Global trade

Ukraines First Lady Olena Zelenska has released her first public statement in a letter addressed to the global community. In the statement, she relays the horrors of war, particularly for women and children. She also named some child casualties of the war so far: "Eight-year-old Alice who died on the streets of Okhtyrka while her grandfather tried to protect her."

The ADB's Asian Economic Integration Report 2022 said the strong intraregional trade, along with the release of pent-up global demand and the early economic recovery in China, underpinned the region's economic resilience, reports Xinhua news agency. Asia and the Pacific's trade grew by 29.6 percent in the first three-quarters of 2021 and trade within the region rebounded by 31.2 percent during the same period, following a 3.1 percent contraction in 2020, the report said.

The ASEAN Secretariat announced in November that the RCEP agreement would enter into force on January 1, 2022, as it had received instruments of ratification from six ASEAN countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam as well as from four non-ASEAN signatory states of Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in India and the India China Mobile Phone Enterprise Association, in a statement sent to the Global Times on Sunday, said that Chinese mobile phone companies in India have now encountered unprecedented difficulties, and as a result of sudden inspection and fines by the Indian authorities, the companies are unable to carry out normal production and operations.

"Egypt's Suez Canal earned a revenue of $6 billion from January until the first half of December," Rabie said, noting that it was the period's highest-ever revenue. The revenue of the Suez Canal reached $5.61 billion in 2020 and $5.8 billion in 2019.

The discussions have already begun as Jaishankar met Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov and Mohammed Haneef Atmar, the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan on Tuesday, just before the foreign ministers got into a huddle for the SCO Council and the SCO Contact Group on Afghanistan meeting being held in Dushanbe today. Integration of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the Chabahar route has been India's prime focus.