Must-Read China Economic News (Aug.27 - Sept.3)
China, U.S. to hold climate action meeting; China announces probes into Canada's tariff hike, certain products; China's manufacturing PMI at 49.1 in August; Int'l big data expo opens in SW China...
Greetings and welcome to the latest edition of PekingEnsight! We're thrilled to have you join us once again as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of the Chinese economy.
⭐Under Spotlight:
China, U.S. to hold meeting on enhancing climate action
China and the United States will hold the second meeting of the Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s, according to China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
U.S. Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta will visit China from Sept. 4 to 6 and co-chair the meeting with China's special envoy for climate change Liu Zhenmin.
The two sides are expected to hold in-depth discussions on practical cooperation within the framework of the working group, domestic climate policy actions by both countries, and multilateral efforts to address climate change.
China announces probes over Canada's tariff hike, certain products
China announced an anti-discrimination investigation amid a slew of countermeasures against Canada's tariff hikes on electric vehicles (EVs) as well as steel and aluminum products imported from the country.
The anti-discrimination probe into Canada's tariff moves will be initiated in accordance with relevant stipulations of China's foreign trade law, and corresponding measures will be taken subsequently in light of actual conditions, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said in an online statement.
It is learned that this was the first such investigation initiated by China and also the first of its kind in the world.
The Canadian side adopted discriminatory unilateral restrictive measures targeting imports from China, in disregard of opposition from various parties, the spokesperson said, noting that China is "strongly dissatisfied with and firmly against" such moves.
China will file an appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism against these practices, according to the spokesperson. The country will also launch anti-dumping investigations into rapeseed imports and certain chemical products from Canada.
These decisions came after Canada announced last week that it will implement a 100-percent surtax on all Chinese-made EVs, effective Oct. 1, 2024, and impose a 25-percent surtax on imports of steel and aluminum products from China starting Oct. 15, 2024.
China to study suggestions on raising tariffs on large-engine fuel vehicles: ministry
Chinese authorities will carefully study expert opinions and suggestions on increasing tariffs for imported fuel-powered cars with large-displacement engines, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said.
Such proposals will be researched in accordance with procedures, MOC spokesperson He Yadong told a press conference, noting that green and low-carbon transition of the auto industry will be supported to ensure high-quality development.
Representatives from relevant industry organizations, think tanks, research institutions and automotive companies attended a meeting held by the MOC last week to hear opinions and suggestions, the spokesperson noted, adding that China is committed to green and low-carbon development.
Commenting on the European Union (EU)'s anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles, he described it as a typical protectionist move, which is not conducive to China-EU auto industry cooperation, the stability of the global automobile production and supply chain, the EU's green transition, and global efforts to combat climate change.
Int'l big data expo opens in SW China
The China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 opened on August 28 in Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province, attracting over 21,000 guests and 414 domestic and international companies to participate.
This year's expo, themed "Smart Digital Technology Shapes Thriving Digital Economy," spans an exhibition area of 60,000 square meters and consists of six main sections.
The expo's participants include domestic industry leaders such as Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com, as well as 77 overseas companies from over 30 countries and regions, including the United States, Germany and Canada.
⭐Key Macroeconomic Indicators:
China's manufacturing PMI at 49.1 in August
Official data showed that the purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector came in at 49.1 in August.
The reading edged down from 49.4 the previous month, amid the continuous impact of heat wave and rainstorms on the country's manufacturing activity, said Zhao Qinghe, senior statistician of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Zhao said the manufacturing sector climate was also affected by the arrival of off-season for some industries.
The sub-indices for production and new orders both dipped in August, but those for high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing climbed evidently to rise above the boom-bust line of 50, according to the NBS.
NBS data also showed that the PMI for China's non-manufacturing sector came in at 50.3 in August, up from 50.2 in July.
China's industrial profits up 3.6 pct in January-July
China's industrial sector has shown signs of continued recovery with profit growth accelerating in the first seven months of 2024, driven by improving market demand and strengthening new growth drivers.
The combined profit of major industrial enterprises rose 3.6 percent year on year in the January-July period, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the first half of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.
China's int'l trade in goods, services up 12 pct in July
The value of China's international trade in goods and services reached approximately 4.24 trillion yuan in July 2024, marking an increase of 12 percent year on year, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said.
In U.S. dollar terms, the country's exports and imports of goods and services amounted to 317.5 billion U.S. dollars and 276.4 billion dollars, respectively, recording a surplus of 41.1 billion dollars.
The export value of goods reached nearly 2.04 trillion yuan while the import value of goods totaled 1.6 trillion yuan, resulting in a surplus of 431.6 billion yuan.
China's summer rush ends with record high railway passenger trips
China's 62-day summer travel season has concluded, with the railways handling a record 887 million passenger trips between July 1 and Aug. 31, up 6.7 percent year on year, China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (China Railway) said.
During the period, the daily average number of passenger trips handled by the country's railways was 14.31 million, according to the company.
More than 14.32 million student tickets were sold during the summer travel rush, according to the China Railway.
⭐Policy Moves Much-Talked:
China promises greater market openness in emerging industries
China is set to remove more entry barriers in emerging industries by leveraging special policy tools to facilitate the application of new technologies, the country's top economic planner said.
Li Chunlin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that pilot programs will be implemented in key areas to spearhead this effort, and special measures to ease market access will be introduced in stages.
Li addressed an opinion document released on Aug. 21 concerning improving the market access system. Elaborating on its highlights, Li said it is the first of its kind to focus on ten emerging industries, including aerospace, aviation, new energy and artificial intelligence.
He added that it aims to remove key obstacles to deepen industry transformation and enhance the innovative allocation of production factors to improve access efficiency.
He explained that market access management for emerging fields cannot solely rely on traditional approval models. Instead, it should leverage market mechanisms guided by standards and scenarios to create a more flexible and resilient management system.
The document further refines negative list management, sets clear-cut access rules, enhances coordination between domestic and foreign investment access policies, and optimizes entry for new industries, he added.
It strengthens support for a nationwide unified negative list, ensuring consistency, standardization and enforcement to safeguard equal market entry for businesses.
China issues guidelines to promote service trade with opening up
China's State Council has unveiled a set of guidelines to promote high-quality development of trade in services with high-standard opening up.
The introduction of the guidelines, which listed 20 major tasks in five aspects, is expected to accelerate the process of digital, intelligent and green development of trade in services in the country.
The guidelines called for promoting institutional opening up of trade in services, fully constructing the management system of the negative list for cross-border trade in services and improving the standardization level of service trade.
They also stressed promoting the cross-border flow of factors of production and innovative development of key areas such as international transportation, tourism and financial services.
Chinese mainland to resume allowing Fujian residents to visit Taiwan's Kinmen
The Chinese mainland will soon resume allowing residents in the eastern Fujian Province to travel to Taiwan's Kinmen County, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said.
The ministry said on its website that the decision is made at the request of a Kinmen delegation that arrived in Beijing on August 20.
⭐Read More:
U.S. business community expresses optimism about Chinese market
Members of the U.S. business community have recently expressed optimism about the development prospects of the Chinese market, anticipating stable, improved bilateral relations, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).
At the invitation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), a Chinese business delegation led by Ren Hongbin, head of the CCPIT, visited the United States from July 27 to Aug. 1, CCPIT spokesperson Wang Linjie told a press conference.
During the visit, the delegation exchanged views with government officials from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Maryland state government, as well as business executives from nearly 30 U.S.-based companies, including Pfizer, Starbucks and Walmart, Wang said.
"The number and level of U.S.-funded enterprises participating in the exchanges were unprecedented," she noted, adding that members of the U.S. business community expressed the hope that the business communities of the two countries would meet more often, communicate more frequently and cooperate more extensively.
No matter how the international situation changes, the business communities of China and the United States have always been important maintainers of and contributors to the bilateral relationship, Wang said.
She noted that the CCPIT is willing to work with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the USCBC and other U.S. counterpart organizations and enterprises to continue deepening cooperation, and to become a stabilizing force in the development of China-U.S. relations.
Chinese scientists release AI model for lunar exploration
The world's first professional, multimodal large language model (LLM) for the field of lunar science has been released in China to significantly accelerate the processing speed of massive amounts of lunar data.
The new tool was debuted at the China International Big Data Industry Expo in Guiyang, the capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province, by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geochemistry and the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group.
The Institute of Geochemistry has built a comprehensive "digital moon" platform with the world's most complete bank of data related to the exploration of the moon.
The LLM has created a "smart brain" for this digital moon. Ku Wei, vice president of the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, said that the LLM identifies lunar craters and remembers them by size, depth and shape to provide scientists with important bases for their study of the moon's geological evolution.
Scientists say that the progress and development of planetary science depends on two factors: the development of deep space exploration technology, and the levels of data processing and application.
Scientific research driven by big data is changing the human science and technology development process, and the intelligence of the digital moon will accelerate China's lunar and planetary scientific research and innovation, according to scientists.
China becomes world's largest investor in energy transition: white paper
China has become the world's largest investor in energy transition, spending a total of 676 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 in the sector, according to a white paper.
The country has doubled its efforts in technological innovation to upgrade new energy technology at a faster pace, contributing enormously to a sharp reduction in the costs of wind power and photovoltaic power worldwide, according to the white paper.
China has worked with more than 100 countries and regions on green energy projects, while its new energy industry has added to the global energy supply, eased global inflation pressures, and contributed to the global effort to combat climate change and transition to green development.