City Beijing Financial News

BEIJING (Reuters) — China's industrial output grew 6.6% in November year-on-year, faster than the 4.6% gain in October, and retail sales grew but missed forecasts, adding to signs Beijing's recent flurry of stimulus are helping stabilise the economy.

Investors in Chinese stocks next year will be seeking out businesses with global reach or other insulation from an economic downturn, after three straight years of China underperforming world markets. Companies in defensive sectors such as health, medical innovation and exporters in the electric vehicles supply chain and advanced manufacturing, as well as multinationals such as e-commerce firm PDD Holdings, will top the list. That's despite sell-side analysts turning bullish on China's broader market for next year, with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs forecasting Chinese equities to outperform the S&P 500. «Since economic recovery is slower than expected, we lowered exposures which are sensitive to macro cycles,» said Wang Qing, chairman at Shanghai Chongyang Investment Management. Chongyang is instead buying defensive high-dividend stocks, medical innovators with global competitiveness, and advanced manufacturing backed by Beijing, Wang said, declining to list any investments by name. This follows China's blue chip CSI300 index sinking to five-year lows and losing 12% over 2023 against a 15% gain for global stocks as the Chinese economy struggled with a property crunch and a slow recovery from COVID-19. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fared even worse, sliding more than 18% to trade on a forward price-to-earnings ratio below six, against 21 for the S&P 500. Performance over the last 10 months crushed the optimism that infused the beginning of the year, with four straight months of foreign outflows in the second half of the year totalling a net 138 billion yuan ($19 billion) withdrawn from Chinese equities via the Stock Connect scheme. «Investors (have) struggled to think what the next growth driver for China will be,»

Local democracy in Hong Kong has been under scrutiny since 1997, when Britain returned this erstwhile colony to China on the latter’s pledge of letting freely elected leaders govern it. In this context, a voter turnout of just 27.5% in Hong Kong’s district elections, down from 71% in 2019, signals a backslide.

Huawei Technologies Co.’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone shows “significant progress” in China’s domestic design and engineering of radio-frequency chips, according to the latest findings from research firm TechInsights. The Shenzhen-based company’s handsets include RF switches from Maxscend Microelectronics Co. and power-amplification modules from Beijing OnMicro Electronics Co., components most commonly provided by US suppliers Skyworks Solutions Inc. and Qorvo Inc., respectively. The architecture “is tailored for the Chinese industry” and suggests there was design collaboration between Huawei and its suppliers, TechInsights said in a post on Monday.

China's Huawei will start building its mobile phone network equipment factory in France next year, a source familiar with the matter said, pressing ahead with its first plant in Europe even as some European governments curb the use of the firm's 5G gear. The company outlined plans for the factory with an initial investment of 200 million euros ($215.28 million) in 2020, but the roll-out was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the source said on Monday. They declined to be identified because they are not authorised to comment on this matter.

Investing.com — China’s disinflationary trend worsened in November, data showed over the weekend, with consumer prices falling at their fastest pace in three years, while producer prices remained in contraction for a fourteenth consecutive month.

BEIJING — Livestream shopping is taking off in China, driving development of new tech products such as virtual human streamers and mobile data packages.

China on Saturday lodged a protest after calls at the UN climate talks in Dubai to include Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing. Two of the dwindling number of countries that recognise Taiwan — Guatemala and the tiny Pacific island of Nauru — both hailed support from Taipei in addresses at the COP28 conference.

SINGAPORE : Consumer prices in China fell for the second straight month, a deepening bout of deflation that shows Beijing’s efforts to reignite faltering growth are falling short. China’s top leaders telegraphed Friday that more support is coming for the economy, with pledges of new fiscal stimulus and supportive central-bank policy in the months ahead. Still, the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo signaled that stimulus will be measured rather than aggressive, reinforcing expectations for steady if unspectacular growth in 2024 as the economy grapples with a drawn-out property bust and a global backdrop darkened by war and slowdowns in the U.S.

Back in June, when China’s youth unemployment rate hit a record 21.3%, Western analysts saw it as a sign of a moribund recovery. China’s ministry of statistics responded by announcing it would no longer publish the statistic. Six months on, that move might have had the desired effect.

Investing.com — Markets are focusing in on the impending publication of the November U.S. nonfarm payroll report, a highly-anticipated data point that may shed more light on the state of the American labor market and serve as a signpost for the Federal Reserve's future policy choices. Elsewhere, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and its suppliers are reportedly aiming to move a quarter of global iPhone production to India, as the tech giant looks to reduce its reliance on China during a time of strained relations between the U.S. and Beijing.

More Chinese cities will give away digital yuan tokens and discount vouchers this month, as the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) looks to spur CBDC adoption.

North Koreans have 'vanished' after China repatriated them to North Korea. Seoul-based rights group Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) has expressed apprehension that these people are likely to face imprisonment and abuse at the hands of authorities. No communication has been established with the North Koreans since they were forcefully returned by China in October last year. Their identities are also unknown, though about 70% of them are women.

Chinese warships have made a first visit to a Cambodian naval base that Washington has long feared will boost Beijing's influence in the Gulf of Thailand. A Cambodian defence ministry official said on Thursday that Chinese-funded work to expand the Ream base, near the port city of Sihanoukville, would be «finished soon». Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Seiha said on his Facebook page that he had visited the two ships docked at the base on Sunday «to prepare a training of our Cambodian naval fleet». Cambodian officials refused to give any details of the vessels, the purpose of their visit or how long they were staying, but a sign on one of the gangways identified it as belonging to the Chinese navy. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said: «China and Cambodia have an extremely deep friendship, and the two sides have developed richly successful cooperation in many fields.» The Vice-Chairman of China's Central Military Commission, General He Weidong, visited Phnom Penh earlier this week and met Prime Minister Hun Manet. Cambodia has long had close relations with Beijing and US officials fret that the base will boost China's effort to buttress its international heft with a string of naval and military outposts. Satellite imagery published in July showed that a 363-metre (1,190-foot) pier had been built jutting out into the sea.

SINGAPORE—Chinese internet titan Alibaba Group Holding once seemed invincible. Now, it is stuck in a slump. The e-commerce giant was a major driver of China’s growing consumer economy as it pioneered online shopping in China.

An audit commissioned by Volkswagen has found no indication of forced labor at its plant in China’s Xinjiang region, where Western governments have accused the Chinese government of human rights violations against the Uyghur ethnic minority

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China, four years after signing the project, news agency AFP reported Wednesday citing a government source. Italy in 2019 became the first and so far only G7 nation to join the programme. Rome communicated the long-anticipated decision to Beijing three days ago, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which first reported the news, said.

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) — Moody's (NYSE:MCO) negative outlook on China has intensified Beijing's battle with market bears, raising pressure on the government for more forceful measures to prop up sinking stocks and stabilise the yuan as investor confidence deteriorates.

BERLIN (Reuters) -Volkswagen must provide more transparency in its value chain and ensure its China operations are regularly reviewed, two of the carmaker's investors said on Wednesday, after an audit of its jointly owned Xinjiang site found no sign of forced labour.

By Joe Cash

Memories of the Covid-19 pandemic have resurfaced as a mysterious respiratory illness among children emerged in China, the epicenter of the earlier outbreak. Hospitals in many Chinese cities have been operating at maximum capacity the past two months, taking in more than 9,000 patients a day. The alarming scenes from China have put health authorities worldwide on high alert.