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 Mediterranean region and northwest Europe in January at a discount of $4.90 per barrel.Home improvement stocks continued to rise, with daily limit of Wole Home, Meike Home, Yazhen Home, Mengtian Home, Jinpai Home and Double Gun Technology, while Dinggu Set rose by over 10%, while Shangpin home delivery, Fun Sleep Technology and Wrigley Home rose by over 5%.
A former employee of Adebio was sentenced and involved in AstraZeneca employees' insurance fraud case. A former employee of the genetic testing company Aidebio, which worked closely with AstraZeneca, committed medical insurance fraud together with AstraZeneca sales staff during his tenure in the company. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and fined for fraud, and I pleaded guilty. A judgment obtained shows that Ma, a former employee of Aide Bio involved in the case, conspired with AstraZeneca employees to tamper with the genetic test report during his tenure. He began to accept public security investigation in September 2021 and was sentenced in August 2023. However, on December 9, 2024, the company replied that "there is no problem (cooperation with AstraZeneca), which has no impact on us and has nothing to do with us" and denied that any employees were involved. (financial magazine)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.India's NIFTY 50 index fell, with the latest drop of 0.1%.
According to the Quarterly Report of the Securities and Futures Commission, Hong Kong's capital market has benefited from the success of the interconnection mechanism with the mainland stock market since the third quarter, as well as the breakthrough in contact with the Middle East market. The net capital inflow of Hong Kong Stock Connect is strong. After the optimization of ETF Connect, the number of eligible Hong Kong ETFs has increased to 16, with a total market value of over HK$ 300 billion. Cross-border wealth management investment in the south has increased by over 60% since optimization, and the net subscription of Hong Kong funds has reached RMB 8.8 billion. The CSRC is considering the license applications of 15 virtual asset trading platforms, and it is expected that several operators will be licensed during the year. Liang Fengyi, Chief Executive Officer of China Securities Regulatory Commission, said that the ETF market in Hong Kong has achieved several new milestones this year and will devote itself to building a global hub. (Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission)Lan Foan met with World Trade Organization Director-General Ivira. On December 9, 2024, Minister Lan Foan met with World Trade Organization Director-General Ivira in Beijing. The two sides exchanged views on enhancing the transparency of subsidy policy, supporting the operation of global trust funds and maintaining the multilateral trading system.The 1800th train of "Yangtze River Train" started this year and completed the annual operation task 20 days ahead of schedule. On December 11th, on the first anniversary of normal operation, the 1799th and 1800th trains of "Yangtze River Train" started from Xianglushan Station in Wuhan and Chengxiang Station in Chengdu respectively, and completed the annual operation task 20 days ahead of schedule. "Yangtze River Train" is a hot-metal combined transport train in Sichuan to solve the "dam-breaking difficulty" of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River and improve the transportation capacity of the golden waterway of the Yangtze River. It was launched on December 10, 2023 and reached the first thousand-train target after eight months of operation. Luo Sheng, director of the transportation marketing department of Shudao Railway Operation Group and general manager of Shudao Banlie Branch, said that "Changjiang Banlie" is the fastest-growing train product in Sichuan with the shortest time for over 1,000 trains.