The price increase was necessitated by the cost rise of consumables and other materials used in salons as the Iran-U.S. conflict escalated in West Asia
Japan is slipping towards a banana shortage crisis, the latest disruption linked to the Middle East conflict. The reason: the country ships in the tropical fruit while it is still green, then ripens it in rooms filled with ethylene before bunches reach store shelves. Supplies of the naphtha-derived gas are running low in an economy that imports more than 90 per cent of its crude oil. Japan bought about 1 million tonnes of bananas last year, making the fruit one of the country’s most important...
The European Union has shortlisted tungsten, rare earths and gallium for its first joint stockpile of critical minerals aimed at reducing its reliance on China, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The EU is also talking to major ports including Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the region’s biggest, to store the minerals, one of the three and a fourth source said. The move marks one of the bloc’s most concrete steps to insulate its economy from Beijing’s production dominance in...
An official said the Central and State governments are making efforts to promote the balanced use of fertilizers and curb excessive use
A leading Chinese aviation engineer has set out a detailed blueprint for building a fully self-sufficient supply chain for large passenger jets. The paper, written by Zhang Yanzhong, a senior academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the former chief scientist of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, acknowledged there was a very real risk that the country could be cut off entirely from components made in the West. Known as the “father of China’s large aircraft” for his decades...
China’s shipping giants are bracing for a harsh new reality of persistent global volatility, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shifts from being a problem of transit delays to a hard volume shock. With the crucial energy corridor still paralysed as the US-Israel war on Iran drags on with no clear end in sight, China’s state-backed shipping majors are doubling down on long-term contracts and creating new multimodal routes in an attempt to hedge against future shocks. Cosco Shipping Holdings,...