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☆ Stocks in China fall as consumer prices drop for the first time in more than 2 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Lim Hui Jie | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A vegetables stall in the Haizhu area of Guangzhou, China, in May 2023. Stocks in China and Hong Kong fell Wednesday as China's consumer prices slipped into negative territory in July, for the first time in 28 months. The CSI300, which tracks stocks of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell 0.22%. Mainland Chinese markets were lower, with the Shanghai Composite down 0.36% and the Shenzhen Component 0.28% lower. Producer price index fell 4.4% in July compared to a year ago, more than the 4.1% expected by economists polled by Reuters.

Persons: Hong Kong, China's, Mohamed El, Kospi, Australia's Organizations: Shenzhen, Reuters —, Reuters, Allianz, Twitter, Nikkei Locations: Haizhu, Guangzhou, China, Stocks, Hong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Asia, Pacific

A vegetables stall in the Haizhu area of Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday, May 9, 2023. China's consumer inflation slowed to the weakest pace in two years in April while producer prices fell deeper into deflation, reflecting muted domestic demand and softer commodity costs. Source: BloombergAsia-Pacific markets are set to rise after the S&P 500 hit a new high for 2023 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw a third straight day of gains. Asia investors will be watching for China's consumer price index for May, after the country saw its inflation rate sink to just 0.1% in April, it lowest point since November 2020. Producer prices, meanwhile, are expected to fall by 4.3% in May, according to a Reuters survey, which would mark the lowest since mid-2016.

Organizations: Bloomberg, Dow Jones Locations: Haizhu, Guangzhou, China, Bloomberg Asia, Pacific, U.S . Federal, Asia

There was more movement in currency markets, where the dollar rose across the board and the yen sank. Producer price inflation is expected to have fallen further in March, according to analysts' estimates of a year-on-year decline of 2.5%, which would be the fastest pace of deflation since June 2020. The annual rate of consumer price inflation is expected to remain unchanged at 1.0%, the slowest in a year, and the monthly rate is expected to rise to 0% from -0.5% in February. If these forecasts are broadly accurate, price pressures in China would appear to be extremely benign, giving the central bank room to loosen policy and stimulate the economy. In South Korea, the central bank looks to have ended its tightening cycle and will likely keep its main interest rate on hold at a 15-year high of 3.50% on Tuesday.

☆ Covid protests escalate in Guangzhou as China lockdown anger boils
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

TwitterSocial media posts said the clashes took place on Tuesday night and were caused by a dispute over lockdown curbs. China Dissent Monitor, run by U.S. government-funded Freedom House, estimated at least 27 demonstrations took place across China from Saturday to Monday. In Zhengzhou, the site of a big Foxconn factory making Apple iPhones that has been the scene of worker unrest over Covid, officials announced the “orderly” resumption of businesses, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants. Data on Wednesday showed China’s manufacturing and services activity for November posting the lowest readings since Shanghai’s two-month lockdown began in April. Chinese stocks were steady, with markets weighing endemic economic weakness against hopes that the public pressure could push China to eventually reopen.

☆ China's Guangzhou city relaxes COVID rules in several districts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The Chinese city of Guangzhou relaxed COVID prevention rules in several districts on Wednesday in an effort to implement rules authorities announced this month aimed at easing the burden of the strict zero-COVID policy. read moreGuangzhou, China's manufacturing hub, has been hard hit in China's latest COVID-19 outbreaks and people in the southern city took to the streets to protest against the strict COVID-prevention rules on the weekend. The relaxation of curbs comes after the city of 19 million people recorded fewer coronavirus cases over the past few days. Authorities in city districts including Haizhu, Baiyun, Fanyu, Tianhe, Conghua, Huadu, Liwan, said in statements they were lifting temporary lockdowns. One district, Conghua, said it would allow in-person classes in schools to resume and would reopen restaurants and other businesses including cinemas.

[1/6] Police arrive at a protest against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions after a vigil for the victims of a fire in Urumqi, as outbreaks of COVID-19 continue, in Beijing, China, November 28, 2022. Social media posts said the clashes took place on Tuesday night and were caused by a dispute over lockdown curbs. In Zhengzhou, the site of a vast Foxconn factory making Apple iPhones that has been the scene of worker unrest over COVID, officials announced the "orderly" resumption of businesses, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that protesters in China should not be physically harmed or intimidated. The head of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva flagged a possible downgrade in the fund's economic growth forecasts for China.

In Beijing, hundreds of mostly young people demonstrated in the commercial heart of the city well into the small hours of Monday. Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of arts, freedom of movement, personal freedoms. A security guard tries to cover a protest slogan against zero-Covid on the campus of Peking University in Beijing. “Open your eyes and look at the world, dynamic zero-Covid is a lie,” the protest slogan at Peking University read. At Tsinghua University, another elite university in Beijing, hundreds of students gathered on a square to protest against zero-Covid and censorship.

☆ Shanghai cancels auto event as rising COVID cases add to reopening worries
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The rise in cases is testing China's resolve to stick to recent tweaks recently made to its COVID rules, putting pressure on local authorities to stamp outbreaks without one-size-fits-all measures such as mass lockdowns. Chengdu, with 428 cases on Tuesday, became the latest city to announce mass testing from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27. The capital Beijing, where 1,486 cases breached another daily high, was largely a ghost town with malls, restaurants and parks staying shut. RISING CASES, MASS TESTING - AGAINWhile China's infection numbers are low by global standards, the country continues to stick with its outlier zero-COVID approach, fuelling widespread public frustration and inflicting damage on the world's second-largest economy. Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Miral FahmyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Covid curbs set off rare unrest in Chinese city of Guangzhou
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

BEIJING — Crowds of people in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou crashed through Covid barriers and marched down streets in chaotic scenes on Monday night, according to videos posted online, in a show of public resentment over coronavirus curbs. Neither the Guangzhou city government nor the Guangdong provincial police responded to Reuters’ requests for comment. Monday night’s scenes from Guangzhou were the latest outpouring of frustration over Covid curbs that have brought frequent lockdowns and enforced quarantines under a signature policy of President Xi Jinping that China argues saves lives. Last month, a Covid outbreak at a massive Foxconn plant that makes Apple iPhones in Zhengzhou set off chaos, with many workers fleeing, including by climbing fences, hobbling production. “It would become a testing point regarding the government’s determination to push for the relaxation of Covid control measures,” they said.

☆ Haizhu district in China's Guangzhou city extends COVID-19 restrictions in some areas
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

HONG KONG, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Haizhu district in China's southern city of Guangzhou, where most of the city's COVID-19 cases have been reported, extended its anti-COVID measures in some areas to Nov. 19, local authorities said on Wednesday in a notice on their WeChat account. Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Alex RichardsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ China tightens restrictions as rise in Covid cases reported
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Everyone in a district of 1.8 million people in China’s southern metropolis of Guangzhou was ordered to stay home Saturday to undergo virus testing and a major city in the southwest closed schools as another rise in Covid infections was reported. Guangzhou, 75 miles north of Hong Kong, has shut down schools and bus and subway service across much of the city as case numbers rise. In the southwest, the industrial city of Chongqing closed schools in its Beibei district, which has 840,000 people. Economists and public health experts say “zero Covid” might stay in place for as much as another year. They say millions of elderly people have to be vaccinated before the ruling party can consider lifting controls that keep most foreign visitors out of China.

☆ China eases Covid rules, shortening quarantine for inbound travelers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

BEIJING — China on Friday eased some of its draconian Covid rules, including shortening quarantines by two days for close contacts of infected people and for inbound travelers, and removing a penalty for airlines for bringing in too many cases. Under the new rules, centralized quarantine times for close contacts and travelers from abroad were shortened from seven days to five days. The requirement for three further days in home isolation after centralized quarantine remains. Inbound passengers are transported by bus to their quarantine hotels after arriving at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai in January. “This meeting further illustrates policymakers have started to focus more on optimizing the Covid control policies,” Goldman Sachs said in a note following Thursday’s Politburo Standing Committee meeting but before Friday’s announcement.

☆ China's COVID curbs intensify as cases surge to highest since Shanghai lockdown
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Ryan Woo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Aly SongBEIJING, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Chinese authorities stepped up COVID-19 lockdowns and other curbs to halt clusters from spreading as China's case load soared to its highest since this year's Shanghai lockdown, with Beijing and Zhengzhou seeing record daily cases. China reported on Friday 10,535 new locally transmitted cases for Nov. 10, the highest since April 29, when the country's commercial hub, Shanghai, was battling its most serious outbreak. The southern city of Guangzhou, the current epicentre of China's COVID fight, reported 2,824 new local cases for Nov. 10, the fourth day in which infections exceeded 2,000. TIGHTER MEASURESOther major cities such as Beijing, Zhengzhou and Chongqing have tightened measures this week as daily cases renewed all-time highs. Beijing reported 118 new local cases for Nov. 10, a daily record but still low compared with other Chinese cities.

The districts in Guangzhou subject to mass testing this week include Haizhu, which has seen the bulk of the city's cases. Lily Li, a Guangzhou resident, said the outbreak in the city had worsened in the past two days, having spread to Tianhe, just north of Haizhu. While COVID cases in China are small by global standards, the policy response has been relentless and mass testing for large populations has been the norm since 2020. Mass testing is generally free, but some local governments are resuming charges for tests as their finances come under strain amid a slowing economy. A COVID testing company in Xuchang, a city in Henan province, said on Tuesday they would stop all testing-related work from Friday due to late payments from authorities.

☆ Guangzhou's COVID outbreak deepens as more lockdowns loom in China
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The increase was modest by global standards but significant for China, where outbreaks are quickly tackled when they surface. Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, reported 2,377 new local cases for Nov. 7, up from 1,971 the previous day. "The lockdown situation has continued to deteriorate quickly across the country over the past week, with our in-house China COVID lockdown index rising to 12.2% of China's total GDP from 9.5% last Monday," Nomura wrote in a note on Monday. "We continue to believe that, while Beijing may fine-tune some of its COVID measures in coming weeks, those fine-tuning measures could be more than offset by local officials' tightening of the zero-COVID strategy." In the southwest metropolis of Chongqing, the city reported 281 new local cases, more than doubling from 120 a day earlier.

☆ No immediate end in sight for China’s costly zero-Covid policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Hong Kong CNN —China has reiterated its unswerving commitment to its longstanding zero-Covid policy, despite mounting public frustration the stringent measures are costing the very lives they’re intended to protect. Tragic cases perceived to be linked to the policy have gained momentum online as people question why it should continue. In another tragedy that sparked nationwide outrage, a 3-year-old boy died of gas poisoning Wednesday at a locked down compound in the northwestern city of Lanzhou after Covid restrictions delayed rescue efforts. VCG/Visual China Group/Getty ImagesA long way homeEven in places not under extended lockdowns, the constant Covid testing edicts and stringent travel restrictions have fueled growing discontent. In a series of Weibo posts, he openly questioned the far reaching travel restrictions and criticized propaganda efforts exaggerating Covid deaths overseas.

☆ Chinese cities clamp down on COVID as cases rise before winter season
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

In Guangdong province, manufacturing centre Guangzhou has seen a spate of cases over the past week that has closed some districts. Over the past week, authorities raced to get a handle on rising cases in Datong, Xining, Nanjing, Xian, Zhengzhou and Wuhan forcing temporary lockdown measures of some neighbourhoods. Datong, which recorded 288 cases from Oct. 27-30, has enforced stricter isolation and management of hotels, key industries and its railway. As winter nears, northern cities, particularly those close to international borders, are seeing higher case numbers and could face new curbs. Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang province, bordering North Korea, extended the temporary lockdown of some areas, according to local media reports.

"With the zero-COVID policy here to stay, we think the economy will continue to struggle heading into 2023," Zichun Huang, economist at Capital Economics, said in a research note. At this month's twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress, President Xi Jinping reiterated China's commitment to its zero-COVID policy, disappointing investors and countless Chinese frustrated by lockdowns, travel curbs and testing. "We don't expect the zero-COVID policy to be abandoned until 2024, which means virus disruptions will keep in-person services activity subdued," said Huang from Capital Economics. New cases in mainland China hit 2,898 on Sunday, topping 2,000 for a second straight day, a tiny number by global standards. However, in Beijing the Universal Resort theme park reopened on Monday after being shut last week because one visitor had tested positive for coronavirus.

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