Today's data highlights: Jewelry gold fell back to the 5-digit range; the era of huge profits for parallel imported cars is gone forever

The number of car dealers engaged in parallel imports has been halved. The era of huge profits from parallel imported cars is gone forever.

Car dealer Wu Hua is a veteran in the auto sales industry. He started selling cars in 4S stores around 2010. At that time, joint venture car companies were booming. Santana, Jetta, Accord and other cars were hot-selling household cars. The market demand for luxury cars such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW was relatively low, imported cars were expensive, and the parallel import car business had not yet taken off in China.

In 2013, Wu Hua came into contact with the business of parallel imported cars. At that time, parallel imported cars were in circulation in Beijing, and the commission on the sale of a parallel imported car could get 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, while the profits of car dealers selling a car could even reach hundreds of thousands of yuan.

As the largest parallel imported car distribution center in China, Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone gathers thousands of car dealers, who witnessed the peak of the parallel imported car industry. Today, the Tianjin Port terminal is still busy with traffic, with many stocked vehicles parked for sale, and many car transporters carrying out land transportation and port distribution operations, but most of the vehicles transported are for export.

Over the past decade, parallel imported cars have gone through a difficult period from pilot implementation to rapid development, and then to the switch to National V and National VI standards, as well as the impact of the epidemic. "The development of online platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou has made the prices of parallel imported cars more transparent, and the industry is also involuted. The era of huge profits is gone forever. Nowadays, a salesperson gets a commission of about 2,000 yuan for selling a car. However, due to the limited audience of parallel imported cars, a salesperson can only sell a few cars a month, usually three to five cars," said Wu Hua.

Today, the number of car dealers engaged in parallel imports has been reduced by half, and the industry is slowly recovering after a reshuffle. But a more cruel fact is that the scale of parallel imported cars has shrunk significantly. In the involutionary market, car dealers are "fighting each other" for customers while looking for new ways out.

Gold consumption is in the off-season. Branded gold shops are promoting sales. Jewelry gold prices fall back to the 5-digit range.

Recently, international gold futures and spot prices have fluctuated at high levels. The reporter visited the gold consumption market in Beijing and found that due to the current off-season for gold consumption, brand gold stores have launched large-scale promotional activities. The discounted prices of many brands are less than 600 yuan/gram, and the discounted prices of some stores represented by China Gold are as low as 550 yuan/gram. Due to the large price discounts, the overall transaction volume during the visit was quite impressive.

Porsche stores issued a large number of 100,000 yuan coupons. Porsche delivered the worst performance in the first quarter

After BMW and Mercedes-Benz started to cut prices by half, another luxury brand, Porsche, could not hold on. Sina Technology found that Porsche dealers in some areas have started discount promotions of up to 30% for models such as Macan and Taycan, and some stores have also given out large coupons of 99,999 yuan, 88,888 yuan, and 66,666 yuan, and have launched large promotions for multiple models.

Behind the big price cut is the collapse of Porsche's sales in the Chinese market. Data shows that Porsche's sales in China have declined for two consecutive years since 2022; in the first quarter of this year, sales in the Chinese market plummeted 24% year-on-year. This also made it hand in the worst performance "answer sheet" since its listing. Following the previous dealers' palace turmoil, it has recently been caught in the vortex of stakeholders' palace turmoil and has been questioned for its electrification strategy mistakes. Today, Porsche is in trouble both internally and externally.

Practitioners in the public fund industry, which are considered to be representatives of high salaries and the "dream job" of thousands of workers, have been feeling a bit "cold" recently.

In 2022, the public offering industry began to implement salary restrictions. The regulatory authorities issued the "Guidelines on Performance Appraisal and Remuneration Management of Fund Management Companies", which put forward specific requirements on salary structure, salary payment, performance appraisal, and internal control of salary. Many companies' salary deferral systems officially started here, and some institutions gradually developed to deferral for all employees.

In May this year, regarding the news that a leading fund company was distributing year-end bonuses, some people in the industry lamented that it was finally not "Schrödinger's year-end bonus", while others said "thank you to the leading company for setting an example for us."

However, more than a month has passed, and there are still a large number of companies that have not yet issued the 2023 year-end bonuses. There are also market news that some companies have canceled this bonus. Even for those that have already been issued, "decline" is a general trend. Some companies have generally reduced their bonuses by 20%, some have reduced their median by 30%, and some have directly cut their year-end bonuses in half due to poor assessment results last year, which has made employees feel the biting cold wind.

Reducing travel expenses and strictly enforcing attendance have also become routine operations. Some companies have cut the travel standards of employees from 800 yuan/day to 500 yuan/day and 600 yuan/day, and some employees are required to take business trip tickets "not during working hours, either early or late"; in addition, in order to save accommodation costs, many employees are required to return on the same day; and some companies, in order to reduce this part of the cost, simply let employees change most of their business trip meetings to online meetings. In terms of welfare, Lin Fei's situation can represent the current situation of quite a few companies: free afternoon tea is a thing of the past, there is no bottled mineral water for customers in the conference room, and holiday benefits such as Labor Day and Dragon Boat Festival have all been cancelled. "Bring your own toilet paper" has become a self-mockery for practitioners.

China is the world's largest consumer of durian, and opening the door to fresh durian from China has always been the wish of the Malaysian government.

According to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during Premier Li Qiang's visit to Malaysia from June 18 to 20, China and Malaysia signed a series of trade and economic agreements, including the "Protocol on Plant Quarantine Requirements for the Export of Fresh Durian from Malaysia to China" between the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security of Malaysia.

Currently, China is the largest export market for Malaysian durian, but only for frozen durian and its products. The signing of the protocol means that fresh Malaysian durian is expected to appear in the Chinese market in the near future.

China began importing Malaysian durian pulp and paste in 2011. In 2018, the import scope was further expanded to include whole frozen durian.

According to data from the Malaysian Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the total value of Malaysia's durian exports increased by 822.8 million ringgit from 2018 to 2022, an increase of 256.3%. In 2022, Malaysia's durian exports amounted to 1.14 billion ringgit, of which exports to China amounted to 887 million ringgit, accounting for 77.8%.