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Danny Ding China update
Story Date: 8/12/2021
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Source: NCDA&CS, 8/11/21
- In the first half of 2021, China imported $88 billion from
the U.S., an increase of 43.9%. Among them, the import of
agricultural products was US$ 21 billion, an increase of 120.8%. (it shows
that the phase-1 agreement is still working well and it may become
long-term after its two-year period.)
- In 2020, China imported a record 4.4 million metric tons of
pork. In the first half of this year, the total amount of pork imports was
about 2.94 million metric tons, which has exceeded 66% of last year's
total imports. However, in June, China imported 450,000 metric tons of
pork arriving to the ports totally, a decrease of 4.3% from the previous
month and a decrease of 16.7% from the previous June. In the case of the
overall decline, U.S. pork is one of the few that is still growing. In
June, China imported 78,000 metric tons of U.S. pork, accounting for 17.3%
of total imports.
- China’s new ambassador Qin Gang, arrived in the U.S. on July 29th. Qin said, “I believe that the door of China-US relations, which is already open, cannot be closed.” He said, over the past 50 years, the bilateral relationship has “kept moving forward despite twists and turns”. Moreover, it is expected that President Biden and President Xi will meet during G20 summit in Italy in October. The most optimistic expectation is that both leaders will agree on cancelling part of the additional tariffs.
- Although the growth of domestic demand has not yet fully
regained its pre-pandemic rate, it is also steadily picking up speed. Over
the first half this year, the total retail sales of consumer goods hit
US$3.27 trillion, up 23% compared with the same period last year, and the
average growth in the first half year over the past two years has been
4.4%, 0.2% higher than that of the first quarter.
- China has reported 328 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in
July, close to the total number of cases in the past five months. 15
provincial regions have reported locally transmitted, confirmed or
asymptomatic cases, he said. The Delta variant entered China from Russia
through the airport in Nanjing has become the dominant strain of novel
coronavirus transmitted in China and poses a bigger challenge in epidemic
control efforts. It will possibly take 4-6 weeks to keep everything under
control when all the cases are being identified.
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