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China Daily USA | Updated: 2017-05-11 06:48

Central bank injects liquidity

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The central bank injected cash into the money market through a variety of tools on Wednesday to ease liquidity. The People's Bank of China conducted 110 billion yuan ($15.93 billion) of reverse repos, a process by which central banks purchase securities from banks with an agreement to sell them back in the future. The operations included 90 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repo priced to yield 2.45 percent; 10 billion yuan of 14-day contracts with a yield of 2.6 percent; and 10 billion yuan of 28-day agreements with a yield of 2.75 percent. It was the first cash injection by the PBOC via reverse repos after a three-business day suspension.

Airports see surging flights

China's airports saw surging international flights last year as more Chinese traveled overseas, official data showed. Over 51.6 million passenger trips to international destinations were made in 2016 via the country's civil aviation service, rising 22.7 percent year-on-year, according to a report by the Civil Aviation Administration of China. Domestic flights saw about 436 million passenger trips last year, up 10.7 percent year-on-year. A total of 3.679 million passenger flights were made last year, with 76.76 percent of them generally on time, up by about 8 percentage points compared with 2015, the report showed. By the end of last year, China had 218 licensed airports and 2,950 aircraft for civil aviation, according to the report.

Yuan weakens against US dollar

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The central parity rate of the renminbi, or the yuan, weakened 29 basis points to 6.9066 against the US dollar on Wednesday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day. The central parity rate of the yuan against the US dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day.

NPL ratio 1.74% at end of March

Chinese commercial banks' non-performing loan ratio stood at 1.74 percent at the end of March, unchanged from the end of 2016, the country's banking regulator said on Wednesday. Total commercial bank NPLs amounted to 1.58 trillion yuan ($228.9 billion), up from 1.51 trillion yuan at end-2016, China Banking Regulatory Commission data showed. Banks' core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 10.79 percent at the end of March, up from 10.75 a quarter earlier.

Vietnam refinery to be equitized

Operator of the Vietnamese Dung Quat Refinery has sent letters of invitation to 15 investment funds locally and overseas, calling them to buy shares at the oil plant. According to Dung Quat Oil Refinery's owner, the state-run oil giant PetroVietnam, shares of the country's largest oil refinery will be officially offered to the public by the end of this year. The privatization is set to mobilize capital for strategic projects in the future, improving transparency and shareholders' benefits, PVN said on Tuesday. In the first quarter of 2017, the Dung Quat Oil Refinery earned some $80.4 million in after-tax profit, achieving 30 percent of its annual target. The Dung Quat Oil Refinery went into operation in 2009 with designed capacity of 6.5 million tons of crude oil annually or 130,500 barrels per day.

MinebeaMitsumi to invest in Slovakia

The construction work for an engineering and electronic industry plant to be built by Japanese company MinebeaMitsumi has started in Kosice, eastern Slovakia, local media reported. For this plant, MinebeaMitsumi reportedly will invest at least 60 million euros ($65.9 million) and provide jobs to 1,100 people. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has praised the company's decision to invest in underdeveloped eastern Slovakia. "Apart from established sectors such as steel production and IT, this region is now getting standard industrial production, which is so typical for Slovakia. From this perspective, Slovakia is the most industrialized country in the EU when it comes to the share of industry in GDP," Fico said.

British retail sales grow in April

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Britain's retail sales enjoyed annual growth of 5.6 percent in April, in figures which show that economic growth maintains momentum. The buoyant figure, released on Tuesday, was a turnaround from the 1 percent year-on-year decline in March, and exceeded the consensus expectation of 0.5 percent growth. The value of sales went up even more, rising 6.3 percent annually, the strongest growth in six years. Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics, a finance data analysis firm, said the figures from the British Retail Consortium were "very strong". Figures have benefited from a later Easter than the previous year, adding some upward distortion to the figures. Like-for-like sales grew at the fastest rate for 11 years, despite there being five occasions since 2005 when Easter occurred in April but was in March in the previous year's figures, said Tombs.

Irish rental market in distress

The Irish rental market has shown increasing signs of distress over the past five years, with stronger demand but weaker supply each year, according to the latest figures from property website daft.ie on Tuesday. In a rental price report, the largest Irish property website said the average rent nationwide has risen by 52 percent since bottoming out in late 2011. In Dublin, rents are now an average of 15.4 percent above their previous peak while in Cork and Galway cities, rents are 9.7 percent and 17.8 percent above levels recorded nine years ago, it said. Outside the cities, the average rent is three percent above its previous peak, it added.

Germany's exports, imports at record

Germany's exports and imports reached a record high in March, which increased by 10.8 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively, from a year ago, said the Federal Statistical Office. In March, exports in Germany totaled 105.4 billion euros ($114.9 billion), increasing by 0.4 percent from February, while imports rose by 2.4 percent to 85.8 billion euros, said a report published on the website of the office. In calendar and seasonally adjusted terms, Germany's trade surplus hit 19.6 billion euros in March. European Union (EU) member states remain the largest importer of German goods in the month, according to the report. Germany's foreign trade imbalance has drawn wide criticism, as other EU countries accuse the bloc's largest economy has done little to boost domestic demand.

Singapore's resale prices unchanged

Resale prices for Singapore's non-landed private residential flats were unchanged in April from March, according to estimates released by Singapore Real Estate Exchange on Tuesday. Resale prices for city fringe and suburban area rose by 1.2 percent, 0.1 percent, while resale price for downtown area decreased 1.2 percent on a month-on-month basis. Year on year, SRX Property said resale prices for Singapore's non-landed private homes in April were up 1.8 percent compared to April 2016. As for volume, an estimated 907 non-landed private residential units were resold in April, a 21 percent decrease from the 1,148 units resold in March. While on a year-on-year basis, resale volume in April was 48 percent higher compared to 613 units resold in the same period last year.

China Daily - Agencies

(China Daily USA 05/11/2017 page14)

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