And business confidence in Britain has slumped to the lo
d to the lowest level in almost a decade.
”The reason for this underperformance relative to the rest of the world is, I believe, the uncertainty surrounding the prospect of Brexit,” Ge
Many banks have set up new offices in Germany, France,
ther EU countries to safeguard their regional business after Brexit. Financial services companies also have to move substantial asset
s there to satisfy EU regulators. Assets worth at least £1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) are leaving the country, according to consultancy EY.
Sony (SNE) and Panasonic (PCRFF) are both moving their European headquarters to the Netherlands.
Manufacturing comapanies, which need their supply chains to function seamlessly, have also made changes. Nissa
n (NSANF) has scrapped plans to build a new model in the United Kingdom, citing uncertainty over Brexit. Ger
man engineering group Schaeffler (SCFLF) is shutting two of its three factories in Britain for the same reason.
The biggest risk
The most dangerous scenario — a disorderly Brexit — could still come to pass.
EU leaders on Thursday granted the United Kingdom a short delay to Brexit, but the
country could still crash out of the bloc unless UK lawmakers agree a path forward.
The UK essentially now has three options, and each come
with increasingly urgent logic.
Option one: Approve the Withdrawal Agreement. The UK will then leave the EU on May 22 and enter the transition period. More on that later.
If MPs vote the deal down, then they have a decision to make by April 11: stand in the EU parliamentary elections or don’t.
Option two: Don’t stand in the elections, held between May 23-26, and leave the EU before then. It is unlikely that
any substantial new deal could be struck by this point. What the EU would do at this point is unclear.
Option three: Stand in the elections and request a long extension. This makes softer Brexit all but inevitabl
e and undoing Brexit a lot more likely.At some point next week, May will bring her Withdrawal Agreement back to the Com
mons. She needs to flip 75 MPs if she’s to win by a margin of one. Given she dedicated some of this week to accusing them of betraying the nation, it’s hard to see
them feeling charitable. All the PM can hope for is that the EU has bought a new level of focus to London.
Mobile payments continue meteoric risepayment deals has jump
Use of China’s mobile payment services has skyrocketed over the past five years, with total transactions covered reaching 277.39 trillion yua
n ($41.51 trillion) in 2018 — a more than 27-fold increase from five years ago, according to the central bank.
A total of 60.53 billion mobile payment transactions were conducted last year, as a repor
t released by the People’s Bank of China Monday shows, while the figure was only 1.67 billion back in 2013.
From around 2013, with online payments dominant and mobile payments only nas
cent, to 2018, which saw mobile payments outpacing the domestic market, it is easy to observe a mo
bilization trend in payment structures, Xue Hongyan with the Suning Institute of Finance told Securities Daily.
The number of China’s online payment deals has jumped from 23.67 billion in 2013 to 2018’s 57.01 billion, and trans
action value more than doubled to 2,126.3 trillion yuan in 2018 from 1,060.78 trillion yuan five years earlier.
As swine fever threat falls, most quarantines liftedrantines in
China has lifted pig quarantines in most of the areas where outbreaks of African swine fever have bee
n found, signaling a steady slowdown in the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday.
Since the first outbreak of the deadly pig disease was discovered in Au
gust in Northeast China’s Liaoning province, 113 cases in 28 provincial-level regions have be
en confirmed by the ministry. Restrictions on the transport of pigs in 105 of those cases have been lifted.
The ministry has imposed strict quarantine measures in affecte
d areas and ramped up supervision of pig farms, transport businesses and the pork proc
essing industry after the onset of the highly contagious viral disease. Humans are not affected.
Yu Kangzhen, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, said the spread of the virus has
slowed because of measures imposed by the authorities, but added that it’s difficult to wipe out the disease in the short term.
But Friday’s outrage in New Zealand was more about the
cancer of race hate than guns. It is an evil that has been with us for long, but it seems the cancer is now metastatic-it is spreading. It is be
ing spread by white, right-wing bigots who see conspiracies around every corner, and by religious zealots that are found in most religions.
In the summer of 2011, an anti-Islamic right-wing extremist killed 77 people in Norway in a planned terrorist attack.
Recent years have seen a surge in white supremacist violence in the United States. Every terrorist killing in the US last ye
ar was linked to right-wing extremism, according to the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.
And let us not forget the part social media have played in providing a platform for a
ll racists and terrorists to spread their evil bile and distorted views of the world. Terrorism experts will say Ne
w Zealand was probably a soft target. Most of its police officers are not armed and the threat of terrorism is not high. Bu
t terrorist attacks have also taken place in countries where police officers are heavily armed and security is very tight.
focused online brokerage Up Fintech Holding makes Nasdaq debu
NEW YORK – UP Fintech Holding Limited, a leading online brokerage firm focusing on global Chinese investors, rang th
e Nasdaq Stock Market opening bell on Wednesday in celebration of its initial public offering (IPO).
The company, known in Asia as “Tiger Brokers,” trading under the ticker symbol of “TIGR,” announced its IPO of 13 mill
ion American depositary shares (ADSs), each representing 15 Class A ordinary shares, at a price to the public of $8 per ADS.
UP Fintech Holding started trading at $8.10 per share on Wednesd
ay, climbing 24.6 percent from its pricing, and was traded at $9.97 apiece around midday.
Citi and Deutsche Bank acted as lead managers on the deal.
Online brokers utilize APPs and websites to provide integrated online securities services, incl
uding customer acquisition, account opening, securities trading and other value-added services.
It’s essential to always stay close to the latest technology t
better serve the public,” said Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum.
Shan said there is still much room for improvement in the handling of a huge number of cultu
ral relics, such as when the priceless painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival is exhibited again next year.
The Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) landscape painting is considered the best-known a
ncient Chinese work of art. When it was last exhibited in 2015, visitors stood in long lines until 3 am to get a
glimpse. The museum ended up preparing instant noodles to serve the hungry visitors.
“I don’t want that scenario to recur,” Shan said. “Our operation can be done in a more scientific way.”
The new system will make use of the more than 3,000 closed-circuit television cameras that
are installed all over the Palace Museum. Shan said facial-recognition technology will determine whi
ch areas are most popular with frequent visitors in order to analyze their preferences.
While China is already the world’s biggest gas importer, with
billion cu m of gas shipment last year, a
year-on-year increase of 31.7 percent, it has only 26 gas stora
ge sites with just 8 billion cu m in storage as of 2018, contributing 3 percent of the country’s total gas consumption.
Analysts believe insufficient infrastructure, including underground gas storage an
d natural gas pipelines, is standing in the way of a more open and liberalized domestic gas sector in the country.
Li Li, research director at energy consulting company ICIS China, also suggested that the government should encourage the construction of gas storage ta
nks to prevent future gas shortages during cold snaps, considering the country’s high dependence on oil and gas imports.
To ensure sufficient gas supply, the country’s national oil majors are also ramping up loc
al oil and gas output, adding thousands of wells at oil basins, shale rocks and deepwater fields nationwide.
We are the first Chinese dairy maker to sell products abroa
and we will introduce more products tailored to the preferences of local consumers. In Indonesia, the penetration rate of yogurt is low and there are not many brands available, so there is a huge market potential,” Yu said.
