The U.S. and China officially signed a “Phase 1” trade deal on 15 January: The U.S. will halve its 15% tariff on about USD120 billion of Chinese goods and suspend planned duties that were set to take effect last December.
Tsai Ing-wen was reelected as president of Taiwan on Saturday 11 January in a landslide victory against runner-up Han Kuo-yu. Tsai’s party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), also managed to keep its majority in the Legislative Yuan (albeit with a smaller margin).
At a global level, the upward trend in business insolvencies continued in 2019 (+9% y/y), mainly due to the prolonged surge in China (+20%) and, to a lesser extent, a trend reversal in Western Europe (+2%) and North America (+3%).
After eight months of political deadlock, two elections in 2019, and tedious negotiations with the left-wing regionalist party ERC, socialist PM Pedro Sánchez was finally able to secure a simple majority in Parliament (by a magin of only two votes) and will now form a government.
