The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Saturday that its deputy governor Pan Gongsheng has been appointed as the bank’s party secretary.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the government will later appoint Pan to be the governor of the PBOC.

Pan has served as deputy governor of the PBOC since 2012 and led China’s foreign exchange regulator since 2016.

Pan received his doctoral degree in economics from Renmin University and did post-doctoral research at Cambridge University and was a senior research fellow at Harvard University.

 

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen started visiting China on Thursday.

Before starting her China visit, Yellen met with China’s Ambassador to the US Xie Feng. The two had “frank and productive discussion supported ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the US-China bilateral relationship”, according to a statement by the US Treasury.

Yellen will be in China from July 6 to 9. She is expected to meet with senior Chinese officials and leading US firms.

 

Retail sales in Hong Kong rose 18.4% in May from a year earlier, official data showed on Monday.

Total retail sales rose to HK$34.5 billion in May. The Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region estimated that total sales increased 21% in the first five months of the year.

Online sales, which accounted for 6.3% of total sales in May, decreased 3.7% year on year.

The sales of jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts rose 51.8%.

 

Automaker BYD is to invest 3 billion reais ($620 million) in Brazil to boost local production, the company announced on Tuesday.

The investment will go to a industrial complex made up of three plants.

One of the plants will be dedicated to the production of chassis for buses and electric trucks. The second plant will produce hybrid and electric cars while the third will process metals for batteries.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) said on Tuesday that it opposes bloc, ideological and confrontational approaches to address global issues and security challenges as Iran becomes its ninth member.

India hosted the 2023 SCO summit which took place virtually. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on members to boost trade, connectivity, cooperation in technology and cross-border terrorism.

In his address, President Xi Jinping called for unity and coordination among member states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Western sanctions has made Russia stronger and he supported SCO members to trade in local currencies.

Argentina has paid $1 billion of its $2.7 billion debt obligation to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) using the Chinese yuan as its central bank was short of dollars, local media reported on Saturday.

The country has settled the other $1.7 billion using the so-called Special Drawing Rights (SDR) - an asset created by the IMF to supplement countries’ official reserves.

IMF said in a statement that the Argentine government remains “current” on their financial obligations to the IMF.

Argentina reached a deal with the IMF last year to restructure a loan of $44 billion.

Tuesday, July 4, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, breaking Monday’s record.

The average global temperature reached 17.18C on Tuesday, higher than the record 17.01C on Monday, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Previously, the world’s hottest day was recorded in August 2016 with an average global temperature of 16.92C.

The World Meteorological Organisation, the UN’s weather body, said on Tuesday that  El Niño had returned. Combined with global warming, experts say the world will experience more recording-breaking temperatures. 

UN chief António Guterres on Monday urged the global shipping industry to endorse a new strategy to cut greenhouse gas emission at the opening of the meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC).

In a video address, Guterres said the shipping industry, which accounts for almost 3% of global emissions is vital for cutting global emissions and limiting global temperature rise to 1.5%.

The MEPC, which is meeting from July 3 to 7, is expected to adopt a greenhouse gas emissions strategy in response to climate change and threats to biodiversity.

Qu Dongyu of China on Sunday was reelected to a second term as Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN.

He will be serving from August 1, 2023 to July 31, 2027.

In a statement by the FAO, Qu has championed a wide range of reforms and initiatives to overhaul the Organization’s business model, improving efficiency and implementing best practices that support programme and administrative effectiveness since elected FAO Director-General for the first time in 2019.