The city of Wuhan, which was once the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, reported no new confirmed cases, suspected new infections or new deaths on Sunday. The last 12 patients have been discharged from hospitals, bringing the city’s existing cases to zero.
The milestone came as Wuhan reported a total of 50,333 infections and 3,869 fatalities from the pandemic, contributing to Hubei province’s total 68,128 cases and 4,512 deaths.
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The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) will facilitate the launch of eastbound trading for the Shanghai-London Stock Connect in 2020, the bourse said in its annual working plan. Eastbound trading will allow eligible companies listed on the London Stock Exchange to issue Chinese depositary receipts and apply to list on the SSE’s main board.
The bourse also said it will work with international financial institutions to incorporate Chinese corporate bonds into major indices.
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The People’s Bank of China has released the March financial market data. New issuance of bonds reached Rmb5.3tr ($748.5bn) last month, taking the size of the onshore bond market to Rmb103tr.
Trading volume in the interbank money market totalled Rmb107.4tr, which is 26.87% higher year-on-year and a whopping 85.14% more than in February.
There was Rmb24.5tr of trading in the interbank bond market and Rmb1.93tr in the smaller exchange market. The volumes were up 32.8% and 149%, respectively, from the same period in 2019. The numbers represented an increase of 126% and 121.4%, respectively, compared to February.
Trading in onshore stocks, however, slowed down in March compared to the previous month. Daily trading on the SSE dropped by 9.7% to Rmb341.6bn, while that on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange was down 13% to Rmb526.6bn. The SSE Composite Index was down by 4.51% and the SZSE Component Index by 9.28% by the end of March.
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Total outstanding renminbi loans stood at Rmb160.21tr as of March 2020, 12.7% higher than a year ago, according to the PBoC. Some Rmb7.1tr of that was lent in the first quarter, which is Rmb1.29tr more than what was seen between January and March 2019.
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Industrial profits in the first quarter dropped by 36.7% year-on-year to Rmb781.5bn, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday morning. That said, the slump for the first two months of the year was even greater at 38.3%, the NBS added.
State-owned enterprises and joint-stock enterprises saw their profits decline by 45.5% and 33%, respectively.
Only two of 41 industries managed to post profit growths in the first quarter. The tobacco production, and the agricultural and side-line food processing industries reported profit growth of 27.5% and 11.2%, respectively.
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The central bank’s governor, Yi Gang, published a research article analysing the Chinese financial market. He called for the development of equity financing as a way to reduce the Chinese economy’s heavy reliance on bank loans. This will help support the economy while stabilising the leverage ratio, he said.
Yi also said accelerations in domestic market reforms are needed, including the shift to a registration based bond issuance system. He also called for a more transparent capital market and better information disclosure, among other things.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has threatened to halt the US operations of China Telecom Americas, China Unicom Americas, Pacific Networks and ComNet, unless they can demonstrate “that they are not subject to the influence and control of the Chinese government”.
The chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, said in a Friday announcement that there is deep concern about these companies’ “vulnerability to the exploitation, influence, and control of the Chinese Communist Party, given that they are subsidiaries of Chinese state-owned entities”.
“We simply cannot take a risk and hope for the best when it comes to the security of our networks,” Pai said.
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Since 2019, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has set up investigations into 22 listed companies regarding false disclosure of financial records, the securities regulator said in a Friday statement.
It said it will launch “heavy blows” against financial fraud by listed companies and other “vicious violations” of the law.
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The CSRC has conducted on-site investigations into 86 IPO candidates since June last year, state media Xinhua reported. So far, 30 companies have withdrawn their IPO applications due to problems discovered during these investigations.
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The securities regulator said on Friday it has approved the launch of hog futures by the Dalian Commodity Exchange, setting the stage for China to become the second market after the US to trade live pig futures.
The CSRC said in a statement the move will help the nearly Rmb1tr sector to develop and improve the risk management ability of its players.
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China’s over-the-counter stock board, the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ), has started to process companies’ IPO applications to list on the board’s new “selection tier”, according to an official notice last Friday evening.
NEEQ, which is also called the New Third Board, divides listed companies into “selection tier”, “innovation tier” and “base tier”. Companies on the “selection tier” typically have a longer operating history and are ready to move to the main board or the Shanghai Star board.
The board will process the applications in a similar manner to the Shanghai Star board. NEEQ will only check that candidates’ information disclosures are complete and truthful and that they satisfy the basic listing requirements.