Briefly

Loans support water conservancy projects

China Development Bank, one of the country's policy banks, issued 186.4 billion yuan ($27.53 billion) of loans in 2022 to shore up the country's development in water conservancy. The loans mainly supported China's major water conservancy projects, such as the irrigation system of the Dateng Gorge in South China and the comprehensive management of the Yongding River basin in North China, according to the bank. In the next stage, it will focus on key areas and weak links in the field of water conservancy and strengthen financing support to promote high-quality development in this field.

Daily crude steel output up in early Jan

China's major steel mills saw their average daily output of crude steel grow 0.51 percent in early January from that recorded in late December 2022, industrial data showed. The daily crude steel output stood at 1.93 million metric tons in early January, according to the China Iron and Steel Association. Major steel producers churned out a total of 19.26 million tons of crude steel in the period, the data showed. During this period, daily production of pig iron went down 0.4 percent, while that of rolled steel lost 8.68 percent, the data showed.

Gold production up 13% last year

China produced 372.048 metric tons of gold in 2022, up 43.065 tons, or 13.09 percent year-on-year, according to the data released by the China Gold Association. Gold consumption in China totaled 1,001.74 tons last year, down 10.63 percent from the previous year, CGA data showed. Consumption of gold jewelry dropped 8.01 percent year-on-year to 654.32 tons, while gold bar and coin investment decreased 17.23 percent from 2021 to 258.94 tons.

China's crude oil output up in Dec

China's crude oil output posted expansion in December 2022, official data showed. The output totaled 16.87 million metric tons in December, rising 2.5 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. For the whole year of 2022, the crude oil output reached 204.67 million tons, up 2.9 percent year-on-year, NBS data showed. Last month, China imported 48.07 million tons of crude oil, climbing 4.2 percent year-on-year.

Exports of pickup trucks surge in 2022

China's pickup truck exports surged 65 percent year-on-year in 2022, according to the China Passenger Car Association. A total of 128,000 pickup trucks were exported in 2022, accounting for 25 percent of total pickup sales, said the association. In December alone, China exported a total of 15,000 units of pickup trucks, up 70 percent year-on-year. China's pickup truck sales dropped 26 percent year-on-year to 43,000 last month due to COVID-19 disruptions, said the association.

Digital yuan in circulation increases

The amount of digital yuan in circulation reached 13.61 billion yuan ($2.01 billion) by the end of 2022, data from the country's central bank showed. With the digital currency included, China's outstanding M0, the amount of cash in circulation, totaled 10.47 trillion yuan by the end of last year, up 15.3 percent year-on-year, according to the People's Bank of China. As a digital-form legal tender, digital yuan is a component of Chinese currency, just like the physical renminbi. It is necessary to combine the statistics and analysis as well as implementing overall management of the two forms of the currency.

China Daily - Xinhua