UNITED KINGDOM
Ministry mulls tax merger
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will unveil plans to merge income tax and national insurance, as a key element of the next Conservative manifesto, the Times reported. The newspaper said Downing Street was actively considering the plan. Fears that merging of the two systems would lead to security concerns had caused Osborne to pull back from making an announcement in April, the paper said citing a source. “We came within a whisker of doing this at the last budget, but in the end we decided against it,” the Times quoted a source as saying. “They are currently on two separate computer systems, and we thought the risk was just too great. But it’s something we could do in the next parliament.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Profits drop unexpectedly
Financial services firms saw an unexpected fall in profit in the three months to June, after six quarters of strong rises — the result of increased competition and costs, an industry survey showed yesterday. Profits fell by 5 percent compared with expectations for a rise of 30 percent, according to the latest quarterly CBI/PwC financial services survey. Incomes from fees, commissions or premiums fell by 10 percent, disappointing a previous forecast for rapid growth of 34 percent. Kevin Burrowes, PricewaterhouseCooper’s UK financial services leader, said banks and insurers were seeing a growing competitive threat from non-financial services companies and new entrants trying to capitalize on improved economic conditions.
MINING
Anglo selling assets
Global miner Anglo American PLC has put some of its platinum mines in South Africa up for sale in a move by chief executive Mark Cutifani to dispose of underperforming assets, Britain’s Sunday Times reported. The company has lined up South African investment bank RMB to run the auction, the newspaper said. “We have been clear that a number of assets in the portfolio are unlikely to satisfy our stated return criteria and will be divested at the right time,” a spokesman for the company told reporters in an e-mail. The Sunday Times said the disposal program was agreed by the board at a strategy meeting this month and could raise up to US$4 billion. Other assets up for sale include its nickel business and copper mines in Chile, it said.
GERMANY
May retail sales drop
Retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, fell in May, official data showed yesterday. German retailers’ sales dropped by 0.6 percent in May compared with April, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. Retail sales had already fallen by 1.5 percent the previous month. On a 12-month basis, business increased by 1.9 percent in May compared with the same month last year, the statisticians said. That was because there was one more shopping day in May this year than in May last year, the statisticians said.
GERMANY
Publisher initiates self-sale
European newspaper publisher Mecom Group PLC said it had reached an agreement to sell itself to Belgium-based media group De Persgroep NV for £196 million (US$333.5 million). Under the terms, Mecom shareholders will receive £1.55 in cash apiece, representing a premium of 35 percent to the stock’s closing price on Friday. Rothschild and BNP Paribas were advisers for De Persgroep, while Gleacher Shacklock and Canaccord Genuity advised Mecom on the transaction.
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
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
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
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