Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, March 12th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Australia moves to become more self-sufficient in providing COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile,

China State-run Vaccine Maker, SinoFarm, is struggling to achieve its global ambitions,

and Spain plans to give gig workers some full-time benefits. Plus, we've got the FT's Katie Martin

on the markets. We are in this funny, kind of, twilight zone in markets at the moment.

It's really quite a difficult environment for people to navigate.

We'll talk about the European Central Bank's decision to accelerate bond buying

and the retail investor phenomenon. I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

Australia is deciding whether to co-fund a $1 billion Australian dollar bio-pharmaceutical plant.

The FT is reporting on a plan that would boost Australia's access to medicines, vaccines,

and raw materials needed to make pharmaceuticals. It comes a week after Italy blocked

a shipment of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine that was headed for Australia.

Australia imports more than three-quarters of essential medical products,

more than 90% of available medicines rely on essential ingredients from India or China.

Now, many vaccine makers have become household names, Pfizer, Moderna. We mentioned AstraZeneca

earlier. And China's Sino-Farm wants to be on that list. Sino-Farm is a state-controlled

company and one of the first to develop a COVID vaccine. The FT's Beijing correspondent Christian

Shepard has been reporting on the challenges Sino-Farm faces in getting its jab to the global market.

It isn't used to having to be transparent when talking about the efficacy of its vaccines

or to share trial data. When it operates within China, it sells vaccines directly to

government-run programs. And so its credibility comes directly from the Chinese government.

But now, of course, it has to operate beyond China's borders. And therefore, it needs to be able

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