China's exports shrink most in 2 years, raising risks for global economy www.reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s exports unexpectedly fell the most in two years in December and imports also contracted, pointing to further weakness in the world’s second-largest economy in 2019 and deteriorating global demand.

Adding to policymakers’ worries, data on Monday also showed China posted its biggest trade surplus with the United States on record in 2018, which could prompt President Donald Trump to turn up the heat on Beijing in their cantankerous trade dispute.

Softening demand in China is already being felt around the world, with slowing sales of goods ranging from iPhones to automobiles prompting profit warnings from the likes of Apple and Jaguar Land Rover.

The dismal December trade readings suggest China’s economy may have lost more momentum late in the year than earlier thought, despite a slew of growth boosting measures in recent months ranging from higher infrastructure spending to tax cuts.

Some analysts had already speculated that Beijing may have to speed up and intensify its policy easing and stimulus measures this year after factory activity shrank in December.

Exports in December unexpectedly fell 4.4 percent from a year earlier, with demand in most of its major markets weakening. Imports also saw a shock drop, falling 7.6 percent in their biggest decline since July 2016.

“Export growth dropped more than anticipated as global growth softened and the drag from U.S. tariffs intensified. Import growth also fell sharply in the face of cooling domestic demand. We expect both to remain weak in the coming quarters,” Capital Economics said in a note.

“Meanwhile, with policy easing unlikely to put a floor beneath domestic economic activity until the second half of this year, import growth is likely to remain subdued.”

HIGHER TRADE SURPLUS WITH U.S.
China’s politically-sensitive surplus with the U.S. rose 17.2 percent to $323.32 billion last year, the highest on record going back to 2006, according to Reuters calculations based on customs data.

That compared with about $275.81 billion in 2017.

China’s large trade surplus with the United States has long been a sore point with Washington, which has demanded Beijing should take steps to reduce it.

Washington imposed import tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods last year and has threatened further action if Beijing does not change its practices on issues ranging from industrial subsidies to intellectual property. China has retaliated with tariffs of its own.

However, Beijing’s export data had been surprisingly resilient to tariffs for much of 2018, possibly because companies ramped up shipments before broader and stiffer U.S. duties went into effect.

China’s total global exports rose 9.9 percent in 2018, its strongest trade performance in seven years, while imports increased 15.8 percent last year.

But December’s gloomy data seemed to suggest the U.S. front-loading effect has tapered off, and after several months of falling factory orders a further weakening in China’s exports is widely expected in coming months.

Many U.S. warehouses are already packed to the rafters with Chinese goods that American retailers rushed in ahead of higher tariffs.

China exports to the U.S. declined 3.5 percent in December while its imports from the U.S. were down 35.8 percent for the month.

The higher tariffs China levied on U.S. supplies also hit the country’s overall import growth. For all of 2018, soybean, the second largest imports from the U.S., fell for the first time since 2011.

Even if Washington and Beijing reach a trade deal in their current round of talks, it would be no panacea for China’s slowing economy, analysts say.

Sources told Reuters last week that Beijing is planning to lower its economic growth target to 6-6.5 percent this year after an expected 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest pace in 28 years.

Reporting by Yawen Chen, Stella Qiu, Lusha Zhang and Martin Pollard; Editing by Kim Coghill

Russia’s coal exports, production hit 5-year high in 2018 www.rt.com

Russia’s production and exports of coal hit last year their highest levels since 2013, according to S&P Global Platts estimates of data from Russia’s Energy Ministry.
Russian coal exports increased last year by 3.4 percent compared to 2017, to reach 191 million mt—the highest level since S&P Global Platts started collecting data on Russia’s coal industry in 2013.

Hitachi to decide on fate of UK nuclear plant www.bbc.com

The UK government's nuclear policy is under renewed scrutiny as the firm behind a £20bn reactor in Wales looks set to halt construction.

Japanese media reports say Hitachi will suspend on its Horizon division's Wylfa Newydd plant this week.

The company says no formal decision has yet been made.

But if the project is scrapped, it will cost 400 jobs and leave the Hinkley Point power station in Somerset as the only new UK reactor still being built.

In November, plans to build a nuclear power station at Moorside in Cumbria were halted after Toshiba announced it was winding up its NuGeneration subsidiary, which was behind the project.

The government continues to stress that it is still in talks with Hitachi about Wylfa.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said: "Negotiations with Hitachi on agreeing a deal that provides value for money for consumers and taxpayers on the Wylfa project are ongoing.

"They are commercially sensitive and we do not comment on speculation."

The latest developments are likely to force the government to sweeten future nuclear plant deals for potential investors, in what one expert has called a "desperate leap in the dark".

Energy Secretary Greg Clark has already suggested that regulated asset base (RAB) funding could be used for nuclear projects in future.

The method, which has already been used for other infrastructure schemes including the £4.2bn Thames Tideway "super-sewer", allows investors to receive returns before the projects have been completed.

It also allows the Treasury to keep the costs off its books by recouping the investment from consumers' bills rather than through direct taxation.

A BEIS spokesperson said on Sunday that it remained the government's objective in the longer term that new nuclear projects like other energy infrastructure should be financed by the private sector.

The spokesperson added: "Alongside our discussions with developers, we will be reviewing the viability of a regulated asset base model as a sustainable funding model based on private finance for future projects beyond Wylfa, which could deliver the government's objectives in terms of value for money, fiscal responsibility and decarbonisation."

Technically complex
One economist, Prof Dieter Helm of Oxford University, says this could work if it is properly regulated.

In an analysis of the model, he wrote: "The RAB approach is in a first, best world probably inferior to the direct procurement route, but the latter is ruled out by the Treasury-imposed constraints.

"The RAB model is a second-best, but much better than the Hinkley-style contract."

However, energy expert Prof Paul Dorfman, of the Energy Institute at University College London, is more sceptical.

He told the BBC that nuclear power plants could not be built without "vast" public subsidies and that RAB funding was merely "a fiscally dextrous form of subsidy".

He added: "It's never been tried for projects as technically complex as nuclear power that take about a decade to build.

"It really looks as if the government are flailing. It's a last desperate leap in the dark."

Both Prof Helm and Prof Dorfman take the view that the UK has various possible ways of satisfying its future energy needs.

Prof Helm says that nuclear faces "deep challenges", adding: "It is for society to decide whether it wants new nuclear or not. The market cannot decide."

For Prof Dorfman, renewable energy is now "cost-competitive with fossil fuels" and offers "a cheaper and better way forward".

Mongolia celebrates 27th anniversary of modern constitution www.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia on Sunday celebrated the 27th anniversary of the promulgation of its modern constitution.

Mongolia’s economic growth set to continue in 2019 www.news.mn

The Mongolian economy is on track to exceed previous growth estimates for 2019, according to data from the Asian Development Bank.

Parliament forms quorum after two months www.zgm.mn

After prolonging the lawmaking process for about two months, the Parliament finally formed a quorum last week. With multiple urgent items of high importance on the order list, the Parliament appointed Ulaan Chultem as the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry.

Crypto mining will bloom in Mongolia as Japanese investor triples mining power www.chepicap.com

Mongolia to see crypto mining business blooms as mining company, Ginco plans to almost triples their miner devices.

Cheap Electricity Makes Mongolia the New Cryptocurrrency Mining Hub for Japanese Miners www.coingape.com

The latest report from Japanese media reported ‘ Mongolia’s cheap electricity’ has captured the growing cryptocurrency mining interest from the Japanese bitcoin miners. Mongolia, a location between China to the south and Russia to the north is featured with ‘the blend of cheap electricity and cold weather’.

Mongolia emerges as crypto mining hub www.asia.nikkei.com

TOKYO -- Mongolia has become a cryptocurrency mining hub as companies reeling from the 2018 bitcoin crash find opportunities in a country that offers favorable conditions of cheap electricity and cold weather.

At an underground structure at a condominium complex in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, a shelf full of crypto mining equipment was recently seen growling as it engaged in constant computing of virtual currency transactions to generate profit.

This is one of the two locations out of which Tokyo-based e-wallet company Ginco operates in the city. The company launched the business in October and runs about 600 mining computers; it plans to add 1,000 units in early 2019.

"The business environment is increasingly harsh, but we can still produce a profit," said Yuma Furubayashi, CEO of Ginco Mongol. Energy cost is a key factor in the profit equation of crypto mining. Electricity prices in Mongolia run around a third of Japanese rates and lower than in China, which has been home to many crypto miners.

The landlocked nation's cold weather also helps by cooling the heat-generating mining computers.

Mongolia is one of the few countries where bitcoin miners can still generate a profit, along with the U.S. and Sweden, according to Ginco. Following a crash in the second half of 2018, the virtual currency's price has declined to a fifth of the peak it reached in December 2017.

Many big crypto mining companies have shut down their operations. But "bitcoin, which has become synonymous with virtual currency, will always hold value," says Hiroyuki Maruno, a manager at Tokyo-based consultancy LayerX.

Mongolian information technology company iTools began bitcoin mining last summer using the site of a former construction materials factory. The facility, located in the city of Darkhan, north of the capital, gets electricity from its own generating facilities.

Tokyo-based online ad company Unimedia outsources operation of mining equipment to iTools.

The languishing virtual currency market has put the brakes on iTools' plan to expand its fleet of mining equipment. But CEO Tamir Bayarsaikhan stresses that the business enables the company to deepen its expertise in blockchain technologies.

The technology, known for high levels of security, has broad applications, including data management. The Mongolian company hopes to leverage its blockchain-related operations to create new business.

Crypto mining is an attractive year-around business for companies in Mongolia, whose core industries like mineral mining, agriculture and tourism slow down during the harsh winter. The government is actively nurturing the country's information technology sector.

The leasing unit of Trade and Development Bank of Mongolia has joined with Ginco in plans to add crypto mining to its fleet of leased equipment, along with mineral mining and farming machinery.

Mongolia's economic development has historically been driven by resources like coal and copper. Can crypto miners strike gold? It will probably take some time to find out.

Sea buckthorn factory to be built www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Government’s commitment to supply the population with nutritious fruits and berries by increasing their varieties and production, establish a consolidated sea buckthorn production network and increase the export revenues is reflected in its Action Plan for 2016-2020.