Tag: may 18 2021

China’s government has approved a joint venture led by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to open a wealth management business on the mainland. The venture, 50.1-percent owned by BlackRock and including the China Construction Bank (CCB) and Temasek, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, will target a market of Chinese savers estimated to be worth $18.9...

Although retail sales in China grew 17.7 percent year-over-year in April, the volume still disappointed analysts polled by Reuters, which had expected shoppers to spend 24.9 percent more.  April’s sales increase was barely half of the 34.2-percent surge booked in March. Online purchases of consumer goods gained 23.1 percent during the first four months of...

China’s Producer Price Index (PPI) – the cost of raw materials going into, and of goods coming out of, Chinese factories – shot up 6.8 percent in April year over year, according to government figures, the greatest 12-month hike since 2018. Consumer prices rose only 1 percent, reflecting a slow recovery from last year’s shutdown...

The world of spirits will see a “post-COVID renaissance,” according to Möet Hennessy, the French producer of cognacs and champagnes, in which drinkers will repopulate restaurants and bars and splurge on fine wines and spirits in a “revenge of pleasure or the new Roaring 20s,” CEO Phillippe Schaus said. “It’s clear people are almost desperate...

In 2030, more than half of new Toyota vehicles sold in the U.S. will be hybrids, 30 percent will run solely on gas or diesel, and only a fraction will be all-electric, Toyota Motor Corp. executive Jun Nagata said at a 12 May news conference reported by the Wall Street Journal. By 2030, “the price...

All-electric passenger cars will be cheaper to build in Europe by 2027 than cars running on fossil fuels if governments take measures to make that happen according to a new study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Light vans will be cheaper to make than their diesel-powered counterparts by 2025 and heavy vans and SUVs will...

Because China is rushing to tie up global supplies of cobalt, an essential mineral in making electric car batteries, the auto industry must develop its own sources or risk being hobbled if China chooses to hoard the metal, Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of mining and commodity trading giant Glencore, told the Financial Times Future of the...

Taiwan’s tech-heavy TAIEX stock index fell 8.55 percent on 12 May, its worst one-day drop since 1969, according to Bloomberg, before recovering somewhat to close down 4.1 percent on the day, the Financial Times reported. Investors bailed due to global anxieties about surging inflation, coupled with fears that the island nation would report higher COVID...

Despite the world’s gradual economic recovery and oil production rising elsewhere, U.S. oil production will likely decline again this year, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in its 11 May monthly market report. Producing countries outside OPEC will raise output by only 200,000 barrels a day this year, rising to 700,00, with Brazil,...

Blocks and bottlenecks in shipping systems have combined with consumers’ craving for electronics during the global shutdown to create a shortage of tin, traditionally the most costly of base metals. The price of tin in three-month contracts on the London Metals Exchange has gone up 46 percent to $29,785 a ton, outstripping price hikes for...