The Asia Eight

Daily must-reads from the world’s most dynamic region

January 14, 2021

1 TOP STORY: Green recovery boosting sales of EVs

2 ATF TV: The age of the electric vehicle is upon us

3 ATF BIG PICTURE: Charting Nio's road to Tesla challenge

4 ASIA MARKETS: HSI, Nikkei 225 climb, CSI300 falls

5 COMMENT: Better China outlook than forecast

6 NEWS: Mnuchin comes to the rescue of China tech

7 NEWS: Biden gives former Obama diplomat China role

8 NEWS: Trump adds Xinjiang trade to sanctions list

01 Top Story Recovery boosting global EV uptake

The shift to electric vehicles has been boosted by stimulus to fight the coronavirus and the poll win by Joe Biden, who is likely to support the sector; ALLINDEX has created a Global Green Energy Transport and Technology Leaders Index in collaboration with Asia Times Financial to track shares of leaders in EVs and renewable energy

02 ATF TV

ATF TV Presenter Christine Zhou looks over the latest developments in the Asian electric vehicle market

03 The ATF Big Picture Nio's road to Tesla rivalry

04 Asia Markets

HSI gains 0.9% to 28,496.86; CSI300 drops 0.9% to 3,656.90; and, Nikkei 225 rises 0.9% to 28,698.26

Market Wrap

05 Comment

"China’s whole-year GDP growth rate should reach 2.3% in 2020, a figure far below expectation at the beginning of last year but still very positive compared to the rest of the world. The good performance of the last quarter signaled a better outlook for the Chinese economy for the upcoming 2021."

Alicia Garcia Herrero at Natixis

06 Mnuchin steps in on ban

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has won a battle to spare Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent from a blacklist proposed by rivals in the Trump administration; the reprieve might help Alibaba to revive plans to issue a big US dollar bond

07 US diplomat's China role

President-elect Biden has appointed Kurt Campbell as top official for Asia policy, including the key relationship with China; Campbell is a veteran diplomat who had a similar role in the Obama administration

08 US adds Xinjiang to list

Washington bans imports of cotton and tomatoes from restive Xinjiang region but decides against blacklisting of tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu