HOHHOT, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Erenhot China-Mongolia border trading zone in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has reopened after months of closure due to COVID-19, according to local authorities.

With a total investment of 350 million yuan (about 52.5 million U.S. dollars) and an area of some 100,000 square meters, the trading zone in the city of Erenhot covers a wide range of business activities including border trade, logistics and e-commerce, among other cross-border business services.

The reopening also marked the launching of the processing of agricultural products and livestock upon entry to the zone, which was designated by the Chinese government in September as Inner Mongolia's only trading zone allowed to engage in processing work.

"With the first batch of goods entering the zone, we are going to see a gradual recovery of bilateral trade through Erenhot and an increase in trade volume here," said Mengkee, deputy chief of the Erenhot Bureau of Commerce, who is also in charge of the management of the zone.

The trading zone, which opened in 2016, suspended operation in February to contain the spread of COVID-19. A virus prevention and control system was established for the zone before its reopening, according to the local government. Enditem

ULAN BATOR, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 infections has risen to 327 in Mongolia after one more Mongolian citizen tested positive for the virus, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Wednesday.

The latest confirmed case is a Mongolian citizen who recently returned home on a chartered flight from Seattle, a U.S. western coastal city, to Ulan Bator, the NCCD said in a statement.

All 327 confirmed cases were imported ones and, among them, 312 patients have recovered from the disease.

The Asian country has not reported COVID-19 related death or local transmission so far. Enditem

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Andy Home, a columnist for Reuters.)

The refined copper market is on course to register a supply-demand shortfall this year, according to the International Copper Study Group (ICSG).

The forecast deficit is a small one – just 52,000 tonnes in a 24-million tonne global market – but it’s a dramatic change from the group’s forecast this time last year, when it expected a chunky 280,000-tonne surplus.

And that was before covid-19, which has since devastated demand with the ICSG estimating slumps of 8% in the European Union, 6% in the United States and “significant reductions in India, Japan and other ASEAN countries”.

So how come the market is still running short of metal?

The first part of the answer is that global copper production has also been upended by the fatal coronavirus.

The second is that China is on a massive buying spree, imports running at unprecedented levels.

That’s a positive for the copper price, which has this week surged to a fresh year-to-date high of $6,985 per tonne on the London market.

But the impact on any market balance calculation comes with a sting in its tail.

Lockdown losses

Global copper mine production will fall by 1.5% this year, the ICSG forecasts. It will be the second consecutive year of lower output after a 0.2% decline in 2019.

At its last meeting in October 2019, the ICSG anticipated a 2% increase in mined copper production this year but has slashed that forecast by 700,000 tonnes to reflect lockdown losses in key producer countries such as Peru.

The group has also cut 850,000 tonnes of refined metal from its last forecast. Global production will still grow this year, but only by 1.6% compared with a previous call of 4.0%.

Global secondary production, which uses scrap as a feed, will be particularly hard hit, sliding 5.5% this year as scrap collection, processing and logistics networks collapse under national lockdowns.

Much of this recycling capacity is located in China, where confusion over import rules has compounded logistical challenges.

“China’s contribution to world (output) growth will be at a lower rate than initially expected,” the ICSG said.

China’s record imports

China’s smelters are struggling to catch up with an extraordinary rebound in manufacturing activity, fuelled by government stimulus flowing down the metals-intensive channels of construction and infrastructure.

Supply-chain stresses and an open arbitrage window have occasioned an unprecedented import surge.

China imported 3.55 million tonnes of refined copper in the first nine months of this year. That’s already more than last year’s tally and amounts to an extra million tonnes of metal.

It’s worth considering what the copper price would look like if that amount of surplus metal hadn’t gone to China but had instead been dumped into London Metal Exchange and CME warehouses.

Chinese stocks build

Those stellar imports, however, distort the statistical picture. The ICSG uses them, together with domestic production and changes in stocks held by the Shanghai Futures Exchange, to calculate “apparent” usage. The mathematics assume that imports are being used to make copper products.

This year’s import surge has caused China’s “apparent” copper usage to jump to the point that it almost totally offsets the slump everywhere else. Hence the ICSG’s assessment that global demand will be stable this year relative to last.

However, no-one believes that China’s real consumption has risen by the 16% implied from the import figures.

JP Morgan, for example, is expecting a 0.5% increase in real copper usage, still extraordinary given the scale of the lockdown hit at the start of the year, but nowhere near any “apparent” consumption estimate.

The bank’s executive director Natasha Kaneva told this week’s virtual LME seminar that the numbers are “strongly hinting that some invisible stocks have been accumulated”, maybe as much as 900,000 tonnes.

It seems clear that, just as was the case during the 2009-2010 financial crisis, Chinese buyers have pounced on low prices to build physical inventory, no doubt with one eye on the next Five Year Plan with its promise of lots of copper-intensive green infrastructure.

There has also been, as Kaneva pointed out, “a lot of talk about the State Reserves Bureau” (SRB) buying copper.

Shanghai Metal Markets’ Ian Roper, however, cautioned against over-reading the state stockpile manager’s recent activities. At a “pre-LME Week” seminar hosted by Marex Spectron, he described the rumoured purchase of 300,000 tonnes as a “one-off trade disruption hedge”.

The SRB remains a known unknown in the copper market.

But the key take-away from all the speculation is that everyone agrees there is an ongoing mass transfer of excess stock to statistically hidden inventories in mainland China.

Sting in the tail

The ICSG’s calculations of a balanced market may not be a true mirror on the state of actual usage in China, but they capture a market reality that the world’s surplus is being shipped there every month.

It is highly unlikely to come back out again other than in the form of a finished product such as air conditioners.

However, as imports slow from these supercharged levels, the effect will be to reduce China’s “apparent” consumption calculations to the point that the ICSG is forecasting a 2% decline next year.

That won’t be a true reflection of actual usage in the world’s largest copper user either, but it may be how the market reality will feel once the Chinese buying spree is over.

The good news is that the ICSG is expecting usage in the rest of the world to grow by 5% next year as broad-based economic recovery takes hold.

Even factoring in a simultaneous rebound in both mined and refined production, the market is expected to register only a modest 69,000-tonne surplus in 2021.

Everything, of course, depends on covid-19. The current level of uncertainty clouds any forecast of what might or might not happen in 2021.

But the ICSG’s numbers are a good basis for understanding what’s happening to copper right now.

(Editing by Mark Potter)

EBRD Business Development team is inviting guests to a webinar entitled “Opportunities in the infrastructure sector in Central Asia and Mongolia” on Thursday 22nd October 2020 – from 08:00 to 09:30 BST.

We expect participation from US, Korean, Japanese. Indian, New Zealand & Australian companies.

There is a growing consensus among G20 countries as to the importance of infrastructure, the permanent assets that a society needs for the orderly operation of its economy, as a driver of growth, jobs and competitiveness. International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as EBRD play a critical role in improving project design and structure in order to attract private capital. IFIs lower transaction costs, risk and risk perception and they support the institutional and legislative reforms needed to encourage the rules of law and ensure that projects are sustainable and welfare enhancing.

The EBRD’s portfolio is almost €2 billion in transport and municipal and environmental infrastructure projects in the Central Asia. There is a substantial scope for private sector companies seeking opportunities offered by projects financed by the EBRD in the region. This webinar will offer an insight from EBRD experts on the region, as well as opportunities and challenges in the infrastructure sector in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia. This will be an interactive debate with an ample room for Q&A where you will:

Hear first-hand about the economic outlook and business environment in these countries.

Discover strategic priorities of the EBRD in the infrastructure sector, and policy dialogue with governments.

Learn about successful EBRD projects and potential opportunities in the region.

The EBRD representatives presenting will be:

Ana Draskovic (Moderator) – Director, Business Development Group

Ekaterina Miroshnik – Director, Head of Infrastructure Eurasia

Hannes Takacs – Associate Director, Head of Mongolia

Agris Preimanis – Director, Head of Kazakhstan

Alkis Vryenios Drakinos – Associate Director, Head of Uzbekistan

Organisers: Ana Draskovic & Aimana Hoskins Business Development

Logistics/registration enquiries: Matthew Foster, fosterm@ebrd.com

Programme

08:00hrs Opening of the Webinar to participants

08:00-08:05hrs Introduction & moderated by Ana Draskovic, Director, Business Development Group

08:05-08:20hrs Opportunities in the Infrastructure sector in Central Asia & Mongolia Ekaterina Miroshnik – Director, Head of Infrastructure Eurasia

08:20-09:00hrs Panel discussion with:

Ekaterina Miroshnik – Director, Head of Infrastructure Eurasia

Agris Preimanis – Director, Head of Kazakhstan

Hannes Takacs – Associate Director, Head of Mongolia

Alkis Vryenios Drakinos – Associate Director, Head of Uzbekistan

09:00-09:30hrs Q&A

Trials of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University will continue, following a review into the death of a volunteer in Brazil.

Brazil's health authority has given no details about the death, citing confidentiality protocols.

Oxford University said a "careful assessment" had revealed no safety concerns.

The BBC understands that the volunteer did not receive the vaccine.

Only around half the volunteers in the trial are given the actual Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine. The second group are being given an existing licensed vaccine for meningitis.

Neither the participants nor their families know which vaccine they are being given.

This enables the researchers to compare the results for the two groups in order to measure whether the vaccine is effective.

AstraZeneca said in a statement that it could not comment on individual cases but it "can confirm that all required review processes have been followed".

"All significant medical events are carefully assessed by trial investigators, an independent safety monitoring committee and the regulatory authorities," it said. "These assessments have not led to any concerns about continuation of the ongoing study."

There are high hopes that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could be one of the first to make it onto the market.

It had successful phase 1 and 2 testing, while phase 3 testing is being carried out on participants in countries including the UK, Brazil and India.

Trials of the Oxford vaccine were paused last month after a reported side effect in a patient in the UK, but were resumed days later when it was deemed safe to continue.

Phase 3 trials in the US remain on hold while the regulator there conducts its own assessment. A senior official was quoted by Bloomberg on Wednesday as saying he expected US trials to restart later in the week.

Trial 'should continue'

Brazil's health authority Anvisa said it was informed of the Brazilian volunteer's death on 19 October.

Brazilian media report that the volunteer was a 28-year-old doctor who died of Covid-19 complications. They say the doctor had worked with infected patients.

This has not been publicly confirmed by Anvisa.

In a statement, Oxford University said: "All significant medical incidents, whether participants are in the control group or the Covid-19 vaccine group, are independently reviewed.

"The independent review, in addition to the Brazilian regulator, have both recommended that the trial should continue," it said.

Brazil has plans to purchase the vaccine if it is approved.

The country has had nearly 5.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases - the third highest tally in the world after the US and India - and is second only to the US in terms of deaths, with nearly 155,000 registered so far, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University.

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. During the parliamentary discussion held on October 16, Friday on Mongolia’s budget bills, such as State Budget bill for 2021, Social Insurance and Health Insurance Budget Bills for 2021, Minister of Construction and Urban Development B.Munkhbaatar informed that commercial banks had already started issuing mortgage loans with lowered interest rate of 6 percent to eligible borrowers.

Minister B.Munkhbaatar has also updated that MNT 50 billion and MNT 40 billion of financial sources have been made available by the central bank and commercial banks respectively to lower interest rate of mortgage loans down to 6 percent.

He also told reporters on October 20, that 38 borrowers had received mortgages with 6 percent interest, worth MNT 2.5 billion in total since the decision has been made. Minister Munkhbaatar clarified that those who already took out central bank’s subsidized mortgage loans at 8 percent and currently are paying are not eligible for the mortgage with newly reduced interest.

In order to increase affordability and accessibility of apartments and reduce air pollution in urban areas, the Mongolian government started implementing a mortgage loan program in 2013, targeting mostly families living in Ger district areas.

With loan funding from the Bank of Mongolia, commercial banks have been providing Mongolian citizens aged above 18 years old housing mortgages at a subsidized interest rate of 8 percent per annum for a maximum of 30 years for the purchase of an apartment of up to 80 square meters.

In May 2020, the Ministry of Construction and Urban Development issued a press release informing that ‘Apartment’ national program will be implemented between 2019-2023 within the framework of the government’s action plan for 2020-2024.

In September 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Ya.Sodbaatar told ikon.mn news website that in connection with the Apartment program, the government had been studying possibilities to reduce mortgage loan interest with an aim of making mortgages more affordable by providing reduced interest rate loans with government subsidies.

Concerning this measure, Governor of the Bank of Mongolia Lkhagvasuren issued an ordinance on October 1, to make a change to the central bank’s ‘Regulation for Housing Mortgage Financing’ that “housing mortgages issued before October 01, 2020 to have an annual interest of 8 percent, and housing mortgages issued after October 01, 2020 shall have an annual interest of 6 percent.”

Private residential houses in capital city are also added into the terms mentioned in the abovementioned regulation as formerly, private residential houses were only referred as houses located in aimag and soums centers of rural areas, not those in Ulaanbaatar city.

The Bank of Mongolia had reported that, in the first 8 months of 2020, mortgage loans totaling MNT 144.7 billion were issued to 2,057 borrowers.

In addition, Minister of Construction last week informed that no budget had been earmarked for the affordable housing mortgage program for next year’s state budget and around MNT 300 billion is presently accumulated to be spent for the housing mortgage in the future.

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ B-Plan angiography equipment for diagnosis and treatment of neurological and cardiovascular disorders has been installed and introduced in service at the State Central First Hospital (SCFH). Furthermore, a surgical ward of Neurological Clinical Center was newly opened at the hospital yesterday, October 19.

Due to lack of up-to date equipment in our country’s state hospitals, a large number of citizens used to go to overseas for diagnosis and treatment. But now, the Ministry of Health is working towards creating conditions for reducing the number of people to go to foreign countries for diagnosis and treatment and providing quality medical services in the country. The latest B-Plan angiography equipment that introduced newly in the service is one of the works.

During the event, Minister of Health T.Munkhsaikhan said “The health care sector has set a goal to decentralize and provide people with the opportunity to receive quality and accessible medical assistance and service from their affiliated hospitals and rural areas. Moreover, conditions have been created for state hospitals to render hospital aid and services using international standard equipment. The imaging equipment is used in time of neurological and cardiovascular emergencies. Therefore, we plan to introduce the apparatus in the Regional Diagnosis and Treatment Centers in the coming year. Within it, we started training human resources. People in rural areas will be able to receive such kind of aid and services in the rural localities from next year.

Furthermore, by commissioning neurological surgical ward, the hospital has been provided with possibility to render all kinds of neurological and cardiovascular treatment and services besides the State Central Third Hospital.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The value of global trade is set to fall by 7% to 9% in 2020 from the previous year, despite signs of a fragile rebound led by China in the third quarter, a United Nations report said on Wednesday.

No region was spared by an estimated 19% year-on-year plunge in world trade in the second quarter, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economies, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.

Global trade recovered somewhat in the third quarter, when it was estimated at about 4.5% less than in the same period a year ago, the agency said in its latest update.

“Trade in home office equipment and medical supplies has increased in Q3, while it further weakened in the automotive and energy sectors,” UNCTAD said. Growth in the textiles sector was also strong.

Its preliminary forecast put year-on-year growth for Q4 2020 at 3% less, but the report said that uncertainties persisted due to how the pandemic would evolve.

If the pandemic resurges in coming months, that could lead to a deteriorating environment for policy-makers and sudden increase in trade restrictive policies, it said.

China’s exports rebounded strongly in the third quarter after falling in the early months of the pandemic, and have posted year-on-year growth rates of nearly 10%, UNCTAD said.

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“Overall, the level of Chinese exports for the first nine months of 2020 was comparable to that of 2019 over the same period,” it said.

Chinese demand for imported products recovered following a decline in Q2 2020, contrary to other major economies, it said.

Earlier this month the World Trade Organization (WTO) upgraded its forecast for trade in goods due to improvements from June and predicted a drop of 9.2% for 2020.

But it saw a more muted rebound in 2021, with further lockdowns from a second wave of COVID-19 infections posing clear risks.

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Covid-19 has not stopped China’s super-rich from making more money. Thanks to booming share prices and new stock listings, they now own a combined fortune of $4 trillion – a sum greater than the economy of Germany.

This year has seen the biggest wealth increase in the 22-year history of the Hurun China Rich List, according to researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, the founder of Hurun Report and ‘godfather’ of the rating. The list includes the wealthiest people in China – those whose fortunes exceed two billion yuan, or nearly $300 million.

“Stock markets booming and a flurry of new listings have minted five new dollar billionaires in China a week for the past year. The world has never seen this much wealth created in just one year,” Hoogewerf said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Chinese super-rich featured on the list increased their fortunes by $1.5 trillion this year – roughly half the size of Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP). The billionaires now own a combined fortune of $4 trillion, more than the gross domestic product of Germany, the world’s fourth-biggest economy, the report says.

This year’s edition of the China Rich List also highlights that “new economy” sectors like e-commerce and fintech are gaining momentum. Over one third of the wealthiest people in China made money from those industries, while 64 percent generated cash from traditional sectors like manufacturing and real estate.

Founder and former head of online retail giant Alibaba, Jack Ma, retained the top spot for the third consecutive year. His net worth has nearly doubled to $58.8 billion, with his new fintech platform Ant preparing for a blockbuster IPO and Alibaba recording a strong performance.

Two other billionaires – the CEO of internet giant Tencent, Pony Ma, and the founder of popular bottled water brand Nongfu, Zhong Shanshan – also made it into the top three. The trio runs almost neck and neck, the report noted, as Pony Ma’s and Zhong Shanshan’s fortunes amount to $57.4 billion and $53 billion respectively – but Jack Ma took the official top spot on the China Rich List.

The trend of the rich getting richer during the pandemic is not exclusive to China. Many of the world’s wealthiest individuals did extremely well during the crisis, especially those who control the tech sector that flourished amid lockdowns.

Measures including fast-tracking of coal deliveries and extended business hours for Mongolian Customs offices at the Mongolian-Chinese border checkpoints has succeeded in helping to boost Mongolian coal exports in September. Last month, Mongolia exported 4.6 million tonnes of coal in total, up by a notable 17.2% on month or 25.4% on year, according to data from the country’s customs authority.

Still, the country’s total exports during January-September were 30.8% lower on year at 19.8 million tonnes. China, Mongolia’s southern neighbour, remained the destination of most Mongolian coal for export, as 96% of the volume was delivered to China over the past nine months, according to the customs data.