about 26% of its oil. "Russian exports of oil and gas [to China] have been increasing at a rate of over 9% annually for the last five years". says Dr Harding. "This is rapid growth but even so, China is half as big as the EU market for Russian oil." The EU is reducing its reliance on Russian energy by cutting its gas imports by two-thirds in the wake of the Ukraine war. Germany, Russia's main export destination for natural gas, has announced that it would suspend the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Supplies via a new pipeline agreed between Russia and China would have only a fifth of the capacity of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, according to one analysis. Also, it's not clear when the new gas pipeline from Siberia will come on stream. Over the longer term, China may want to boost imports of Russian gas to try to reduce its dependence on coal in order to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases. But data shows that China's crude imports from Russia dropped 9% in the first two months of 2022. Its state-owned refiners are also reported to be cautious and not currently signing new Russian oil contracts. Could China support Russia militarily? Moscow has asked China for military equipment in support of its invasion of Ukraine, according to US official quoted in media reports. China says this is untrue and has called the reports "disinformation". In recent years, most of the movement in arms has been the other way. China has relied heavily on Russian military hardware to modernise its armed forces, made increasingly necessary by the imposition of US and European arms embargoes in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. About 80% of China's total arms imports were from Russia between 2017 and 2021, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). These Chinese purchases make up 21% of Russia's total arms exports - its second largest global customer. But China has been gradually expanding its own military production capabilities. It's now the world's fourth largest arms exporter. "China's weapons are getting more advanced now. Its drones, for example, are one area that Russia would be very interested in," says Siemon Wezeman at SIPRI. But, he says, "so far we haven't seen any evidence" that Russia has bought Chinese drones. Could China help Russia financially? Some Russian banks have been banned from the Swift international payment system. This has forced companies in China, as elsewhere, to cut back purchases from Russia as traders struggle to arrange financing. Both China and Russia have encouraged moves towards alternative payment methods in recent years. Russia has its System for Transfer of Financial Messages (STFM) while China has the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), both of which operate in their own currencies. But Swift has continued to dominate the financial transactions in the global trading network. Currently only about 17% of trade between Russia and China uses the Chinese yuan (up from 3.1% in 2014), according to media reports citing official Russian statistics. Energy trading between the two countries is still mostly done in US dollars. But report suggests that several Chinese firms used yuan to purchase Russian coal and oil in March. Could China expand food trade with Russia? China is a major importers of grains such as wheat and barley and one of its most important sources is Russia - one of the world's largest producers. Until very recently, China had placed restrictions on the importing of wheat and barley from Russia because of disease concerns. But these were all lifted on the day the Russian assault on Ukraine began. With inputs from BBC

Ratopati English चैत्र २०७८

Apple to halt sales and limit services in Russia

MARCH 1: The iPhone giant said it was "deeply concerned" about the Russian invasion and stands with those "suffering as a result of the violence". Apple Pay and other services such as Apple Maps have also been limited. Google has also removed Russian state-funded publishers such as RT from its features. Mobile banking apps in Russian, such as Russia's VTB Bank's app, may soon not function fully on devices using Apple's iOS operating system, according to news agency RIA. Apple said in a statement that the firm had disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a "safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens". Last week, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov published an open letter to Apple on Twitter, in which he asked Apple to cut Russia off from its products, services, and App Store. Earlier, Google restricted news firms funded by the Russian government from advertising tools and some features on YouTube. "We are committed to complying with all sanctions requirements and we continue to monitor the latest guidance," the company wrote in a blog post. The company also told the BBC that Google Pay had been limited in the country - for those using sanctioned banks. Google has not, however, blocked Google Pay in Russia. Google also said "most of our services (like Search, Maps and YouTube) currently remain available in Russia, continuing to provide access to global information and perspectives." Apple is generally fairly good at keeping its head down when it comes to global affairs. For example, it has faced criticism for not standing up to China over its treatment of Uyghurs. This move then is significant, and unusual, by the iPhone maker. One by one global brands have been moving to distance themselves from Russia - making the country look more and more isolated. But it was by no means certain that Apple would make this move. The company had started to receive criticism for its relative silence on Ukraine. The BBC had reached out to Apple for comment, but had not received a reply until this announcement. There are many phone companies in Russia, and plenty of alternatives to Apple products. People with iPhones will also still be able to use the App Store - the pause in sales will not have a huge immediate impact. But as brands desert Russia, its citizens will begin to notice that products they used to buy, simply aren't available anymore. Firms cutting off Russia Meanwhile, the Finnish network equipment maker Nokia said it would stop deliveries to Russia to comply with sanctions imposed on the country following the invasion of Ukraine. On Monday, Netflix also said it had "no plans" to add state-run channels to its Russian service. Russian regulations had required it to carry 20 free-to-air news, sports and entertainment channels in the country. US sportswear giant Nike has also paused sales in Russia. An update to the company's website showed that purchases online and on the app were unavailable in Russia because the firm said it could not guarantee delivery of goods to the country. The biggest shipping firms in the world, Danish Maersk and Geneva-based MSC, also suspended container shipping to and from the country on Tuesday. The UK has also banned ships from Russia in its updated sanctions. Russia supplies a sixth of the world's commodities so will now be cut off from a significant part of shipping trade. Motorbike firm Harley-Davidson also suspended business and shipments of its bikes to Russia. And US plane manufacturer Boeing Co said on Tuesday it was suspending parts, maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines - as well as major operations in Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ratopati English माघ २०७८

China to increase bank loans to private firms

In the process of examining and approving loans, the banks cannot set discriminative requirements for private firms, which should enjoy the same rates and terms of credit as state-owned enterprises do, according to the document.

Aarthik News English मंसिर २०७८