GERMANY
Crisis to affect performance
Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will dampen the German economy’s performance this year, the Ifo economic research institute said. While economic growth in Europe’s largest economy may accelerate to 1.3 percent next year, heightened uncertainty about the debt crisis will weigh on growth in the middle part of this year, Munich-based Ifo said yesterday. Ifo forecast expansion of 0.7 percent for this year.
SOUTH KOREA
Current account improves
South Korea’s current account surplus hit a six-month high last month as dividend payments to foreign investors declined and the service sector improved, figures showed yesterday. The surplus, the broadest measure of overseas trade, was US$3.61 billion last month compared with a revised US$1.73 billion in April and US$2.18 billion in May last year, the Bank of Korea said. It was the largest figure since a US$4.56 billion surplus in November last year.
BRAZIL
Stimulus package planned
The government announced a new US$4 billion economic stimulus package to combat stagnant growth. The program announced on Wednesday by President Dilma Rousseff focuses on a wide array of government purchases, from backhoes to motorcycles to military equipment. The economy grew just 0.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. The government maintains a target of 4 percent growth this year, but market forecasts put expansion at 2.2 percent.
FINANCE
Town heads for bankruptcy
The town of Stockton, California, was headed for the nation’s largest ever municipal bankruptcy on Wednesday after it failed to find a way to close a US$26 million budget shortfall. A victim of the collapse of real-estate prices, which wiped out its tax base, the Stockton city council decided late on Tuesday to implement a “pendency plan,” for managing curtailed spending ahead of a court filing for protection. “The city will file sometime before Friday, close of business,” city spokeswoman Connie Cochran said.
ENERGY
Gazprom debt declines
OAO Gazprom, Russia’s biggest company by market value, plans to reduce its total debt about 4.7 percent this year, while earnings may decline 10 percent. Debt is forecast to decline to 1.47 trillion rubles (US$44 billion) this year from 1.54 trillion rubles last year, the Moscow-based natural-gas producer and exporter said yesterday in a presentation. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization may decline 10 percent this year, chief financial officer Andrey Kruglov said in Moscow.
FINANCE
Barclays pays to settle
Barclays PLC and its subsidiaries will pay more than US$450 million to settle charges that they tried to manipulate interest rates that can affect how much people pay for loans to attend college or buy a house. The incidents occurred between 2005 and 2009 and sometimes took place daily, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Wednesday in announcing the settlement. A US$200 million civil penalty levied against Barclays is the largest in the CFTC’s history. Barclays also agreed to pay US$160 million as part of an agreement with the Justice Department’s criminal division on a related matter. It will also pay nearly US$93 million to British regulators.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last