by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Commodity Market, Economy, Investing, Markets, Medium Enterprise, News
New Delhi : China’s investment in foreign wind-powered electricity markets has surpassed $12 billion in Europe and Australia alone as private and state-owned Chinese companies move aggressively to capitalise on fast-growing renewable energy markets, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said on Thursday.
Most of the wind investment activity has been in Europe.
“China is now a driver of the European energy transformation and its international leadership in low emissions sectors of the future are entirely aligned with efforts to increase China’s global economic influence,” Sydney-based IEEFA analyst Simon Nicholas said.
“While Chinese foreign renewable energy investments were boosted by the launch five years ago of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its foreign renewable energy investment now extends well beyond that framework.
“This is a superpower taking its energy policy global,” Nicholas said.
IEEFA’s research brief says China’s foreign renewable energy investments have increased as a result of the country’s pan-Asian Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but the majority of these investments are not in BRI countries.
Interestingly, in BRI countries and in non-BRI developing countries, China continues to build coal-fired power projects as opportunities for domestic coal projects dry up.
The brief builds on an IEEFA paper published in January that described how China has become a leading global renewable energy investor “defying an overall slowdown in Chinese overseas investment as the country further positioned itself to dominate in new energy technologies such as batteries and electric vehicles”.
That report put China’s 2017 investment in new energy technology and resources at $44 billion, up from $32 billion in 2016.
In 2017, the Chinese government began restructuring its power-generation sector in an effort to reduce reliance on coal and exported China’s renewable energy technology while continuing to promote its coal technology in foreign developing markets.
Chinese foreign energy investment from 2003 to 2017 was dominated by hydro and coal-fired power, with wind and solar coming to the fore more recently by way of technology gains, efficiency improvements and dramatic declines in cost.
The briefing notes, however, that while Chinese wind and solar investment goes well beyond the BRI to developed nations, coal-fired power activity remains high within the BRI and in other developing countries.
“From 2003 to 2017, the majority of China’s foreign power investments in Southeast Asia went to hydro ($45 billion) and coal ($12 billion) projects, amounts significantly higher than Chinese wind investment in the European Union ($6.8 billion) and Australia ($5 billion).
“Although this trend is influenced by the fact that wind and solar investment has ramped up only within the last few years, it is clear that Chinese coal power investment is restricted more to the BRI and to developing countries.
The brief includes notes on Chinese companies that include China General Nuclear, China Resources Power, China Shenhua Group, China Three Gorges, State Development and Investment Corp, China Huadian Corp, and China Huaneng Group.
The US-based IEEFA conducts global research and analyses on financial and economic issues related to energy and the environment.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Investing, SMEs, World
Beijing : China on Tuesday said it is not threatened by growing American investments in infrastructure and other sectors of the Asian economy.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had announced on Monday that Washington would be investing $113 million in energy, technology and infrastructural initiatives in Asia, to possibly counteract growing Chinese influence in the region.
“It is a good thing that the US and other countries will increase imports to develop infrastructure and connectivity in this region,” Chinese Foreign Affairs spokesperson Geng Shuang was cited as saying by Efe news.
“We(…) will never seek domination in the Indo-Pacific, and we will oppose any country that does that,” Pompeo had said, in a fresh warning to Beijing in the face of growing tensions in the South China Sea, where countries like Vietnam and the Philippines have disputed China’s claim over a number of islands.
“We hope these countries make investments and carry out imports with the aim of increasing the benefits for the well-being of this region,” said Geng, adding that China was willing to work with the US and other countries to ensure economic growth and regional development.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Beijing : Farmers in the US are paying the price President Dona;d Trump’s trade tactics, China said on Thursday.
Trump posted a tweet on Wednesday alleging that China was attacking the US agricultural sector.
“US farmers are paying for the bullying of their government,” Efe quoted China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang as saying at a press conference on Thursday.
Geng’s statement came after Trump had accused Beijing on Wednesday of hurting US farmers for imposing tariffs on US agricultural products – particularly soybeans – worth $34 billion.
These measures were in response to the first set of tariffs imposed by Trump on Chinese imports – especially technological goods – for the same amount.
Geng reminded that in June 2017 the two sides reached an agreement regarding beef exports from the US to China, and in May this year, the two countries held significant talks in Washington on trade issues with China committing to increasing agricultural imports.
“These agreements could have gone well; regrettably it didn’t turn out that well because of US unilateralism and trade protectionism. (The US) is bent on igniting a trade war with China,” Geng said.
He added that China has been a major buyer of US agricultural products for many years and bilateral cooperation in agriculture had expanded, bringing tangible benefits to both sides.
Trump’s allegations came a day after the US Department of Agriculture announced a plan worth $12 billion to compensate farmers affected by Chinese tariffs, confirming the adverse effect of the trade war for producers.
“China is targeting our farmers, who they know I love & respect, as a way of getting me to continue allowing them to take advantage of the US. They are being vicious in what will be their failed attempt. We were being nice – until now! China made $517 Billion on us last year,” Trump tweeted.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Ovunc Kutlu,
New York: President Donald Trump said Friday he is ready to increase tariffs on goods that the U.S. imports from China to $500 billion.
“I’m ready to go to 500,” he told the CNBC network in an exclusive interview. “I’m not doing this for politics, I’m doing this to do the right thing for our country. We have been ripped off by China for a long time,” he said.
The U.S. imported $505 billion in Chinese goods in 2017, while China imported $130 billion in American products, according to the Commerce Department.
That made China the country that the U.S. has the biggest trade deficit with $375 billion last year.
So far, Washington imposed $34 billion worth of tariffs on China, with $16 billion to come at a later point, and also said it would assess 10 percent tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth Chinese goods.
Yet, Trump said he did not introduce tariffs “out of any ill will towards China,” according to CNBC.
“I don’t want them to be scared. I want them to do well,” Trump said. “I really like President Xi [Jinping] a lot, but it was very unfair,” he said.
Trump said Chinese officials, whom he did not identify, told him that nobody from past U.S. administrations would ever complain about trade relations between the two countries until he came into office.
“Now you’re more than complaining. We don’t like what you’re doing,” Trump said officials told him.
Trump also said the U.S. is “being taken advantage of” on trade and monetary policy.
Earlier, he took a swipe at the Federal Reserve by writing on Twitter that the central bank’s tightening monetary policy “hurts all that we have done” in economy.
In addition, he criticized the Fed for “taking away our big competitive edge” by raising interest rates as the American dollar is getting stronger — hindering the volume of goods the U.S. could export.
Trump told CNBC he is not happy about the Fed’s rate hikes, and argued that every time the economy and the stock market improves “they [the Fed] want to raise rates again.”
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Adem Salvarcioglu,
Ankara: China on Saturday warned state-owned media against highlighting the ongoing “trade war” with the U.S.
According to a story in Hong Kong-based newspaper South Morning Post, the Chinese government asked its media not to relate decline in the stock market and the depreciation of the Chinese Yuan to the trade war.
The government even advised against using the term “trade war” in stories, according to the story which quoted four employees.
The decision reportedly was taken to avoid panic in the public.
*Dilan Pamuk contributed to this story in Ankara
—AA
