Latest news with #yuan
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Mainland China, Hong Kong launching Payment Connect scheme to facilitate capital flows
China's central bank is launching a new connect programme with Hong Kong to facilitate cross-border payments – Beijing's latest move to open up its financial sector and also leverage the southern financial centre to better connect with the rest of the world. The Payment Connect programme will link the mainland's Internet Banking Payment System and Hong Kong's Faster Payment System (FPS), allowing users to make payments and wire money faster and more conveniently. The programme will begin on Sunday. 'It's another milestone in deepening financial cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong. It fully indicates the central government's determination to consolidate and improve Hong Kong's international financial status,' Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, said at the launch ceremony on Friday in Beijing. '[The connect programme] will improve the efficiency of cross-border payments, facilitate economic and trade cooperation, as well as boost people exchanges,' he said. 'It will bring new vigour for Hong Kong's development and also boost cross-border use of the yuan.' Eddie Yue, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said the scheme provided residents and institutions with a safe, efficient and convenient payment option, while also hailing the deepening economic cooperation.
The Star
2 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Shopping gala boosts market vitality
Chinese consumers unleashed their massive purchasing power during the midyear "618" shopping carnival, a weekslong sales event that began in mid-May and reached a crescendo on Wednesday, June 18, which experts said is pivotal to bolstering the recovery of consumption and shoring up economic growth. They noted that the buying frenzy indicates the enormous vitality and potential of the country's consumer market, with household appliances and intelligent electronic products gaining popularity among Chinese shoppers amid the country's steps to boost consumption, including the expansion of the consumer goods trade-in program. To further stimulate people's purchasing appetites, they called for more measures to increase household incomes, distribute consumption coupons, and nurture diversified purchasing scenarios and new types of consumption. Data from e-commerce giant JD, which initiated the mid-year promotional campaign, showed that as of 11:59 pm on Wednesday, the number of users placing orders more than doubled year-on-year, while the total order volume from its online and offline retail and food delivery businesses exceeded 2.2 billion. The number of new electronic gadgets that saw their sales surpass 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) surged 200 percent year-on-year during the shopping extravaganza, which officially kicked off at 8 pm on May 30, JD said. The turnover of over 2,000 brands in the home appliances and home furnishing sector increased 100 percent from a year earlier. According to Tmall, Alibaba's business-to-customer platform, the sales of 453 brands exceeded 100 million yuan from 8 pm on May 16 to midnight on Wednesday, an increase of 24 percent compared with the same period last year. The transaction volume of Apple, Midea, Xiaomi, Huawei and Nike each reached more than 1 billion yuan during the promotional gala. In addition, outdoor sporting goods, beauty and skin care products, apparel and trendy toys witnessed robust growth on online marketplaces during the shopping extravaganza that now spans around one month. Noting that consumption has become the main driving force boosting China's economic growth, Hong Yong, an associate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said the online shopping bonanza has played a vital role in bolstering domestic demand, unleashing consumers' purchasing potential and shoring up the economy. Hong estimated that the country's consumer market is poised for steady growth this year, fueled by a series of pro-consumption policies, online shopping festivals and stable recovery of the macroeconomy despite external uncertainties. He called for more efforts to strengthen employment support, cultivate new types of consumption in the digital, green and intelligent fields, and improve the consumption environment, in order to boost people's ability and willingness to spend. In this year's Government Work Report, China listed vigorously boosting consumption and expanding domestic demand across the board as key priorities for 2025. Mo Daiqing, a senior analyst at the Internet Economy Institute, a domestic consultancy, said that e-commerce platforms have ramped up efforts to offer discounts and subsidies, increase support for small and medium-sized merchants, and simplify promotional methods to rev up sales. "The policy measures to expand the scope of the consumer goods trade-in program have not only stimulated consumers' desire to purchase, but also pushed up the sales of household appliances and electronic devices, and bolstered the popularisation of green and energy-saving products," Mo said. China's retail sales, a significant indicator of consumption strength, grew 6.4 percent year-on-year in May, marking the fastest growth since December 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Online sales remained a bright spot, expanding 8.5 percent year-on-year during the first five months. Jason Yu, general manager of CTR Market Research, said that Chinese consumers have become more value-conscious and prefer to purchase premium products with high cost-effectiveness, emphasising that retailers should step up investment in technological innovation and roll out new merchandise to attract more young shoppers. - China Daily/ANN
South China Morning Post
17 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
US dollar uncertainty propels use of e-CNY
The geopolitical world is becoming multipolar. Inevitably, the international monetary system is also evolving towards one where several sovereign currencies coexist and compete with each other. Advertisement As the second-largest economy, China must broaden the international role and appeal of the yuan. To this end, it makes sense to set up a new operations centre in Shanghai, the key mainland financial hub, to boost the yuan's global reach. As announced at the just-concluded Lujiazui Forum in the city, the international operations centre will pilot a range of monetary policy tools to complement the rolling out of the digital renminbi. The strategy underscores Beijing's determination to promote the use of the e-CNY, a central bank digital currency (CBDC), on a worldwide scale. At a time when most countries are still grappling with the concept of a CBDC, China is moving full steam ahead. Successful trials in the retail use of e-CNY have been carried out across a dozen Chinese cities since 2023, and in Hong Kong since last year. Advertisement A promising cross-border payments and banking system called 'mBridge' is linking the CBDCs from the central banks of China, Hong Kong, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.
South China Morning Post
20 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
China's payment system spreads across Africa and Asia amid US trade war
China's cross-border yuan payment system has signed up more financial entities from Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, as Beijing accelerates efforts to promote the global use of its currency amid rising tensions with the United States. A group of six financial institutions officially joined the yuan-based Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) as direct participants during a ceremony in Shanghai on Wednesday, becoming the latest entities to sign up to China's alternative to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) system. The newcomers include the African Export-Import Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, South Africa's Standard Bank, Singapore's United Overseas Bank, the Kyrgyzstan-based Eldik Bank, and Chongwa (Macau) Financial Asset Exchange, a state-owned asset trading platform from the special administrative region, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Beijing has been promoting the CIPS – which was first launched in 2015 – as it strives to expand the use of the yuan in global trade and hedge against any potential moves by the United States to impose financial sanctions on Chinese entities. The system had 174 direct participants as of the end of May, though most of them were made up of domestic and overseas branches of Chinese banks, as well as Chinese branches of global financial giants such as HSBC, JP Morgan and Citibank. A direct participant refers to an entity that owns a CIPS account and can directly remit through the system, while indirect participants have to rely on others to complete transactions on their behalf.
Business Times
a day ago
- Business
- Business Times
China's 618 shopping fest sets record, but daily spending slips
[BEIJING] China's largest mid-year shopping festival, 618, ended on Wednesday (Jun 19) with record sales, though daily spending dropped amid an extended sales period aimed at enticing consumers to part with more of their hard-earned money. The longer sales period helped the combined gross merchandise value (GMV), a business metric commonly used in e-commerce, reach an all-time high of 855.6 billion yuan (S$153.3 billion), according to retail data provider Syntun. That was 15.2 per cent higher than the prior year's 742.8 billion yuan. The festival, originally a single-day event celebrating founding on Jun 18, has evolved into a month-long affair spanning all major e-commerce platforms. This year's pre-sales began on May 13, a week longer than in 2024, leading to lower average daily spending of 2.31 billion yuan, compared with 2.48 billion yuan last year, according to Reuters calculations. Alibaba Group's Tmall kept its top position on sales, the data showed, followed by ByteDance's Douyin and Pinduoduo Holdings' Pinduoduo. Syntun did not provide sales figures for each platform. Despite the upbeat figures, the world's second-largest economy's retail sector continues to struggle due to concerns over employment stability, stalled wage growth and the ongoing property crisis. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Retailers and the government have sought to lift subdued spending by deepening discounts and expanding consumer subsidies but analysts say longer festivals and year-round discounts have dampened excitement for these kinds of events. 'I don't have anything special to buy during the 618 shopping festival. Because there are always great deals, I can buy whatever I need whenever,' said Xu Binqi, who works in Beijing's film industry. 'Take skincare products as an example, I buy them whenever I run out, and the prices are no higher than during the 618 festival.' Rachel Lee, general manager of market research firm Worldpanel China and co-author of Bain .'s recent China Shopper Report, said that when consumers are budget-conscious, they seek affordable alternatives, and discounts play a lesser role. 'Standalone promotional discounts will find it increasingly difficult to drive volume growth,' she said. This year, said the number of users placing orders for the 618 event more than doubled year on year, with over 2.2 billion orders across its online, offline and food delivery platforms. Alibaba said that 453 brands surpassed 100 million yuan in GMV over the 618 period. Brands that surpassed one billion yuan in GMV included Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Nike, Adidas, L'Oréal and Lululemon, Alibaba added. Retail growth, subsidy impact While the retail environment in China remains difficult, there are signs that consumption overall has picked up in recent months. Retail sales growth surpassed expectations in May, with official data showing a 6.4 per cent increase, the fastest growth since December 2023. Analysts pointed to the earlier start of 618, along with government consumer subsidies for goods such as home appliances and mobile phones, as twin drivers. Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, said the extended 618 festival front-loaded consumer demand, encouraging earlier spending and smoothing consumption trends into May. 'A longer 618 festival with low prices helps sustain engagement across weeks and has contributed materially to May's strong retail performance,' Cooke said. Analysts warn that a pause in subsidy programmes in several regions, as central government allocations dry up, could weigh on 618 sales and overall consumption this month, though more funds are likely to be allocated for those programmes in July. 'Rapid sales growth of key subsidy categories (such as home appliances) driven by the 618 shopping festival starting from quickly depleted funds,' HSBC analysts wrote in a note. Eve Wang, 32, reflected on the shift in spending habits: 'In the past, for example during events like Singles' Day and 618, I used to spend a lot of money on stockpiling goods, but now ... I only buy what I need.' REUTERS
