Japan blames China, Taiwan for declining Pacific saury catch Saury on the grill at a festival for the fish in Tokyo. Photo: Kyodo
Japan s annual catch of prized Pacific saury collapsed by nearly 30 per cent last year to a record low haul, with fishing authorities blaming the decline on a combination of ocean conditions and the likes of China and Taiwan taking a larger haul.
Tokyo is so concerned that it plans to propose new limits on catches when the eight member states of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC)- which also include Russia, South Korea and the United States - meet in February.
China’s home appliance manufacturers left cursing export orders as costs rise, profits vanish amid yuan rally Cissy Zhoucissy.zhou@scmp.com Backed by a strong external demand, China’s home appliance exports enjoyed a V-shaped recovery last year, with exports rising by 20.6 per cent year on year in the first 11 months of 2020. Photo: Reuters
Faced with a perfect storm of a strong yuan and the rising cost of raw materials, China s home appliance manufacturers are fearful of booming exports orders caused by the coronavirus as profits decline, leaving some on the verge of bankruptcy.
On one hand, overseas demand for appliances is rising amid lockdowns and work from home arrangements in the West, but on the other, firms are seeing profits vanish as the Chinese yuan continues to rise, meaning they will receive less for the orders which already cost more to produce due to rising copper, aluminium and cold rolled sheet steel prices.
Hang Seng Index falls after NYSE moves to delist Chinese telecoms firms and US officials weigh Alibaba, Tencent ban Martin Choi martin.choi@scmp.com The New York Stock Exchange is going ahead with plans to delist shares of three Chinese state-owned phone carriers, including China Mobile. Photo: AP Photo
Hong Kong markets dropped amid rising US-China tensions after the New York Stock Exchange reversed course again to delist three Chinese telecoms giants and a media report said that US officials were also considering banning investments in Alibaba and Tencent.
The Hang Seng Index fell 0.5 per cent to 27,548.52, ending three consecutive days of advances. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.7 per cent for its fourth straight day of gains.
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Coronavirus: after the outbreak, asymptomatic cases lurked in Wuhan, study finds Holly Chik holly.chik@scmp.com A new study suggests that tens of thousands of people in the Chinese city of Wuhan might have been infected in the initial outbreak and showed no signs of the disease. Photo: AFP
An estimated 168,000 people were infected by the coronavirus during the epidemic in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, with at least two-thirds of the infections asymptomatic, according to a national study of blood antibodies. A large amount of asymptomatic carriers of Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) existed after elimination of clinical cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan. Therefore, (the virus) may exist in a population without clinical cases for a long period, the researchers concluded.