GOVT AND POLICIES

Finance ministry issues new local govt bonds

The Ministry of Finance announced on Wednesday an issue of 1 trillion yuan ($142.4 billion) of new local government special bonds to support infrastructure investment and spur economic growth. The new bonds accounted for 47 percent of the 2.15 trillion yuan special bond quota in 2019, according to the ministry. Local governments are required to spend the fund raised via the new special bonds on relating projects "as soon as possible". The Ministry also called the local governments to make sure that the new bonds can play an important role in stabilizing economic growth at the beginning of next year, according to a statement on the ministry's website.

Cross-border parcels from China growing

Parcels from China accounted for 38 percent of cross-border parcels worldwide, the country's postal authorities said on Tuesday. China's postal industry handled 350 billion yuan ($50 billion) worth of cross-border e-commerce transactions, said Ma Junsheng, head of the State Post Bureau. "The postal network under the Universal Postal Union is the main channel for cross-border shipping of e-commerce items," said Liu Aili, chairman of China Post Group. Post is becoming the go-to option for cross-border e-commerce logistics due to its wide coverage, low cost and expediency, according to the General Administration of Customs. Data showed that post was responsible for 70 percent of cross-border shipping of parcels globally in 2018.

COMPANIES AND MARKETS

Shipbuilding giants announce merger

China Shipbuilding Industry Corp and China State Shipbuilding Corp Ltd merged into one corporation in Beijing on Tuesday. This reorganized corporation has 147 scientific research institutes, enterprises and listed companies with total assets of 790 billion yuan ($112.29 billion) and 310,000 employees. It has the largest shipbuilding and repairing base in China and the most complete research and development capability in the field of shipping, allowing its marine equipment to meet the requirements of international technical standards and safety conventions.

Huawei to help Ukraine develop broadband

Chinese telecom company Huawei is ready to provide the Ukrainian government with a draft plan for the development of broadband communications, a Huawei official said on Tuesday. "We are ready to share our technologies and expertise in building broadband on a country scale," Li Jian, president of the company's European Area, said at the Huawei-initiated one-day Ukraine Digital Transformation Forum 2019. Over the past three years, Huawei, in collaboration with local operators, has helped Ukraine move from 2G to 4G and increase its mobile broadband penetration from 8 percent to 65 percent, Li said.

Hyundai plans vehicle plant in Indonesia

South Korea's largest automaker Hyundai Motor said on Tuesday that it planned to build its first vehicle manufacturing plant in Indonesia. The ceremony to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Hyundai and the Indonesian government was held earlier in the day at the Hyundai vehicle factory in Ulsan, near the South Korean port city of Busan.

AROUND THE WORLD

Consumer sentiment improves in S. Korea

Sentiment among South Korean consumers over economic situation improved for the third consecutive month on eased concerns about the global trade feud, central bank data showed on Wednesday. The composite consumer sentiment index (CCSI) gained 2.3 points over the month to 100.9 in November, advancing above 100 in seven months, according to the Bank of Korea. The sentiment was enhanced for three straight months as worry moderated about the global trade spat. Outbound shipment takes up about half of the export-driven economy. The country's export kept sliding for the 11th straight month through October. To bolster the lackluster economy, the BOK slashed its benchmark interest rate from 1.50 percent to a record low of 1.25 percent last month, just three months after cutting the rate by 25 basis points in July.

US growth expected to be sluggish in Q4

A senior Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday that he expected US economic growth to "be weak" in the fourth quarter of the year as businesses cut inventories due to trade uncertainty. "One of the reasons the fourth quarter is going to be weak, we believe, is probably a significant inventory adjustment, which might be as much as half a percent or more of GDP growth," Robert Kaplan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in an interview with US business and financial news network CNBC. "Just means people have been destocking. And probably the reason they were destocking is there was a lot of pessimism over the last number of months about, you know, future growth prospects," he said.

Crude oil inventories show improvement

The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a build of 3.639 million barrels of crude oil in the US crude oil inventories for the week ending Friday. API reported a build of 5.954 million barrels of crude oil inventories for the previous week ending Nov 15, and the US Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 1.4 million barrels. Oil prices rose on Tuesday as investors' sentiment was lifted by the latest progress in US-China trade talks.

Fitch foresees higher crude palm oil prices

Fitch Ratings said Wednesday that it expects Malaysian benchmark Crude Palm Oil (CPO) prices to average $550 per metric ton in 2020, up from around $500 this year. The rating agency said in a report that it projected CPO prices to be higher next year as it anticipated the demand-supply balance for palm oil to continue to improve. The report cited the US Department of Agriculture recent forecasts that global consumption would outpace output growth by 2.8 million tons over the marketing years of 2019 and 2020.

Container throughput at Colombo Port surges

Container volume at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka saw a 5.1 percent increase in September compared to the same period last year, local media reports said. According to official statistics, the Port of Colombo handled 604,400 containers in September while domestic container volumes were up 2.5 percent to 108,735. Transshipment volumes were up 5.2 percent to 483,240 TEUs in September and total volumes were up 5.5 percent to 4.366 million TEUs. Volumes in the first seven months of 2019 were down 7.2 percent to 943,442 as Sri Lanka reduced its imports. In the nine months leading to September, the Port of Colombo handled 5.427 million TEUs, up 3.9 percent from a year earlier.