INDONESIA
New tax bracket added
Parliament yesterday approved a law to let the government add a top income bracket, increase the value-added tax and roll out a second round of an amnesty program next year. Lawmakers agreed to pass the tax law at a plenary session — a boon to the government’s efforts to expand its revenue base and rein in its budget deficit. The bill is the second in a series of the nation’s omnibus laws, which aim to revise many existing laws at once. The tax law is set to boost state earnings and help the government bring the fiscal deficit under the legal limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2023.
HOUSING
UK prices surge 1.7%
UK house prices increased last month at the fastest pace in more than 14 years, and healthy demand is set to persist, despite the headwinds facing the economy, mortgage lender Halifax said yesterday. The average price of a home rose 1.7 percent to ￡267,587 pounds (US$363,645) following a 0.8 percent gain in August, it said. The increase was the largest since February 2007 and pushed up the annual pace of growth to 7.4 percent. The housing market has boomed since the summer of last year, boosted by a tax cut on property purchases and demand driven by the COVID-19 pandemic for larger homes away from city centers with space to work from home.
AIRLINES
UK drops refund probe
Britain’s competition regulator yesterday scrapped its action against Ryanair Holdings PLC and British Airways over their failure to offer refunds to passengers prevented from flying by COVID-19 restrictions, because it said a lack of legal clarity made the outcome uncertain. The Competition and Markets Authority started action against the airlines in June. It yesterday said that the law did not provide passengers with a sufficiently clear right to a refund in such unusual circumstances, and it could not therefore justify continuing to pursue its action.
BANKING
AfDB backs US$7bn in trade
The African Development Bank (AfDB) said it would support trade valued at US$7 billion throughout the next five years in a bid to spur the growth of the world’s biggest free-trade area. The financier — founded in 1964 — would guarantee loans given to companies to sell their products across the continent in a move that would facilitate the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area that went into effect on Jan. 1. The bank would back about 2,000 transactions, it said in an e-mail. Companies in 2019 faced a shortfall of US$81 billion in financing trade, a survey done by the Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based lender showed.
TECHNOLOGY
Google to invest in Africa
Google on Wednesday announced that it would invest US$1 billion in boosting Africa’s Internet access and start-up ventures. Spread over five years, the investment includes funding for Google’s Equiano subsea cable — a major private infrastructure project aimed at ramping up Africa’s high-speed connections. The network is planned to run through South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and the Atlantic island of St Helena. Google said the project would lead to a 21 percent drop in Internet prices, as well as a fivefold increase in connection speeds in Nigeria and almost triple in South Africa.
‘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
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