🔋From EVs to Nuclear: China Tops Science, Debunking Overcapacity Myths & Ant's Singapore Play 📚

2024-04-07

Welcome to the 1st edition of April! We've sifted through hundreds of sources to bring you the latest business and tech insights on China in under 5 minutes.

Hong Kong’s port loses ground as exporters pivot to mainland China

There has been a “structural change” in shippers’ preferences to “direct shipment in China instead of vessel-to-vessel transshipment” through Hong Kong. Container throughput in Hong Kong fell 14 percent last year to 14.3mn twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). Five of the six other Chinese ports in the top 10 reported a rise in container throughput last year.

Caixin survey shows China’s March factory activity at its most robust in 13 months

The Caixin/S&P Global China manufacturing purchasing managers’ index was 51.1 in March — its strongest since February 2023 — after coming in at 50.9 in February. Economists had expected the reading to hit 51, according to a Reuters poll. The 50-point mark separates expansion from contraction.

China’s universities just grabbed 8 of the top 10 spots in one worldwide science ranking – without changing a thing

Where once the list of universities with the highest scientific impact would have been Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and MIT, the new top 10 list of universities with high scientific impact includes eight universities from China. Only Harvard and the University of Toronto hold onto a top-10 spot.

US-Europe gripes on China overcapacity aren't all backed by Data

A look at the data suggests that while China does have widespread industrial overcapacity, much of this is driven by industries that Western nations don’t compete with China on, such as low-tech goods and those related to the nation’s property slump — from cement to furniture. For EVs, the issue for advanced economies appears to be more that Chinese companies are more efficient rather than loaded with excess capacity.

China Duty Free and IPPG to open duty-free shops in Vietnam

China Duty Free, owned by state-owned travel company China Tourism, has signed a deal with Vietnamese conglomerate Imex Pan Pacific Group (IPPG) to open three duty-free shops in Vietnam to draw in Chinese tourists.

Ant Group pumps another SGD 200 million into Singapore’s Anext Bank

Ant Group, a fintech giant affiliated with Alibaba Group, has injected an additional SGD 200 million (USD 147 million) into subsidiary Anext Bank, a Singapore-based digital bank. Including the latest injection, Anext Bank has received a total of USD 502 million to date from Ant Group.

GAC Aion teams up with Indomobil to expand in the Indonesian market

GAC Aion is accelerating its globalization strategy and entering multiple markets in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Its first overseas factory in Thailand, with a total investment of THB2.3 billion (USD62.7 million) and a planned annual production capacity of 50,000 units, started construction in January. Its first phase is expected to be completed in July.

China able to accelerate the world’s fastest nuclear power expansion

China can aim to approve as many as 10 new nuclear reactors a year to accelerate its rapid expansion of capacity. Three or four new reactors will be added to the national fleet this year to take China’s capacity to about 60.8 gigawatts. China should aim to raise nuclear capacity to about 400 gigawatts by 2060, which would lift the technology’s share of power generation to 18%.

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