The e-commerce giant said that 5 million new customers started Prime free trials or paid memberships globally, while the number of items that were delivered with one-day or same-day shipping quadrupled compared to last holiday season. Independent third-party sellers, meanwhile, sold more than a billion items, Amazon said.

Amazon didn’t release specific sales figures, but its statement backs up broader reports that shopping — particularly of the online variety — picked up this year. Web sales in the U.S. during the holiday season grew almost 19% compared to last year, according to Mastercard Spending Pulse data, which tracked sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24. That’s more than five times greater than overall holiday sales growth, which was 3.4%. Online sales now make up almost 15% of total retail sales during the holiday, according to Mastercard.

The holiday season generates about a fifth of retailers’ revenue each year in the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation. It can be even higher for specialized companies like toy and game stores.

Big-box chains like Target Corp. and department stores like Macy’s Inc. are broadening their digital offerings with options like buying online and picking up in store, or BOPIS. While Mastercard data showed that overall sales for department stores declined 1.8% in the holiday period, e-commerce sales grew 6.9%. Specialty apparel, jewelry and electronics also registered e-commerce growth.

The policy statement issued by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, included a pledge to relax the country’s household registration system, which has been criticized as discriminatory and a deterrent to urbanization. Authorities will also make it easier to move between employers and improve incentive systems aimed at encouraging workers to go to less developed regions.

These are the latest in a slew of policy announcements Beijing has made in the final weeks of 2019 after President Xi Jinping led a December meeting of top officials to plan out the coming year’s economic priorities. The readout from that conclave signaled both an aversion to broad-based stimulus and an emphasis on spurring “new drivers of growth” through reform.

In addition to labor, the State Council has in the past week also unveiled steps to improve the efficiency of state-owned enterprises, stabilize employment, and bolster the role of private-sector businesses in the economy. Premier Li Keqiang also pledged last week to give foreign investors greater access to the country’s service sectors including finance and health care.

Xi, in an article published Dec. 15 in Qiushi magazine, also touted the importance of so-called city clusters as part of China’s urbanization strategy. In it, he describe the need for policies that promote the fair and reasonable movement of the factors of production – capital, land, enterprise and labor – so that they can aggregate effectively.

China’s household registration system has been cited by a number of economists as one hurdle to such movement. It ties the ability of Chinese citizens to access public services to the city where their household is registered. The difficulty of changing that registration, commonly knows as a person’s hukou, has left many migrants unable to fully benefit from public services for education and health.

The steps outlined by the State Council would eliminate the hukou system in cities with less than 3 million residents and relax it in cities with populations of 3-5 million. For cities home to more than 5 million, such as Beijing and Shanghai, the household registration system will be simplified, it said, without giving details. These steps mirror policies released by the National Development and Reform Commission in April.

This policy change would effectively eliminate the hukou hurdle for most of China. Out of almost 300 prefecture-level cities, only 27 have populations exceeding 3 million, according to I-City Media, which analyzed data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Markets reacted positively to the news. An index tracking shares of property developers listed in Shanghai rose by 2.9%, the most since September 4, while China’s benchmark CSI 300 index gained 0.9% on Thursday.

“It’s the first time the central government has announced clear-cut detailed hukou reform,” said Yan Yuejin, lead analyst at E-House China Enterprise Holdings Ltd.’s research institute. “Loosening hukou may spark home-buying demand in some tier-3 and tier-4 cities.”

Spot bullion advanced for a fourth day, the best run since October, and headed for the highest close in more than seven weeks. The metal is on pace for biggest annual gain since 2010.

The break through $1,500 in the face of new highs in U.S. equities, a rebound in U.S. Treasury yields and a strong dollar “leads to an assumption that bulls will buy in the New Year, so the market is trying to position ahead of time,” said Tai Wong, the head of metals derivatives trading at BMO Capital Markets. “It has momentum that is a little mysterious and no one wants to stand in the way.”

The climb comes amid a focus on whether the Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting pause will hold next year following three reductions in 2019.

“Without a dovish Fed pivot, it’s unlikely gold will make explosive gains, but it does appear the market is trying to carve out a new higher trading range,” Stephen Innes, chief Asia market strategist at AxiTrader, said in a note. That current trend “is a very favorable sign for gold bulls,” he said.

Gold is up about 18% this year as investors weigh the benefit of havens amid the to-and-fro of the U.S.-China trade war and a run of central-bank easing. The latest tick higher came even as Donald Trump said Tuesday a deal with Beijing is “done.”

“Caution needs to be exercised as the bullion markets could be extremely volatile, given the market’s low liquidity profile, especially to the downside as trade news remains positive and equity markets still scaling new heights,” Innes said.

Spot gold advanced 0.6% to $1,509.10 an ounce at 9:06 a.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg genmeric pricing. Spot silver climbed 1.3% and platinum gained 1.6%. Palladium was also higher.

In the futures market, gold for February delivery rose 0.6% to $1,513.30 on the Comex. Call options giving the right to buy bullion for January delivery at $1,525 were the most actively traded, with 856 lots changing hands.

Spot bullion peaked at $1,557.11 in early September, the highest price in more than six years. Global holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds have also expanded in 2019.

Heading into the new year, there are mixed views on gold’s prospects. Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. advised betting on gold to slide as the global economy gathers momentum. Among the bulls, Goldman Sachs and UBS Group see prices climbing to $1,600 an ounce.

Other precious metals have also fared well. Palladium — touched a record $2,000.35 an ounce last week, and is up 50% this year. Platinum has gained 20% in 2019.

Foreign demand will continue to underpin high-grade debt next year as global investors extend their hunt for higher-paying assets in the face of over $11 trillion of negative-yielding securities around the world, according to market watchers.

“There’s simply not enough high-quality income-producing assets to meet the demand,” Mark Kiesel, chief investment officer of global credit at Pacific Investment Management Co., said in an interview. “That’s the reason that credit did so well this year. It wasn’t just the fact that the Fed and other central banks cut rates. The fact is that there’s just that much demand.”

While hardly anyone expects a repeat of 2019, which has seen blue-chip company bonds return more than 14% — the most in a decade — many predict solid single-digit gains from a market they readily admit looks expensive by most conventional measures. That’s partly based on the expectation that money managers outside the U.S. will continue to pile in. They’ve bought $114 billion of bonds on a net basis this year through the third quarter, according to Federal Reserve flow of funds data.

Global central banks have cut interest rates roughly 90 times over the past year, the largest cumulative easing since the financial crisis, according to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce data. While the Fed accounted for three of those, taking its policy rate down to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%, that’s still higher than much of the rest of the developed world, including Japan and Europe, where rates are near or even below zero.

“It’s very hard for the average foreign investor to survive — we’re still at a point now where it’s max desperation,” said Hans Mikkelsen, head of high-grade credit strategy at Bank of America. “Basically there’s only one game in town for foreign investors, and that’s the U.S. corporate bond market.”

A lower fed funds rate also has its advantages. For one, it tends to make it cheaper for international buyers to protect against the risk of currency fluctuations. Three-month dollar-hedging costs based on forward contracts for euro- and yen-based investors have dropped significantly this year.

That’s “a positive for demand from those investors staying pretty strong,” said Barry McAlinden, senior fixed-income strategist for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management.

And if rates continue to decline, as some forecasters expect, that will almost certainly bolster demand for relatively higher-paying assets such as U.S. investment-grade company debt, market participants say.

The average U.S. investment-grade corporate bond yields 2.87%, or about 1 percentage point more than Treasuries. In Europe, absolute yields on company bonds sit at just 0.47%, similar to the 0.46% that Japanese corporate debt pays.

That’s why institutional investors like Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the largest of its kind in the world, say they’re preparing to buy more bonds outside local markets.

“They are being pushed out of Japan,” said Tetsuo Ishihara, a U.S. macro strategist at Mizuho Financial Group Inc.’s fixed-income unit in New York, referring to Japanese institutional investors broadly. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

Overall household consumption grew during the month, pushing up the government’s value added tax collection by 3.7 per cent, said Wuthipong Chittangsakul, deputy of director general of the Fiscal Policy Office, on Thursday (December 26).

Real income of farmers rose by 1.8 per cent year on year. However, consumers remained cautious on spending as evidenced by a 16.4 per cent plunge in new car sales and 6.8 per cent fall in registrations of new motorcycles. The Consumer Confidence index dropped to 57.9 in November amid consumers’ concerns on falling exports and the global economic slowdown.

Private investment remained weak as seen in the 11.2 per cent drop in machinery imports. Commercial car sales plunged 16.1 per cent as the collection of property transaction taxes fell 6.3 per cent. Cement sales decreased 2.2 per cent while the construction material price index dropped 3.1 per cent year on year due to the declining prices of steel and steel products.

The Fiscal Policy Office, however, predicted that private investment would expand 4.6 per cent next year as government spending on infrastructure projects will attract private investment.

Thailand’s exports in dollar term fell 7.4 per cent while imports plunged 13.8 per cent, resulting in trade surplus of US$ 548.8 million.

However, an easing of trade tensions is expected to boost the global economy next year, following the Phase One trade agreement between US and China. Based on this assumption, the Fiscal Policy Office predicted exports next year will rise 2.6 per cent, compared to an estimated contraction of 2.5 per cent this year, Wuthipong said.

In November, the tourism sector remained on the path of expansion with the number of tourist arrivals up 5.9 per cent to 3.36 million, largely due to a 18.3 per cent increase in Chinese tourists. The numbers of Travellers from Taiwan, India and Russia also rose.

Total revenue from foreign tourists’ spending is estimated at Bt166.9 billion this year, up 3 per cent year on year.

Agricultural production fell 2.7 per cent in November and industrial production index dropped 8.3 per cent to 96.8 compared to November last year.

However, the Thai Industries sentiment index rose to 92.3 due to rising orders.

Jobless claims declined to 222,000 in the week ended Dec. 21 from 235,000, according to Labor Department figures released Thursday that were in line with the median forecast in Bloomberg’s survey of economists. Filings were estimated for six states and Puerto Rico.

The decrease in filings, and gradual return to the longer- term trend, underscores recent signs of strength in the labor market. Companies may be less likely to let employees go amid an elevated level of job openings and difficulty luring talented and experienced personnel.

Earlier this month, claims unexpectedly surged, likely due to the late timing of the Thanksgiving holiday. The spike underscores the challenge the government has in making seasonal adjustments to the data during the year-end holidays.

The four-week average, a less-volatile measure, rose to 228,000, the highest since mid-February.

Continuing claims, reported with a one-week lag, declined by 6,000 to 1.72 million in the week ended Dec. 14.

The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.2%.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast that claims would decline to 220,000 after a previously reported 234,000 for the prior week.

Chatchai Saksilapachai, Deputy Director-General, said that the regulation that all offline products must carry a price tag has been extended to include products sold online. The new rule was being introduced in response to complaints that many products advertised online did not clearly indicate the price, forcing interested customers to send a message requesting a quotation. This considered unfair and illegal as it implies the seller is deliberately concealing the price and the service charge.

Screening e-tailers is hard rough work because of the physical locations of the merchants. The ministry thus encouraging anyone who found the illegal action to report by providing the leading price.

“Where the price tag is not shown, the sellers will face a penalty of a fine not exceeding Bt10,000 while stockists who refuse to comply with the prices set will face a prison term of 7 years or a fine not exceeding Bt140,000 baht or both. The announcement of the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banks for the supervision of online and offline product labelling has been posted since July 4, though many people are still not aware of it.” Chatchai said.

The ministry notes that it has received a growing number of complaints: in 2019, 330 consumers complained of no price being shown, up from 178 complaints in 2018, while not maintaining the price of general products received 1,932 complaints in 2018 but reduced to 1,429 in 2019

Vuttikrai Leewiraphan, Director General at the Department of Business Development, said that the overall e-commerce business in 2019 grew 14.04 per cent and is valued Bt3.1 trillion. Ninety per cent of the customers use their smartphones for done online purchases.

NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said on Thursday (December 26) that the first key task is to auction four spectrum bands (700 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2600 MHz and 26 GHz) for 5G service as planned.

Following approval by its board on Tuesday (December 24), the NBTC will auction a single band at a time on February 16.

The second mission is to auction a 3500MHz bandin advance of its expiry date of March 2021 to provide 5G service.

The commission will continue to remove communications lines from poles and move them underground and will also delegate more authority to its branches in the provinces, so that these can provide a wider range of services to residents in their areas and obviate doing the need for them come to its head office in Bangkok to ask for the services.

Takorn added that the watchdog would continue to transform itself into a “digital office” in line. with the government’s Thailand 4.0 policy.

The plan was agreed today at the meeting chaired by Prime Minister and Defence Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, goverment spokeswoman Narumon Pinyosinwat announced today (December 26). The 2021 fiscal year starts in October.

The government is estimating net revenue of Bt2.77 trillion, resulting in a budget deficit of Bt523 billion. It has run fiscal deficits for several years as a means to boost the economy while it was adversely affected by the political turmoil that led to military coup in 2014. This year. the Thai economy has shown sharply slower growth due to falling exports and the delay of government spending on infrastructure projects. The draft bill for the annual budget for fiscal 2020 is still pending in Parliament but is expected to be approved next month. The delay is partly due to the political impasse following the March general election, which saw a coalition government winning a slim majority. Some economists have called for increased spending to rescue the economy, citing more fiscal space given the relatively safe level of public debt at 41-42 per cent of GDP.

The Cabinet on Tuesday (December 24) approved four-year fiscal plan between fiscal years 2021 and 2024 proposed by Finance Ministry. Under the plan, Finance Ministry projects economic growth rate at 3.1-4.1 per cent in 2021, or 3.6 per cent boosted by domestic demand and recovery of the global economy. The headline inflation rate is expected to be in the low range at between 0.7-1.7 per cent.

The government forecasts that the economy will expand by 3.4-4.3 per cent between 2022-2024, and that growth could accelerate to 4 per cent between 2023 and 2024.

Hun Sen was speaking at the inauguration of the Da Market in Tbong Khmum province on Tuesday as the government works to attract further foreign investment from Vietnam to increase exports.

“We have to transform the border that was ravaged by war into a place for trade, investment, peace, cooperation and development.

“We have to expedite development along the Vietnamese border. We have already established a special economic zone in Bavet town [in Svay Rieng province] with many factories, and here in [Tbong Khmum province] we have the Thary Tbong Khmum Special Economic Zone.

“I want to establish more special economic zones along the Cambodia-Vietnam border to attract more Vietnamese and other investors to produce goods for export. The more we build, the more we can process our agricultural products into finished goods for export,” Hun Sen said.

The second secretary at the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh said the prime minister’s vision would benefit the people of both nations, as well as boost trade and investment.

“Prime Minister Hun Sen’s initiative aims to improve the livelihoods of the people of the two countries, as well as bolster investment and trade. The best way to support our shared national boundary is to create economic development corridors for people.

“At the same time, if the people along the border can travel back and forth and truly develop economic cooperation, the national boundary will be forever stable and peaceful. In my opinion, this is a core point in line with Prime Minister Hun Sen’s win-win policy,” Tran Lam Tung said.

He added that Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung at the opening of Da Market had expressed Vietnam’s appreciation for Hun Sen’s vision of transforming what was a former battlefield.

There are currently 23 SEZs with 490 factories employing 130,000 people across the Kingdom, according to the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC).

Data from Vietnam’s Embassy in Phnom Penh said that last year Vietnam had 206 investment projects in Cambodia, with a total registered investment of $3.02 billion.

Cambodia’s investment in Vietnam encompasses 21 projects with a total capital investment of nearly $64 million. It ranks 54th out of 132 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

Last year, the official trade volume between Cambodia and Vietnam was more than $4.7 billion – an increase of 23.8 per cent on 2017.