BRICS Business

The PBOC will keep monetary policy “neither too tight nor too loose” [Xinhua]
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has kept in tandem with pledges made during December’s Central Economic Work Conference and announced that its monetary policy will remain neutral and maintain sufficient liquidity.
The PBOC said liquidity will remain stable through a number of fiscal policy tools
“At present, China’s economic and financial operations are generally stable, but the complexity of the situation cannot be underestimated,” the PBOC said in a statement.

The rise in industrial profits coupled with the uptick in activity in China’s manufacturing sector in recent months shows that economic growth is on target, experts say [Xinhua]
China’s National Bureau of Statistics revealed on Tuesday that the country’s largest industrial firms registered an uptick in profits in November.
The NBS said that the profits of companies with an annual revenue above 20 million yuan ($2.87 million) rose 14.5 per cent year-on-year in November.
This is a rise from 9.8 per cent year-on-year in October.

BRICS leaders at the 8th BRICS Summit in Goa, India on 16 October 2016 [Image: BRICS2016]China has inked an agreement with the New development bank set up by the BRICS approving a 525 million yuan loan for a solar power project in the country, an official statement said on Wednesday.
The new lender announced a 525 million yuan loan for the Shanghai Lingang Distributed Solar Power Project. This is the Bank’s first project in China, a solar photovoltaic power plant with total capacity of 100 MW to be built in Lingang Industrial Area of Shanghai.

The HSBC survey examined RMB use in 1,600 corporations spanning the Middle East and North Africa, Europe and North America, with the bulk in the Asia-Pacific region [Xinhua]
The Chinese currency renminbi (RMB, also known as the yuan) “has ascended to the world’s fifth most widely used payment currency”, an HSBC survey has shown.
The survey, Renminbi Internationalisation Study 2016, found that corporations are more than ever introducing the RMB into their treasury and “integrating it across various business applications each year”.

There are some who fear that demonetization could stall India’s stellar economic growth [Xinhua]
India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at 6.25 per cent on Wednesday, as the country’s economy continues to bear the weight of demonetization.
The move was unexpected as many had anticipated the bank would drop its interest rates to allow for increased borrowing.
The bank’s monetary policy committee said it needed more time to assess whether scrapping the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes would be detrimental for the economy.

the five nations agreed to work within the OECD’s Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project, which targets tax avoidance initiatives undertaken by some who exploit existing loopholes between different countries’ tax laws [Xinhua]
Tax officials representing BRICS countries have reiterated their pledge to automatically share tax information between them.

China’s economy has grown at a rate of 6.7 per cent so far this year, falling within government forecasts of GDP growth in the 6.5 to 7 per cent range [Xinhua]
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released data which shows that the economy is picking up pace.
The manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) rose to 51.7 in November from October’s 51.2, NBS said in its survey tracking the health of some 3,000 large and state-owned companies

Following the recall of the outlawed 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, India is now coping with a weakened rupee amid foreign cash outflow [Xinhua]
Currencies in emerging markets have been in near-record free fall, in some places reversing gains made over three years, following the US election win of Republican candidate Donald Trump and ahead of a much expected Federal Reserve interest rate hike.
In India, the rupee plummeted another 0.4 per cent on Thursday extending losses throughout November.

Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei (C), Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong (R) and President of the New Development Bank (NDB) of BRICS K.V. Kamath attend the launching ceremony of the bank in Shanghai, east China, July 21, 2015 [Xinhua]
The Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) announced on Tuesday that it will provide two loans worth a combined total of $650 million for two projects in China and India.

The 21 economies which comprise APEC are meeting at a time when Washington’s future trade policies are unclear following the Trump election win [Xinhua]
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has told leaders at the 28th Annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit that they must do their utmost to combat protectionist trade policies and ensure that free trade exists between nations.