China and the United States had originally planned a two-day trade negotiation in Washington DC. That was extended into the weekend and concluded on Sunday.
The two countries made “concrete progress on areas of technology transfer, intellectual property protection, tariffs escalation, services industry, agricultural industry and renminbi stability,” according to an official announcement by the Chinese government on Monday morning.
US president Donald Trump sent out the following message on Twitter on Sunday evening, local time: “As a result of these very productive talks, I will be delaying the US increase in tariffs now scheduled for March 1. Assuming both sides make additional progress, we will be planning a Summit for president Xi and myself, at Mar-a-Lago, to conclude an agreement. A very good weekend for [the] US and China!”
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Bond Connect Company Limited (BCCL) launched a primary market information platform on Friday, the first English-language portal to distribute information on onshore Chinese bonds to Bond Connect users.
BCCL also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Agricultural Development Bank of China, which became the first issuer to join the platform. The portal includes information such as bond size, maturity, interest rates, ratings and ISINs, as well as any official tender documents or issue announcements.
So far, ADBC is the only bank whose bonds are listed on the portal.
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The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) finished soliciting public opinion on rules for a new tech board on Friday. It received more than 500 suggestions, the stock exchange said in a notice.
In the same statement, the SSE announced the establishment of three new departments in preparation for launching the tech board. The departments will be responsible for approving prospective companies, supervising listed companies, and educating corporations about the tech board.
The progress on the tech board came after the newly-appointed China Securities Regulatory Commission chairman, Yi Huiman, paid a visit to the SSE on Wednesday and Thursday.
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In the latest quarterly monetary policy report published by the People’s Bank of China on Friday, the central bank confirmed that its current policy settings will be maintained.
Specifically, the central bank will keep its "prudent" monetary policy, continue with its counter-cyclical adjustments, maintain currency stability, attempt to reduce financial risks, and continue to support the private sector.
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House price inflation in China has slowed down for the third month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday.
The value of new homes other than government-subsidised housing increased 0.61% in January across 70 cities, the slowest pace in nine months.
Property price inflation in tier-one cities slowed to 0.4% month-on-month in January, while price inflation in tier-two cities slowed to 0.5% and tier-three and tier-four cities saw a 0.7% price rise.
“We expect property market conditions to worsen further, especially in low-tier cities, where recent local government work reports show that the shantytown renovation targets in 2019 were significantly slashed,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, wrote in a Feb 22 note. “We continue to believe the deregulation of property markets in large cities could be a game-changer for the sector.”
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Chinese banks bought $181bn of foreign currencies in January and sold $169bn, the first surplus since July 2018, according to data released the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) on Friday.
In January, banks bought and sold Rmb1.16tr ($172bn) and Rmb1.05tr for their clients, respectively. Banks themselves bought Rmb73.7bn and sold Rmb95bn.
The willingness to sell foreign currencies improved to 63.4% in January from 59.9% in January, according to Wang Chunying, Safe’s chief economist.
In a separate statement, Safe said the FX market in China saw a total trading volume of Rmb19.58tr. Trading between banks and their clients reached Rmb2.64tr, while the interbank market saw a trading volume of Rmb16.93tr.