🇫🇷📈💡 French electricity prices to be raised 76% by 2025

👉🏻 The French Minister for Public Accounts announced last week that the government would "gradually" phase out the electricity price shield introduced in 2021 to combat inflation. Today, the French TV channel CNews exposed how will that decision take shape.

🔹India and Indonesia plan to use their local currencies in bilateral trade. India, 🇮🇳the most populated country and Indonesia 🇮🇩 the 4th most populated country in the world also plan to link up their fast payment systems. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Indonesian counterpart Sri Mulyani Indrawati had reviewed the proposals for the bilateral trade pact which had been completed. The plans are not public.

🔹Indonesia 🇮🇩 has so far linked its fast payments system with Singapore, and is in talks with several others, including Japan and France, for such fast cross border transactions. The Bank of Indonesia launched its domestic card payment system in May. Recently, India and Russia 🇷🇺 agreed to adopt the Russian financial messaging system (SPFS), for cross-border payments.

🔹An Indian 🇮🇳 official said that currency arrangement will be similar to the one with the UAE 🇦🇪, and could see Indian exporters settle their trade in Indonesian rupiah, while those exporting, say, palm oil can earn in Indian rupees. Indonesia is India’s largest trading partner in the ASEAN region.

🔹India in March approved the opening 60 special rupee vostro accounts in 18 countries for settling payments in Indian rupees. Presviously, Bangladesh's 🇧🇩 ministry of commerce have been looking at the possibility of using the Indian rupee instead of the US dollar with India. Both countries reached a deal that will see a small part of their bilateral trade transactions settled in their own currencies.

Video source - Mint

🔹Chinese investment is retreating from the West as hostility to Chinese capital has grown. Increasingly, Chinese 🇨🇳 companies are instead spending money on factories in Southeast Asia and mining and energy projects in Asia, the Middle East and South America.

🔹Change in share of Chinese overseas investment since 2016 (percentage points) in the USA is down🔻25% and in Europe down🔻10%. The opposite is true for East Asia which is up🔼almost 20% and similar for the Middle East and North Africa combined.

🔹Overseas investment by China 🇨🇳 fell to around $147 billion in 2022, a decline of 18% compared with a year earlier. It peaked at $196 billion in 2016. In 2016, Chinese companies and state-owned entities made 120 investments worth ($84 billion) in G-7 nations but only 13 last year worth $7.4 billion (18% of China’s total investments overseas).

🔹The yuan was used in 49% of China's cross-border transactions last quarter, topping the dollar for the first time. However, in June the yuan was used for 2.77% of total global trade through the SWIFT 🌐 system (excludes bilateral trade settlement systems). Yuan-denominated international payments last quarter grew 11% on the year.

🔹The IMF may have to accept the Chinese yuan as a currency for countries to settle their obligations with the IMF following Argentina’s 🇦🇷 recent debt repayment in yuan, since the yuan is part of the IMF's SDR basket of currencies.

Video source - Sean Foo