Category: Business

U.S. sportswear maker Nike was hit with a 12.5 million euro ($14.14 million) fine on Monday for blocking cross-border sales of soccer merchandise of some of Europe's best-known clubs, the latest EU sanction against such restrictions. The European Commission said Nike's illegal practices occurred between 2004 to 2017 and related to licensed merchandise for FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Juventus, Inter Milan, AS Roma and the French Football Federation. The European Union case focused on Nike's role as a licensor for making and distributing licensed merchandise featuring a soccer club's brands and not its own trademarks. The sanction came after a two-year investigation triggered by a sector inquiry into e-commerce in the 28-country bloc. The EU wants to boost online trade and economic growth. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Nike's…

The United States is an economic powerhouse. As the largest economy in the world, the U.S. produced $20.5 trillion worth of goods and services — known as its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — in 2018. That's impressive when you consider that the total GDP for the entire world was about $80 trillion in 2017. In fact, every U.S. state has a GDP that makes it as powerful, economically, as a foreign nation. California is the state with the highest GDP in the country. Its $2.97 trillion economy is on par with Britain, which has a GDP of $2.81 trillion. The UK needed 14.5 million workers — 75 percent more than California used — to produce the same economic output. On its own, California is the fifth-largest economy in the world.…

The U.S. federal government posted a $234 billion budget deficit in February, according to data released Friday by the Treasury Department. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a $227 billion deficit for the month. The Treasury said federal spending in February was $401 billion, up 8 percent from the same month in 2018, while receipts were $167 billion, up 7 percent compared to February 2018. The deficit for the fiscal year to date was $544 billion, compared with $391 billion in the comparable period the year earlier. When adjusted for calendar effects, the deficit was $547 billion for the fiscal year to date versus $439 billion in the comparable prior period. ...

Less than a week after a series of critical tweets from the president over an Ohio plant closure, General Motors is announcing plans to add 400 jobs and build a new electric vehicle at a factory north of Detroit. The company says it will spend $300 million at its plant in Orion Township, Michigan, to manufacture a Chevrolet vehicle based on the battery-powered Bolt. GM wouldn't say when the new workers will start or when the new vehicle will go on sale, nor would it say if the workers will be new hires or come from a pool of laid-off workers from the planned closings of four U.S. factories by January. The company also announced plans Friday to spend about another $1.4 billion at U.S. factories with 300 more jobs…

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad arrived Thursday in Pakistan on an official three-day visit, where his high-powered delegation is expected to finalize investment deals worth nearly $900 million, officials said.    The Malaysian leader will also be the chief guest at the Pakistan Day military parade Saturday, the Foreign Ministry announced.    Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's adviser on commerce told reporters that business leaders accompanying Mahathir would sign three memorandums of understanding on Friday covering up to $900 million worth of investments in information technology and telecom sectors.   The adviser, Razak Dawood, said the deals with Malaysia would also provide Pakistan a new opening toward membership in the Association of South East Asian Nations. He said Malaysian businessmen had also indicated they would like to invest in other sectors, including energy…

The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to still strong labor market conditions, though the pace of job growth has slowed after last year's robust gains. Other data on Thursday showed a measure of factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region rebounding sharply this month after falling into negative territory in February for the first time in more than 2-1/2 years. But manufacturers' perceptions about the outlook were the least favorable in three years and their expectations for capital spending were also less upbeat. These findings support the view that the manufacturing sector is slowing in line with softening economic growth. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday and its policymakers abandoned projections for further rate increases this year, noting…

China says a high-ranking U.S. delegation will travel to Beijing next week to resume negotiations aimed at resolving the ongoing trade war between the world's two leading economies. Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng announced Thursday that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will visit the Chinese capital next Thursday and Friday, March 28 & 29, followed by a trip to Washington in early April by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The trade war between the United States and China began last year when President Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to compel Beijing to change its trading practices. China has retaliated with its own tariff increases on $110 billion of U.S. exports. The Trump administration is also pushing China to…

The Federal Reserve left its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday and projected no rate hikes in 2019, dramatically underscoring its plan to be “patient” about any further increases. The Fed said it was keeping its benchmark rate — which can influence everything from mortgages to credit cards to home equity lines of credit — in a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. It also announced that it will stop shrinking its bond portfolio in September, a step that should help hold down long-term rates. It will begin slowing the runoff from its bond portfolio in May. Combined, the moves signal no major increases in borrowing rates for consumers and businesses. And together with the Fed's dimmer forecast for economic growth this year — 2.1 percent, down from a previous…

U.S. tariffs on China are likely to remain in place for a while even if a trade deal is reached, President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “The deal is coming along nicely,” the president said about the ongoing trade talks with Beijing, noting U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be heading to China within days to continue discussions. “We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars right now in tariff money and for a period of time that will stay,” said Trump. The president’s remark indicate that even if a trade deal is reached with Beijing, tariffs imposed by Washington could stay in place unless U.S. officials are convinced the Chinese are adhering to the terms of any agreement. “They’ve had a lot of…

German automaker BMW said Wednesday that profits in 2019 would be “well below” last year’s and that it planned to cut 12 billion euros ($13.6 billion) in costs by the end of 2022 to offset spending on new technology. The company said profits would be eroded by higher raw materials prices, the costs of compliance with tougher emissions requirements and unfavorable shifts in currency exchange rates. The Munich-based automaker also faces increased uncertainty due to international trade conflicts that could lead to higher tariffs. The company forecast a profit margin of 6 to 8 percent for its automotive business, short of the long-term strategic target of 8 to 10 percent, which it said still “remains the ambition” for the company given “a stable business environment.” BMW said it had no…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says talks with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner have led to advances toward an agreement that would have the U.S. government guarantee some $10 billion in development investments for Mexico and Central America. Lopez Obrador said Wednesday that the investments would aim to reduce immigration from Mexico and Central America by providing more opportunities in those countries. Roughly half of the sum would go to Mexico while the remainder would be divided among Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.   Lopez Obrador and President Donald Trump's son-in-law dined Tuesday in the Mexico City home of Bernardo Gomez, co-executive president of Grupo Televisa.   The Mexican leader says they also discussed the pending ratification of the new trade agreement dubbed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. ...

Mexico's government said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Brazil on the free trade of light vehicles, subject to a 40 percent regional content requirement, paving the way for more open commerce between Latin America's two biggest economies. The agreement takes effect on Tuesday and the content requirement would be subject to current formulas for calculation, the economy ministry said in a statement. The statement did not provide details on the formula. Mexico has been seeking to diversify trading partners since U.S. President Donald Trump warned of the possible death of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that has underpinned Mexico's foreign trade for a quarter-century. The economy ministry said Mexico racked up a trade surplus in the auto sector with Brazil worth $868 million last year,…

General Motors said on Tuesday it would invest $2.7 billion in two Brazilian factories over the next five years, sparing them from a shakeup of the automaker's operations, a decision hailed by the governor of Brazil's largest state. Sao Paolo state Governor Joao Doria told a joint news conference with GM executives that the plants in Sao Caetano do Sul and Sao Jose dos Campos had been slated for closure last December, and said he convinced GM to reverse the decision, saving jobs. Last November, GM said it would slash thousands of jobs around the world and would close two unspecified plants outside of North America by the end of 2019. The company declined to say whether its restructuring plans had referred to the two Brazilian factories, and declined to…

Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would spend 86 billion riyals ($23 billion) to boost the quality of life in the capital Riyadh, increasing green space and recreational areas and installing 1,000 works of art across the city. The four projects unveiled are part of efforts to open up Saudis' cloistered lifestyles, encourage physical activity and make life more fun in the conservative kingdom, alongside reforms to diversify the economy away from oil. They are the latest in a series of planned development investments that King Salman has launched at the side of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, after a global outcry over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October tarnished the crown prince's image. Park, cycling track planned State media showed the pair touring a…

Investigators into the Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia have found striking similarities in a vital flight angle with an airplane that came down off Indonesia, a source said, piling pressure on the world's biggest planemaker. The Ethiopian Airlines disaster eight days ago killed 157 people, led to the grounding of Boeing's marquee MAX fleet globally and sparked a high-stakes inquiry for the aviation industry. Analysis of the cockpit recorder showed its "angle of attack" data was "very, very similar" to that of the Lion Air jet that went down off Jakarta in October, killing 189 people, a person familiar with the investigation said. The angle of attack is a fundamental parameter of flight, measuring the degrees between the air flow and the wing. If it is too high, it…

Paris and Hong Kong for the first time joined Singapore as the world's most expensive cities to live in, a study revealed on Tuesday, with utilities and transport driving up the cost of living. Zurich, Geneva and Japan's Osaka trailed closely, with emerging market cities like Istanbul and Moscow plummeting down the ranking due to high inflation and currency depreciation, said the Economist Intelligence Unit's bi-annual survey of 133 cities. It was the first time in more than 30 years that three cities shared the top spot, a sign that pricey global cities are growing more alike, said the report's author, Roxana Slavcheva. "Converging costs in traditionally more expensive cities ... is a testament to globalization and the similarity of tastes and shopping patterns," she said in a statement. "Even…

NATO is to receive the first of five Northrop Grumman high-altitude drones in the third quarter after years of delays, giving the alliance its own spy drones for the first time, the German government told lawmakers. Thomas Silberhorn, state secretary in the German Defense Ministry, said the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) drone would be delivered to an air base in Sigonella, Italy, followed by four additional systems, including drones and ground stations built by Airbus, later in the year. NATO plans to use the aircraft, a derivative of Northrop's Global Hawk drone, to carry out missions ranging from protection of ground troops to border control and counter-terrorism. The drones will be able to fly for up to 30 hours at a time in all weather, providing near real-time surveillance…

Oil producer group OPEC on Monday scrapped its planned meeting in April and will decide instead whether to extend output cuts in June, once the market has assessed the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran and the crisis in Venezuela. A ministerial panel of OPEC and its allies recommended that they cancel the extraordinary meeting scheduled for April 17-18 and hold the next regular talks on June 25-26. The energy minister of OPEC's de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, said the market was looking oversupplied until the end of the year but that April would be too early for any decision on output policy. "The consensus we heard... is that April will be premature to make any production decision for the second half," the Saudi minister, Khalid al-Falih, said. "As long…

British Prime Minister Theresa May was making a last-minute push Monday to win support for her European Union divorce deal, warning opponents that failure to approve it would mean a long — and possibly indefinite — delay to Brexit. Parliament has rejected the agreement twice, but May aims to try a third time this week if she can persuade enough lawmakers to change their minds. Her aim is to have the deal agreed before EU leaders meet Thursday for a summit in Brussels.   May's goal is to win over Northern Ireland's small, power-brokering Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP's 10 lawmakers prop up May's Conservative government, and their support could influence pro-Brexit Conservatives to drop their opposition to the deal.   Still, May faces a struggle to reverse the huge…

The European Union will seek Beijing's agreement for deadlines to open up China's economy at an April 9 summit in Brussels, according to a draft leaders' statement, trying to coax it into making good on promises to deepen trade ties. China and the EU will "agree by summer 2019 on a set of priority market access barriers and requirements facing their operators," according to a six-page joint communique drafted by the EU, which still requires Chinese approval. The statement, seen by Reuters, said the two trading blocs would set "deadlines for their swift removal by the next EU-China summit 2020 at the latest." The statement, which is likely to change, also sets 2020 as the goal for a special treaty to increase investment flows that has been under negotiation for…

After wrapping up thousands of town hall meetings, France starts a new chapter of its "great debate," aimed to address longstanding public grievances and offer solutions to the yellow vest protest movement. But the broader crisis lingers, seen with upsurge of violence in Paris Saturday, where about 10,000 yellow vests marked their 18th straight week of protests. Demonstrators smashed and looted businesses on the iconic Champs Elysees and hurled cobble stones at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons. Others participated in a peaceful climate march that brought together tens of thousand of people—underscoring the diffuse, unorganized complexity of the leaderless protest movement. Eight weeks of citizen debates, launched in January by an embattled President Emmanuel Macron, have received mixed reviews. Some consider them a groundbreaking experiment in…

British Prime Minister Theresa May warned Sunday that it would be "a potent symbol of Parliament's collective political failure" if a Brexit delay meant that the U.K. has to take part in May's European elections — almost three years after Britons voted to leave the bloc. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, May also cautioned that if lawmakers failed to back her deal before Thursday's European Council summit, "we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever."   "If the proposal were to go back to square one and negotiate a new deal, that would mean a much longer extension... The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking…

Brazil is considering granting an import quota of 750,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat per year without tariffs in exchange for other trade concessions, according to a Brazilian official with knowledge of the negotiations ahead of President Jair Bolsonaro's visit to Washington.  That is about 10 percent of Brazilian annual wheat imports and is part of a two-decade-old commitment to import 750,000 metric tons of wheat a year free of tariffs that Brazil made — but never kept — during the World Trade Organization's Uruguay Round of talks on agriculture.  Bolsonaro is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Sunday and meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Farm state senators have asked that wheat sales be on the agenda, in a letter to Trump seen by Reuters. They estimate such a quota would increase U.S. wheat sales by between $75 million and…

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Saturday that frequent U.S. comments about oil prices had created market tensions, the ministry's news website SHANA reported.  U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made the U.S. economy one of his top issues, has repeatedly tweeted about oil prices and the Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries. He has expressed concern about higher prices, including last month and ahead of OPEC's meeting in December. "Americans talk a lot and I advise them to talk less. They [have] caused tensions in the oil market for over a year now, and they are responsible for it, and if this trend continues, the market will be more tense," SHANA quoted Zanganeh as saying.  U.S. crude futures briefly hit a 2019 high on Friday but later retreated along with benchmark Brent oil as worries about the global economy…

Veteran Conservative lawmaker Nigel Evans has been in Britain’s House of Commons for more than a quarter-of-a-century and, like most of his parliamentary colleagues, is stunned at the turn of Brexit events. “I got elected in 1992 and I don’t know if I have known any time more uncertain than now,” he told VOA. He’s flummoxed at what the next move should be for a Conservative government that has lost control of the Brexit process. As a committed Brexiter, he fears Britain will end up staying in the European Union because of an impasse in the Commons that has seen the ruling Conservative government repeatedly rebuffed by lawmakers, including by a third of its own MPs, in a series of historic votes without precedent for the storied House of Commons.…

China’s top legislature is expected to pass the country’s first Foreign Investment Law this week at a time when negotiators from Beijing and Washington work to hammer out a trade deal. Analysts and business groups say the legislation is a step in the right direction, but still falls short. In some ways, they add, it even raises new concerns that negotiators need to address before the two sides reach a deal. For decades, China has been grappling with the question of just how far and how fast it should open up its state directed economy, and steps — while always welcome — have long lagged behind expectations. The Foreign Investment Law is not different. In a statement, the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) said it welcomes the law and…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was in no rush to complete a trade pact with China and insisted that any deal include protection for intellectual property, a major sticking point between the two sides during months of negotiations. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had been expected to hold a summit at the president's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida later this month, but no date has been set for a meeting and no in-person talks between their trade teams have been held in more than two weeks. The president, speaking to reporters at the White House, said he thought there was a good chance a deal would be made, in part because China wanted one after suffering from U.S. tariffs on its goods. But he acknowledged Xi may…

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives gave a cool reception to the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday as the top U.S. trade negotiator opened a  campaign to win broad support for the accord in Congress. Several Democrats said a closed-door meeting between United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and their caucus failed to ease their concerns about the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement's (USMCA) provisions on labor, biologic drugs and some other issues. A USTR spokeswoman declined to comment on the meeting. The support of Democrats, who control the House, is considered important to passage of the USMCA, and Wednesday's meeting at the U.S. Capitol signaled that the Trump administration has a lot of work to do to address the party's concerns. Democrats questioned whether new…