Gold production in Russia in January to June decreased by 1.9% compared to the same period last year, amounting to 135.51 tons, the country’s Ministry of Finance said.
The figures are based on raw materials supply data from Russian refineries.
Production of mined gold in the reporting period amounted to 112.61 tons, against 116.38 tons in January to June 2020, while production of by-product gold stood at 7.42 tons against 8.27 tons last year. Production of secondary gold in the first six months of the year increased to 15.48 tons, against 13.45 tons in 2021.
Meanwhile, silver production increased in the reporting period by 1.8%, rising to 445.18 tons, compared with 437.3 tons in 2020.
Russia’s Ministry of Finance has been publishing statistics on the country’s production of precious metals since 2014. However, it does not provide data on gold-bearing concentrates that are exported for processing and are not returned to Russian refineries.
Chinese real estate developer Evergrande has reportedly begun repaying investors in its wealth management products with property, as the giant appeared to be on the brink of collapse.
Investors interested in redeeming wealth management products for physical assets should contact their investment consultants or visit local offices, a unit of the company’s main Hengda Real Estate Group Co Ltd unit said in a WeChat post dated Saturday.
The embattled corporation reportedly has an estimated 40 billion yuan ($6 billion) in outstanding Evergrande wealth management products.
Proposed methods of payment and details are subject to local conditions, a customer service representative told Reuters, while the earlier outline seen by the agency revealed that wealth management product investors can choose from discounted apartments, office, retail space or car parks as a form of repayment.
Evergrande repaid nearly 220 million yuan ($34 million) in overdue debts due to supplier Skshu Paint Co in the form of apartments in three unfinished property projects, a stock exchange filing revealed earlier this month.
Evergrande, China’s second-largest real estate developer by sales, is currently in the midst of its worst liquidity crisis. The company’s debts have reportedly ballooned to more than $300 billion. Last week, the property group had vowed to repay all of its matured wealth management products as soon as possible.
The world’s top cryptocurrency, bitcoin, is set to consume some 95.68 TW/h (terawatt-hours, or one trillion watts per hour) by the end of the year, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.
That’s about the same as the power consumption of the Philippines.
According to a Bloomberg report, the bitcoin network will have consumed 91 TW/h by the end of the year, and it has already consumed more than the 67 TW/h estimated for all of 2020.
A separate study by Science Direct found that bitcoin miners “cycle through a growing amount of short-lived hardware that could exacerbate the growth in global electronic waste.”
The Science Direct report also suggested that “bitcoin could produce up to 64.4 metric kilotons [64,400 tons] of e-waste at peak bitcoin price levels seen in early 2021.”
E-waste generally refers to discarded computer equipment and electronics.
Bitcoin accounts for about 0.11% of the estimated global total for e-waste in 2021, which is 57.4 million metric tons, according to Statista. As a percentage of the total global electricity consumption, bitcoin mining accounts for just 0.43%. That is less than the estimated 104 TW/h used by refrigerators in the US alone, according to Cambridge University.
China is planning to “steadily and prudently” promote internationalization of its currency, the yuan, the country’s central bank said, pledging to strengthen the monitoring of cross-border capital flows and prevent systemic risks.
According to the regulator, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement is expected to further boost trade ties between the nations in the Asia-Pacific region, thus promoting more opportunities for the use of the yuan in mutual settlements and investment activities.
The pact was clinched in late 2020 at a virtual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations hosted by Vietnam.Based on rapidly developing yuan-denominated commodity trade settlements, the Chinese government is reportedly seeking to increase the use of the currency in cross-border e-commerce.
The People’s Bank of China added that it is planning to explore more options for yuan-denominated investment and financing. The regulator will also step up currency settlement cooperation with other countries, and improve the infrastructure for settlement and clearing.
International payments made in the local currency amounted to 28.39 trillion yuan ($4.39 trillion) in 2020, surging 44.3% compared to the previous year, the regulator said. Meanwhile, cross-border settlements made in yuan reportedly accounted for 46.2% of overall international payments, hitting an all-time high.
Beijing has been trying to expand the influence of the yuan across the globe since 2009 to eliminate the reliance on the US dollar in trade and investment settlements, as well as to challenge the greenback’s status as the world’s major reserve currency.
Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have adopted a roadmap for boosting mutual trade and investment cooperation for the next five years, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development announced.
“The pandemic has demonstrated that we can overcome the crisis only by means of scaling up cooperation in three key areas – trade and investment, digital economy, and sustainable development,” the ministry’s press service reported, citing Deputy Minister Vladimir Ilyichev.
According to the official, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, investments in joint Russia-ASEAN projects saw more than a threefold increase in 2020 compared to 2019, reaching $8.8 billion.
Ilyichev said that both ASEAN member states and Russia need to modernize their respective economic models to ensure more efficient cooperation. Also, he stressed that Russia sees great potential in joint work on climate-related projects under the plan.
According to the ministry, cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), of which Russia is a member state, and ASEAN will also see changes in the near future.
“The sides (ASEAN and EAEU) agreed to draft a number of initiatives in the areas of the development of the single-window systems, e-trade, intellectual property protection, as well as the use of sanitary and phytosanitary measures,” the ministry said.
At the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia’s Vladivostok earlier this month, a proposal was unveiled to establish a free-trade zone between ASEAN and the EAEU in order to boost regional cooperation further.
