South Korea will gradually reduce the rice planting area to cope with the decline in demand. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of South Korea said on Thursday that South Korea will strive to gradually reduce the rice field area to solve the problem of declining demand and adopt environmentally-friendly planting methods. Due to the change of diet structure, the annual rice consumption of Koreans has decreased, and the per capita rice consumption has dropped significantly from 61 kg in 2018 to 56.4 kg in 2023. At present, the total area of rice fields in South Korea is about 698,000 hectares, and the government says it plans to reduce the area of rice fields by 80,000 hectares next year. In addition, by 2029, the planting area of environmentally friendly rice will be expanded from 35,000 hectares this year to 68,000 hectares. The government will also allocate 244 billion won (about 170 million US dollars) to subsidize farms that grow strategic crops other than rice, such as wheat, beans and barley, which is an increase from 186.5 billion won this year.Kuwait set the price of crude oil sold to the United States in January at a premium of $4.10 per barrel.Renhe Pharmaceutical invested in Jiangxi to establish a health industry company. According to the enterprise search APP, Jiangxi Renhe Jiuniuai Health Industry Co., Ltd. was recently established, with Xin Li as the legal representative and a registered capital of 1 million yuan. Its business scope includes: food Internet sales, health food production, health care services (non-medical), health consulting services, sales of first-class medical devices, sales of agricultural and sideline products, etc. Enterprise survey shows that the company is jointly held by Renhe Pharmaceutical and Xin Li.
The opposition party in South Korea said that Yin Xiyue was insane. On the morning of December 12, local time, South Korean President Yin Xiyue made another televised speech, refused to step down early, and denied that martial law was a crime of civil strife. After Yin Xiyue's speech, public opinion in South Korea immediately criticized him. South Korea's largest opposition party, the Common Democratic Party, said that Yin Xiyue was mentally ill and called on the South Korean National Assembly to pass the impeachment case. After Yin Xiyue's speech, Han Dongxun, the representative of the ruling party in South Korea, also said that Yin Xiyue's speech had no introspection and was rationalizing his behavior. Some commentators pointed out that Yin Xiyue may have expected that he could not prevent the National Assembly from passing the impeachment case and was trying to influence the final ruling of the Constitutional Court. I am afraid that the chaos in Korean politics will continue.Daiwa Capital Market raised the target price of Tesla from $285 to $420.Korean Air passed the US antitrust review, clearing the way for completing the Asiana Airlines transaction.
This year, the amount of M&A transactions involving listed companies in Hong Kong has reached 38 billion US dollars, which has triggered a rare bidding war. This year is expected to be the busiest year for M&A transactions involving listed companies in Hong Kong in the past decade, with industries ranging from skin care products to logistics real estate, and the bidding war has also warmed up. It is reported that China Mobile's bid for Hongkong Broadband may face competition from American private equity firm I Squared Capital. Bi Hua, chairman of Fenmei Packaging, is negotiating with Qihao Capital to jointly counter the privatization offer of Shandong Xinjufeng. The data shows that the scale of M&A transactions for listed companies in Hong Kong has reached $38 billion this year, the highest level since 2017, including the merger of Guotai Junan Securities and Haitong Securities, a smaller competitor, to become the largest brokerage firm in China.Citigroup slightly lowered South Korea's GDP growth forecast to 1.5% next year. It is expected that the Bank of Korea will cut interest rates next month. Citigroup released a report saying that considering the worse economic sentiment in South Korea this month, it slightly lowered its GDP forecast for this year and next year by 0.1 percentage point to 2.1% and 1.5% respectively. The bank slightly lowered Korea's GDP growth forecast for the last quarter of this year by 0.1 percentage point to rise by 0.3% quarterly, and raised its GDP growth forecast for the first quarter of next year by 0.1 percentage point to rise by 0.6% quarterly. Looking forward to the first quarter of next year, the bank expects South Korea to adopt a combination of expansionary policies, including the Bank of Korea's expected interest rate cut to 2.75% in mid-January, and the government's expected additional budget of 30 trillion won (equivalent to about 1.1% of GDP next year). It is expected that the Bank of Korea will cut interest rates by 25BP each in January, April, July and October next year, and the final interest rate is expected to be 2%.Korean Air passed the US antitrust review, clearing the way for completing the Asiana Airlines transaction.