Container shipping index (European route) main contract up 5.00% intraday at 2,146.5 points.

Sept 14 — At a State Council press briefing on measures to address SME payment difficulties, MIIT vice minister Ke Jixin said the State Council general office recently issued a notice to strengthen governance of SME receivables. He said most industries lack formal settlement rules and some large firms exploit loopholes to delay payments by blurring payment terms. The notice clarifies how SMEs can obtain outstanding balances and directs industry leaders to publish and honor a 60-day payment commitment to encourage timely payments across supply chains.

The 18th BRICS summit opened Saturday and on day one adopted a 45-page New Delhi Declaration and backed a payment architecture intended to route cross-border trade outside the Western-dominated financial system. The declaration commits members to expand trade and investment settlement in their domestic currencies and to link national payment and messaging systems so transactions need not be routed via the dollar-denominated SWIFT network. A BRICS payment working group reviewed cross-border interoperability and the use of local-currency settlement and investment. The principal mechanism highlighted is BRICS Pay, a decentralized payment-messaging framework designed to stitch India’s UPI and Russia’s SPFS into a shared interoperability layer to clear payments outside SWIFT. Leaders characterized the move as incremental for most members; for Iran—subject to US comprehensive sanctions, a maritime blockade and roughly six months of conflict with the US and Israel—the arrangement is closer to a lifeline. India’s prime minister Modi said no member objected to the text.