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Govt and policies

More jobs created, jobless rate falls

China's quarterly job report delivered a positive message on Tuesday as 3.34 million new jobs were created in the first quarter and the unemployment rate fell to 3.97 percent. The number of new jobs was 160,000 higher than that in the same period last year, and the unemployment rate was down 0.07 percentage points from a year earlier and 0.05 percentage points lower compared with the previous quarter, official data showed. "China's job market posted a strong start this year and remained stable in the first quarter," said Lu Aihong, spokesperson of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, at a news conference. Economists said the lower jobless rate suggested a healthier picture of Chinese economy.

Companies and markets

Yuan weakens against US dollar

The central parity rate of the renminbi, or the yuan, weakened 160 basis points to 6.8833 against the US dollar on Tuesday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day. The central parity rate of the yuan against the US dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day.

Bank lends more to farmers

Agricultural Bank of China, one of the country's biggest lenders, said that it has increased lending to farmers and rural businesses in support of agricultural supply-side structural reform in the first quarter. The bank's outstanding loans to farmers totaled 1.02 trillion yuan ($150 billion) as of the end of March, 76.3 billion yuan more than the level at the beginning of this year, said the ABC. The ABC has enhanced lending support for large-scale and professional farming and other new types of agribusiness, as well as small and medium-sized rural households, according to the bank. Nearly 20 million rural households in China borrowed some 858.6 billion yuan in petty loans from the ABC since 2008, it said. Outstanding agriculture-related loans in China stood at 29.23 trillion as of the end of the first quarter this year, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, according to the central bank. The growth was 1.8 percentage points higher than the level a quarter ago.

Strong growth for liquor brand

Top alcohol brand Kweichow Moutai reported a net profit rise of 25.2 percent year-on-year from January to March. Moutai's net profits in the first quarter rose to 6.1 billion yuan ($886 million). Its sales revenues during the period reached 13.3 billion yuan, up 33.24 percent year-on-year, according to Kweichow Moutai on Tuesday. In 2016, Moutai saw its output reach around 60,000 metric tons, with sales revenues surpassing 38.8 billion yuan and net profits reaching 16.7 billion yuan, up 18.99 percent and 7.84 percent, respectively, year-on-year. Distilled in the town of Maotai in southwest China's Guizhou province, Moutai is considered the country's national liquor and often served on official occasions and at State banquets.

'City of peonies' exports to Australia

Luoyang, China's "city of peonies", will export 1 million cut flowers to Australia, as part of flower trade cooperation. Shenzhou Peony Company, a major flower growing enterprise in Luoyang, Henan province, has signed a deal with several Australian distributors to sell 1 million peonies and Chinese herbaceous peonies to Australian customers in 2017. "In order to pass Australian quarantine inspection, we have translated Australian standards and import regulations on cut flowers, and offered training to flower farmers since last year," said Guo Xueliang, head of the city's entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau. "It is estimated that each cut flower will cost three A$3 ($2.26), more than five times the price in China," said a senior manager of the company.

Around the world

Americans predict rise in home prices

Sixty-one percent of US adults predict housing prices in their local area will increase in the next 12 months, up from 55 percent a year ago and the highest measure since 2005, found a Gallup poll released on Monday. Americans' optimism about home values continues to recover from where it was after the US economy took a nose dive in 2007-08 and the housing market plummeted. Between 2008 and 2012, only as many as one-third of Americans, including a low of 22 percent in 2009, believed local housing prices would increase, Gallup said. By 2013, a majority again held this view for the first time since 2007. This year, the percentage expecting housing-value gains pushed past 60 percent, Gallup said.

China is Brazil's biggest investor

China is Brazil's biggest foreign investor so far this year, according to consulting firm Dealogic on Monday. In the first four and half months of 2017, Chinese investors spent $5.67 billion on mergers and acquisitions, representing 37.5 percent of total investment in the country. Chinese investment in Brazil up to mid-April amounts to nearly half of the $11.92 billion China spent in 2016. Trailing China were Argentina and the Netherlands, with $1.6 billion and $1.1 billion respectively. The rise in Chinese investment comes at a time when Brazil is improving its trade balance with China, thanks to increased iron and petroleum exports.

S.Korea's exports hit record high

South Korea's export volume hit a record high, raising expectations that the country's exports may get back on a full recovery track, central bank data showed on Tuesday. The export volume index came in at 151.26 in March, up 4.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea. It was the highest since the bank began compiling the data in 1988. The exports volume continued to grow from last November. The BOK index excludes export products such as ships, weaponry and airplanes which are hard to calculate current prices. The export recovery was mainly attributable to demand for locally-made chips and displays. Exports volume of general machinery and oil products also posted a double-digit expansion.

Cyprus sees fiscal surplus of 0.4%

Bailed-out Cyprus generated a fiscal surplus of 64.4 million euros ($70 million), or 0.4 percent of its gross domestic product last year, after posting fiscal deficits in the previous eight years, the Statistical Service of Cyprus said. The surplus was the result of a 1.5-percent increase in revenue in 2016 to over 7 billion euros and a 2.4-percent drop in spending, mostly in the public payroll, the statistical service said. The government's latest estimate in October was a fiscal deficit of 0.3 percent in 2016, but the performance of the economy, mainly in the tourist sector and the construction sector, helped reverse the projection. Cyprus, which was bailed-out in a 10-billion-euro economic assistance package offered by the Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund in 2013, had produced fiscal shortfalls of 208.9 million euros in 2015, or 1.2 percent of economic output, and 1.5 billion euros or 8.8 percent of economic output in 2014.

China Daily - Agencies