Mixed picture shows rebound in country’s exports, creating $32bn trade surplus in March
Chinese imports slumped in March, driven by a slowdown in US trade amid the tense standoff between Washington and Beijing, raising renewed questions over the strength of the Chinese economy.
Imports fell by 7.6% in March compared with a year earlier, worse than City economists’ forecasts for the volume of goods bought from abroad to grow by 0.2%.
Continue reading...Erdoğan’s costly move against currency speculators could prove to have major ripple effects
The battle waged by Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against currency speculators is a classic pyrrhic victory. The show of resolve by the self-styled strongman on Wednesday stopped investors from dumping the lira but at enormous cost in both the short and long term. That Turkey will be damaged is beyond question. All that’s in doubt is how severe that damage will be and whether the fallout will be felt elsewhere. Looking at the fragile state of the global economy, there’s every chance it will be.
The backdrop to the latest instalment of a long-running crisis is that Erdoğan is this week facing important local elections at a time when the Turkish economy is in recession. In an attempt to drum up support, Turkey’s president last week condemned Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Israeli control over the Golan heights, but this proved a spectacular own goal by convincing foreign investors that Ankara was on a collision course with Washington. The lira plunged.
Continue reading...Xi Jinping visits Rome as Italy becomes first G7 country to back Belt and Road initiative
Italy has become the first G7 country to endorse a contentious plan by China to build a Silk Road-style global trade network, irking its EU and US allies.
The prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) that could lead to Italy’s participation in China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI), an ambitious project that envisages Chinese investment in a network of infrastructure projects connecting Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Continue reading...The US president says it is ‘very important for our farmers’ while adding that trade talks are ‘moving along nicely’
Donald Trump has urged China to abolish tariffs on agricultural products imported from the United States – adding that trade talks between the rival powers were going well.
“I have asked China to immediately remove all Tariffs on our agricultural products (including beef, pork, etc.),” the US president wrote on Twitter.
Continue reading...Sweden and France among states found by the World Bank to enshrine gender equality in laws, but implementation haphazard
If you’re a woman and want to be on an equal footing with men, it’s best to live and work in Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg or Sweden. The World Bank, which has tracked legal changes for the past decade, found these were the only countries in the world to enshrine gender equality in laws affecting work.
The bank’s women, business and the law 2019 report, published this week, measured gender discrimination in 187 countries. It found that, a decade ago, no country gave women and men equal legal rights.
Continue reading...The US president says he will hold a summit with Xi Jinping to conclude an agreement to end the year-long standoff
Donald Trump has said he will delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods that had been scheduled for Friday, citing “substantial progress” in trade talks with China over the weekend.
Related: When multilateralism crumbles, so does our rules-based order | Mark Medish
Continue reading...The race to head the World Bank opened with the US candidate already known. Other countries must stand up and be counted
With characteristic lack of restraint, the Trump administration last week jumped the gun on the World Bank presidential election process by naming David Malpass as its preferred candidate to succeed Jim Yong Kim.
The formal nomination process, which did not begin until the following day, is based on selection principles agreed in 2011 that put the emphasis on an “open, merit-based and transparent” appointment. It is high time those principles were put in practice.
Continue reading...Although there is a cloud over economy, the silver lining is central banks are more dovish
After the synchronised global economic expansion of 2017 came the asynchronous growth of 2018, when most countries other than the US started to experience slowdowns. Worries about US inflation, the US Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory, trade wars, Italian budget and debt woes, China’s slowdown and emerging-market fragilities led to a sharp fall in global equity markets toward the end of the year.
The good news at the start of 2019 is that the risk of an outright global recession is low. The bad news is that we are heading into a year of synchronised global deceleration; growth will fall toward – and, in some cases, below – potential in most regions.
Continue reading...Goods dispatched in coming days may not arrive until after 29 March deadline
British exporters sending goods to far-flung destinations in the coming days risk being locked out of harbours around the world as a no-deal Brexit looms, business leaders have warned.
Independent trade experts and the UK’s biggest business groups said exporters could be dispatching goods from UK ports imminently that would not arrive until after the 29 March deadline. This raised the prospect of goods being stuck in ports or facing hefty additional costs in the event of a disorderly Brexit.
Continue reading...First daughter’s name said to be ‘floating around Washington’ but it wouldn’t be her first unconventional role
The Financial Times reported on Friday that the name of Ivanka Trump is “floating around Washington” regarding the need for a new president of the World Bank.
The role will soon be open due to the surprise departure of the current president, Jim Yong Kim. But on politics Twitter, at least, the idea that his replacement might be the first daughter met with widespread derision.
Continue reading...It epitomises China’s position in the global economy that a seismic warning about its health last week came from a US company: Apple. The iPhone maker cut sales forecasts, citing the unforeseen “magnitude” of the economic slowdown in China – a vital growth market. At the same time the head of Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, warned his employees that “winter is coming” in the world’s second-largest economy.
If China is indeed entering an economic winter, then the chill will spread around the globe. Forty years after communist China opened its doors to trade with the west in a dash for growth, the country’s mix of free-market policies and central planning faces one of its sternest tests.
Continue reading...Concerns over Chinese growth could spell problems for Africa and other parts of the developing world. Beijing funded an overseas investment boom in the past few decades as it strove to become the world’s second largest economic superpower, while also buying vast amounts of the natural resources produced by emerging nations.
The scale of the expansion forms part of China’s multibillion-dollar “Belt and Road” Initiative, a state-backed campaign to promote its influence around the world, while providing stimulus for its own slowing economy. The transcontinental development project, launched by China’s president, Xi Jinping, in 2013, aims to improve infrastructure links between Asia, Europe and Africa, with the aim for China to reap the benefits from increasing levels of global trade.
Continue reading...As US officials fly to Beijing for negotiations, the president says the Chinese ‘sort of have to’ make a deal on tariffs
Donald Trump has said China’s weakening economic growth puts the United States in a strong position as negotiators from the world’s two largest economies prepare for trade talks on Monday.
US officials are heading to Beijing this weekend for the first face-to-face talks since Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, agreed in December to a 90-day truce in the trade war as they sought to strike a deal.
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