Trade:
Senior trade officials from the Trump administration concluded their meetings with Chinese counterparts without any formal announcements.
A team that included US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and trade representative Robert Lighthizer demanded a $200bn reduction in the Chinese trade surplus, lower tariffs and an end to high tech sector subsidies to Chinese firms, according to media reports.
They do not appear to have got very far, but Chinese state media noted there had been some points of agreement — even if some of that was simply agreeing to disagree.
"The two sides had a thorough exchange of views on issues including increasing U.S. exports to China, bilateral service trade, two-way investment, protection of intellectual property rights, as well as resolving tariff and non-tariff issues, reaching consensus in some areas," one Xinhua article noted. "Both sides recognized that given that considerable differences still exist on some issues, continued hard work is required for more progress."
The US trade delegation will seek Donald Trump’s decision on the next steps, the White House statement concluded. The delegation returned to Washington DC on Saturday.
Trump welcomed the team's return with a customary tweet on May 5: "We will be meeting tomorrow to determine the results, but it is hard for China in that they have become very spoiled with U.S. trade wins!"
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China will also seek to expedite business registrations, remedying the country’s lowly position in the World Bank’s latest ease of doing business rankings, according to a state media report published on May 4. China came in at 93rd, out of 190 countries.
The government is mainly planning to use technology to help speed the backlog. It will use electronic and internet platforms across 36 cities and regions to hit an 8.5 day maximum registration time by the end of 2018, cutting current average by more than half, according to Ma Zhengqi, deputy director of the state administration for market regulation.
“With new measures applied and the ease of doing business improved, China will also attract more investment from overseas,” Ma said.
Investment:
Bond Connect continues to see strong flows. Average daily turnover hit Rmb3.1bn and the number of registered investors reached 296 at the end of April, according to data by the company that manages Bond Connect.
So far this year, there has been a total trading volume of Rmb224.7bn. The scheme helped foreign holdings of Chinese onshore bonds rise to Rmb1.3tr by the end of March, up 13.6% from the end of 2017.
People news:
Huang Hongyuan has been named the chairman and party secretary of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, according to a May 6 announcement by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The decision was made at a May 4 meeting of the CSRC.
Liu Shiyu, chairman of the securities watchdog, talked up the news at the meeting, saying that Huang’s appointment showed that the Communist Party leadership and the State Council care deeply about the CSRC and the development of capital markets in China. Liu said the CSRC will seek to fulfil the three major objectives set out by the leadership: serving the real economy, providing a safeguard against financial risk, and deepening financial reform.
Huang has been president of the Shanghai bourse since 2012 and spent a year before that as a vice president. Before joining the exchange, he worked for the People’s Bank of China and the CSRC.
Hubs:
Offshore RMB liquidity is easing. Deposits in Hong Kong jumped 9.3% year-on-year to Rmb554bn by the end of March. That was 0.7% higher than a month earlier.