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.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS