Aug 3 — South Korea’s KG Mobility said it signed a strategic investment agreement with China’s Chery Automobile under which Chery will invest $75 million. The firms will expand cooperation on new-vehicle development, autonomous driving and advanced SDV (software-defined vehicle) electronic/electrical (E/E) architectures. They also discussed future non-automotive businesses, focusing on robotics and semiconductors, and agreed to explore joint R&D, pilot projects and commercialization potential.

Fars News said some "media linked to adversaries" had reported Iran agreed to a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Sources denied the report and said Iran’s policy toward the strategic waterway has not changed.

On Aug. 1, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) held a video conference to set FX-management priorities for H2 2026. SAFE said it will steadily expand institutional opening in the FX sector, press ahead with trade-facilitation reform and roll out a package of measures to optimize current-account FX management, including nationwide promotion of high-level cross-border trade receipts and payments facilitation. It will support cross-border e-commerce and new trade formats, streamline FX settlement for services trade, and support intermediate-goods trade. SAFE will orderly advance high-level capital-account opening via a package of cross-border investment and financing facilitation policies, nationwide rollout of multinational companies’ domestic-foreign currency cross-border cash-pooling, and issuance of regulations on domestic foreign-currency loans, while prudently expanding financial-market connectivity. To bolster resilience against external shocks, SAFE will strengthen cross-border capital-flow monitoring, refine macroprudential and expectation management, and take comprehensive measures to maintain FX-market stability.