Top 10 China News - Week 18, April 27

#1 China's economy registered a steady start in the first quarter of the year, demonstrating its resilience and potential in the face of a complicated external environment and resurgent domestic COVID-19 cases, officials and experts said on Monday.

Experts said the faster-than-expected first-quarter growth was mainly aided by robust growth in the first two months before the weakening in economic activities in March, and warned of challenges and uncertainties at both home and abroad that may cloud the overall outlook.

They expected a stronger macro policy in the second quarter to shore up the growth, saying that China has the potential to meet its economic growth target of around 5.5 percent for this year.

#2 Lifting tariffs on certain Chinese products will help mitigate the highest inflation in four decades in the United States and put bilateral trade relations back on a normal track this year, experts and business leaders said on Sunday.

They made the remarks after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested on Friday that the US is open to scaling back the widespread Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods to help deal with the high inflation disrupting the US economy this year.

Daleep Singh, US deputy national security adviser for international economics, also said earlier that the US government could lower tariffs imposed on a host of nonstrategic Chinese goods such as bicycles or apparel to help combat inflation.

#3 Ren Zhengfei, founder of telecom giant Huawei; Zhang Yiming, founder of internet heavyweight ByteDance and Pony Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of internet giant Tencent took the top three spots in this year's 50 most influential business leaders in China, according to a ranking released by Fortune China.

In the past year, China's business leaders have faced the crisis with tenacity and courage during this special period, and charted the future with foresight and confidence, Fortune China commented. As entrepreneurs, this is their responsibility and also the honor bestowed upon them by the times, it said.

Top 10 most influential business leaders

1. Ren Zhengfei – Founder of Huawei

2. Zhang Yiming – Founder of ByteDance

3. Pony Ma Huateng – Chairman and CEO of Tencent

4. Zeng Yuqun – Chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology

5. Zhang Zhixiang – Chairman of Beijing Jianlong Heavy Industry Group

6. Jack Ma Yun – Founder of Alibaba

7. Wang Chuanfu – Chairman of BYD

8. Lei Jun – Chairman and CEO of Xiaomi

9. Dong Mingzhu – Chairwoman of Gree Electric Appliances

10. Xu Zheng – Chairman of Shanghai Construction Group

#4 China's southern most province of Hainan saw its imports and exports to countries along the Belt and Road increase 95.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022, Haikou Customs said on Sunday.

From January to March, trade between the province and countries along the Belt and Road soared to 13.4 billion yuan ($2 billion). Exports topped 4 billion yuan, an increase of 40.5 percent year-on-year, and imports jumped 135.2 percent year-on-year to 9.4 billion yuan.

During the same period, Hainan's imports and exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hit 6.2 billion yuan, an increase of 28.5 percent year-on-year and accounting for 46.2 percent of the province's trade volume with countries along the Belt and Road.

Customs data shows that the main imported commodities were organic chemicals and coal, and exported goods were mainly refined oil.

#5 China Unicom, one of the country's leading telecom giants, reported a 20-percent surge in net profit in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022. Net profit attributable to the parent company reached 2.03 billion yuan ($314.26 million), it said in a statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Business revenues rose 8.2 percent to 89.02 billion yuan in the reporting period, it said. The company's 5G users reached 171 million amid its efforts to push digital transformation, it said.

#6 Global investment banks are pushing ahead with ambitious expansion plans in Shanghai despite a strict lockdown in China's financial capital, the Financial Times reported Friday.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are among the banks to have moved staff from Hong Kong to Shanghai in recent weeks, the newspaper said, adding they are part of a group that includes Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank which has earmarked Shanghai as a target for major investment in the coming years.

"We're trying to build a 50-year business in China," Financial Times said quoting a person familiar with Goldman's plans. "A disruption over several months isn't enough to shift the strategic thinking."

Wall Street banks have deepened their push into Shanghai in recent years, hiring hundred of staff as China has continued to gradually open up its financial services industry and capital markets.

#7 The coconut juice latte is a new product jointly introduced by domestic coffee chain Luckin Coffee and the Coconut Palm Group－a Haikou, Hainan province-based leading juice producer.

The product－with coconut milk topping and wrapped with the flashy Coconut Palm signature packaging－is the first brand collaboration for the coconut juice producer since its founding. The impact of linking with a brand that the entire Gen Z consumers have grown up with is exploding.

One of the strengths of domestic coffee chain operator Luckin Coffee is to be able to connect domestic brands to double down on the?guochao?trend－a Chinese phrase referring to homegrown style, providing continuous innovations that often resonate with local consumers. The benefit of the move is mutual. "The collaboration with Luckin Coffee is pushing the iconic coconut juice brand closer with younger consumers," said Zhu Danpeng, a food and drink analyst in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

#8 A number of industries and enterprises playing a key role in the nation's industrial and supply chains have restored their production amid Shanghai's battle with COVID-19, in an effort to ensure the smooth flow of important production materials along the industrial chain, municipal government officials said on Friday. Since the start of this week, 70 percent of the city's 666 key enterprises have resumed operations, with their capacity utilization continuing to rise, Zhang Wei, vice-mayor of Shanghai, said during a news conference on Friday.

Vehicles produced at the SAIC Motor and Tesla plants are constantly rolling off the production lines, manufacturers of related parts and components have also restarted production, and carmakers are working to resume both their production capacity and efficiency, said Zhang, adding that key enterprises in the integrated circuit and chemicals sectors are running at a comparatively high level of capacity utilization.

#9 China has the conditions and capability to keep prices stable this year, experts said during a symposium held by the country's top economic regulator.

The National Development and Reform Commission recently held the symposium to discuss meeting the preset consumer inflation target of around 3 percent in 2022.

Experts present cited the strong resilience of China's economy, China's large market space, its sufficient policy tools as well as abundant supply of industrial and agricultural products and services.

Experts noted China's economy has been deeply integrated into the world economic system after 40 years of reform and opening-up, and the soaring prices of international commodities also impacted prices at home.

Looking ahead, experts warned the COVID-19 pandemic could allow elevated inflation to linger in Western countries if it further disrupts supply chains, and other factors including rising commodity prices may also worsen the situation.

#10 The emerging metaverse technologies are expected to be integrated into a wide range of sectors including industry, agriculture, manufacturing, retail and consumption, and will fundamentally change the way people work and interact in their daily lives, experts and business executives said on Friday.

Denis Depoux, global managing director at Roland Berger, told a metaverse forum during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022 that the metaverse will help to strongly accelerate industrial modernization and industrial digitalization.

The new concept of the metaverse refers to a shared virtual world in which people can interact via various forms of virtual technology, such as virtual reality and augmented reality.

News & Photo source: China Daily, Xinhua

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