Category: Business

America's rediscovered prowess in oil production is shaking up old notions about the impact of higher crude prices on the U.S. economy. It has long been conventional wisdom that rising oil prices hurt the economy by forcing consumers to spend more on gasoline and heating their homes, leaving less for other things. Presumably that kind of run-up would slow the U.S. economy. Instead, the economy grew at its fastest rate in nearly four years during the April-through-June quarter. President Donald Trump appears plainly worried about rising oil prices just a few weeks before mid-term elections that will decide which party controls the House and Senate. "We protect the countries of the Middle East, they would not be safe for very long without us, and yet they continue to push for…

China has canceled trade talks with the United States following Washington’s imposition of new tariffs on Chinese goods. The Wall Street Journal reports that China had planned to send Vice Premier Liu He to Washington next week for the talks, but has now canceled his trip along with that of a midlevel delegation that was to precede him. US was optimistic Earlier Friday, a senior White House official said the U.S. was optimistic about finding a way forward in trade talks with China. The official told reporters at the White House that China “must come to the table in a meaningful way” for there to be progress on the trade dispute. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said while there was no confirmed meeting between the United States and…

Canada and the United States showed scant sign on Thursday of closing a deal to revamp NAFTA, and Canadian officials made clear Washington needed to withdraw a threat of possible autos tariffs, sources said. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump wants to be able to agree on a text of the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement by the end of September, but major differences remain. "We discussed some tough issues today," Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters after meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Freeland, who has visited Washington four weeks in a row to discuss NAFTA, gave no further details. Market fears over the future of the 1994 pact, which underscores $1.2 trillion in trade, have been regularly hitting stocks in all three nations, whose…

Seven years after the Arab Spring, little has been done to address youth unemployment in Tunisia, a key factor in extremist groups' ability to recruit marginalized youth, rights groups and experts warn. "Someone who is marginalized with nothing to lose, no stability in life, no vision of the future, no hope for change, can become a very easy target for terrorist groups," Amna Guellali, director of Human Rights Watch's Tunisia office, told VOA. The Arab Spring was ignited in Tunisia, in part because of deteriorating economic conditions. A frustrated street vendor set himself on fire outside a local municipal office in Sidi Bouzid to protest repeated harassment from authorities, who often confiscated his goods or fined him for selling without a permit.  Although economic conditions that force people to eke out a…

New U.S. claims for jobless benefits fell for the third week in a row, hitting their lowest level in nearly 49 years for the third straight week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The new figures suggest the U.S. economy's vigorous job creation continued unabated this month as the data were collected during the survey week for the department's more closely watched monthly jobs report, due out next week. Amid a widely reported labor shortage, employers are reluctant to lay off workers who are difficult to replace. For the week ended September 12, new claims for unemployment insurance fell to 201,000, down 3,000 from the prior week. Economists had instead been expecting a result of 209,000. The result was the lowest level since November of 1969, whereas the prior week's level…

The world is making progress in its efforts to lift people out of extreme poverty, but the global aspiration of eliminating such poverty by 2030 is unattainable, a new report found. A World Bank report released Wednesday says the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day fell to a record low of 736 million, or 10 percent of the world’s population, in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. The figure was less than the 11 percent recorded in 2013, showing slow but steady progress. “Over the last 25 years, more than a billion people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty, and the global poverty rate is now lower than it has ever been in recorded history. This is one of the greatest human…

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma said Wednesday that the Chinese e-commerce giant had canceled plans to create 1 million jobs in the U.S., blaming the ongoing trade war for the decision, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua. "This commitment is based on friendly China-U.S. cooperation and the rational and objective premise of bilateral trade," Ma told Xinhua. "The current situation has already destroyed the original premise. There is no way to deliver the promise." Ma originally pledged to spur job growth by letting American small businesses and farmers sell their goods on Alibaba, which is one of the world's largest online retailers, when he visited then-President-elect Donald Trump early 2017. Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports on Monday, threatening to place taxes on an additional…

Chinese technology billionaire Jack Ma has rescinded his offer to create 1 million new jobs in the United States, saying it is no longer possible with the escalation of trade disputes between the world's two biggest economies. The Alibaba chief made the U.S. jobs pledge to then-President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017 at Trump Tower in New York, just before Trump assumed power. The prospective U.S. leader declared, "Jack and I are going to do some great things." But in an interview published late Wednesday by Xinhua, China's official news agency, Ma said tit-for-tat tariffs imposed by Washington and Beijing, including new levies this week on billions of dollars of trade between China and the U.S., have scuttled his investment plans in the U.S.. "This promise was on the basis…

Canada said on Wednesday that it would need to see movement from the United States if the two sides are to reach a deal on renewing NAFTA, which Washington insists must be finished by the end of the month. Although the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and its allies are increasing pressure on Canada to make the concessions they say are needed for the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made clear he also wanted to see flexibility. "We're interested in what could be a good deal for Canada but we're going to need to see a certain amount of movement in order to get there and that's certainly what we're hoping for," he told reporters in Ottawa. Shortly afterwards, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland…

Kenya's Finance Minister Henry Rotich has cut the government's spending budget by 55.1 billion shillings ($546.90 million), or 1.8 percent, for the fiscal year from July this year, a Treasury document showed on Wednesday. The government is facing a tough balancing act after a public outcry over a new 16 percent value added tax on all petroleum products forced President Uhuru Kenyatta to suggest to parliament to keep the VAT and cut if by half. In the document detailing the new spending estimates, Rotich said the budget had to be adjusted because of the amendments to tax measures brought by lawmakers when they first debated it and passed it last month. The proposed halving of the VAT rate on fuel has left the government with a funding shortfall, hence the…

In Kenya, a new taxi hailing app developed by local taxi drivers is in its fourth month of operation in Nairobi. Dubbed BebaBeba by the Drivers and Partners Association of Kenya (DPAK), it was created to compete with Uber and other ride hailing apps. Rael Ombuor reports from Nairobi. ...

Videos of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro feasting on steaks at an upscale restaurant have sparked worldwide outrage on behalf of the poverty-stricken people of his country. One video show celebrity chef Nusret Gokce, also known as "Salt Bae," carving meat for the president and his wife, Cilia Flores, at the Nusr-Et restaurant in Istanbul, where each cut of meat can cost hundreds of dollars. Florida Senator Marco Rubio slammed the chef who was filmed with the "dictator," who was shown eating "a five-star gourmet meal, smoking fine cigars while the people of Venezuela are literally starving." "It’s an outrage, disgusting ... this is a man starving human beings and [Salt Bae] is celebrating him as some sort of hero – I got pissed,” Rubio told the Miami Herald on Tuesday.…

Mexico's incoming financial intelligence chief said it was "shameful" how little had been done about bribes that Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht executives said were paid to secure Mexican public works contracts, and vowed to reexamine the case once in office. Santiago Nieto will head the finance ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit, which analyzes suspicious financial records, once the new leftist government takes office on Dec. 1. He said in an interview last week that the unit had been misused for political ends, without elaborating. "It's shameful that Mexico and Venezuela are the only countries in Latin America that haven't sanctioned anyone," he said of the Odebrecht case, which is at the heart of Brazil's Lava Jato, or Car Wash, corruption investigation that has reverberated across the region in recent years. "In…

China says it has no choice but to retaliate to U.S. President Donald Trump's 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, risking a further escalation of trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.   In a brief statement posted online Tuesday, China’s Commerce Ministry said, "To protect its legitimate rights and interests and order in international free trade, China is left with no choice but to retaliate simultaneously."   The statement did not say how China might respond. China has previously said it would respond with a list of tariffs that includes products from liquified natural gas to aircraft.  On Monday, the Communist Party backed Global Times newspaper warned that if Trump went ahead with the tariffs, China would not just play defense.   At about the…

Africa has the globe's fastest-growing youth population as well as 10 of the poorest countries, a volatile combination that warrants making it "the world's most important priority for the foreseeable future." The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation lays out that argument in its second annual report on progress toward sustainable development goals set by the United Nations for 2030. This Goalkeepers Data Report, released Tuesday, urges targeting Africa with the same kind of investment intensity that lifted once-poor China and India into the ranks of middle-income nations. Sixty percent of Africans are younger than 24, numbers that Melinda Gates emphasized in a phone interview earlier this month with VOA's English to Africa Service. "If the world makes the right investments in health and nutrition and education," she said, it could…

The Asian Development Bank said on Tuesday it is expanding its presence in the Pacific islands, at a time of competition for influence there, opening seven new country offices and expecting its loans and grants in the region to top $4 billion by 2020. The pledge from the Japan-led bank comes amidst a vigorous new campaign by the United States and its allies to check China's rising sway in the region, where it has sought deeper diplomatic ties and emerged as the second-largest donor. The battle for influence in the sparsely populated Pacific matters because each of the tiny island states has a vote at international forums like the United Nations, and they also control vast swathes of resource-rich ocean. The ADB said it will open offices in the Cook…

With his popularity ratings in freefall, French President Emmanuel Macron is counting on a rebound in family purchasing power to keep voters from turning against his reforms. Macron's government has lined up several tax cuts taking effect in the coming months that should boost the closely tracked measure of disposable income in France. It could hardly come at a better time for Macron, with many voters saying the former investment banker has spent his first year in office cutting taxes for the wealthy and big companies. More purchasing power was the single biggest priority in voters' eyes, well ahead of cutting unemployment or the tax burden, according to a Kantar Sofres poll released on Sunday. Squeezed by tax hikes on petrol and tobacco as well as oil price-driven inflation, household…

A top economic adviser to President Donald Trump said on Monday he expects U.S. budget deficits of about 4 to 5 percent of the country's economic output for the next one to two years, adding that there would likely be an effort in 2019 to cut spending on entitlement programs. "We have to be tougher on spending," White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York, adding that government spending was the reason for the wider budget deficits, not the Republican-led tax cuts activated this year. Kudlow did not specify where future cuts would be made. "We're going to run deficits of about 4 to 5 percent of GDP for the next year or two, OK. I'd rather they were lower but it's…

More than half of all workplace tasks will be carried out by machines by 2025, organizers of the Davos economic forum said in a report released Monday that highlights the speed with which the labor market will change in coming years. The World Economic Forum estimates that machines will be responsible for 52 percent of the division of labor as share of hours within seven years, up from just 29 percent today. By 2022, the report says, roughly 75 million jobs worldwide will be lost, but that could be more than offset by the creation of 133 million new jobs. A major challenge, however, will be training and re-training employees for that new world of work. “By 2025, the majority of workplace tasks in existence today will be performed by…

Aid money urgently needs to be redirected to the poorest countries in order to reach the United Nations' goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030, according to a report. The London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) says middle-income countries receive more aid than the 30 poorest nations. It also warns that at least 400 million people will still be living on less than $1.90 a day, despite government pledges to eliminate all extreme poverty. In northern Ethiopia, teams of workers dig irrigation channels through orchards and grain fields. Such projects have turned arid plains into fertile farmland, which has quadrupled agricultural production. The report from the ODI credits Ethiopia's "Productive Safety Net Program," launched in 2005, with lifting 1.4 million people out of extreme poverty. It also enabled Ethiopia to avoid…

U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed aides to proceed with tariffs on about $200 billion more in Chinese products, despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's attempts to restart talks with China about resolving the trade war, Bloomberg reported on Friday. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, which had an immediate effect on financial markets. It led U.S. stocks to trade lower, fueled drops in the Chinese yuan in offshore trading and gains in the dollar index, and sent the S&P 500 index negative. The step comes exactly one week since Trump raised the possibility of duties on the $200 billion of imports and also threatened tariffs on $267 billion worth of goods. Trump has already levied duties on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. The United States only imported $505…

The Turkish central bank caught international markets by surprise Thursday as it aggressively hiked interest rates in an effort to strengthen consumer confidence, stem inflation and rein in the currency crisis.  Interest rates were increased to 24 percent from 17.75 percent, which is more than double the median of investor predictions of a 3 percent hike. The Turkish lira surged above 5 percent in response, although the gains subsequently were pared back. International investors broadly welcomed the move. "TCMB [Turkish Republic Central Bank] did show resolve in hiking the one-week repo rate substantially and going back to orthodoxy," chief economist Inan Demir of Nomura International said. The central bank had drawn sharp criticism for failing to substantially raise interest rates to rein in double-digit inflation and an ailing currency. The…

Cuba’s street vendors are bringing back the pregon, the art of singing humorous, rhyming ditties with double entendres about the goods they are selling, with some modernizing the tradition by setting their tunes to reggaeton. The pregon is a centuries-old tradition that has inspired famous songs like “El Manisero” (the peanut vendor), composed in the late 1920s by Cuban musician Moises Simons on son music, the backbone of salsa. It faded out in Cuba after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution did away with most free enterprise. With the tentative liberalization of the centralized economy over the last few decades, however, it has made a comeback. Cubans can now get a permit to make and sell their own goods on the street, from coconut ice cream to juices. Vendors often opting for…

Even before U.S.-China trade tensions began escalating dramatically, foreign businesses who operate in China were warning about the impact tariffs could have. And now, according to a newly released joint survey from the American Chamber of Commerce in China and AmCham Shanghai, many are already feeling the pinch. More than 60 percent say the initial $50 billion in tariffs rolled out by the United States and China are having a negative impact on business, increasing the demand of manufacturing and slowing demand for products. That number is expected to rise to nearly 75 percent if a second round of tariffs, an additional $200 billion in tariffs from Washington and another $60 billion from Beijing, goes ahead. The administration of President Donald Trump has threatened it could go ahead with $200…

A new report by Transparency International suggests foreign bribery is alive and well.  The report, by the Berlin-based, anti-corruption watchdog, suggests little has changed in recent years in the way governments enforce their anti-bribery laws. Today, only seven major exporting countries actively crack down on companies that offer bribes to foreign officials in exchange for favorable business deals. The United States is one of the seven countries, which together account for 27 percent of world exports, Transparency International said. The others are Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.  2016 a record year Between 2014 and 2017, the United States launched at least 32 investigations, opened 13 cases and concluded 98 cases involving foreign bribery, according to the report. Enforcement activity surged in 2016, resulting in a record…

Labor unions and social groups blocked streets in downtown Buenos Aires on Wednesday, with more marches planned over the days ahead over   austerity measures proposed by the government and backed by the International Monetary Fund. Protesters are angry about the belt-tightening policies, which are cutting services to low-income Argentines already walloped by inflation of 31 percent and climbing. But Argentine leader Mauricio Macri says he needs to carry out such measures to regain investors' confidence by reducing the country's fiscal deficit. The outlook for Latin America's third biggest economy is grim, according to orthodox and left-leaning economists alike. Planned cuts to public utility subsidies, forcing Argentines to pay more for transportation and electricity, are expected to keep upward pressure on consumer prices for the rest of 2018. "The day to…

The median U.S. household income reached $61,372 last year — its highest level ever, the U.S. Census reported Wednesday. The new median figure, meaning that half of U.S. families earned more money and half less, was a reflection of the robust U.S. economy, the world's largest, that expanded 4.1 percent in the April-to-June period even as the unemployment rate held steady in August at 3.9 percent. The 2017 household income was 1.8 percent higher than the $60,309 figure in 2016. Middle-class income in the U.S. has been expanding in recent years as the country continues its recovery from the steep recession of a decade ago — a time when millions of people lost their jobs, and many lost their homes through foreclosure when they no longer had enough money to…

South Korea's unemployment rate hit an eight-year high in August as mandatory minimum wages rose, adding to economic policy frustrations and political challenges for President Moon Jae-in whose approval rating is now at its lowest since inauguration. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent in August from 3.8 percent in July in seasonally adjusted terms as the number of unemployed rose by 134,000 people from a year earlier. This was the labor market's worst performance since January 2010, when the economy was still reeling from the global financial crisis, when 10,000 jobs were lost. Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said on Wednesday the government will need to adjust its wage policies, signaling some future soft-pedaling in the drive to raise minimum wages. "(The government) will discuss slowing the speed of minimum…