China's Aggregate Financing Rises 22.25 Trillion Yuan, M2 Up 7.7% in July 2026

US consumer demand cooled notably in July, and retail sales data came in far below expectations, prompting more cautious market assessments of H2 consumer resilience.US Census Bureau data released Friday showed that July retail sales fell 0.6% MoM, the largest monthly decline since May 2025 and well below market expectations of a 0.1% increase. Lower auto purchases and a pullback in online retail were the main drags.

Chile plans to implement a package of reforms to improve legal certainty, streamline regulatory processes, and attract investment and mineral exploration, in a bid to raise the country’s annual copper production to 6 million mt.Chile’s Mining Minister Daniel Mas said at a seminar: “Chile’s copper mine production has stagnated, and annual production has fluctuated between 5 million mt and 5.5 million mt in recent years. Compared with other international mining jurisdictions that attract global capital by improving their institutional frameworks, Chile is gradually losing its competitive advantage.”

On August 14, Nan Ya issued another price increase notice. Driven by rising raw material costs for copper foil, fiberglass cloth, and resin, as well as tight supply and demand in electronic materials fueled by AI computing demand, prices of copper clad laminates and base materials will be raised by 20% effective September 1. Nan Ya stated that the electronic materials industry is currently in a golden cycle, with capital expansion by US cloud vendors and AI server demand driving demand for mid-to-high-end materials, while limited new capacity has created a supply-demand gap. The news pushed Nan Ya's stock to the daily limit intraday.