Chancellor Angela Merkel’sgovernment is pushing for an agreement within the next month to boost electric car sales in Germany as demand for the environmentally friendly vehicles fails to take off in the country. Source: Bloomberg
Two days of U.S.-Chinese trade talks ended with no specific details about whether progress was made or not Friday, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called them “productive” on Twitter. Source: WLOX
- In new official data out of China, both the Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index inflation came in weaker than expected for January.
- The data comes amid a new round of U.S.-China talks in Beijing this week as the world’s two largest economies renewed efforts to reach a deal to defuse trade tensions
- China’s January dollar-denominated exports rose 9.1 percent from a year ago, defying a forecast of a 3.2 percent contraction.
- China’s imports fell 1.5 percent over the same period, far better than the 10 percent decline that was expected.
- China’s overall trade surplus of $39.16 billion in January also beat expectations.
