MEXICO
Growth forecast cut
Authorities on Friday cut the nation’s growth forecast for this year after the economy expanded less than expected in the first quarter due to slumping industrial production and near stagnant exports. Latin America’s second-biggest economy after Brazil is now expected to grow by 3.1 percent this year instead of 3.5 percent, the Ministry of Finance said. The forecast was revised after authorities posted growth of just 0.8 percent in the first quarter compared to the same January-to-March period last year — lower than the government’s 1 percent forecast.
AVIATION
China refuses to pay EU fines
China will not pay for CO2 emissions by its airlines on flights within Europe, a top civil aviation official reportedly said after the European Commission warned eight Chinese firms face fines for nonpayment. The world’s second-largest economy “will not accept any unilateral and compulsory market measures,” Yan Mingchi. deputy director-general of the legal and regulation department at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told an aviation forum in Beijing on Friday, the China Daily newspaper reported. He said “airlines in developing countries should be provided with financial and technological support in their efforts at coping with the effects of climate change.”
CHILE
Economy slows down
The economy is entering a mild slowdown phase after years of strong growth, Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said on Friday. Larrain said the world’s top copper-producing country has been expanding at about 5.8 percent on average for the past three years despite global economic woes while maintaining low inflation and jobless rates. However, the galloping growth has been reined in. The economic activity indicator expanded by 3.1 percent in March, marking its slowest pace in more than 20 months. “All measurements of the consumer price index show a low inflation. At the same time the economy is slowing down,” Larrain said at a meeting with international correspondents. Larrain said economic activity should recover last month, but growth will be affected by a series of port strikes that blocked exports of copper, fruit and wood pulp in March and last month.
LEGAL
Mortgage lawsuit revised
A federal judge has revived a closely watched lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase & Co of misleading Belgian-French bank Dexia SA into buying more than US$1.6 billion of troubled mortgage debt. Citing a recent federal appeals court decision involving American International Group Inc and Bank of America Corp, US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said he had lacked jurisdiction when he decided on April 2 to throw out much of Dexia’s lawsuit against JPMorgan. That ruling had dismissed claims for all but US$5.7 million, or less than 1 percent, of the roughly US$774 million of damages that Dexia had sought from the largest US Bank. In finding on Friday that he had no jurisdiction under an obscure 1919 federal law known as the Edge Act, Rakoff reinstated the dismissed claims and sent the case back to the New York state court where it began in January last year.
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