Month: March 2019

For the first time in recent years, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s annual Government Work Report did not mention Made in China 2025, the country’s ambitious plan to achieve high-tech dominance, and that has analysts asking whether Beijing is going to completely overhaul the plan or…

Australia and Singapore have suspended the Boeing 737 Max 8 passenger jet from operating in their respective airspaces, joining a growing list of countries taking precautionary measures involving the troubled plane after its second fatal crash in five months.   Airlines in countries across the…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may not be able to achieve his economic development goals given the divergent ideas over denuclearization exhibited by Washington and Pyongyang after the Hanoi summit, said experts. After the Hanoi summit broke down last month over discussions of Washington’s…

The United States should announce a Marshall Plan for South Asia if it wants to compete with China in projecting its "economic soft power" in the region, according to Pakistan's young political leader, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. "I think (the) United States and other powers that are…

The Turkish economy has fallen into recession for the first time in a decade, according to data released on Monday. The timing could not be worse for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with critical local elections scheduled for the end of the month. According to state…

The U.S. on Monday sanctioned a Moscow-based bank jointly owned by Russian and Venezuelan state-owned companies for its support for Venezuela's embattled President Nicolas Maduro and the country's state-controlled oil industry. The U.S. Treasury said it was targeting Evrofinance Mosnarbank, which was founded in 2011…

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says that President Donald Trump will call for a 5 percent "across the board" cut in domestic government spending in 2020 when he proposes his new budget on Monday. "It will be a tough budget," Kudlow told the Fox…

After months of Brexit deadlock, this is it: decision time. At least for now.   With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union in less than three weeks, U.K. lawmakers are poised to choose the country's immediate direction from among three starkly different choices: deal,…

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that the healthy U.S. economy and low inflation are allowing the central bank to take a “patient, wait-and-see approach” on interest rates. Speaking at Stanford University, Powell said the Fed is well along in its effort to normalize…

Hiring tumbled in February, with U.S. employers adding just 20,000 jobs, the smallest monthly gain in nearly a year and a half. The slowdown in hiring, though, might have been depressed by harsh winter weather and the partial shutdown of the government. Last month's weak…

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a "very good deal." Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United…

Wall Street has rewarded its most patient investors handsomely over the past 10 years. Is there more to come? The S&P 500, the U.S. market's benchmark index, has gained about 309 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 points in March 2009 during the Great Recession,…

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called Venezuela one of the most "complex situations" it had ever seen.    IMF spokesman Gerry Rice described Venezuela and its economy as a combination of "food and nutrition crises, hyperinflation, a destabilized exchange rate, debilitating human capital and…

Chinese tech giant Huawei has sued the U.S. government, arguing that legislation Congress passed last year restricting its business in the United States is "unconstitutional."  The case, which analysts see more as a public relations move, is the latest in an intensifying effort by the…