Rice Imports and Exports to Increase

In the first two months of this year, China's export volume of rice rose sharply. Industry insiders estimate that in 2015 the amount of rice imports will remain high. And because the international rice export market is increasingly fierce, each country competes to promote rice stocks. In the short term, it’s difficult to rise sharply for international rice prices.

Expanding rice price difference at home and abroad

According to data recently released by China General Administration of Customs, China exported 15,120 tons of rice in February, 19,312 tons of rice in January, total exports of these two months reached 34,432 tons, an increase of 42.4%, compared with the cumulative 24,182 tons last year.

Industry insiders estimate that in 2015, China's rice import volume may still be more than 2.5 million tons. The minimum purchase price of rice in 2015 is as same as the last year’s price; and the international rice export market will remain very intense competition, recently, the Thai government has made it clear that in 2015 about 10 million tons of rice stocks will be promoted, other major rice producing countries such as Cambodia also increase rice exports, international rice prices are less likely to rise sharply.

It is noteworthy that, recently, the domestic and international rice difference expands. Currently, C&F price of Thai 5% broken rate of rice exporting to the Chinese port is $ 426 / ton, cost to port is 3139 yuan / ton; C&F price of Vietnamese 5% broken rate of rice to the Chinese port of C & F price $ 360 / ton, cost to port is about 2668 yuan / ton. The price difference from the indica rice in southern China is 760 yuan / ton to 1250 yuan / ton.

After March, the reserve rice in the South will enter the rotation period, and the main storage variety is indica, plus parts of last year's rotation task has not been completed, it is expected to increase in the short term supply of indica rice, rice last year’s rice price falling down, coupled with low-quality rice price downward in recent months, thus the rice price difference expands for several months, imported rice volume will also remain high. (www.chinainout.com)

Euros Depriciate, Some Happy, Some Sad

PARIS — For Herve Montjotin, chief executive of the French trucking and logistics group Norbert Dentressangle, the euro’s steep plunge against the dollar could not be more welcome.

In the months since his company bought Jacobson, an American contract logistics company, the currency’s decline — down about 23 percent over the past year — has meant a windfall when dollars earned in the United States are translated back into euros.

“We bought a profitable business, and that business now makes 20 percent more in euros than when we got it,” he said. “We’ve either been very skilled or very lucky.”

Millions of businesspeople on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as tourists planning trips in one direction or the other, are now watching with delight or dread as Europe’s main currency drops ever closer to parity with the dollar.

On Wednesday afternoon in Paris, the euro was trading at $1.0567. The currency has declined nearly 13 percent in the first months of 2015 alone and is at its lowest level since early 2003. The euro peaked at almost $1.60 in April 2008, as the European Central Bank was warning of impending interest rate increases despite the financial crisis that was beginning to be felt in the United States.

The current plunge reflects differences in economic outlook, interest rates and monetary policies in Europe and the United States that in many ways favor the Americans — unless they are American companies trying to sell their wares to Europeans.

For the United States, which already runs a substantial trade deficit with the rest of the world, a weaker euro might only widen that gap, as German cars, Spanish wines and French luxury goods become more price-competitive. Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, warned that the strong dollar was “a major headwind” for American companies and said that executives were “less happy” than they were a few months ago.

“People recognize that the dollar is strengthening for the right reasons,” Mr. Moutray said, citing the relatively strong United States economy and the signals that the Federal Reserve may be closer to raising interest rates — a lure to foreign investors and a further spur to the dollar — even as the European Central Bank is keeping interest rates at historical lows. Still, he added, “the dollar is getting to a level wher it’s harder to compete against the Europeans.”

The happier Americans would be tourists, who during the coming spring break or summer months will find that a meal in a fancy French restaurant or a Mediterranean beach holiday costs much less than it would have a year ago. Europeans visiting New York or California, of course, will find that their euros won’t stretch nearly as far this year.

The sagging euro is only part of the story. The dollar is on its biggest surge since the mid-1990s — up 19 percent over the past 12 months against a basket of global currencies that includes the Japanese yen and the British pound.

But the euro is the standout. And it has further room to fall, in many analysts’ view. “The market is starting to get parity in its sights,” Lee Hardman, a currency economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in London, said, estimating that a one-to-one exchange rate could be reached within weeks. “The momentum is clearly for a weaker euro.”

Part of the euro’s downturn stems from the existential questions that continue to dog the currency bloc, as dramatized by Greece’s continuing struggle with its creditors over revised bailout terms.

The bigger factor, though, is the impact of the European Central Bank’s program, which began this week, to buy 1.1 trillion in bonds by September 2016, while also holding its official interest rates at low, or in some cases even negative, levels. Those policies are meant to stoke the economy, but they are prompting global investors to seek better places to get a return on their money — like dollar-based stocks and bonds.

A Duke/CFO Magazine survey of United States companies published on Wednesday found that around two-thirds of the big American exporters polled reported a negative impact from the strong dollar.

“We are in a midst of an ugly contest to see whether the eurozone, Japan or Canada can depreciate the most against the U.S. dollar, and China is probably next,” Campbell R. Harvey, a Fuqua School of Business professor, said in a statement accompanying the survey. “U.S. exporters are being punished by these competitive depreciations, and this will lead to lower profits and less employment.”

If the strong dollar does continue to pose those sorts of economic threats, of course, the Fed might alter its thinking about when to raise interest rates. So far, Janet L. Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, has said that she sees factors like the strong dollar and weak oil price to be largely balanced.

But for the struggling eurozone, wher unemployment is still averaging above 11 percent and wher economies have stalled in most of the currency unio’s 19 member countries, there is much to recommend a weaker euro.

Speaking in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, credited the falling currency, along with lower oil prices and the central bank’s own policies, with having recently lifted the outlook for economic growth in the bloc. A weak euro also helps the central bank in its battle to rekindle inflation from its worrisome lows, since it raises the prices of imported goods. (www.chinainout.com)

The world's happiest economies: Thailand tops the Chinese mainland ranks seventh

According to foreign media reports, Bloomberg News on March 3 local time announced the "misery index" of 51 global economies, Thailand, Switzerland and Japan become the world's happiest economies, China ranked seventh.

It is understood that the misery index is based on the level of inflation and unemployment rates, which are two factors that make most consumers unhappy, the lower the misery index is, the happier the economy feels.

Last May a coup happened in Thailand, moreover, in 2015 predict per capita GDP ranked behind the most "painful" (misery index) Venezuela, but in this statistics, Thailand ranked first in the happiest economy. This is partly due to its exceptionally low unemployment rate. Currently, the unemployment rate is less than 1% in Thailand, and inflation not created.

In developed countries, Switzerland has become the happiest economy entity. Bloomberg expects the Swiss unemployment rate was 3.3 percent this year, prices will fall by 0.9 percent, for a European developed country, this is an excellent message.

This year’s relatively low inflation and unemployment makes Chinese mainland become the world's seventh "happiness" economy entity. Mainland China January CPI rose only 0.8 percent, the lowest record since January 2009. Chen Jianguang, chief economist at Mizuho Securities, said the price trend this year was not optimistic, it was expected that annual CPI will increase by around 1.6%.

United States ranked eighth in terms of misery index, because of rising unemployment rate, on February 6, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released, the US unemployment rate in January was 5.7%, up slightly from last month's 5.6%. In January unemployment were 8,98 million, an increase of 290 thousand from last month.

Venezuela become the most painful economy entity, the annual inflation rate is expected to reach 78.5 percent, according to foreign media reports, due to a severe shortage of basic domestic life items, Venezuela has exchanged oil for paper towels with its neighboring countries Trinidad and Tobago in February. In addition, the misery index in Ukraine (stuck in armed conflict and economic crisis), Greece, Spain and other European economies is higher. (www.chinainout.com)

Quantitative Easing Policy expected to Improve European Economy in Short Term

European Central Bank on the 9th Mar. officially introduced the quantitative easing monetary policy. As for the results and prospects of its implementation, most analysts believe that this policy will result in euro decline and will be favor of short-term exports from Europe, but a solid implementation of structural reforms will be needed if the weak economic is improved.

According to the ECB's plan, it will buy 60 billion euros of government and private bonds per month from March to the end of September 2016. Thus, the euro continued to decline.

Continued weakness in the European economy is the direct cause of the ECB's introduction of quantitative easing. Currently economy growth is less than 1% in the euro area economy, in the major economies France and Italy, the economy growth is close to zero, economic growth in many countries has fallen into deflation. Thus, to stimulate growth and consumption by quantitative easing monetary policy is the ECB's policy objectives.

In evaluating the ECB easing monetary policy, director of the International Centre for European Economic Research politics Frederick Eriksson said the policy is necessary, and it’s an opportunity to amend the "conservative" monetary policy in the past few years. He said, "The purchase of debt is in favor of implementation of the plan to resolve the situation in Europe and low inflation in the short term, to prevent the spread of the risk of deflation, but also to stimulate economic growth."

However, some experts are not optimistic on the European QE outlook. President of China Foreign Exchange Investment Research Institute Tan Yaling said, quantitative easing monetary policy will intensify contradictions among the countries, the economic disparities among countries will be widened. She added, "Developed Countries like Germany will be getting better and better, countries like Greece and Cyprus will become increasingly poor, thus intensifying the eurozone splitting. If the mechanism, institutional and market issues aren’t solved, there’s no use to print money. "

To achieve full recovery of the European economy QE alone is not enough. Eriksson pointed out that the full implementation of structural reforms to improve the competitiveness of the region, is the key to long-term economic growth in Europe. (www.chinainout.com)

Apple Announces Details of a Variety of Smart Watches

SAN FRANCISCO — The basics of the Apple Watch have been known since September, but now, a few weeks before the watch’s arrival in stores, Apple has finally revealed how much it will cost.

The company on Monday held a media event here to remind people about the features of the Apple Watch and share more details about the product, including its cost. It also demonstrated what the watch was capable of doing with apps made by other companies.

“Apple Watch is the most personal device we have ever created,” said Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive. “It’s not just with you. It’s on you.”

The Apple Watch is a miniature computer worn around a person’s wrist, with a touch screen and a so-called digital crown for navigating the device. You can receive and respond to calls on the watch, but it requires an iPhone to fully operate.

“I have been wanting to do this since I was 5 years old,” Mr. Cook said.

Unlike past Apple products, the Apple Watch has a complex pricing structure. Because a smart watch is both gadget and fashion accessory, Apple designed its device to be highly customizable to suit the tastes of various consumers, from fitness buffs to collectors of luxury watches.

Apple will offer three models of Apple Watch, each with a casing made of a different material: Watch Sport, a version with an aluminum case; Watch, which has a stainless steel case; and Watch Edition, which has a case made of 18-karat gold.

Each model comes in two case sizes — 1.5 inches and 1.65 inches. And for each watch, customers will be able to choose from a variety of interchangeable bands in different colors and materials.

The cheapest model is the Apple Watch Sport, the one tailored to athletes, which starts at $349. The larger Apple Watch Sport costs $399.

The next step up is the Apple Watch, with a more fashionable stainless steel case. The smaller version of this watch costs $549 to $1,040, and the larger one costs $599 to $1,099. The price range for both depends on the band.

The Apple Watch Edition, which has a case made of 18-karat gold, is a sure sign that Apple has entered the luxury market. Pricing for the high-end version starts at $10,000.

Preorders for the various versions of the watch start April 10, and it will go on sale on April 24. It will first be available in a number of countries, including the United States, Australia, China and Japan.

At the event, Apple also stressed some of the signature features of the device.

Apple has highlighted the crown as its latest signature innovation for controlling a device, similar to the mouse pointer for the personal computer, the click wheel on the iPod and the touch screen for the iPhone. On the Apple Watch, the crown can be twisted to zoom in or out of the screen or to scroll through a web page.

The watch includes a heart rate sensor and a sensor for tracking movement to complement fitness applications. It has a chip that helps it make wireless payments.

The watch also includes Digital Touch, an application that enables a new method of communication between watch users. Watch wearers can scribble sketches on the watch screen and send them to one another, or even send their heartbeats.

Apple also added to the watch a so-called taptic engine, which “taps” users on the wrist with a tactile sensation when they receive alerts, messages or notifications.

Apple said the watch’s battery would last 18 hours. To help users prolong battery life, Apple designed a mode called Power Reserve, which runs the watch in low energy while only displaying the time. Power Reserve can be toggled on and off.

Apple demonstrated third-party apps working on the watch. An app developed by Starwood hotels sends a notification to watch wearers when they are near their hotels; the app can also unlock the user’s room door. The watch also supports the Uber app for summoning a car. The app shows wher the driver is on a map, and from there, the user can place a phone call to the driver.

Apple also announced a new MacBook laptop with a 12-inch high-resolution “retina” display. Philip Schiller, the company’s head of marketing, said the new MacBook was the thinnest and lightest laptop the company had ever made. It weighs two pounds and measures 13.1 millimeters at its thickest point.

The MacBook also includes a trackpad with sensors that can detect how hard a user is clicking. A hard click on the fast-forward button on a video, for example, will make the video run faster.

The new MacBook features a new battery design to provide all-day battery life, Mr. Schiller said.

The MacBook uses a new port called USB-C. It is a versatile port that can be used for charging, plugging in a video monitor, or hooking up a USB accessory like a keyboard. Like the latest iPhones, the new MacBook comes in silver, dark gray and gold. It starts at $1,300 and shipping begins April 10.

Apple on Monday also released upgrades for some of its other notebooks, including the MacBook Air. (www.chinainout.com)

Europe's Decline Stems from Lack of Innovation

Much of continental Europe is in poor shape. True, the aggregate wealth of people is little changed and the social capital in museums, parks and other amenities is still intact. Yet, in the western part, the economy is failing society.

Inclusion of ethnic minorities and youth in the economy — the backbone of their self-esteem and social integration — is more lacking than ever. Among those who do participate, fewer are prospering. It is a measure of the decline that, in almost every country, the growth of wage rates has steadily slowed since 1995. What has gone wrong?

European economists speak of a loss of competitiveness in southern Europe. They suggest that output and employment are down, relative to the past trend, because wages leapt ahead of productivity, making labour too expensive and forcing employers to cut back. Taking this perspective, some German economists argue that wages need to fall in the affected economies. Others argue instead for monetary stimulus — for instance, asset purchases by central banks — to raise prices and make current wage rates affordable.

This helps explain why the proportion of men who are in employment declined in Italy, Greece and Spain over the previous decade. But the explanation raises a question. Europe has witnessed bigger drops in the employment-to-population ratio, which fell precipitously in Germany and Italy in the 1970s and in France in the 1980s and 1990s. Were those declines also caused by wage misalignments? And if so, why have we not seen wages draw back?

Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply. And they lay that contraction largely to outbreaks of fiscal profligacy — as happened in Europe from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s.

In Greece, Italy and, to a lesser extent, France, unsustainable tax cuts and spending sprees added to households’ estimates of their private wealth relative to their wage income. State benefits were expanded too, which added to people’s estimates of their social entitlements relative to their income. The EU’s structural funds, which transferred money to poorer countries, fuelled the fire. Bloated with wealth, many employees had weaker incentives to perform well so companies’ costs of production went up.

Disciples of Keynes, who focus on aggregate demand, view any increase in household wealth as raising employment because they say it adds to consumer demand. They say Europe needs a lot more fiscal “profligacy” if it is to bring unemployment down. Some evidence favours the classics.

Yet both sides of this debate miss the critical force at work. The main cause of Europe’s deep fall — the losses of inclusion, job satisfaction and wage growth — is the devastating slowdown of productivity that began in the late 1990s and struck large swathes of the continent. It holds down the growth of wages rates and it depresses employment.

That slowdown resulted from narrowing innovation. Even in the postwar years, innovation in Europe was feeble by past standards. In the 1960s, it slackened again, leaving the continent largely dependent on America for new ideas that would generate further productivity growth. But in the 1970s American innovation, confined to Silicon Valley, waned in the aggregate. The pool of past American advances on which Europe could draw would narrow to a trickle and lead to the productivity slowdown on the continent in the late 1990s and which came later to Germany.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, much of Europe is still suffering a slump on top of its post-1990s fall. The slump will pass but the fall will not be easily overcome. The continent is haemorrhaging its best talent. It needs to fight for an economic life worth living. （www.chinainout.com）

Last Year, China’s Consumption Abroad over 3 Trillion, Three Measures to Guide Foreign Purchases Reflux

In the morning of the 7th March, the third meeting of the 12th NPC hold a press conference, the Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng answered reporters' questions focusing on “cultivate a new consumer highlight, build a new open pattern”.

import and export growth in March is expected to positive

Government work report shows that this year's foreign trade growth target is 6 percent, Gao said, we are confident to accomplish this goal. He said that according to estimates of leading indicators, import and export growth in February was still negative, but the decreasing amplitude would be significantly reduced, in March China's imports and exports will be converted into positive growth.

"in 2014 China was no. 1 for the global trade of goods." Gao said, China will take measures to promote the realization of this year’s import and export targets, continue to focus on the foreign trade policy measures to stabilize the foreign trade growth, strengthen the support for the transformation and upgrading and restructuring of enterprises, encourage the development of new export marketing model, and continue to create a more favorable international competitive environment for Chinese enterprises.

"One belt one road" to usher key year

In the second half of 2013, China has proposed the strategic concept to construct the "Silk Road economic belt" and "21st Century Maritime Silk Road", attracting the global attention and the enthusiastic response of countries along the road.

Gao said, 2015 is the key year to build "one belt one way", China has negotiated with many countries along road about the planning and implementation of a number of projects. The Asian infrastructure investment bank set up $40 billion of "Silk Road Fund", China's commercial banking institutions and commercial insurance agencies, and the countries’ financial institutions, as well as the related fund, all of them will provide the financial support for the "one belt one way" construction.

Three measures to guide foreign purchases reflux

Gao said Chinese overseas shopping grows rapidly. According to incomplete statistics, last year, Chinese citizens traveling abroad were over 100 million, consumption abroad more than 1 trillion yuan.

Gao said the main reason for the consumption abroad is the price difference. First, high tax rates; the second is the domestic distribution costs are too high, too many links exist; the third is the pricing policy of foreign brands in China. next we will focus on these three areas and take measures to guide foreign buyers back.（ｗｗｗ．ｃｈｉｎａｉｎｏｕｔ．ｃｏｍ）