Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1693
China’s exports down 7.5% in May, neighbors fare less well
According to the General Administration of Customs, China’s commodity exports turned down again after two consecutive months of growth. In May, the export value fell by 7.5% year-on-year (in US dollars), and the growth rate dropped by 16 percentage points from the previous month.
Specific to categories, the export value of apparel decreased by 12.5% year-on-year, furniture decreased by 15%, semiconductors decreased by 26%, high-tech products decreased by 14%, and mobile phones decreased by 25%. The best performer was automobiles—exports of complete vehicles and auto parts increased by 123.5% and 13.4% respectively in May. From January to May this year, the export volume of complete vehicles increased by 80% year-on-year to 1.933 million units, and the total value doubled year-on-year.
The market believes that the May data can better reflect the real demand of the current global market, because the recent foreign trade data of traditional export powerhouses including Vietnam, India, and South Korea have all performed poorly.
- Vietnam’s exports in May fell by 5.9% year-on-year, and the cumulative decline in the first five months of this year was 11.6%, among which the export of mobile phones was a significant drag;
- India’s exports in April fell by 12.7% year-on-year, which was the third consecutive month of decline. Apparel and jewelry fell significantly, but the export value of electronic products increased by more than a quarter year-on-year;
- South Korea’s export value in May fell by 15% year-on-year, which was the 8th consecutive month of decline, of which chip exports fell by 36%, which was the 10th consecutive month of decline;
- Partly supported by the depreciation of the yen, Japan’s exports in April increased by 2.4% year-on-year, but the growth rate also fell to the lowest in nearly two years. Among them, exports to the United States and Europe both increased by more than 10%, mainly due to the recovery of automobile supply and increased exports;
Some analysts believe that this is not the bottom of demand, because a large increase in interest rates will have a lagging effect, and major developed countries may enter a mild recession in the second half of the year, and demand may continue to decline. While exports are slowing down, China needs domestic demand to fill the gap created by the decline in external demand.
Wu Ge, chief economist of Changjiang Securities, recently pointed out that in terms of domestic demand, the transaction of commercial housing has fallen again recently. Affected by urban investment risks, the net financing amount of special bonds and urban investment bonds has also dropped sharply, and new orders for civil engineering are significantly weaker than seasonal ones. Employment pressure also limits household consumption. Economic data for April also showed that domestic consumption, investment, and industrial production need to recover further. (Lin Guangying)
A Group of Chinese Universities Raise Tuition Fees
In April this year, after holding a hearing, Shanghai decided to adjust the tuition fees for college students that have not changed for nearly 20 years. Under the new standard, Fudan University and Jiaotong University will charge 6,500 to 8,140 yuan per academic year for first-year freshmen this fall, an increase of more than 30% compared to previous years.
East China University of Science and Technology’s enrollment brochure released last weekend shows that this year’s undergraduate tuition fees for science and physical education majors will increase by up to 54% to 7,700 yuan per academic year, and for liberal arts majors will increase by 30% to 6,500 yuan per academic year.
Not only Shanghai, but also Sichuan and Jilin have introduced similar policies this year, and the tuition fee increase is generally around 1,000 yuan (20%). However, we have noticed that before the official tuition adjustment policy was introduced, many colleges and universities have substantially expanded enrollment and raised tuition fees for professional masters with more expensive fees and more independent pricing.
We have checked the budget reports of many colleges and universities in Shanghai this year and last year, and the financial appropriation income of each college is generally not much different from last year. Among them, Fudan University, East China Normal University and East China University of Science and Technology are expected to continue to increase their fiscal appropriation revenue, but only looking at the budget for this year, Fudan University and Jiaotong University are expected to have deficits of about 3 billion yuan and 2 billion yuan respectively, and most of the increase in expenditure will be spent on “education”. Expenditures”.
At the aforementioned hearings, relevant departments in Shanghai explained the necessity of raising tuition standards in colleges and universities, saying that one of the main purposes was to improve the educational cost sharing mechanism. According to Shanghai’s supervision report on the cost of running 10 colleges and universities from 2019 to 2021, the average cost of cultivating students in these colleges and universities is about 64,000 yuan per year, while tuition fees can only cover 8.4%, which is significantly lower than the 25% of the prescribed upper limit. (Qiu Hao)
Temu goes all the way, what are the American counterparts doing
Earlier this year, Pinduoduo’s overseas e-commerce company Temu topped the download list of shopping apps in the United States for a while, and they even ran a one-minute ad in the Super Bowl. These things have aroused widespread discussion.
“Connection” calculated the accounts not long ago, Temu’s average loss per order in the United States is 30 US dollars, including about 10 US dollars in shipping subsidies, and about 20 US dollars in product discounts, cash coupons and operating management costs.
The author said that these figures were confirmed by Temu insiders, and mentioned that Temu plans to spend more than US$5 billion in advertising this year and next two years, hoping that one day it will attract American users to spend 30 times a year on the platform.
Despite the loudness, the US counterparts have not had a too obvious reaction to Temu for the time being, at least on the stage. At last month’s performance meeting, executives from Walmart, Amazon, Dollar Tree, Wish and other retail companies, as well as analysts, did not mention Temu.
Walmart is busy competing with Amazon. In the past few years, the businesses of the two giants have become more and more overlapping. After a period of imitation online attempts, Wal-Mart has reinvested heavily in the logistics distribution network, including a lower-cost automated fulfillment system, and attracted platform sellers to use their own logistics services.
In the first quarter of this year, Wal-Mart’s e-commerce sales increased by 27% year-on-year. The management believes that this is mainly due to the advantages of adjacent stores and warehousing. Products can be picked up or delivered within two days. “No matter how high or low their income is, customers also value convenience.”
Amazon is still continuing to upgrade its brand and regulate the behavior of merchants. According to feedback from domestic sellers, in recent months, the platform has launched a “high return rate” label. They also refine the precise search function and prioritize the most recently stocked items in the results. The person in charge said this is just one of the measures to increase the speed of delivery. Its data shows that the faster an item is delivered, the more likely a user is to place another order.
Wish, founded in 2010, is the platform most similar to Temu. They sell low-priced small commodities shipped directly from China, and have long been criticized for their poor quality. Analysts asked a Temu-related question in the latest earnings call, how to view new competitors.
Management responded that the market is large enough to accommodate e-commerce platforms with different positioning. Its new CEO Yan Yan also recently mentioned that the company is currently focusing on improving product quality and logistics efficiency, but will still insist on being a platform (rather than imitating Temu’s self-operated business), and is also exploring video and community. Wish had $570 million in revenue last year.
Dollar Tree, the “dollar store” in the United States, plans to open more than 600 new stores this year and further expand its food categories. Opening more stores is because the management believes that “the closer the stores are, the more frequently customers will come to the store”, and the sales of food can see that consumers are reducing their spending on non-essential items. Like Wal-Mart management said, people will spend more Spend money on food and reduce purchases of daily necessities. (Lin Guangying)
Silicon Valley venture capital a16z founder: artificial intelligence will save the world
Last week, more than 350 artificial intelligence practitioners—mainly technology-leading company executives and university researchers—signed an open letter calling on government agencies to strengthen artificial intelligence supervision and should focus on “mitigating the risk of extinction brought about by artificial intelligence.” Make it a priority, like pandemics and nuclear war.
Now, Marc Andreessen, founder and partner of Silicon Valley venture capital a16z, has written a long article, criticizing the risks related to artificial intelligence one by one, saying that “artificial intelligence will not destroy the world, and may actually save the world.”
Everyone’s speech has its own position. Strict government regulation can suppress room for innovation and raise barriers for new entrants. Banking, energy, tobacco and other highly regulated industries have not had new companies for many years. If the government strictly limits the development of large-scale artificial intelligence models, leading companies such as OpenAI may be the biggest beneficiaries, and venture capital-backed startups will have a harder time growing.
In the past few months, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Sam Altman) has frequently communicated with the government, seeking stricter regulations. One U.S. congressman was surprised by this: “Very few companies have come before Congress and said, please regulate us.”
Mark Anderson believes that CEOs who seek government regulation under the banner of artificial intelligence risks are no different from bootleggers who benefited from prohibition. You can make more money by being influenced by startups and open source competition.”
He appealed that large companies and startups should be allowed to develop artificial intelligence as soon as possible and actively, and a government-protected monopoly organization should not be established because of concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence; open source artificial intelligence should be allowed to spread freely, and there should be no regulatory obstacles. Governments should work with business to figure out how to use artificial intelligence to maximize society’s defenses to address climate, disease, and more.
Here are some of his views:
- The idea that artificial intelligence will wipe out humans completely is a mistake. AI is not a creature that has evolved over billions of years to engage in a struggle for the survival of the fittest. It is mathematics, code and computers, built, owned, used and controlled by humans. It is a superstition to think that AI will at some point think for itself and have the motivation to kill us. “AI safety experts”, “AI ethicists”, and “AI risk researchers” are supposed to predict disaster, and we should be cautious about what they say. “AI Risk” has grown into a cult.
- Don’t worry about AI taking jobs away. If market economies are allowed to function properly and technology is introduced freely, existing goods and services will be close to free, consumer purchasing power will soar, and new demand will explode. Entrepreneurs will hire as many people and AI as fast as possible to meet all new demands. If AI replaces these jobs again, the cycle will repeat, driving economic growth and even higher levels of employment and wage growth. It would be a spiral straight up into a material utopia that Adam Smith could not even have imagined.
- There should be no fear of technological inequality brought about by artificial intelligence. Technology owners have no interest in monopolizing technology, they will sell it to as many customers as possible. Technological owners of cars, electricity, radios, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, and search engines have every incentive to bring prices down until they are affordable for everyone around the world. That’s why you can now use state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence like New Bing and Google’s Bard for free. It’s not because the suppliers are stupid or generous, it’s because they are greedy – they want to make the most money by making the market bigger. Inequality is a problem in our society, but not caused by technology, but by the government sectors of the economy that are most resistant to new technologies—especially housing, education, and health care. The actual risk of AI is not that AI will lead to more inequality, but whether we will be allowed to use AI to reduce inequality.
- One should not worry about artificial intelligence helping people do bad things. Existing laws prohibit most of the bad things humans might do with AI—stealing money from banks, making biological weapons, committing acts of terror are all crimes. People can also use artificial intelligence for defense tools. Banning AI is futile, and if all our resources were invested in AI preventing bad guys from doing bad things, a world full of AI would be a lot safer than the world we live in today. (He Qianming, GPT-4 also contributed)
OTHER NEWS
The number of candidates for the college entrance examination this year hit a record.
On June 7, the 2023 national college entrance examination ushered in the first exam day. According to data from the Ministry of Education, the number of applicants for the national college entrance examination this year is 12.91 million, an increase of 980,000 from last year and a new high. If the number of births is calculated backwards, the number of candidates for the college entrance examination next year may be even higher.
The Cyberspace Administration of China is seeking public comments on the regulations governing AirDrop-like services.
According to the official website of the State Cyberspace Administration of China, the department is seeking public opinions on the “Regulations on the Administration of Information Services for Proximity Ad Hoc Networks (Draft for Comment)”. “Proximity Ad Hoc Network Information Service” is Apple’s AirDrop service. The Cyberspace Administration of China intends to require relevant services to be closed by default, and preview functions such as snapshots and thumbnails shall not be provided by default without the consent of the recipient. The management regulations also propose that information service providers should require users to provide real information and identities in accordance with the regulations issued by the Internet Security Bureau.
Morgan Stanley recommends reducing its holdings in Ningde era.
Morgan Stanley is the only major institution that has issued an underweight rating for CATL. Analysts at Morgan Stanley believe that potential geopolitical conflicts may affect CATL’s global expansion plans; China’s second-tier battery manufacturers are actively cutting prices, which will affect CATL’s profits; many car companies increase battery suppliers, indicating CATL dominance is at risk. Morgan Stanley analysts set a target price of 180 yuan for Ningde Times, which is 13% lower than its current share price. Since February this year, the market value of Ningde Times has fallen by 17% to 804.9 billion yuan.
Ge Lihe, CEO of Merck, said the economic cost of decoupling from China would be huge.
Belen Garijo, chief executive of German pharmaceuticals, laboratory equipment and electronic chemicals maker Merck, told a media event that she doesn’t understand why politicians have been calling for a decoupling with China that would take at least 20 years to achieve , at the cost of a globalized world that has brought well-being, innovation and cooperation. Last year, 3.2 billion euros of Merck’s 22.2 billion euros in revenue came from China. Last month, the company said it would further invest in China and establish a local supply chain in China to prevent trade disputes from disrupting the import of key raw materials.
A number of domestic railways have introduced products such as time-counting tickets and commuter tickets.
According to Xinhua News Agency, starting from June 8, the Nanjing-Hangzhou high-speed railway and the Hehuang section of the Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed railway (Hefei South-Huangmeidong) will officially launch new ticket products such as 30-day commuter tickets and 20-time tickets. So far, 49 railway lines across the country will implement new ticket products. At the end of 2020, the railway department tried time-counting tickets and regular tickets on the Chengdu-Chongqing high-speed railway and the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway. However, the new ticket types are more convenient for ticket purchase and rebooking, and there are not much discounts on fares. For example, if you buy a 20-time time-counting ticket product for Beijing South and Shanghai Hongqiao at designated stations, the price is 11,240 yuan, which is equivalent to an average one-way fare of 562 yuan. Among the 43 trains it applies to, you can save up to 100 yuan, but 9 The original fare for the second train is actually lower.
Douyin responded that it will launch a self-operated beauty e-commerce business, saying that it will try some business.
According to Tech Planet, Douyin e-commerce plans to open a self-operated store before the 618 event to sell high-end beauty products, mainly purchased from domestic counters; in the future, it may also self-operate luxury goods and other categories. Douyin currently has a number of self-operated businesses, covering fast fashion, cultural and creative products, low-priced small commodities, drinks, agricultural products, and supermarkets. Douyin responded by saying that it will make some business attempts for the categories that users need.
The People’s Bank of China increased its gold holdings for seven consecutive months, and its foreign exchange reserves fell month-on-month.
According to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the central bank increased its holdings of gold by 16 tons in May, and increased its holdings by 144 tons in the past seven months, bringing the total holdings to 2,092 tons. We have previously introduced that global central banks buy gold. Last year, central banks accounted for nearly a quarter of global gold demand. In the first quarter of this year, China was the second largest buyer, second only to Singapore. Gold prices hit a new high in May this year. As of the end of May, China’s foreign exchange reserves stood at US$3,176.5 billion, down 0.88% from the end of April.
A number of state-owned banks will cut deposit rates.
According to various media reports, several state-owned banks, including ICBC and CCB, have been notified to lower the interest rate on RMB deposits since June 8. Some major banks lowered the interest rate on demand deposits from 0.25% to 0.2%, and lowered the interest rate on deposits with a maturity of 2 years and above by 10 to 15 basis points, of which the interest rate on deposits with a maturity of 5 years was reduced from 2.65% to 2.5%. In September last year, a number of state-owned banks lowered their deposit interest rates below 3%, and in April this year, small and medium-sized banks also began to follow suit.
Fashion is a necessity, and Zara parent company quarterly profit rose 54% year-on-year.
From February to April this year, sales of Inditex, the parent company of Zara, increased by 13% year-on-year to 7.6 billion euros, and net profit increased by 54% year-on-year to 1.2 billion euros, exceeding expectations. According to the management, the sales growth rate of spring/summer collection further accelerated to 16% in May. Inditex, which generates about 70 percent of its revenue from Zara, has been doing well even under inflationary pressures. Analysts say that when consumers feel stressed, they buy the latest fashion, which is almost a necessity.
Apple acquires AR startup Mira.
Just after releasing its first MR headset, Apple is said to have acquired a new AR startup, Mira. It’s unclear exactly how much Apple spent, as part of the acquisition agreement, they hired more than a dozen Mira employees. Mira was founded in 2016, and Ive, Apple’s former chief design officer, served as its advisor. If you go to Japan or Universal Studios in Los Angeles to experience the Mario Kart project, you will use Mira’s AR glasses. They also have contracts with the U.S. military.
Musk said he would open Tesla’s self-driving technology to other car companies.
After reaching a licensing agreement with Ford for the super charging network, Tesla CEO Musk stated on his personal social platform that he is very happy to authorize other car companies to use the super charging network, Autopilot/FSD or other technologies. As early as 2014, Tesla announced that it would open source all its patents for free, but there is still a big gap between obtaining a patent and using a certain technology. A better way is to obtain direct authorization from Tesla like Ford. It would also create new revenue streams for Tesla.
Intel will sell $1.5 billion worth of Mobileye stock.
According to media reports, Intel will sell 35 million Mobileye Class A shares, worth about $1.5 billion. After the stock sale, Intel’s stake in Mobileye will drop from 99.3 percent to 98.7 percent. In 2017, in order to enter the field of autonomous driving, Intel spent $15.3 billion to acquire Mobileye, but this gamble has not been successful so far. Intel is still significantly behind Nvidia and Qualcomm in the field of autonomous driving chips.
Vietnam’s power cuts have affected factories such as Foxconn and Samsung.
Due to the overload of power supply due to hot weather, industrial areas in northern Vietnam have been affected by regional power outages. Companies including Samsung Electronics, Foxconn, Canon and Luxshare Precision all have factories in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang provinces in North Vietnam. At the beginning of May this year, Vietnam hit a record high temperature of 44.1 degrees Celsius. The dry weather and the drop in water levels of hydropower stations made Vietnam’s power supply urgent. The country’s trade ministry has asked government agencies to increase coal and natural gas production.
LV launches luxury goods in NFT, priced at 39,000 euros, with custom-made physical bags.
LV launched the first NFT series product “phygital” Treasure Trunk on the 6th, based on classic travel bags, each priced at 39,000 euros, will come with a physical bag of the same style, and can be used as a “digital key” to access LV world of digital collections. NFTs are limited to hundreds, and customers need to apply and be invited before purchasing. Since NFT will be bound and minted with personal information, it is difficult to resell.
Most luxury brands sell NFT at a much lower price, and Gucci started selling virtual sneakers for $12 two years ago. Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, once said that he was not interested in a pair of sneakers for 10 euros, but he was optimistic about related applications.
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