I never thought that after the dollar plummeted, oil also fell sharply, why is this? Let's start with a basic logic, that is, normally speaking, if the dollar falls, then oil will generally rise. Because oil is denominated in dollars.
You know, the Middle East has been in a mess lately. The risk of a Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to spill over. This Israel directly took out Hamas's leader Haniyeh in Iran. Iran has already announced that it will retaliate against Israel. In addition, there are many contradictions between Israel and Allah.
Now the Middle East is full of dry wood, and a torch can light a fire. Normally, oil prices should rise sharply at this time. However, not only did the oil price not rise, but fell by 3.5% in two days.
What does the decoupling of oil prices from the dollar mean? In the past two years, we have seen the decoupling of the US dollar from gold, and now we are witnessing the decoupling of the US dollar from oil prices. In the past, when the dollar rose, gold fell. However, in the past two years, the dollar has skyrocketed, and gold has also skyrocketed. This shows that the world financial order of the past has collapsed.
Since the beginning of this year, oil prices have been at a low level. Countries such as Saudi Arabia have already had to cut production to control oil prices. You must know that United States has been forcing Saudi Arabia and other countries to increase production to further lower oil prices in order to control inflation in United States. However, in order to keep oil prices, Saudi Arabia has been fighting with United States. But even if they have cut production, the price of oil has been hovering for a long time.
The core reason is because of the rise of the power yuan. United States can play petrodollar, then we China can play power yuan. What does that mean? Let's look at a few stats.
First, in the first half of this year, our country's oil imports decreased by 10.7%. We also had a trade surplus of more than $90 billion in June because of the sharp drop in oil imports. You know, our demand hasn't decreased, and our GDP still grew by 4.7% in the second quarter.
Our demand for energy is not decreasing, it is even increasing, so why are oil imports decreasing? In the first half of this year, our power generation increased by 8.1%, oil imports fell, and coal was about the same, indicating that our power generation structure has begun to change, from traditional fossil energy generation to new energy sources. Now from the policy to the technology, our country is vigorously promoting new energy power generation.
Second, in the first half of this year, the number of new energy vehicles in the mainland has exceeded 20 million units, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in new car sales in the first half of this year has also exceeded 50%. This shows that new energy vehicles have become a major trend. In the past, our country consumed more than 14 million barrels of oil per day, half of which was consumed by cars.
When our new energy vehicles began to increase significantly, the consumption of oil was also greatly reduced. In the past, we relied on fossil energy sources such as oil and coal for power generation, but now the power generation structure has changed. As a result, our demand for oil has fallen rapidly.
Third, in the first half of this year, our exports of photovoltaic products hit a new high again. Now photovoltaic products have become the leading export products in the mainland. Now many countries are cooperating with us, we help them build infrastructure, engage in photovoltaic power generation, and at the same time give them a pay-now-pay-later model.
Driven by the Belt and Road Initiative, our photovoltaic products are naturally promoted to more countries around the world. We don't have to worry about these countries not paying, after all, after the electricity is generated, the money will naturally come. This is typical internet thinking, first to make you inseparable from my product, and then take your time to make your money.
At the same time, the demand for oil in various countries around the world is also slowly declining. The dollar can become the world's currency, and the key is that it is bound to the dollar. When the demand for oil fell, so did the demand for the dollar. Then petrodollars won't be able to play.
So this is the reason why international oil prices have been sluggish for a long time, and even fell sharply again recently. Other countries buy our PV in installments, and naturally they will have to pay in RMB in the future. In this way, our renminbi is tied to the electricity of other countries. Coupled with our local currency swap agreement, which replaces US dollar bonds with renminbi bonds, the dollar's influence is further weakened.
The renminbi has been growing for several months in a row, and is now firmly in the fourth place in the world, and has approached the 5% mark.