ARGENTINA
IMF approves more funds
The IMF Executive Board approved a US$56.3 billion credit line, clearing the way for the embattled economy to receive more funding at a faster pace than originally negotiated. The board’s sign-off on Friday ratified a revised agreement announced last month. Under the new deal, Argentina is to receive about US$35.8 billion throughout the remainder of this year and all of next year, representing a nearly US$19 billion increase from the original arrangement negotiated in June. It received US$15 billion that month.
UNITED KINGDOM
Business tax cut likely
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is tomorrow likely to give a £900 million (US$1.15 billion) tax cut to small high-street retailers in his annual budget to help them compete against online competition, the UK government said late on Friday. The UK Treasury said that starting from next year, almost half-a -million small retailers would enjoy a cut of one-third to their property taxes, known as business rates.
UNITED STATES
GDP grows 3.5% in Q3
The economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-to-September quarter as the strongest burst of consumer spending in nearly four years helped offset a sharp drag from trade. The Department of Commerce on Friday said that the third-quarter GDP growth followed an even stronger 4.2 percent rate of growth in the second quarter. The two quarters marked the strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2014.
STEELMAKERS
Arcelor, Nippon buy Essar
Global steel giant ArcelorMittal SA and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp on Friday said they have won a bidding war for India’s Essar Steel with a US$5.7 billion offer for their debt-laden rival. The deal is one of the biggest takeovers of a failing Indian company under India’s first bankruptcy law, passed two years ago to help clean up crippling corporate debts. While ArcelorMittal is to own a majority stake in Essar, Nippon would hold a nearly equal share, the companies said in separate statements.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Takeda talks EU settlement
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co is in talks with EU antitrust regulators about selling an experimental inflammatory bowel disease drug to help close its US$62 billion takeover of Shire PLC. In a statement released on Friday, Takeda said that it has been in discussions with the European Commission about divesting SHP647, which is in the final stages of experimental testing for the treatment of two gastrointestinal disorders: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Takeda already markets the drug Entyvio for those conditions.
FINANCIAL CRIME
Ex-forex traders acquitted
Three former London currency traders were on Friday found not guilty of US charges that they schemed to rig benchmark exchange rates, the latest verdict in a US probe into the multitrillion-US dollar foreign exchange market. Chris Ashton, Rohan Ramchandani and Richard Usher, who worked at Barclays PLC, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co respectively, were acquitted of all charges by a jury in a Manhattan federal court.
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