Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Trinh Profile picture
@Trinhnomics
Jul 20, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
Good morning - here's what is going on in Asia regarding new Covid infections - charts look messy but key point is that infections are going up on the Delta Variant, even for previously good places like Australia, Vietnam and Singapore.
Added South Korea to the mix (this is net change 1 day) & it's not looking good either: Question is whether Bank of Korea can hike/tighten as it wants to given not the spike of the virus in Korea as well as Asia?
Added India to the mix & you can see that it's high but down from the worst in Q2. This Delta Variant (DV) is wreaking havoc across Asia esp as we are behind in Covid vaccination esp the Pfizer/Moderna one that proven to be more effective.
Vaccination in Asia - highlighting economies on the low end, yes, a lot of Southeast Asian ones. Vietnam went from hero to zero. The Philippines has never been a hero for Covid but better than Vietnam on the vaccination race, although still bottom.

Peso not doing well today.
Markets went from inflation/reflation to quickly fear of the Delta Variant rather quickly. Are we going to tighten in Asia just yet?

Well, the bond & FX markets say no. 🙅🏻‍♀️🙅🏻‍♀️🙅🏻‍♀️
What about deaths & hospitalization? DV is very infectious & so it can quickly spiral. Most new infections are of DV so govs have to make decisions of whether to do more than necessary or not, esp if population is not vaccinated. In AU, SG, & VN, that means restrictions.
Indonesia next restriction is due today. ID has a lot of Covid cases & only 6% of the population vaccinated. So here we are on 20th July with the race against the virus in Asia raging. The zero Covid strategy is unsustainable for some countries, esp those that depend on tourism.
Some people say, well, what lessons can be learned from India that had this first and cases + deaths falling. First, few countries want to go through what India went through & still is reeling from it. For Vietnam's case, the fast infection is wreaking havoc on the health system.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Trinh

Trinh Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Trinhnomics

Trinh Profile picture
Oct 15
Good question. Let me just answer this with below tables.

First, whatever China lost in market share in exports to the US, Vietnam has gained. The best example is in mobile phones.

Now, is it REROUTING? As in just Chinese phones that are then trans-shipped to the US? Image
First, we have to realize that Vietnam went through two stages of FDI.

The first stage is driven by NORTH ASIANS that are basically fed up with geopolitical tensions and too much competition from China (think Japan in 2010 w/ rare earth and South Korea with THAAD but even before) and so what do they do?

They MOVE their production base slowly out of China into where? Well, for South Korea, it was Vietnam.

Samsung Electronics moved into Vietnam in the early 2000s to the point now more than 50% of their stuff is exported out of Vietnam. But not only. Many other Korean stuff.

Also Japanese etc. So what you see in the telecom here is not CHINESE PHONES but KOREAN PHONES.

The second wave of course is Chinese outward FDI themselves and also increasingly EUROPEANS.

Anyway, let's talk about phones.Image
For phones, the key thing I want to show here is that while Vietnam exports have grown a lot, over time, the IMPORTS of that have DECLINED.

And they have declined everywhere. People that look at China all day long think Vietnam only trades with China.

No, Vietnam is a relatively big trader for its small economic size so it TRADES WITH MANY ECONOMIES, the US and also South Korea etc.

Long story short here is that Vietnam is importing less of inputs while exporting more and that tells you that overtime supply chains are DEEPENING THERE FOR THAT ITEM. And it's not transhipment.

But what's RISING in imports FROM EVERYONE? WELL, capital intensive stuff. Vietnam is importing a lot of machinery etc from EVERYWHERE.

Note that it imports a lot from South Korea and Japan, Taiwan etc as well as China.Image
Read 6 tweets
Trinh Profile picture
Oct 15
Did you know that Vietnam's Q3 GDP grew 8.2%YoY and Q2 was 8%? It is one of the few countries in Asia where manufacturing share of GDP is rising even as Chinese imports flood the market. Why?

“In contrast to other countries that are stuck in political paralysis, Vietnam has moved very swiftly to secure lower tariffs and reform its economy to increase productivity and competitiveness,” @Trinhnomics , a senior economist at Natixis SA, said. “This has allowed Vietnam to emerge as a winner under Trump 2.0 despite high tariffs because it’s favored as a foreign direct investment destination for those wanting to diversify away from worsening US-China tensions.”

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Look at manufacturing across Asia and what do you see? Its down for India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia.

But not Vietnam. It's up. The fact of the matter is Vietnam faces a widening trade deficit with China but at the same time it has turned that into an overall trade surplus, which means that Vietnam value add has risen over time.

And you can see it clearly in its manufacturing share of GDP or global market share. Has been slowly steady climb.Image
This year, in 2025 manufacturing output surged 9.92% in the first nine months of 2025 from a year earlier, with around 77% of companies surveyed by the National Statistics Office saying export orders were higher or at the same level, a sign that US buyers are shrugging off the tariff hit for now.

What is Vietnam doing right? Well, first, the most important thing is that it wants manufacturing above all else. Vietnamese people need formal jobs and by prioritizing that, Vietnam is now focusing on the next leg of development, which is how to ADD MORE VALUE.

Blink and you will miss the biggest reform story of Asia. Vietnam literally redrew its map & made one of the biggest structural reforms in decades.
Read 4 tweets
Trinh Profile picture
Oct 13
Rare earth is in the news again. Of course it is not rare, just that you gotta dig deep and then obvs process it. That entire process is polluting, costly and the output itself doesn't yield a lot.

That's how China has captured the market. It's willing to do polluting working and basically sells more not a lot. But having cornered that market, it also sees it as leverage, which it has used since 2010 (with Japan). The weaponization of supply chain is what we call it.

The free market economics of it makes sense for people to just leave it to China to do rare earth & then focus on the more market profitable business. Until, well, dun, dun dun.
So how should a firm or government view rare earth? Should you go and pay HIGHER price than what the Chinese rare earths are going for to then secure resilience of supply chain?

Most say, well, "Nah." That is a costly move because well, others will outcompete you with cheaper Chinese inputs while you go dig and refine your rare-earth magnets. Not an economically worthwhile endeavor.

But not everyone has taken that decision. Here is a story of a company that didn't: General Motors.
Here I summarize the great reporting of the WSJ Jon Emont and Christopher Otts.

As you know, we have known this issue for a long time & Japan knew about it since 2010. So the Japanese usually have about 1 year of this stockpile, just in case. Not the Americans.

The car industry is pretty dependent on rare-earth magnets. GM decided that Covid shocks, which left it with semiconductor shortage, that it should secure non-Chinese rare earth magnets.

This sort of decision takes years to bear fruit so it is one with risks. Why? Well, your competitors can buy cheaper Chinese rare earth while you are trying to get more expensive non-Chinese.

wsj.com/business/autos…
Read 7 tweets
Trinh Profile picture
Oct 13
Here we go, as I'll go on TV soon with @JoumannaTV to discuss data, let's take a look at China September trade data that just came out.

September exports rose 8.3%YoY in USD and imports increased 7.4%YoY.

Year-to-date, exports grew 6.1% while imports declined -1.1%YoY.
By destination, China exports to the US fell -16.9% but to Asia rising rapidly.

Exports to India rose 12.9% and India deficit with China is accelerating, with imports not just intermediates for production but also final consumer goods.

Shipment to ASEAN rose 14.7% with fastest growth to Thailand and Vietnam (+22.5% and 22.3%, respectively). The sharp increase of shipment reflect supply chain diversification but also rising imports for domestic demand in ASEAN that also poses challenges to domestic industries.

Exports to the EU rose 8.2% with shipment to Germany increasing +10.5%.

Interestingly, China exports to Russia has fallen this year by -11.3% as Russia puts up curbs to some Chinese exports.
China trade surplus in September:
#1 EU 22.9
#2 USA 22.8bn
#3 ASEAN 17.2bn
#4 India 10.3bn
Read 7 tweets
Trinh Profile picture
Sep 16
Should the US drop quarterly earnings? Well, the UK doesn't require it and neither does the EU.

Is it a controversial idea? Many people think it's a good idea to ditch it, including BlacRock CEO Larry Fink.

Fact: Hillary Clinton is also not a fan of quarterly earnings requirement.

It's one of the reforms people think will reduce shorterm-ism that is rather bipartisan.
ft.com/content/d5d463…Image
Here is Hilary Clinton going off against quarterly earnings.

Interesting that they got only quotes in that article of people thinking it is a terrible idea to get rid of it.

A lot of people think getting rid of it is a good idea.

Btw, companies can still report quarterly earnings. The SEC is saying you don't have to if you don't want to in proposing it.

European companies report quarterly earnings. Some don't. It's the optionality that's key.

theguardian.com/business/us-mo…
You can watch Hillary's actual speech. She's against quarterly earnings.

Many people are. Quarterlyism capitalism.

c-span.org/program/campai…
Read 4 tweets
Trinh Profile picture
Aug 26
Despite the 50% tariffs imposed by Trump, India's future is more trade & not less & why tariffs will need to go down.

Here we go, a thread.
From winning the Trump trade war, India is now the US President’s biggest target. The Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on India. To add insult to injury, Trump announced another 25% tariff, effective tomorrow, on the grounds that India imports crude oil from Russia.

Indian goods bound for the US will now face tariff rates similar to China’s if we include the Trump 1.0 tariffs, making any China+1 strategy in India less competitive for US markets, and relative to Southeast countries, which for the most part face tariff rates of about 20 per cent.Image
Will the additional 25% tariff stick? While Russia’s war with Ukraine isn’t going to end by Wednesday, the secondary Trump tariff is likely temporary. Therefore, the question is not whether India will be able to bring the 50% back down to at least 25%, but when. Image
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(