GERMANY
Industry orders slide
Industrial orders fell for the third month in a row in April, official data published yesterday showed. New orders fell by 2.7 percent over the previous month, figures provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. The renewed drop was “primarily due to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict,” the ministry said in a statement. Overall, incoming orders were 6.2 percent below their level of a year earlier. Some sectors’ volumes increased despite the overall downward trend, with orders in mechanical engineering up 3.8 percent. By contrast, Germany’s flagship auto industry struggled, with orders down 8.6 percent month-on-month.
RETAIL
UK spending disappoints
UK consumers are tightening their belts in the face of soaring inflation, with retailers warning that the cost of living crisis has punctured a post-COVID-19 pandemic spending boom. Sales decreased 1.1 percent last month compared with a year earlier, the British Retail Consortium said yesterday, with big-ticket items such as furniture and electronics hit hardest by the cutbacks. A separate report from Barclaycard showed consumers are cutting down on luxuries such as digital subscriptions and dining out. The UK inflation hit a 40-year high of 9 percent in April.
TOURISM
US lures travelers
In an effort to win back billions of dollars in tourism revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, the US government on Monday launched a plan to attract 90 million international travelers a year. The five-year plan aims to add jobs and bring in an estimated US$279 billion a year in spending by visiting tourists, the US Department of Commerce said. The National Travel and Tourism Strategy will focus on increasing promotion of US destinations, especially to underrepresented sites, and improving communication about health status and requirements, the department said. It is also to offer help for local authorities to improve infrastructure at tourist sites, it said.
AUDITING
UK fines PwC ￡5m
PricewaterhouseCoopers was fined almost ￡5 million (US$6.22 million) for a series of poor audits of two British construction companies, as the regulator continued to crack down on audit failings. PwC is to pay ￡3 million in relation to its audits of Galliford Try PLC and ￡1.96 million over a review of Kier Group PLC, the Financial Reporting Council said yesterday. It was also ordered to report on its most modern audits that considered long-term contracts, the council said. The UK is bringing in sweeping audit reforms aimed at reining in the dominance of the largest accountancy firms and cleaning up the industry following a string of high-profile scandals.
CONGLOMERATES
Ex-Sony boss dies
Former Sony Group Corp chief executive officer Nobuyuki Idei, who led the Japanese conglomerate for a decade, died of liver failure on June 2, aged 84, the company said yesterday. Idei took the helm in 1995 to drive Sony’s shift into content from hardware, but under his leadership the company behind the Walkman missed the shift to MP3s and flat-panel TVs. Idei stepped down in 2005 to take responsibility for slumping earnings and was replaced by Britain-born Howard Stringer, who became the first foreigner to lead the company.
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
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