Liquidity injected THE central bank injected liquidity into the financial system by offering medium-term loans to banks, in the government’s latest effort to support economic growth. It kept interest rates on the loans unchanged. The People’s Bank of China added 300 billion yuan (US$43 billion) through the medium-term lending facility, with 286 billion yuan being used to roll over loans coming due yesterday. It offered the one-year loans at 3.25 percent, according to a statement. Samsung investment SAMSUNG Electronics will increase investment at its chip factory in China by US$8 billion to boost production of NAND flash memory chips, media reported Tuesday. The South Korean group’s investment came as the memory market is expected to rebound next year because of limited supplies and rising demand for fifth-generation devices and networks. Samsung is the world’s largest maker of NAND flash memory chips, which can hold data permanently and are found in mobile devices, memory cards, USB flash drives and solid-state drives. In 2017, Samsung announced that it would invest US$7 billion over three years in its Xi’an plant that produces NAND flash memory chips. 5G handset shipments CHINA reported accelerating shipments of 5G handsets in November as smartphone makers race to tap the emerging market. A total of 5.074 million 5G smartphones were shipped last month, exceeding the combined shipments of the previous 10 months, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed. China’s 5G smartphone shipments reached 8.355 million sets in the past 11 months, with 24 new phones rolled out. |