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FILE PHOTO – Apartment blocks are pictured during sunset on the outskirts of Tianjin, China February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo
February 22, 2019
By Yawen Chen and Philip Wen
ZHENGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Growth in China’s new home prices eased slightly in January from December, in initial signs the property market is cooling as the economy slows, but price gains in annual terms accelerated.
Weaker economic momentum and the government’s drive to dampen speculation have hurt buyer sentiment but price growth has stayed relatively resilient as policymakers avoid triggering financial risks with a sharp slowdown in the key sector.
Average new home prices in China’s 70 major cities rose 0.6 percent in January, the weakest pace since April 2018, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.
That was slower than December’s 0.8 percent monthly growth but marked 45 straight months of price increases, Reuters calculations showed.
Still, on an annual basis, home prices increased 10 percent in January, accelerating from a 9.7 percent pace in December. Fifty-eight of the total 70 cities surveyed by the NBS reported higher prices in January, down from 59 in December.
China’s economy grew at its weakest pace in 28 years last year due to trade frictions and Beijing’s multi-year campaign to crack down on debt risks, weighing on consumer sentiment and the outlook for the country’s residential property market.
Some smaller cities have quietly loosened property policies to stabilize market sentiment. In December, Heze, a city in eastern China, reversed a rule designed to curb real estate flipping.
Price growth in China’s tier-1 cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou – rose 0.4 percent from a month earlier, compared with an increase of 1.3 percent in December, the statistics bureau said in a statement accompanying the data.
For tier-2 provincial capitals and smaller tier-3 cities, the official survey showed monthly price gains of 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.
China’s biggest developer by sales, Country Garden, China Vanke and China Evergrande all posted lower contract sales in January compared with a year earlier.
New household loans, mostly mortgages, increased by 989.8 billion yuan in January, accounting for 30.6 percent of total new loans in January, central bank data showed last week.
Cooling China’s property market: https://tmsnrt.rs/2rL5vat
(Reporting by Yawen Chen and Philip Wen in ZHENGZHOU; Min Zhang in BEIJING; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Source: OANN
Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso attends the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Tokyo, Japan January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
February 22, 2019
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump has never mentioned currencies when discussing trade with Japan.
Aso, speaking to reporters, said Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have agreed that currencies would be discussed between each country’s finance ministry.
Aso spoke in response to a question about media reports that the United States had requested a provision on yuan stability in trade talks with China and how that could affect Japan’s trade talks with the United States.
(Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)
Source: OANN
President Donald Trump plans to meet with China’s top trade negotiator Friday afternoon as the U.S. tries to forge a preliminary deal with its biggest economic rival before tariffs on some Chinese imports more than double next month, two people familiar with the matter said.
The meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would cap the latest round of talks in Washington, with Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leading the U.S. delegation. Plans for a meeting between Trump and Liu signal optimism that talks are making sufficient progress to warrant another face-to-face meeting between the two men.
As the discussions continued Thursday, reports emerged that negotiators are working on memorandums of understanding that would form the basis of a final deal. The MoUs would cover areas including agriculture, non-tariff barriers, services, technology transfer and intellectual property, according to a person briefed on the talks.
The U.S. and China have set a March 1 deadline to negotiate an agreement before American tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports rise to 25 percent from 10 percent. In a Twitter post on Sunday, after a week-long round of talks in Beijing, Trump said “big progress being made on soooo many different fronts!”
China is proposing that it could buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn and wheat as part of a possible trade deal, according to people with knowledge of the plan.
The U.S. is also asking China to keep the value of the yuan stable to neutralize any effort to devalue the currency to counter U.S. tariffs.
The White House declined to comment about a Trump-Liu meeting Friday.
Investors are keeping a close eye on negotiations considering a setback could undermine global markets as concerns grow that the bilateral tensions are hurting world trade. Shipping giant Maersk said Thursday that profit will fall short of expectations and the outlook for this year is bleak, while South Korea and Japan have reported declines in exports.
Source: NewsMax Politics
FILE PHOTO – A Baidu sign is seen during the fourth World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China, December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
February 21, 2019
(Reuters) – Chinese search engine operator Baidu Inc beat Wall Street estimates for fourth quarter revenue and profit on Thursday, aided by strong growth in its online marketing business.
Revenue for the segment rose nearly 4 percent to 21.2 billion yuan ($3.15 billion) in the quarter ended Dec. 31.
The company’s U.S.-listed shares were up nearly 3 percent to $176.75 in extended trading.
Baidu forecast first quarter revenue between 23.5 billion yuan and 24.7 billion yuan, while analysts had expected 24 billion yuan, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
The company in October had forecast fourth-quarter sales below analyst estimates, citing policy changes and the trade war.
Total revenue rose about 15 percent to 27.2 billion yuan, beating estimates of an 11.4 percent rise.
Net income attributable to the company fell to 2.08 billion yuan ($309.55 million) in the quarter, from 4.16 billion yuan a year earlier.
Excluding items, the company earned 13.18 yuan per American depositary share, beating estimates of 11.83 yuan per ADS.
(Reporting by Cate Cadell in Beijing; Additional reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A Chinese national flag flutters outside the headquarters of the People’s Bank of China, the Chinese central bank, in Beijing, China April 3, 2014. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic/File Photo
February 21, 2019
By Kevin Yao
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank is not yet ready to cut benchmark interest rates to spur the slowing economy, despite cooling inflation and a stronger yuan, which have fanned market expectations of such a move, policy sources told Reuters.
But the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is likely to cut market-based rates and further lower banks’ reserve ratios (RRR) to boost credit growth and reduce firms’ borrowing costs, according to the sources involved in internal policy discussions.
“We cannot rule out a (benchmark) rate cut, but we still need to watch economic data for a few months,” one said. “There is no sufficient reason for cutting benchmark rates if we look at the huge amount of new loans in January.”
China’s trading partners and major central banks are increasingly concerned over how quickly the world’s second-largest economy is decelerating, with investors asking if Beijing needs to speed up or intensify support measures to reduce the risk of a sharper slowdown.
Analysts polled by Reuters expect China’s official growth rate to cool to 6.3 percent in 2019, a 29-year low, and some believe real activity is already much weaker than government data suggest.
But China watchers note the PBOC has many policy tools to choose from before turning to blunter instruments such as a lending rate cut, which would bring down financing costs across the board but risk adding to a mountain of debt.
More RRR cuts have been widely expected in coming quarters after five over the past year, most recently in January. The PBOC has also been guiding money market rates lower in various ways, and offered a slightly better rate on a new medium-term lending program launched in January.
The PBOC did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Kevin Yao; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, second from left, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, third from left, and Chinese Vice Premier and lead trade negotiator Liu He, second from right, pose for a photo before the opening session of trade negotiations at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS
February 21, 2019
By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and China have started to outline commitments in principle on the stickiest issues in their trade dispute, marking the most significant progress yet toward ending a seven-month trade war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The world’s two largest economies have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of goods, slowing global economic growth, skewing supply chains and disrupting manufacturing.
As officials hold high level talks on Thursday and Friday in Washington, they remain far apart on demands made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for structural changes to China’s economy.
But the broad outline of what could make up a deal is beginning to emerge from the talks, the sources said, as the two sides push for an agreement by March 1. That marks the end of a 90-day truce that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to when they met in Argentina late last year.
Negotiators are drawing up six memorandums of understanding on structural issues: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, according to two sources familiar with the progress of the talks.
At meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials last week in Beijing the two sides traded texts and worked on outlining obligations on paper, according to one of the sources.
The process has become a real trade negotiation, the source said, so much so that at the end of the week the participants considered staying in Beijing to keep working. Instead they agreed to take a few days off and reconvene in Washington.
The sources requested anonymity to speak candidly about the talks.
GETTING COMMITMENTS IN WRITING
The MOUs cover the most complex issues affecting the trading relationship between the two countries and are meant, from the U.S. perspective, to end the practices that led Trump to start levying duties on Chinese imports in the first place.
One source cautioned that the talks could still end in failure. But the work on the MOUs was a significant step in getting China to sign up both to broad principles and to specific commitments on key issues, he said.
The United States has accused Beijing of forcing U.S. companies doing business in China to share their technology with local partners and hand over intellectual property secrets. China denies it engages in such practices.
Trump administration officials also object to non-tariff barriers in China, including industrial subsidies, regulations, business licensing procedures, product standards reviews and other practices that they say keep U.S. goods out of China or give an unfair advantage to domestic firms.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has pushed for China to open its financial services markets to more foreign firms, including credit card giants Visa and MasterCard, which have waited years for China to make good on promises to allow them to operate there.
On currency, U.S. officials including Mnuchin have warned China against devaluing its yuan to gain a competitive advantage after the Chinese currency weakened significantly against the dollar last year, partly counteracting Trump’s tariffs.
The two sides were discussing an enforcement mechanism for the deal, the source said. Reuters reported last month that the United States was pushing for regular reviews of China’s progress on pledged trade reforms and could reinstate tariffs if it deems Beijing has violated the agreement.
The parties also were looking at a 10-item list of ways that China could reduce its trade surplus with the United States, including by buying agricultural produce, energy and goods such as semiconductors, according to two other sources familiar with the talks.
CLOCK IS TICKING
Time is running short ahead of the March 1 deadline to resolve the dispute or see U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods rise from 10 percent to 25 percent. Trump said on Tuesday he thought China had an incentive to move swiftly.
“I think they’re trying to move fast so that doesn’t happen,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, while not ruling out the possibility of extending the deadline.
Lower-level officials held a round of talks in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday. They will be joined on Thursday by the top level negotiators, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and David Lawder in WASHINGTON; Editing by Simon Webb and Sonya Hepinstall)
Source: OANN
Visitors look at a stock quotation board at Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo Japan, October 11, 2018. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
February 21, 2019
By Daniel Leussink
TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares held near 4-1/2-month highs on Thursday after U.S. Federal Reserve minutes affirmed it would be “patient” on interest rate rises and risk assets got a lift from hopes of further progress in U.S.-China trade talks.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan were steady in early trade, hovering just off their highest since early October.
Australian shares gave up early gains, last trading 0.1 percent lower, but the Australian dollar rallied in the wake of strong full-time jobs figure.
Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.3 percent after closing at a two-month high during the previous session.
Investors eyed signs of progress in the latest round of trade negotiations between the United States and China, amid expectations that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping next month to strike a deal.
Trump said on Tuesday that trade negotiations were going well and suggested he was open to pushing off the deadline to complete negotiations, saying March 1 was not a “magical” date.
“We’ll see the Asian market start on the front foot, but we’ll need another catalyst, another driver, to take us to strong moves to the top side,” said Nick Twidale, chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities Australia in Sydney.
“We’ve got the Fed Minutes out of the way. They were a big event risk for a lot of (participants in) the market. They’ve come in largely in expectation with what the market was thinking.”
On Wall Street, all three major U.S. equity indexes ended in positive territory on Wednesday after minutes from the Fed’s Jan. 29-30 meeting indicated policymakers see little risk to leaving rates alone, for now.
“The bar to restarting rate hikes in the near term seems to be quite high, with several participants arguing that rate increases would be necessary “only if inflation outcomes were higher than in (the) baseline outlook”, Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note.
“The upshot is we now expect the Fed to leave rates unchanged throughout this year, before a further deterioration in economic growth forces it to cut rates by a total of 75 basis points in 2020,” he said.
The Fed signaled it will soon lay out a plan to stop letting go of $4 trillion in bonds and other assets, though policymakers are still debating how long their newly adopted “patient” stance on U.S. rates policy will last.
AUSSIE JUMPS, EURO STEADY
In the currency market, the Australian dollar was in the spotlight after Australia added more full-time employment in January as expected.
The Aussie rallied more than half a percent to a two-week high of $0.72075 after the release of the figures, which showed Australia added 65,400 in full-time employment in January, with the unemployment rate steady at 5.0 percent.
The euro held steady at $1.1341. Purchasing manager indexes for the euro zone are due on Thursday and investors are also eying the release of minutes from the European Central Bank’s January meeting later in the day.
Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was about 0.1 percent lower at 110.70 yen, moving off a seven-week peak of 111.13 reached last week.
The offshore Chinese yuan was steady at 6.7174 per dollar after touching its highest in about three weeks during the previous session.
The United States is seeking to secure a pledge from China it will not devalue its yuan as part of an agreement intended to end the countries’ trade war, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
In the commodity market, crude prices rose more than 1 percent on Wednesday to their highest in 2019 on hopes that oil markets will balance later this year. [O/R]
Oil prices were also helped by output cuts from top producers and U.S. sanctions on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members Iran and Venezuela.
U.S. crude was last up nearly 0.1 percent, or 5 cents, at $57.21 per barrel. Brent was steady at $67.08.
Gold rose 0.2 percent on the day to $1,341.20, crawling its way back up to a 10-month peak of $1,346.70 scaled on Wednesday.
(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
Source: OANN
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
February 21, 2019
By Shinichi Saoshiro
TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar held gains on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting revived expectations for a possible U.S. rate hike this year while investors shifted their focus back to trade issues for fresh directional cues.
The greenback had edged up against the yen and trimmed losses versus the euro late on Wednesday after the Fed, in the minutes of its latest meeting in January, said the U.S. economy and its labor market remained strong, prompting some expectations of at least one more interest rate hike this year.
The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies was little changed at 96.500.
The Fed caught markets off guard last month after it took a dovish turn in its commentary, widely read as a sign it would suspend a three-year campaign to raise interest rates.
“The dollar drew some lift as the minutes appeared to have appeased market participants who were clinging to views that the Fed would hike rates one more time this year – but all in all, the minutes were in line with what the Fed said in January,” said Daisuke Karakama, chief market economist at Mizuho Bank.
“The market’s focal point will now shift back to trade. The U.S.-China trade negotiation deadline could be extended and that may mean Europe and Japan could be faced with trade issues.”
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States would impose tariffs on European car imports if it cannot reach a trade deal with the European Union.
The dollar was a shade weaker at 110.785 yen after rising 0.25 percent overnight.
The euro was little changed at $1.1345 after being nudged off a two-week high of $1.1371 scaled earlier on Wednesday.
The pound dipped 0.1 percent to $1.3039 after pulling back from a near three-week high of $1.3109 touched the previous day.
Sterling took a knock after three lawmakers defected from British Prime Minister Theresa May’s ruling Conservative party in a move that could undermine her Brexit strategy.
The pound was also weighed after Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday it may downgrade the United Kingdom’s “AA” debt rating based on growing Brexit uncertainty.
The Australian dollar was up 0.1 percent at $0.7169 and in reach of a two-week peak of $0.7183 brushed on Wednesday.
The Aussie had risen the previous day as hints of progress in Sino-U.S. trade talks lifted the Chinese yuan.
(Graphic: World FX rates in 2019 http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh)
(Editing by Sam Holmes)
Source: OANN
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