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Ant Financial, Alibaba’s payments arm IPO

Ant Financial, Alibaba’s payments arm & one of the world’s top fintech companies, announced on Monday its long-awaited IPO with a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong soon. The company is valued at roughly $150 billion.
US-listed Chinese tech firm Alibaba’s shares opened 4% higher on Monday, after Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Group announced that it has commenced a concurrent IPO process on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Science and Technology Innovation Board and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

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China’s industrial robot production surged 29.2 percent year on year

China’s industrial robot production surged 29.2 percent year on year in June to 20,761 units, with the growth accelerating from 16.9 percent in May, official data showed. http://www.china.org.cn/business/2020-07/19/content_76288202.htm

China’s industrial robot production surged 29.2 percent year on year in June to 20,761 units, with the growth accelerating from 16.9 percent in May, official data showed.

In the first half of this year, the country produced 93,794 units of industrial robots, up 10.3 percent from the same period of last year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

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China’s GDP up 3.2% in Q2, becomes 1st major economy to return to growth.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1194694.shtml China’s GDP up 3.2% in Q2, becomes 1st major economy to return to growth in wake of COVID-19

China’s GDP contracted 1.6 percent for the first time in the first half of a year in nearly three decades, battered by COVID-19 headwinds. But in the second quarter, the economy grew 3.2 percent, reversing from a 6.8-percent contraction in the first quarter, a sign of the resilience deeply rooted in China’s economy amid a global freefall when the coronavirus pandemic has plunged most major economies into a near standstill.

Retail sales plummeted 11.4 percent year-on-year to 17.22 trillion yuan ($2.46 trillion) in the first half. Industrial added-value contracted 1.3 percent, while fixed-asset investment slumped 3.1 percent to 28.16 trillion yuan, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

The unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in June, a 0.2 percentage point decrease compared with May, the data showed.

“The second-quarter performance was better than expected, as production on the supply side picked up and investment caught up. The economy in the latter half of the second quarter moved from post-virus recovery to periodic climbing up to a certain extent,” Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association, told the Global Times. 

In June alone, retail sales sank 1.8 percent year-on-year, narrowing from a 2.8 percent contraction in May. Industrial value-added rose 4.8 percent, marking the third consecutive month of renewed growth.

Despite what might be the low single-digit growth in the second quarter, China could still achieve best-in-class results among the world’s major economies and lead the global recovery in the wake of the pandemic, analysts said.

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Global investors bought a record 4.3 tln yuan in yuan-denominated Chinese govt bonds in Q2

Global investors bought a record 4.3 tln yuan in yuan-denominated Chinese govt bonds in Q2, as the bonds becoming the new safe haven for global investors, data provider CEIC showed. Total holdings of Chinese govt bonds by foreign investors have reached 1.5 tln yuan.

Investors seeking shelter from the turbulence in markets have found a new haven: Chinese sovereign bonds.

Foreign capital flowed into locally denominated Chinese government bonds in the second quarter at the fastest pace since late 2018, according to data from CEIC, an economic data provider. It surpassed 4.3 trillion yuan ($619 billion), the highest on record. https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-find-new-safe-place-to-hide-chinese-bonds-11594632600