Author: UAbiz

An interest rate hike may come “fairly soon” according to notes from the most recent meeting of top officials of the U.S. central bank.

The assessment by Federal Reserve leaders assumes that data on the job market and inflation continues strengthening at its current pace or faster.

Some Fed officials expressed concern that unemployment might fall so low that it would spark inflation as employers are forced to offer higher wages to attract workers in a tight labor market.

Officials raise interest rates to cool the economy to keep prices from soaring. They worry that an inflationary spike could hurt economic growth.

The Fed is supposed to work toward stable prices and full employment. The most recent unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, which many economists say is pretty much full employment for the large and complex U.S. economy.

The Fed information was published Wednesday after the customary delay of several weeks. The next scheduled meeting of the Fed leadership is in mid-March.

Earlier on Wednesday, a separate report said U.S. home resales surged to a nearly 10-year high in January.

The National Association of Realtors says existing home sales jumped 3.3 percent to an annual rate of 5.69 million homes.

The report says sales are being hampered by the smaller-than-usual number of homes available for sale. The real estate industry group also says sales were up 3.8 percent from the same period a year ago.

Sales growth was stronger than many experts predicted, perhaps because they thought rising prices and interest rates might cool the market a bit.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Tuesday that he expects the IMF to

provide “frank and candid” analysis of exchange rate policies, a Treasury spokesperson said.

In a phone call with Lagarde, the spokesperson said, Mnuchin also “noted the importance that the administration places on boosting economic growth and jobs in the United States, and looked forward to robust IMF economic policy advice on its member countries and tackling global imbalances.”

The conversation on U.S. priorities occurred as officials from the Group of 20 major economies express concern about how the United States will approach multilateral institutions and delicately crafted G-20 language on foreign exchange cooperation, trade and other economic policies.

As President Donald Trump pursues an “America First” agenda aimed at reversing chronic trade deficits with China, Mexico, Germany and other major trading partners, some are concerned his administration could back away from pledges to maintain an open global trading system.

“I believe the Trump administration will try to leverage the IMF and the G-20 to help achieve its external objectives and escalate pressure on China and Germany,” said Domenico Lombardi, a former IMF board official who is now with the Center for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think tank.

Targeting currency manipulation

Throughout his election campaign, Trump accused China of manipulating its yuan currency to gain an export advantage over the United States. And Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro in late January said Germany was using a “grossly undervalued” euro to do the same. Both countries have large bilateral trade surpluses with the United States.

But IMF officials no longer view the yuan as undervalued, especially since China’s central bank has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up the yuan over the past year to counter capital outflows.

The euro’s value against the dollar is widely viewed as a function of still-weak fundamentals in key eurozone economies and the European Central Bank’s use of negative interest rates at a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve is raising rates.

A ‘constructive discussion’

Mnuchin, who was sworn in as Treasury secretary just a week ago, has yet to lay out his priorities. Before his Senate confirmation, he pledged to work through the IMF, the G-7 and G-20 to address currency manipulation as an unfair trade practice.

But he added in written remarks to senators: “The IMF and other multilateral institutions do not appear to have prevented nations from manipulating the value of their own currencies.”

In the call with Lagarde, the Treasury spokesperson said Mnuchin “underscored his expectation that the IMF provide frank and candid analysis of the exchange rate policies of IMF member countries.”

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said that Lagarde “had a constructive discussion with Secretary Mnuchin on a wide range of issues of interest to our membership. We look forward to continuing our close and productive engagement with the U.S. authorities.”

US is largest IMF shareholder

The United States is by far the IMF’s largest shareholder, with about 17 percent of its board voting power, enough for an effective veto over many major decisions.

It is unclear how Mnuchin might wield U.S. influence over the IMF on issues such as whether it should commit resources to Europe’s bailout of Greece.

In his written remarks to senators, Mnuchin said the Trump administration will “ensure that U.S. resources placed in international institutions such as the IMF and multilateral development banks are used to promote policies consistent with the objectives of the United States to the greatest extent

possible.”
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A Swedish supermarket chain is offering shoppers some fruits and vegetables that are branded with their country of origin and code number, instead of being wrapped in plastic with that information. VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports.
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The owners of a local printing company in Arizona are looking to President Donald Trump to cut taxes and improve the business climate. Mike O’Sullivan spoke with the owners, who backed Trump, and their son, who did not, about what they expect from the president.
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Any attempt to introduce quotas or tariffs to the North American Free Trade Agreement would be disastrous for the three-nation treaty, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo on Tuesday told a Toronto conference on the future of North America.

U.S. President Donald Trump — who says free trade treaties have cost countless thousands of American jobs — wants NAFTA to be renegotiated with a focus on cutting his country’s large trade deficit with Mexico.

One idea floating in Washington is that of a border tariff, which could hit Mexican exports.

“Nothing in the new NAFTA should be a step backward. We will definitely not include any type of trade management measures, like quotas, or open the Pandora’s box of tariffs,” Guajardo said.

“That will be disastrous in any process moving forward,” he said.

New tariffs would result in special interests in all three nations asking for protection, Guajardo predicted.

Trump has revealed little about his intentions for NAFTA, which came into force in 1994, except that he wants to tweak the U.S. trading relationship with Canada while pushing for larger changes with Mexico.

Canadian officials have suggested the United States would first negotiate with Canada and then focus on Mexico, an approach that trade experts say is almost unworkable and one that Mexico dislikes.

Guajardo said the bulk of the NAFTA talks would have to be carried out on a trilateral basis to give investors confidence that the same set of investment rules applied to all three nations. For the talks to succeed, governments in all three nations would have to prove they had benefited, he added.

“If I don’t go back home with a trade agreement that can be clearly understood as a beneficial outcome for Mexico, there is no way the Mexican Senate will approve it,” he said.

The Mexican government expects the talks to start this summer, said Guajardo, who stressed several times how well Canada and Mexico had worked together in the past on trade.

Guajardo and Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray were to hold talks with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland later on Tuesday.

Freeland said earlier this month that Canada opposed the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond to any such move.

 

 
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From specialty shops in Rome to supermarkets around the world, lovers of Italian olive oil are in for some sticker shock this year, with prices due to jump by as much as 20 percent.

 

The combination of bad weather and pests hit the harvest in Southern Europe, most of all in Italy, where production is halved from last fall. That’s pushing up Italian wholesale prices by 64 percent as of mid-February compared with a year earlier, which translates to shelf price increases of 15 to 20 percent in Italy.

 

In other countries, the ultimate price increases will depend on several factors — such as how much retailers take on the costs themselves and the change in currency values. The U.S., for example, is likely to see a more modest rise in price as a stronger dollar keeps a lid on the cost of imports.

 

Italy’s harvest was especially hard hit by the combination of early rains that knocked buds off the trees and the threat of an olive fly that forced an early harvest, further cutting yields. Wholesale prices of olive oil from Spain, the world’s largest producers, are up a more modest 10 percent, with yields similar to last year’s.

 

Vincenzo Iacovissi, the owner of the Sapor d’Olio olive oil shop in Rome, says sales have dropped, though he’s tried to ease the shock for customers by explaining why prices have gone up.

 

“When there are increases of 15 to 20 percent there is some impact on sales. However, explaining the reasons for this increase has in part helped to make up for this,” Iacovissi said.

 

Italians collectively consume about 35 percent of the world’s olive oil, leading Spain at 30 percent, and that affinity makes them pretty resilient as consumers.

 

Flaminia Leoni, a 50-year-old mother of four, buys 80 to 100 liters of olive oil a year for her family and says that at most she will consider substituting lower quality olive oil for extra virgin for cooking — but not on the table, where olive oil is a staple giving accent to pasta, meats, salads and vegetables.

 

“I buy it more or less always at the same price, in truth, maybe a euro more. But I haven’t found this enormous growth in price,” she said.

 

Cedric Casanova, the owner of an Italian grocery in Paris, said he was hoping to get 30,000 liters of olive oil delivered, but received just 8,000 liters. He will have to rely on leftover stock from last year to help make up for the remaining difference — and absorb some of the price increase himself.

 

“I’m working with a standard price, by trying to assume the cost myself,” he said.

 

With global stocks down just 14 percent, no one is predicting general olive oil shortages, even with a 75 percent increase in consumption of olive oil over the last 25 years as demand pushed into non-traditional markets. The market for olive oil in the period has grown by two-fold in the United States, seven-fold in Britain and 14 fold in Japan, according to Italy’s Coldiretti farm lobby, even if continental Europe remains by far the largest market.

 

Italian olive oil is more vulnerable than that of other major producers to climate shifts and pests due to its varied topography, from hills in the north to larger groves in the south. This also lends great variety to Italian olive oil, where unique flavors are derived from a combination of the terrain, topography and the more than 400 olive varieties, according to Nicola Di Noia, an olive oil expert for the Coldiretti farm lobby.

 

“We have hundreds of different varieties of olives that are more difficult to defend compared with Spain or northern Africa, where there are big groves that are easier to manage,” Di Noia said.

 

He said the challenge is educating consumers about why they pay for quality.

 

“We need to learn to choose oils with awareness. Extra-virgin is the juice of a fruit. The primary material from which it derives is very important. Therefore, oil should be tasted and smelled,” he said.
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A recent recovery in steel and coal production in China has posed a challenge to the country’s war on pollution, aimed at reversing the damage done to its skies, soil and water.

As both industries represent two of the largest polluting sectors in China, some analysts are expressing concerns over their negative impact on the country’s air quality although many remain convinced that, in the long run, China will achieve its 2020 environmental targets for energy consumption and reduction of carbon and pollutant emissions, laid down in its latest five-year plan.

Rising steel output

A recent report released by Greenpeace East Asia said China’s steel industry actually saw a net increase of 36.5 million tons in operating capacity last year, despite October claims that the country had already met its 2016 reduction target of 45 million tons of steel capacity.

According to its global coal campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta, local governments in China have maneuvered to shield zombie steel mills so as to minimize the impact of the central government’s environmental policies.

Yet increasing steel capacity makes neither economic nor environmental sense as global markets are still awash with steel and northern Chinese provinces suffer from worsening smog, he added.

“There was definitely a setback in the fight against air pollution in the sense that improvements in the most polluted areas surrounding Beijing and so on [had] stalled and even reversed during the past twelve months.” Myllyvirta told VOA.

China is already the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter, accounting for more than one-quarter of global carbon dioxide emission.

Curbs on coal

Coal-fired power plants would pose another bigger headache to worsen the country’s air quality as they are the biggest contributors to sulfur dioxide and particle emissions nationwide, according to Greenpeace.

But positive steps have been taken according to the group.

“One thing that we’ve been very concerned about is that there was still very aggressive expansion in coal-fired generating capacities in 2015 and 2016. But luckily, in the past few months, the government has taken very strong steps to suspend new projects and even stop projects that are already under construction,” Myllyvirta said.

In early January, China ordered the suspension of 103 coal power projects, nearly half of those 210 new plants approved since 2015. By doing so, China hopes to cap its coal-fired capacity below 1,100 gigawatts.

Rising coal output

After an aggressive year to reduce excess coal capacity in 2016, China has earmarked a less ambitious goal this year as authorities foresee difficulty in scaling back coal production due to rising prices and concerns over lost jobs.

The government aims to close down 500 coal mines in 2017 totaling a combined production capacity of 50 million tons, or 20 percent of last year’s 250-million-ton goal, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA) on Friday.

The NEA expected coal output will rise 5.8 percent this year to 3.65 billion tons, which will mark an end to a three-year streak in declining output, according to local media.

Duan Lei of Qinghua University’s School of Environment, found this year’s scaled-back adjustments, seen in the steel and coal sectors, “reasonable and practical” as the government needs to strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

“As the economy rebounds, the environment protection ministry will have a harder time to address [the country’s] environmental concerns,” Duan said, adding that the country’s fight against air, soil and water pollution remains a huge task ahead.

Difficulty remains in shutting excess capacity with heavy industry, which is seen as an important contributor to gains in energy efficiency and reductions in carbon and air pollution.

But, polluting industries which are currently ramping up output will be in a better financial position to put down investment in order to comply with environmental standards, the professor argued.

Shift toward renewables

Both Duan and Myllyvirta are upbeat with China’s abilities to meet its 2020 environmental targets, which include an 18 percent reduction in carbon dioxide per unit of GDP and a 15 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of GDP, as the country’s overall drive and efforts to shift to cleaner energies have been in place.

To meet the targets, China has announced 2.5 trillion yuan ($373 billion) in total investment for new installed capacity of renewable energy by 2020, which includes some $75 billion for hydropower, $104.5 billion in wind and $149.3 billion in solar.

That has represented massive business opportunities for both domestic and international green companies, although some have argued that global investors remain unwilling to put down investment due to a number of government-related risks, including China’s preference for state-owned enterprises over independent firms, its opaque legal and regulatory framework and lack of an enforceable dispute resolution system.

 
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Rania Nashar was named chief executive of Samba Financial Group on Monday, becoming the first female CEO of a listed Saudi commercial bank in line with the government’s economic and social reforms.

Nashar is a board member of Samba’s global markets subsidiary and a Pakistani unit, and has nearly 20 years of experience in banking.

Women, banned from driving in Saudi Arabia and subject to a system of male guardianship, hold few top posts in the financial sector.

But reforms which Saudi Arabia launched last year to make the economy more efficient and less reliant on oil exports include boosting the role of women in the economy.

The Saudi Stock Exchange last week appointed its first female chair, Sarah al-Suhaimi, who became the first female chief executive of a Saudi investment bank when she took the helm of NCB Capital in 2014.

The kingdom’s top sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, holds stakes in major companies and is at the center of restructuring the economy. It is hiring Saudi women to help manage its assets, sources familiar with its operations said.

Saudi Arabia’s reform plans aim to have women account for 30 percent of the workforce in coming years, up from the current 22 percent.

Samba is Saudi Arabia’s third-largest bank by assets.

 
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Greece will need less in emergency loans from international lenders than originally agreed in its third bailout program due to a better-than-expected budgetary developments, the head of the eurozone bailout fund was reported on Monday as saying.

Klaus Regling told German newspaper Bild that at the end of Greece’s money-for-reforms package in August 2018, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will “probably have paid out far less than the agreed maximum amount of 86 billion euros” because the Greek budget was developing better than expected.

The comments came shortly before eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels to assess Greece’s progress in fulfilling the conditions of its bailout.

Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder called for a tougher stance in negotiations with Greece, suggesting Athens should only get fresh aid from its lenders against additional collateral such as cash, gold or real estate.

“We need a plan B,” Soeder told Bild newspaper.

The review of the Greek bailout program has been beset by delays and disputes between Athens and its European Union and International Monetary Fund creditors. As disagreement has arisen over Greece’s fiscal targets, debt relief and promised reforms, fears have grown that Europe could face a new financial crisis.

Greece has said it cannot cut pensions any further as demanded by the International Monetary Fund while some of its European lenders, led by Germany, have rejected the IMF’s demand to grant it debt relief of some sort – perhaps on payments and maturity – now.

The Fund has insisted on debt relief and precautionary fiscal measures to ensure that Athens can meet its fiscal targets before it will consider participating in the bailout.

The German government, gearing up for election in September, opposes debt relief for Greece as demanded by the IMF, and says the current program can only continue if the Fund joins in.

The IMF’s participation remains unclear and this question is likely to be one of the main talking points when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde meet on Wednesday.

The IMF declined to comment on a German magazine report on Friday that it was likely to contribute up to 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) to a third bailout package for Greece, saying its views on the deal had not shifted.

The German magazine Der Spiegel said in an unsourced report that European lenders were now expecting the IMF to contribute a sum of this size after first having hoped for 16 billion euros.
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Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has formed a strategic partnership with retail conglomerate Bailian Group, extending a push into bricks-and-mortar retail as online growth slows.

The move comes on the heels of a recent purchase of a stake in retailer Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd as well as plans to take a controlling stake in Intime Retail Group Co Ltd and privatize it.

There are currently no plans for financial investment, an Alibaba spokesman said.

Shanghai-based Bailian Group is one of China’s largest retailers by sales, operating 4,700 outlets in 200 cities including supermarkets, convenience stores and pharmacies. Alibaba has an active user base of around 500 million.

Shares in Bailian Group’s subsidiaries surged on Monday, with Shanghai Bailian Group Co Ltd climbing by the 10 percent daily limit, Lianhua Supermarket Holdings Co Ltd jumping close to 10 percent and Shanghai Material Trading Co Ltd up 5 percent.

Bailian and Alibaba will initially cooperate on supply chain technology using Alibaba’s big data capabilities as well as integrating Alipay payments with Bailian Group’s existing membership program.
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