Sat, Dec 02, 2017 page10

• World Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  STEEL

  Countries to drop subsidies

  The world’s largest steel-producing countries on Thursday agreed to dismantle market-distorting subsidies, but deep division remained, with China calling for more action from other producers. Speaking at the conclusion of a Berlin summit, German Minister of Economics and Energy Brigitte Zypries said delegates had agreed on the need to dismantle subsidies and arrange better sharing of information on the process of capacity reduction. Chinese Assistant Minister of Commerce Li Chenggang (李成鋼) said the world’s largest steel maker made painful efforts to cut capacity “while the rest of the world just watches.”

  EUROPEAN UNION

  Joblessness hits decade low

  The buoyant economic recovery across the 19-country eurozone has pushed unemployment down to its lowest level in nearly nine years, but has yet to translate to a sustained pick-up in wages and prices, official figures said on Thursday. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, said the jobless rate fell to 8.8 percent in October, from 8.9 percent the previous month. That is the lowest since January 2009. Across the region, there were 14.34 million people out of work, down 1.5 million in the past year.

  CANADA

  Account deficit nears record

  Canada’s reliance on foreign financing rose to near record levels in the third quarter as exporters continue to struggle. The country’s current account deficit — what it needs to borrow from the rest of the world to finance spending — widened to C$19.3 billion (US$15.01 billion), the third-highest on record. Economists had forecast a C$20 billion deficit. Canada has booked current account deficits for 36 straight quarters, worth more than C$500 billion over that time.

  BREWERIES

  AB InBev muscles local beers

  The EU on Thursday accused the world’s biggest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (AB InBev), of illegally blocking cheaper imports of local favorites Leffe and Jupiler into Belgium. Both brands are Belgium’s best-selling beers and part of the AB InBev behemoth that the EU says has a “very strong” position on the Belgian beer market. AB InBev is based in the Belgian city of Leuven and completed a blockbuster merger worth US$103 billion with rival SABMiller PLC last year.

  ENTERTAINMENT

  Macau attracts high rollers

  Macau’s casino revenue last month grew at the fastest pace in four months as tour operators attracted high-stakes players to the world’s largest gambling hub. Gross gaming receipts rose 23 percent to 23 billion patacas (US$2.9 billion) last month, data released yesterday by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed. That exceeds the median estimate for a 19 percent increase in a Bloomberg survey of seven analysts. Revenue climbed 20 percent from January to last month.

  AUTOMAKERS

  Nissan’s car sales halved

  Nissan Motor Co’s passenger car sales nearly halved in Japan last month, data released yesterday showed, following a 55 percent drop from the previous month as it struggles with a damaging inspection scandal. Sales of Nissan-brand passenger cars stood at 16,888, down 46.8 percent from a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said. The dramatic fall in Nissan-brand cars compares with a more modest decline of just 5.5 percentage points in overall sales in the Japanese market last month.

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