CBN丨China's first supply chain expo attracts large MNCs with 20% US participation|李莹_新浪财经

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Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

US firms account for 20% of foreign exhibitors of China's first supply chain expo;
Guangzhou becomes the first top-tier city to drop land auction price ceiling.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

A number of companies from the United States will present their latest products and technological solutions at the inaugural China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing next week, underscoring their long-term commitment to the Chinese market, the country's top foreign trade and investment promotion agency said on Tuesday.

The CISCE, which will be held from November 28 to December 2 in Beijing, will have 26 percent international exhibitors from 55 countries and regions, of which 36 percent will be US and European companies, said the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

About 20 percent of the CISCE's international exhibitors are US companies such as Apple, Intel, Exxon-Mobil, Cargill, Honeywell, Qualcomm, FedEx Express and GE HealthCare, and a number of global 500 and multinational companies will send senior representatives to the expo as well.

"Many US companies view the CISCE as a platform for launching new products, showcasing innovations and fostering collaborations," Zhang Shaogang, vice chairman of the CCPIT, said during the Tuesday press conference.

For example, Honeywell will showcase auxiliary power units for wide-body aircraft for the first time, and GE Healthcare will showcase its safe, stable, visible and touchable international supply chain for the first time with production, supply and overseas marketing chains, according to Zhang.

Enterprises from South Africa, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, African Union countries, Portuguese-speaking countries, and Latin American and Caribbean countries will also participate in the CISCE in the form of national and regional booths, said Zhang.

A total of 515 Chinese and foreign enterprises and institutions will participate in the expo, displaying new technologies, new products and new services in the key links of the global supply chain, the vice chairman said.

"With our designed matching system, we have matched more than 30 buyers with more than 200 exhibitors each. A number of exhibitors have already booked booths at the second CISCE," said Zhang.

Covering a total exhibition area of 100,000 square meters, the first CISCE features five supply chains — smart vehicle, green agriculture, clean energy, digital technology and healthy life — as well as a supply chain service exhibition area.

Moving on to regional highlights

Guangzhou has become China’s first tier-1 city to drop price ceiling set for land auction as the newly listed lots will adopt the “highest bidder gets it” rule, leaving only four cities in the country that still hold on to the centralized land sale system introduced in 2021 to curb rising home prices. Information from the city’s public resources trading center showed on Tuesday that a new batch of land transfers that is expected to be auctioned on December 22 will be sold to the highest bidders, and there is no maximum transaction prices for the spots. In the first 10 months of the year, land sales in Guangzhou slipped 7.6 percent year on year to 95.15 billion yuan, while the total construction area was down 23 percent to 5.55 million square meters.
Volkswagen (Anhui) Components Co., Volkswagen Group's first wholly-owned battery system plant in China, started production on Tuesday in Hefei, the capital of east China's Anhui Province. The high-voltage battery system produced at the plant is a crucial component for Volkswagen Anhui's MEB (Modular Electric Drive Matrix) electric vehicle production, marking the latest milestone in the group's strategic development of Hefei as a high-tech intelligent connected vehicles hub. Covering an area of 45,000 square meters, the base sits next to the production facilities of Volkswagen Anhui and has an initial annual capacity of 150,000 to 180,000 high-voltage battery systems.
Manzhouli, China's largest land port located in north China's Inner Mongolia, has registered a surge in cargo volume so far this year, according to the port administration office. Manzhouli handled more than 20 million tons of cargo from January to Nov. 20, up 39.9 percent year on year. So far this year, Manzhouli port has handled 4,353 China-Europe freight train trips, transporting a total of 472,900 twenty-foot equivalent units of cargo.

Greater Bay Area, Greater future

Guangdong issued a three-year plan to digitalize the development of the Greater Bay Area (GBA), so as to build it into one of the world's highest level of digital bay area, according to a press conference by the provincial government on Tuesday. Guangdong will make use of the cooperation zones in Hengqin, Qianhai and Nansha, as well as the Hetao, as platforms to optimize the distribution services and classification management of cross-border data. The southern province will also work with Hong Kong and Macao to integrate a series of digital resources such as network, computing power, storage and data of the three regions to optimize the sharing and publishing of computing resources in GBA. According to the action plan, by 2025, the "digital Bay Area" will be basically built, with relevant regulatory rules and digital infrastructure within the area effectively connected and capabilities in computing and storage in balanced development.
The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) launched a new digital platform for initial public offerings (IPO) on Wednesday, with an eye on breathing life into the city’s primary market by speeding up settlements and reducing investor risks on a bourse where IPO listings are at a two-decade low. The “Fast Interface for New Issuance” (FINI) will shorten the settlement cycle to two days from five, by modernizing and digitalizing Hong Kong’s IPO settlement process.

Next on industry and company news

A Foxconn-affiliated company Industrial Fulian, a subsidiary of Foxconn, was fined 20,000 yuan by the taxation department in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, for fabricating false tax information and violating the law on tax collection, as a data service company showed. The fine came after Chinese mainland tax authorities conducted tax inspects on key enterprises of Foxconn in several provinces.
Oriental Selection, the livestreaming studio of Chinese education giant New Oriental Education, announced late Tuesday that it would sell its education business to its parent company for 1.5 billion yuan. After the sale, Oriental Selection will no longer operate any online education business that overlaps with New Oriental, but focus separately on livestreaming, the studio said in the filing.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp said it is beefing up investment in its electric vehicle business, with car-related research and development personnel reaching about 3,000. The Hong Kong-listed company, however, did not disclose its current level of investment in EVs nor details of its planned investment expansion. It made the comments after a government website revealed the specifications of Xiaomi cars.
Chinese battery giant CATL has reached a preliminary agreement with Stellantis to supply lithium iron phosphate batteries to the European carmaker in the local market. Stellantis and CATL signed a memorandum of understanding for the local supply of LFP battery cells and modules to power the former's electric vehicle production in Europe, according to a statement released by Stellantis on Tuesday.
The property management unit of Dalian Wanda Group wants to push back the maturity of a $600 million bond by nearly a year, highlighting the property conglomerate’s deepening liquidity crunch. Dalian Wanda Commercial Management said Tuesday that it is seeking to delay the payment on the 7.25-percent note by 11 months due to liquidity pressures. The 10-year dollar-denominated notes, issued by its subsidiary Wanda Properties International Co., are set to mature on Jan. 29, 2024.
ByteDance’s Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that has over 600 million daily active users, has tightened its screening of advertisers. Under Douyin’s new requirement, which will come into effect on Thursday, advertisers looking to promote short-form dramas – budget productions with each episode lasting only a few minutes – will need to show proper licensing documents, according to a notice published by the company’s advertising arm on Monday.

Earnings reports express

China internet search leader Baidu swung to a net profit of 6.7 billion yuan for the quarter that ended September, beating expectations. Sales grew 6 percent to 34.4 billion yuan from July to September, with revenue from its online marketing services climbing 5 percent to 19.7 billion yuan and income from video-streaming platform iQIYI rising 7 percent to 8 billion yuan. The company this year delivered China's first major riposte to OpenAI's ChatGPT, Ernie Bot, which has amassed 70 million users, and it claims its self-developed model has matched GPT-4 in terms of general capabilities. Founder and CEO Robin Li said in yesterday's earning call that Baidu is actively looking for alternatives of AI chips despite having enough stockpile for the next one to two years. Meanwhile, Sandy Xu Ran, chief executive of online mall JD.com, will join Baidu's board as an independent director effective from January.

Switching gears to financial news

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Bank of Cambodia on Tuesday to establish renminbi clearing arrangements in Cambodia. The two central banks also signed another memorandum of understanding on the cooperation in financial innovation and payment systems, the PBOC said in a statement.

Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market

Chinese stocks edged down on Wednesday as the benchmark Shanghai Composite fell 0.8 percent and the Shenzhen Component lost 1.4 percent. Hong Kong shares were barely changed with the Hang Seng index closing flat and the TECH index slid 0.2 percent.

Biz Word of the Day

The China-Europe Railway Express is a key logistical cog in the Belt and Road Initiative. The cross-continent network has served as a critical pipeline for Chinese exports to Europe in the past few years, becoming the modern day "steel camel caravans" that transport goods between China and Europe. Five China-Europe freight train service routes now have trains running on prescheduled timetables.