China Daily - 22.08.2019

BUSINESS

14 | Thursday, August 22, 2019 CHINA DAILY

ny’s net profits attributable to its

shareholders totaled 11.84 billion

yuan ($1.68 billion), and its revenue

rose 31.5 percent year-on-year to

139.32 billion yuan, according to a

statement issued by the company. In

the first six months, the company’s

property development business

achieved a sales area of 21.5 million

square meters, with sales amount of

334 billion yuan, and was ranked

among the top three in 41 cities in

terms of sales amount from property

development business.

Giant nylon production

site breaks ground

A giant production site has broken

ground in East China’s Shandong

province, with an annual production

capacity of 1 million metric tons of

new nylon materials. With a total

investment of around 20 billion yuan

($2.83 billion), the site covers an area

of about 200 hectares in the city of

Zibo. It will also have an annual pro-

duction capacity of 500,000 tons of

hexanediamine, 500,000 tons of adi-

ponitrile and 500,000 tons of acrylo-

nitrile. Adiponitrile is the key raw

material for the production of nylon

66, which is widely used in fields

such as automobile manufacturing

and electronic information devices.

At present, the global production

capacity of adiponitrile is about 2

million tons and the industry is high-

ly monopolized.

Uber invests $75m in

efforts to add more jobs

US top ride-hailing company Uber

to rise,” Holger Schaefer, senior

economist for employment at the

German Economic Institute, told

Xinhua on Tuesday. The increase

would have been mainly due to

the “growth in the service sector”,

according to Destatis. Especially

public services, education and

health recorded strong increases

in employment, followed by trade

transport and accommodation.

Japan’s convenience

store sales decline

Convenience store sales in Japan

decreased 2.5 percent in July com-

pared to a year earlier, declining for

the second straight month, a Japa-

nese industry body said on Tuesday.

According to the Japan Franchise

Association, the sales have largely

been affected by low temperatures

and rainy weather across the coun-

try. Same-store sales of seven major

convenience store operators

amounted to 917.06 billion yen

($8.62 billion), the association said.

Solid demand for frozen meals and

other prepared foods was not

enough to cover the slump in sales

of summer items including ice

cream and beverages. The number

of customers dropped for the fifth

consecutive month, down 4.7 per-

cent, although average spending per

customer rose. The association said

customers tend to spend more per

shopping visit due to rainy weather.

Kenya to start exports

of crude oil this year

Kenya is expected to export

400,000 barrels of crude oil in

2019, becoming the first east Afri-

can nation to export oil to the

international market, a govern-

ment official said on Tuesday.

Andrew Kamau, principal secre-

tary in the ministry of petroleum

and mining told journalists in

Nairobi that the oil sales are

being conducted under the early

oil pilot scheme which seeks to

establish a market for Kenyan oil.

“The first batch of 200,000 bar-

rels of oil will be exported in the

third quarter of 2019 and second

will be sold toward the end of the

year,” Kamau said. Kamau said

that most of Kenya’s oil will be

sold in Asia.

South Korea’s producer

price index falls in July

Prices for goods and services

among South Korean suppliers fell

last month on cheaper farm goods

and oil products, central bank data

showed on Wednesday. The pro-

ducer price index dipped 0.3 per-

cent in July from a year earlier,

marking the first decline in 33

months, according to the Bank of

Korea. It was attributed to lower

prices of farm goods and oil prod-

ucts. Price for agricultural, forestry

and fishery products diminished

4.5 percent in July from a year ear-

lier, with those for coal and oil

products sliding 8.3 percent last

month. Compared with the previ-

ous month, the PPI was changed as

prices for electricity, tap water and

natural gas gained 0.4 percent in

the month.

Bangladesh earns $4b

from shipments in July

Bangladesh’s exports in the first

month of the current 2019-20 fiscal

year ending next June surged 8.

percent to nearly $4 billion, an offi-

cial said on Tuesday. The Export

Promotion Bureau official said that

export performance for July was

$3.88 billion. Of the total earnings,

he said the country’s income from

ready-made garment items, includ-

ing knitwear and woven, stood at

$3.31 billion. The EPB data showed

knitwear garment export grew 9.

percent to $1.68 billion while

woven garments increased 9.51 per-

cent to $1.63 billion, compared with

the same period of the last fiscal

year.

UK supermarkets

see sluggish growth

The sales of the main supermarkets

in Britain struggled to grow during

the three months to August 11,

according to figures issued by mar-

ket research firm Kantar. The latest

Grocery Market Share data showed

that the biggest supermarket Tesco,

accounting for 27 percent of market

share in Britain, dropped 1.6 per-

cent year-on-year. Meanwhile, the

total sales of Sainsbury’s, Asda and

Morrisons, ranking the second,

third, fourth in terms of market

shares, fell by 0.6 percent, 1.5 per-

cent and 2.7 percent respectively,

compared with the same period a

year earlier.

CHINA DAILY — AGENCIES

What’s news

COMPANIES AND MARKETS

Side-pocketing for

mutual funds mulled

China’s securities regulator started
seeking public opinions on a side
pocket mechanism in mutual funds,
to better protect investors, especially
small investors. The China Securities
Regulatory Commission said it has
drafted a guideline for a side pocket
mechanism in mutual funds and
started to seek public opinions. A
side pocket is a mechanism often
used by a fund to keep illiquid, hard-
to-value, and often highly risky
assets separate from the fund’s other
investments. Learning from liquidity
risk management in overseas mar-
kets, the introduction of a side bag
mechanism into mutual funds is to
further enrich the liquidity risk man-
agement tools of fund managers,
and promote the stable and healthy
development of China’s mutual fund
sector, the CSRC said.

Vanke posts 29.8%

rise in H1 net profit

China Vanke Co Ltd, a leading prop-
erty developer, recorded net profit
growth of 29.8 percent in the first
half of this year, despite a slowdown
in the real estate market. The compa-

Technologies (Uber) will invest

more than $75 million in the US

state of Texas to create thousands of

jobs, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

said on Tuesday. Texas Governor

Greg Abbott, who announced the

new Uber investment, said Uber

will open its US General and

Administrative Hub with multiple

corporate functions in Dallas, Tex-

as, and the project will generate

3,000 new jobs for American work-

ers. Texas has granted Uber $

million in incentives to encourage

the company’s job-creating project

to bolster the state’s economic

growth.

AROUND THE WORLD

German employment

rate increases in Q

The number of people in employ-

ment in Germany grew year-on-

year by 1 percent in the second

quarter of 2019 to a total of 45.

million people, the German Feder-

al Statistical Office (Destatis)

announced on Tuesday. However,

the growth rate was slightly lower

than in the previous two quarters

when the number of people in

employment in Germany still

grew between 1.1 and 1.3 percent.

“Although the economic situation

is deteriorating, the number of

people in employment continues

Su Sunwei, a local commerce offi-

cial, said Jinjiang saw stable foreign

trade growth this year thanks to the

new markets of major enterprises,

technical innovation and stronger

bargaining power.

In the January-July period, Fuji-

an’s trade with the Belt and Road

economies surged 12.4 percent year-

on-year to 256.8 billion yuan ($36.

billion), and trade with Latin Ameri-

ca and Africa jumped by 17.3 percent

and 23.2 percent, respectively.

The figures are part of a broader

shift.

China’s foreign trade with BRI

economies grew by 10.2 percent in

the first seven months to over 5 tril-

lion yuan, 6 percentage points high-

er than the country’s overall trade

growth, data from the General

Administration of Customs showed.

“Enterprises cannot decide tariffs

of another country, but we can

Chinese firms hunt for new markets as trade disputes with US continue

FUZHOU — After going through
all the ups and downs of trade dis-
putes, Hong Jianku is convinced his
early decision to explore new mar-
kets for his swimwear company in
the middle of uncertainties caused
by US tariffs turned out to be the
right one.
In July 2018, he began bracing his
firm for possible trade disputes and
then witnessed all the U-turns the
US side made in the trade talks.
“I run my firm with a plan B and a
plan C in place, with preparations
for the worst-case scenario,” Hong
said.
The business executive is in charge
of Qicaihu Garments & Weaving Co
Ltd in Jinjiang, Fujian province. The
company’s bikinis and beach shorts
are supplied to top retailers such as
Auchan, Walmart and Target. It now
has a market presence of across all the
world’s continents except Antarctica.
His countermeasures included
tapping into markets in South
America and Africa and adding 30
percent more spending in research
and development this year to move
up the value chain.
“We expect a 15-percent annual
increase in our exports, with Brazil
and Chile emerging as strong
engines of growth,” Hong said.
“Argentina will be our next stop.”

focus on our own businesses,” Hong

said. “The trade disputes might

prove to be a blessing in disguise in

the end as it prods the sector to

accelerate transformation and

secure new opportunities.”

The ongoing trade friction has

put an end to what Hong calls “the

good old days of making big bucks

fast,” but he believes it is one of the

vicissitudes in China’s development

process and could act as a kind of

“vaccine” to boost the economy.

The world’s second largest econo-

my remains the top growth engine

with an enviable 6.3-percent year-

on-year GDP growth in the first half

of this year, and its stability and

resilience has been significantly

enhanced.

“External uncertainties continue to

grow, but the sound fundamentals of

China’s stable economic trajectory

will remain unchanged in the long

term,” said Gu Xueming, head of the

Chinese Academy of International

Trade and Economic Cooperation

under the Ministry of Commerce.

China’s economy is characterized

by strong resilience, huge potential,

and great latitude, while the number

of positive factors supporting a steady

economy is also increasing, Gu said.

So far, China has successfully han-

dled trade frictions with the latest

key indicators showing the econo-

my on a healthy track.

In the January-July period, domes-

tic consumption remained at a high

level, and foreign direct investment

into the Chinese mainland expanded

7.3 percent year-on-year. The opening

up of China’s market was not affected

by lingering trade uncertainties and

has kept expanding.

In comparison, the United States

is edging closer to a recession and a

financial crisis, said Mei Xinyu, a

researcher with the ministry.

“If the trade dispute is further

escalated, it will make problems in

the US economy more conspicuous,”

Mei said.

China’s gains and losses in trade

friction should not be judged by its

gains and losses in trade with one

country, but should be based on Chi-

na’s share of global trade, added

Zhongtai Securities chief economist

Li Xunlei.

“As long as China upholds free

and fair trade, its position in global

trade can be further elevated,” Li

said in a research note, adding that

China can keep improving the free

trade environment and advance

opening-up with other countries as

a countermeasure.

XINHUA

Employees work on a loom at the Qicaihu Garments & Weaving Co Ltd factory in Jinjiang, Fujian prov-

ince.XINHUA