China plans to provide an unspecified financial “grant” to Pakistan while the United Arab Emirates is actively considering Islamabad’s request for a fiscal relief package of up to $6 billion to help the country deal with a looming balance-of-payments crisis, Chinese and Pakistani officials say.  

News of the anticipated financial aid came days after Prime Minister Imran Khan secured more than $6 billion in immediate financial support from Pakistan’s close ally, Saudi Arabia, during an official visit to Riyadh. 

Pakistan urgently needs foreign currency to shore up its depleting reserves of less than $8 billion, which is barely enough for servicing its debt and paying import bills. 

Khan’s nascent government, which took office two months ago and has inherited a debt-ridden national economy, estimates the country urgently needs about $12 billion to fulfill domestic and external liabilities. 

Khan is to travel to Beijing Nov. 2-5 on his first official visit to the country, where he is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping and his Chinese counterpart. 

Chinese diplomats in Islamabad have announced ahead of Khan’s visit that it will result in “good news” in terms of securing financial assistance for Pakistan. 

“During the visit of the prime minister, we will provide, hopefully, a grant to the Pakistani government. Please look forward to the outcome of this visit. There will be more good news to follow,” said Deputy Chinese Ambassador Lijian Zhao, when asked whether Beijing would provide Khan financial assistance similar to the package the Saudis have pledged. He declined to speculate on the size of the grant. 

Under the Saudi deal, Riyadh will deposit $3 billion in the coming days with the central State Bank of Pakistan for one year, as balance-of-payments support. Additionally, Saudi Arabia will export oil to Islamabad worth more than $3 billion on a deferred-payment basis over the next three years. 

Khan’s government has rejected reports of any conditions attached to the Saudi aid package. 

Federal Minister Haroon Sharif, chairman of the Board of Investment, said Saturday that the Pakistani government had formally submitted a financial request to a visiting UAE delegation similar to what Saudis have pledged. The Gulf state, he noted, is one of the biggest oil suppliers to Pakistan. 

The minister told local Dunya TV the UAE delegation “positively” noted the Pakistani request and has promised to return with possible options in the next few days.

“It is expected to be a good package. I am unable to share the figures, but I think it would more or less be similar to the one Saudi Arabia has announced [for Pakistan],” said Sharif, who accompanied Khan during his visit to Saudi Arabia and will be part of the Pakistani delegation traveling to China. 

​IMF bailout plan 

In addition to pushing friendly countries to provide fiscal relief, Khan’s government has also turned to the International Monetary Fund to seek a bailout package. Formal talks are scheduled to begin in Islamabad on Nov. 7. Pakistan has taken advantage of repeated IMF bailouts in the past several decades. 

Analysts say the Saudi financial package and expected aid from both China and the UAE will most likely boost Pakistan’s negotiating position and may mean the country will require a smaller IMF arrangement. 

During Khan’s visit to Beijing, officials said the two countries would sign “many agreements” to boost trade and investment ties and launch the second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship of Xi’s global Road and Belt Initiative. 

The two sides will sign a framework for launching industrial cooperation under CPEC and increasing Pakistani exports to China. 

CPEC, Khan’s visit to China 

The United States has persistently expressed concerns about the Chinese infrastructure and connectivity initiative, saying they are burdening partner nations like Pakistan with debt. The U.S. also criticized a lack of transparency about the terms of contracts under the infrastructure initiative and consequent effects on the economy, said Henry Ensher, acting deputy assistant secretary of state. 

He acknowledged in a speech in Washington this month the importance of China-led initiative. “But that role ought to be done, ought to be played in accordance with usual rules about the transparency and accountability so that people in countries that cooperate with China can see clearly what they are signing up for,” Ensher said. 

U.S. officials have already cautioned the IMF about entering into an arrangement with Pakistan, citing CPEC loans as a main factor for the country’s debt crisis and suspecting the IMF money would be used to pay back China. 

Islamabad and Beijing have vehemently rejected Washington’s assertions as “misplaced” and “irrelevant.” Both countries acknowledge Chinese loans under CPEC are just over 6 percent of Pakistan’s total domestic and external debts of about $95 billion.  

Since launching CPEC in 2013, China has invested $19 billion in Pakistan, building or upgrading its transportation network and power plants and putting into operation the key Arabian Sea port of Gwadar. 

The mega-project is expected to bring more than $62 billion to Pakistan in Chinese investment by 2030, ultimately linking Gwadar to the landlocked western Chinese region of Xinjiang and giving Beijing the shortest secure access to international markets. 

“We are building these projects totally based on mutual consultation and also mutual sharing. … Definitely, there is no private interest or unilateral interest from the Chinese side. We believe all the projects are mutually beneficial,” Yao Jing, Beijing’s ambassador to Islamabad, told reporters at the sprawling Chinese Embassy on Friday.  
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Stock markets around the world tumbled Friday while U.S. Treasury prices rose along with demand for safer bets as better-than-expected U.S. economic data did little to ease anxiety over disappointing corporate profits and trade wars.

Wall Street closed above its session lows, but earnings reports from Amazon.com and Alphabet, issued late Thursday, rekindled a rush to dump technology and other growth sectors.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.19 percent. The global index went 13.7 percent below its Jan. 26 record close and clocked its fifth straight week of consecutive losses for the first time since May 2013.

With equities whip-sawing each day in reaction to the last big earnings beat or miss, investors braced for more volatility through the remainder of the U.S. earnings season and ahead of the Nov. 6 U.S. midterm congressional elections.

“Once the elections and earnings are out of the way we’ll have a calmer market but not necessarily a big move up,” said Ernesto Ramos, portfolio manager for BMO Global Asset Management in Chicago.

“Investors are anxious about 2019 earnings. They know 2018 is going to be phenomenal,” he said. “There’s been a lot of panic selling. One of the things you don’t want to do is buy or sell based on emotion. … The volatility is incredible.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 296.24 points, or 1.19 percent, to 24,688.31; the S&P 500 lost 46.88 points, or 1.73 percent, to 2,658.69; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 151.12 points, or 2.07 percent, to 7,167.21.

There was some support from data that showed third-quarter U.S. economic growth slowing less than expected as a tariff-related drop in soybean exports was partially offset by the strongest consumer spending in nearly four years.

But while U.S. Treasury yields initially rose after the data, stock market volatility caused them to reverse course and fall to a three-week low.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 15/32 in price to yield 3.0793 percent, from 3.136 percent late Thursday.

The U.S. dollar slid alongside stocks after rising to a two-month high in morning trade after the GDP data.

The dollar index fell 0.35 percent, with the euro up 0.28 percent to $1.1406.

Doubt grew about whether the U.K. and the European Union can clinch a Brexit deal. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Friday that Brexit talks were on hold because Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet was not close enough to agreement on how to proceed.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.52 percent versus the greenback at 111.83 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.2834, up 0.15 percent on the day.

European and Asian stocks had led the way lower. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.77 percent and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped one percent, hitting its lowest level since February 2017.

Bear markets — a price drop of 20 percent or more from recent peaks — have increased across indexes and individual stocks since the start of this year.

Oil prices rose Friday, supported by expectations that sanctions on Iran would tighten global supplies, but futures posted a weekly drop as a slump in stock markets and concerns about trade wars clouded the fuel demand outlook.

U.S. crude settled at $67.59 per barrel, up 0.4 percent, and Brent settled up 1 percent to $77.62 on the day.

Spot gold added 0.2 percent to $1,233.95 an ounce.
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U.S. stock market indexes fell sharply in Friday’s early trading, but saw losses ease later in the day. 

At one point the S&P 500 and the Dow were down by two percent or more, while the NASDAQ was off by 3.5 percent at one point. 

Investors worried about faltering growth, rising interest rates, trade tensions, and weak profit outlook for major tech firms, including Amazon and Google’s parent company.

By afternoon, losses moderated with the S&P off by 1.3 percent, the Dow down six-tenths of a percent, and the NASDAQ sliding 1.9 percent. 

Key European indexes dropped about one percent.Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was off a bit more than one percent, while Japan’s Nikkei moved down four-tenths of a percent.

The market turbulence comes at the same time as U.S. unemployment is low, and reports show growth and consumer confidence are strong.
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The U.S. economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-September quarter as the strongest burst of consumer spending in nearly four years helped offset a sharp drag from trade. 

The Commerce Department said Friday that the third quarter’s gross domestic product, the country’s total output of goods and services, followed an even stronger 4.2 percent rate of growth in the second quarter. The two quarters marked the strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2014.

The result was slightly higher than many economists had been projecting. It was certain to be cited by President Donald Trump as evidence his economic policies are working. But some private economists worry that the recent stock market declines could be a warning signal of a coming slowdown.

The GDP report along with next week’s unemployment report for October are the last major looks at the economy before voters go to the polls in the mid-term elections.

For this year, economists are projecting the momentum built up should result in growth of 3 percent, the best annual showing in 13 years. But they believe the impact of Trump’s trade war with China and rising interest rates will slow growth in 2019 to around 2.4 percent, with a further decline to under 2 percent in 2020.

“I think we will see a significant slowdown, in part because economic growth has been raised to an artificially high level by the tax cuts,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at SS Economics in Los Angeles.

Trump in recent weeks has accelerated his attacks on the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates, contending that the higher rates by slowing the economy will work against his efforts to speed up growth through the $1.5 trillion tax cut package Trump got Congress to pass last year.

“Every time we do something great, he raises interest rates,” Trump said in an interview this week with the Wall Street Journal in which he again said he viewed the Fed as the “biggest risk” facing the economy “because I think interest rates are being raised too quickly.”

The central bank has raised rates three times this year and signaled it will raise rates one more time this year and expect to raise rates three times in 2019. Those moves are being made to ensure that tight labor markets, with unemployment at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, and strong growth don’t trigger unwanted inflation.

The GDP report Friday was the government’s first of three reviews of overall economic activity for the July-September period.

The report showed that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, surged at an annual rate of 4 percent in the third quarter, even better than the 3.8 percent gain in the second quarter and the best showing since last 2014.

Trade, which had boosted second quarter growth by 1.2 percentage points, shaved 1.8 percentage points off growth in the third quarter. Exports, which had surged at a 9.3 percent rate in the second quarter, fell at a 3.5 percent rate in the third quarter. Analysts had forecast this turn-around, saying it reflected the surge in exports of goods such as soybeans in the spring as producers tried to beat the higher tariffs being imposed by China in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs.

Another big swing factor in the third quarter was business restocking of their shelves. Inventories had trimmed 1 percentage point off growth in the second quarter but boosted growth by 2 percentage points in the third quarter.

Housing continued to be a drag, falling for a third straight quarter. Business investment, which had surged at an 8.7 percent rage in the second quarter, slowed to a small 0.8 percent gain the third quarter.
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Honda Motor Co is considering shifting production of its U.S.-bound Fit subcompact cars to Japan from Mexico in a few years, partly due to a new North American trade agreement, two people familiar with the deal told Reuters.

Fit cars for export to the United States are now made at Honda’s auto plant in Celaya, Mexico. The Celaya plant also makes HR-V sport utility vehicles (SUVs) for the U.S. market.

A Honda spokesman said the company had not made any decisions on Fit production.

The new trilateral deal, which replaces the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is set to raise the minimum North American content for cars to qualify for duty-free market access to 75 percent from 62.5 percent.

U.S. President Donald Trump wants the deal to shrink the U.S. trade deficit by curbing imports into the United States and boosting production of foreign-branded vehicles there.

But the terms of the trade deal reduce Honda’s incentive to produce the Fit in Mexico for the U.S. and European markets, said the sources, one of whom has direct knowledge of the plan and the other who was briefed on it.

They declined to be identified as the matter was still confidential.

In addition, they said, U.S. consumers are increasingly shifting to SUVs, making it more advantageous for the Mexico plant to build those, rather than subcompacts.

One of the sources said if Honda decides to shift production, it would come when the company launches its next Fit model in the next few years.
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Top trade officials from 12 countries and the European Union on Thursday vowed to reform World Trade Organization rules in the face of U.S. actions that threaten to paralyze the body and address some of Washington’s complaints about Chinese subsidies.

The officials, meeting in the Canadian capital Ottawa, said they shared a “common resolve for rapid and concerted action” to address challenges to the WTO.

“The current situation at the WTO is no longer sustainable. Our resolve for change must be matched with action,” the officials said in a communique issued after their daylong meeting ended.

The United States and China, which are locked in an escalating tariff war that is threatening the WTO’s foundations, were not invited to the meeting to discuss reform ideas, but Canadian Trade Minister Jim Carr said he would report outcomes to them and try to persuade them to join the reform effort.

Carr acknowledged that no WTO reforms could proceed without a buy-in from the world’s two largest economies.

“They should listen because we’re making good arguments,” Carr told a news conference after the meeting, adding that the group’s proposals would ultimately serve U.S. and Chinese interests.

The officials from Canada, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and seven other countries agreed to meet again in January 2019 to review progress from their discussions.

They were short on specifics of their proposals, but called for urgent action to unblock the appointment of new judges to the Appellate Body of the WTO’s dispute settlement system, which they said puts the functioning of the entire body at risk, causing rules enforcement to grind to a halt by the spring of 2019.

The statement did not refer directly to U.S. actions to block such appointments over longstanding complaints that many past appellate rulings have exceeded the judges’ authority, unfairly favoring China and some other members.

“Our number one priority is getting dispute settlement back on track. What good is there to have rules if they cannot be enforced?” said one participating minister who spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the 23-year-old trade body, with roots that date back to the end of World War II, if it does not “shape up” and treat the United States more fairly.

At the Ottawa meetings, Carr said “there was no blaming, there was no shaming” of the United States and the group agreed to consider “alternative” ways to settle disputes, including mediation.

The trade officials also said they recognize “the need to address market distortions caused by subsidies and other instruments,” a reference to complaints by the United States and some other Western economies that current WTO anti-subsidy rules fail to capture all the ways China’s government supports its industries and state enterprises.

The statement said the officials were concerned with WTO members’ track record in complying with subsidy notification requirements and called for stronger monitoring and transparency of countries’ trade policies.

The member group also vowed to “reinvigorate” the WTO’s long-stalled negotiating function, calling for talks to curb fisheries subsidies to be completed in 2019.

Mexico’s Deputy Economy Minister Juan Carlos Baker said world leaders would have a chance to press the United States, China and other nations twice next month — at an Asia-Pacific summit and a meeting of leaders of the G-20 group of nations.

“We are going to waste no opportunity whatsoever in terms of political events. … I am sure that we will use these occasions to speak about what we’re doing,” he said in an interview.
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Major U.S. stock indexes made strong gains in Thursday’s trading after some upbeat profit reports by major companies. 

The Nasdaq composite posted its biggest daily gain since March, as Microsoft’s upbeat earnings spurred a rebound in technology names and investors snapped up oversold shares. The Nasdaq added 209.94 points, or 2.95 percent, to 7,318.34, a day after it confirmed a correction and registered its biggest decline since 2011.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 401.13 points, or 1.63 percent, to 24,984.55, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 49.47 points, or 1.86 percent, to 2,705.57. Both moved back into positive territory for the year. 

In Europe, France’s key index jumped 1.6 percent, while German and British stock prices made smaller gains. 

Variety of gainers

The latest round of good U.S. results came from a variety of companies, including Ford Motor Co., Visa Inc., Whirlpool Corp. and Twitter Inc., and offered relief after the earnings season began slowly and stumbled further on sluggish outlooks from manufacturers and chipmakers. 

Stocks have sold off recently amid worries about rising interest rates, growing trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies, China’s slowing economy and the fading impact of the recent U.S. tax cut on company profits. 

In a further sign that economic growth is moderating, U.S. business spending on equipment appeared to have remained slow in September and the goods trade deficit grew as rising imports outpaced a rebound in exports. 

Lower prices

But the recent sell-off has also made stocks a bit cheaper. The S&P 500’s valuation fell to a 2½-year low of 15.3 times profit estimates for the next 12 months from 15.8, according to trading and data business Refinitiv.

Results from S&P 500 companies have pushed up third-quarter profit growth estimates to 23.6 percent from 21.8 percent in the last 10 days. But forecasts have trimmed fourth-quarter growth estimates to 19.4 percent from 19.9 percent, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Another torrent of selling gripped Wall Street on Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points and extending a losing streak for the benchmark S&P 500 index to a sixth day.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite bore the brunt of the sell-off, leaving it more than 10 percent below its August peak, what Wall Street calls a “correction.” The Dow and S&P 500 erased their gains for the year.

Technology stocks and media and communications companies accounted for much of the selling. AT&T sank after reporting weak subscriber numbers, and chipmaker Texas Instruments fell sharply after reporting slumping demand.

Banks, health care and industrial companies also took heavy losses, outweighing gains by utilities and other high-dividend stocks.

Disappointing quarterly results and outlooks continued to weigh on the market, stoking investors’ jitters over future growth in corporate profits. Bond prices continued to rise, sending yields lower, as traders sought safe-haven investments.

“Investors are on pins and needles,” said Erik Davidson, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank. “There has definitely been a change in sentiment for investors starting with the volatility we had last week. The sentiment and the outlook seem to be turning more negative, or at the very least, less rosy.”

The S&P 500 lost 84.59 points, or 3.1 percent, to 2,656.10. The index is now off about 9.4 percent from its Sept. 20 peak.

The Dow tumbled 608.01 points, or 2.4 percent, to 24,583.42. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 329.14 points, or 4.4 percent, to 7,108.40. That’s the Nasdaq’s biggest drop since August 2011.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 57.89 points, or 3.8 percent, to 1,468.70.

Bond prices rose, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note down to 3.11 percent from 3.16 percent late Tuesday.
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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Wednesday the kingdom will continue with reforms and spending on infrastructure, predicting the economy will grow by 2.5 percent this year.

Speaking at an investment conference in Riyadh, the crown prince also said he expected economic growth next year to be higher.

Higher oil prices has helped Saudi Arabia’s economy grow in the second quarter at its fastest pace for over a year, according to official data.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, expanded 1.6 percent from a year earlier in the April-June quarter. That was up from 1.2 percent in the first quarter and the fastest growth since the fourth quarter of 2016.

The pick-up was mainly due to the government sector, where growth jumped to 4.0 percent from 2.7 percent as authorities boosted spending, the data showed.

The crown prince also said the kingdom would press ahead with a war on terrorism.

 
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Julius Wakam worked in auto manufacturing for 11 years before being laid off in 2008. Today, the married father of three has a job at a hardware store to make ends meet until he can secure another well-paying position in his field.

Like many workers in America’s so-called Rust Belt, Wakam lost his manufacturing job not only to an influx of robots, but also because the jobs were shipped overseas where labor is cheaper.

“For me and my co-workers, they shipped the jobs overseas to Mexico, Brazil, China and a few went to India,” Wakam says.

Today, the Rust Belt is perhaps best-known for its declining industry, aging and shuttered factories, and falling population, primarily in the Midwest and Great Lakes region.

But the Midwest region was once known for the booming steel production and heavy industry that powered the nation for several generations. And it could be in a position to do so again.

“Probably the greatest driver of our opportunity in a changed economy from the factory era is this innovation infrastructure where we have 20-plus of the largest research universities on earth,” says John Austin, director of the Michigan Economic Center. “That’s more than any other region. The West Coast has 13. The East Coast has 15. No place in Europe has this concentration of large scale universities that produce thousands upon thousands of STEM, MBAs, engineers and medical talent.”

The Midwest is also home to more than 200 of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies. Austin says America’s Heartland has the horsepower to grow new jobs and industries.

“The Rust Belt can be and is becoming a center of innovation, new business and job creation in all of the arenas that are emerging,” he says. “The emerging sectors, the work of tomorrow, not just the work of the past where we kind of ruled the world and created the great agro-industrial economy that powered America after World War II for several generations.”

Austin says some Rust Belt cities have already turned the corner from being single industry towns to more diverse, economic regions. He cites places like Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis-St. Paul as examples of metropolitan areas that have built robust economies partially powered by technology and medical innovation.

However, money is key to that transformation and it’s been slow in coming. Rust Belt innovations tend to be commercialized on the East or West Coast. And that’s where most of the Midwest’s investment dollars end up as well.

Half of all investment money comes from the Midwest, but only 5 percent of total venture capital is invested in the Midwest, according to Austin, who says that dynamic must change for the Rust Belt to reach its full potential.

“We are working to create a Midwest/Great Lakes regional fund that would help more of the wealth and investment dollars from the region, and the big dollars on the coast, find good investments and create more jobs and businesses locally,” Austin says.

There is a place for laid-off workers like Julius Wakam in the Midwest’s emerging new economy. In many cases workers go back to school to learn how to program the robots that supplanted them in the factories where they once worked.

“Someone has to program the robots, someone has to maintain and repair the robots,” says James Sawyer, president of Macomb Community College. “So that’s kind of the transformation that’s gone on. The loading jobs no longer exist, but someone, a skilled worker, needs to take care of the robots that replaced that human element.”

The Michigan-based community college offers workforce training programs that can last 12-to-18 weeks.

“The majority of our workforce programs tend to focus in the advance manufacturing arena,” says Sawyer. “So these are things like robotics, control systems, integration of automation, those types of programs have been very popular in the recent past. And that’s very indicative of the transformation currently going on in manufacturing. So we’re supplying the workers to help do that transformation.”

At the time he was laid off, Julius Wakam was already pursuing an engineering degree at the University of Michigan Dearborn. He completed his degree and then signed up for a workforce training program at Macomb Community College to make himself more marketable.

“That is a program that America really, really needs with the robots taking over,” says Wakam.

Although the job search continues, Wakam says he’s gotten more interest from potential employers since completing Macomb’s workforce training program. He plans to keep looking until he lands a job that utilizes his training and skills.

“To get back to where I was before, the kind of money I was making, that’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “It’s been very rough, but I’m a child of hope. I’m never, never, never going to give up hope and I’m going to keep fighting until I get there.”
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Smugglers and other organized criminals are likely to exploit gaps in border enforcement if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement, a watchdog warned Wednesday, amid a growing chorus of warnings about the disruptive impact of a “no-deal” Brexit.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but London and Brussels have not reached an agreement on divorce terms and a smooth transition to a new relationship. The stalemate has heightened fears that the U.K. might leave without a deal in place, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil.

 

The National Audit Office said in a report that political uncertainty and delays in negotiations with the EU have hampered preparations for new border arrangements, and the government is now racing to bolster computer systems, increase staffing and build new infrastructure to track goods.

 

The office said that 11 of 12 major projects may not be delivered on time or at “acceptable quality,” with those who rely on the border “paying the price.” It added that “organized criminals and others are likely to be quick to exploit any perceived weaknesses or gaps in the enforcement regime.”

 

“This, combined with the U.K.’s potential loss of access to EU security, law enforcement and criminal justice tools, could create security weaknesses which the government would need to address urgently,” the office’s report said.

 

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Transport Secretary Chris Grayling had raised at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday the idea of chartering ships to bring in food and medicines through alternative ports if new customs checks led to gridlock on the main shipping route between Dover in England and Calais in France.

 

“We remain confident of reaching an agreement with the EU, but it is only sensible for government and industry to prepare for a range of scenarios,” the Department for Transport said in a statement.

 

Prime Minister Theresa May said this week that a divorce deal is “95 percent” done, but the two sides still have a “considerable” gap over the issue of the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Britain and the EU agree there must be no barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents on both sides of the border and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace process. But so far, each side has rejected the other’s solution.

 

May has attempted to break the impasse by suggesting that a post-Brexit transition period, currently due to end in December 2020, could be extended to give more time for new trade and customs arrangements to be put in place that would eliminate the need for border checks.

 

EU has said it is open to the proposal, but the idea has infuriated May’s political opponents on both sides of Britain’s Brexit divide.

 

Pro-Brexit politicians see it as an attempt to bind the country to the bloc indefinitely, while pro-EU politicians say it is a sign of May’s weak bargaining hand and an attempt to stall for time.

 

On Wednesday, May will try to stem a growing revolt within her Conservative Party over her Brexit blueprint. She’ll address the 1922 Committee, a grouping of backbench Conservative legislators with a key role in deciding who leads the party.

 

Under Conservative rules, a vote of no-confidence in the leader is triggered if 15 percent of party lawmakers write to the 1922 Committee requesting one. The required number currently stands at 48; only committee chief Graham Brady knows how many have been submitted.

 

 

 
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The U.S. will not send a high-ranking official to attend a major investment fair in China next month, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday, in a move underscoring worsening trade frictions between the world’s two largest economies.

“China needs to make the necessary reforms to end its unfair practices that are harming the world economy,” an embassy spokesperson said, speaking on routine condition of anonymity.

 

“The U.S. government has no current plans for high-level U.S. government participation” in the expo, the official told The Associated Press. “We encourage China to level the playing the field for U.S. goods and services.”

 

State media reported the first-ever China International Import Expo scheduled for Nov. 5-10 in the financial hub of Shanghai has attracted more than 2,800 companies from 130 nations.

 

The fair aims to advertise China’s importance as a market for foreign goods and recent moves to encourage trade and investment amid accusations that it discriminates against foreign companies and unfairly demands they hand over crucial technology.

 

The event comes as the U.S. has raised tariffs to up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods with the possibility of more such measures to come. Beijing has responded with its own tariff hikes on $110 billion of American imports.

 

“China’s return to the path of economic reform and sincere commitment to market-based trade and investment norms would be good for the United States, the world and ultimately good for China,” the embassy spokesperson said.

 

Neither Beijing nor Washington has shown any sign of backing down despite China reporting growth in its $12 trillion-a-year economy slowing to a post-global crisis low of 6.5 percent over a year earlier in September. China’s stock market has also sagged 30 percent since January.

 

In response, Beijing has cut tariffs, promised to lift curbs on foreign ownership of auto producers and taken other steps to rev up growth.

 

But leaders have refused to scrap plans such as “Made in China 2025,” which calls for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics and other technologies — seen as a major threat to the U.S. and other advanced economies.

 

President Donald Trump has also accused China of seeking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections, while offering no proof, and tensions have risen as well over Taiwan arms sales and Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

 

 
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Islamic-style banking is on the rise worldwide, showing especially strong growth in Africa recently, according to the rating agency Moody’s. This type of banking system doesn’t charge or pay interest, uses physical assets to underpin transactions, and does not invest in so-called “sin” industries like alcohol, pork and gambling. In South Africa, the continent’s financial hub, Islamic banking is gaining popularity among the minority Muslim community. VOA’s Anita Powell reports in Johannesburg.
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The top Republican lawmaker on tax policy in the U.S. House of Representatives said Tuesday that he was working with the White House and Treasury to develop a new 10 percent middle-class tax cut plan that

President Donald Trump began touting over the weekend.

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, who chairs the tax-writing House

Ways and Means Committee, said the plan would be crafted in “coming weeks” and would advance in Congress if Republicans retained control of the House and Senate in midterm elections on Nov. 6.

“President Trump believes American families deserve to keep more of what they work so hard to earn. We agree,” Brady said in a statement.

In what is widely seen by lobbyists as the latest Republican campaign message on taxes, Trump told reporters on Tuesday at the White House that the plan would emerge soon.

“This will be on top of the tax reduction that the middle class has already gotten. And we’re putting in a resolution, probably this week,” the president said.

Surprised

Trump’s comments came a day after congressional and administrative staff appeared to be caught off guard by word of a new tax cut, which surfaced on Saturday.

The White House on Tuesday described the new tax cut as an agenda item for 2019 and suggested it could be offset by cuts in spending.

Republicans are in a pitched battle to retain control of the House and Senate against an energized Democratic voting base that has made contests competitive even in some Republican strongholds.

“What President Trump is doing on the [campaign] trail is he’s just describing what he wants to be in the tax bill that moves next year,” Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett told MSNBC on Tuesday. “You could expect in our budget, and also in our approach to legislation next year, that we’re going to be pursuing a big reduction in government spending.”

Trump signed steep tax cuts for businesses and individuals into law last December as part of a sprawling Republican tax overhaul. Stung by criticism that their tax plan shortchanged families by having individual tax cuts expire after 2025, House Republicans voted last month to make the individual cuts

permanent in a legislative package dubbed “Tax Reform 2.0.”

“Because of the fact that the economy is doing so well, we feel like we can give up some more. I couldn’t have gotten that extra 10 percent when we originally passed the [tax] plan. We maxed out,” Trump said.
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A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program finds extreme weather conditions in Syria have caused the lowest production of wheat and barley for nearly three decades in this war-torn country.

Still, the Syrian government has managed to pacify most of country after more than seven years of brutal, murderous conflict that has reportedly killed more than 350,000 people. Because of improved security, more people are returning to their places of origin.

But the report says despite improved access to agricultural land in some areas, erratic weather has caused a sharp decline in crop production this year, compared to last. It says large areas of rainfed cereals have failed because of a long dry period early in the season. This was followed by unseasonably late heavy rains and high temperatures, which seriously diminished irrigated cereal yields.

Spokesman for the World Food Program, Herve Verhoosel, told VOA this extremely bad harvest will impact badly upon a population that already is short of food.

“We are talking about a third of the production compared to three years ago, then probably everybody will be affected either by the higher price of cereals on the market or by lack of cereal. Then that will probably affect everybody because they will not have the cereal, or they will need to pay more to have them,” Verhoosel said.

The report finds market access and trade has improved considerably throughout the country. It says humanitarian access to people in hard to reach places is much better.  And, with the military gains made by Syrian forces, there no longer are any besieged areas.

Though access to food has generally improved, the report finds about one-quarter of households still suffer from chronic hunger. Data show about 44 percent of households have reduced the number of meals they eat each day and when food is scarce, 35 percent of adults will first feed their children.

 

 
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Coffee drinkers in the nation’s capital can now order that tall pumpkin spice iced skim latte in sign language.

Starbucks has opened its first U.S. “signing store” to better serve hard of hearing customers. The store in Washington is just blocks from Gallaudet University, one of the nation’s oldest universities serving deaf and hard of hearing students.

Marlee Matlin, the only deaf actor to win an Academy Award, posted an Instagram video of herself ordering a drink early Tuesday. “The sign for the week is COFFEE,” she wrote.

Starbucks announced in July that it would hire 20 to 25 deaf or hard of hearing baristas to work at the store.

The store is modeled after a similar Starbucks signing store which opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2016.

 
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Wall Street indexes fell in Tuesday’s volatile session, though they pared losses sharply by the closing bell as investors looked for bargains. Oil

dropped sharply on demand worries.

After falling as much as 2.3 percent in the morning, the S&P 500 gradually regained ground as the day wore on.

Oil prices plunged about 5 percent to two-month lows as the equities sell-off raised worries about demand growth and Saudi Arabia said it could supply more crude quickly if needed, easing concerns ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Benchmark U.S. Treasury prices rose, sending yields to their lowest levels in almost three weeks as declining stocks worldwide fed demand for low-risk debt.

The U.S. dollar recovered some of its early losses in the afternoon as the stock sell-off eased, but the greenback remained down against other safe-haven currencies.

On top of geopolitical worries and Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections, Oliver Pursche, chief market strategist at Bruderman Asset Management in New York, cited an uncertain growth outlook amid a U.S.-China trade war.

“There’s the question of impact on global growth from tariffs and the ongoing trade war. [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump and [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] have agreed to meet during the G-20 summit, but that’s post-election,” Pursche said. “It’s clear that nothing is going to happen for three to four weeks.”

But after hitting a low of 2,691.43 around 10:20 a.m. ET (1420 GMT), the S&P gradually revived, though trading was volatile.

‘Temporary correction’

“Earnings as a whole have been good. … The market doesn’t appear overly expensive. It’s setting up to be a good buying opportunity,” said Gary Bradshaw, portfolio manager of Hodges Capital Management in Dallas, adding that he bought stocks on Tuesday.

“We’ve had what we think is a temporary correction in a bull market. Typically, you’ll see two or three corrections that are 5 to 10 percent on average per year,” he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 125.98 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,191.43; the S&P 500 lost 15.19 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,740.69; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 31.09 points, or 0.42 percent, to 7,437.54.

Of the S&P 500’s 11 major sectors, energy was the biggest percentage decliner, last down 2.7 percent due to the tumble in oil futures.

U.S. crude fell 4.4 percent to $66.30 per barrel and Brent was last at $76.39, down 4.3 percent on the day.

Pressure mounted on Saudi Arabia over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said intelligence and security institutions have evidence Khashoggi’s death at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month was planned. He dismissed attempts by Riyadh to blame the “savage” killing on rogue operatives.

Trump had said Monday he was not satisfied with what he heard from Saudi Arabia about the death but did not want to lose investment from Riyadh.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 7/32 in price to yield 3.1676 percent, from 3.194 percent late on Monday.

The dollar index fell 0.09 percent, with the euro up 0.07 percent to $1.1471.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.35 percent versus the greenback at 112.44 per dollar, while the British pound was last trading at $1.2986, up 0.19 percent on the day.

Spot gold added 0.7 percent to $1,229.90 an ounce after hitting its highest level since mid-July as investors looked for safety.
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Foreigners sold a net 4.01 billion riyal ($1.07 billion) in Saudi stocks in the week ending Oct. 18, exchange data showed on Sunday – one of the biggest selloff since the market opened to direct foreign buying in mid-2015.

The selloff came during a week when investors were rattled by Saudi Arabia’s deteriorating relations with foreign powers following the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Riyadh said on Saturday that Khashoggi died in a fight inside its Istanbul consulate, its first acknowledgment of his death after denying for two weeks that it was involved in his disappearance.

A breakdown of the data showed foreigners sold 5 billion riyals worth of stocks and bought 991.3 million worth.

The Saudi stock market is down about 4 percent since Khashoggi’s disappeared. The market had started to weaken before the incident as foreign funds slowed their buying after MSCI’s announcement in June that the kingdom will be included in its global emerging market benchmark next year.

As of Sunday, the Saudi index was up 5 percent so far this year, but down 5 percent this quarter.

($1 = 3.7518 riyals)
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The International Monetary Fund announced Friday it had reached an agreement with Ukraine on economic policies that would unlock a new loan deal that will provide nearly $4 billion.

The new 14-month standby loan deal replaces an existing four-year financial aid package agreed in March 2015 and due to expire in five months, the IMF said in a statement.

The agreement must be approved by the IMF board, which will come later in the year after authorities in Kyiv approve a 2019 budget “consistent with IMF staff recommendations and an increase in household gas and heating tariffs,” a step the government had agreed on but never implemented.

But the deal also stresses the need for “continuing to protect low-income households.”

Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman had been seeking the additional financing from the Washington-based lender to help his crisis-hit nation.

Groysman on Friday announced a gas price increase of 23.5 percent to take effect November 1.

He said the “incredible efforts” of Ukrainian negotiators managed to reach a compromise with the IMF and reduce the initial demand to raise prices by 60 percent.

“If we are not able to continue cooperation with our international partners … this could lead to the country being put into default,” he said.

Ukraine has not received any money from the IMF since April 2017, when the fund released $1 billion for the cash-strapped country to repay loans. It had received less than $9 billion of the original $17.5 billion package.

Talks on economic reform measures that would satisfy IMF requirements and allow the release of further aid had been hung up for months, as the fund awaited the government’s approval of a budget, pension reform and an anti-corruption court.

A gas price hike is a sensitive issue for the cash-strapped country as its pro-Western leadership faces presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.

The IMF said the new loan “will provide an anchor for the authorities’ economic policies during 2019.”

Building on progress under the previous financing package, the loan will “focus in particular on continuing with fiscal consolidation and reducing inflation, as well as reforms to strengthen tax administration, the financial sector and the energy sector,” the IMF said.

An IMF lifeline helped the country to recover from crises sparked by a Russian-backed war in the separatist industrial east that began in April 2014 and has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

The loss of industries in the war zone and flight of foreign investors saw the former Soviet republic’s economy shrink by 17 percent in 2014-2015.

The IMF now forecasts the economy will grow by 3.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2019.

Following the announcement, debt rating agency Standard and Poor’s affirmed the country’s credit score at “B-” with a stable outlook.

“We expect the new arrangement will aid Ukraine’s efforts to cover sizable external debt obligations maturing next year, and also help to anchor macroeconomic policies through the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections,” S&P said in a statement.

The IMF loan is also likely to unlock credit from other international donors, the ratings agency said.
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A women-to-women investment fund is coming to Britain next month to boost financing for female-owned businesses, its founder said Thursday, as efforts grow to close the gender investing gap.

SheEO has lent more than $2 million to 32 female social entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada and New Zealand to grow their businesses since 2015 in an attempt to address a global gender investment gap.

“Most of the people writing checks and investing are men,” founder Vicki Saunders told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “SheEO wants to fund female innovators with great ideas to create stronger communities and a better world.”

Support for female entrepreneurs

It is the latest venture to support female entrepreneurs around the world, who often face more obstacles than men, including a lack of access to finance, business networks, international markets and role models.

Three out of 10 U.S. businesses are owned by women but they only receive $1 in investment for every $23 that goes to male-led businesses, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee found in 2014.

A Goldman Sachs-World Bank Group partnership to provide capital to women entrepreneurs in emerging markets reached $1 billion in investments in May.

How it works

SheEO brings together 500 women each year who contribute $1,100 each, which they pool and lend, interest-free, to five women-led businesses of their choice.

The loans are paid back over five years and then loaned out again, creating a perpetual fund that SheEO hopes will grow to $1 billion, with 1 million investors supporting 10,000 women-led ventures.

More than 300 women in Britain wrote to SheEO asking it to launch there, Saunders said ahead of a visit to London where she hopes that 500 female investors will come on board.

Workplace gender equality is in the spotlight in Britain, where just 6 percent of the biggest publicly listed companies are headed by women and pay disparities were revealed at major institutions last year.

Twenty One Toys founder Ilana Ben-Ari, one of the first to get SheEO funding in 2015, said it changed her business, enabling her to push ahead with production and hire staff to help with a stressful workload. Her revenue has now doubled.

“It was easy to get my foot in the door and have a meeting but it was near impossible to have a serious conversation about my business,” she said, describing her efforts to get financing from venture capitalists. “Halfway through that meeting you find out — this isn’t a meeting, this is a date.”
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U.S. stocks fell more than 1 percent on Thursday as the European Commission issued a warning regarding Italy’s budget and concerns mounted about the possibility of strained relations between the United States and

Saudi Arabia.

S&P 500 technology stocks fell more than 2 percent, as did the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

Wall Street’s major indexes pared early losses in morning trading but reversed course to fall further as European markets closed. Italian bond yields jumped after the European Commission deemed the country’s 2019 budget draft to be in breach of EU rules.

U.S. stocks declined further after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulled out of an investor conference in Saudi Arabia as the White House awaited the outcome of investigations into the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“It’s a function of a lot of things coalescing into a concern,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Pittsburgh. “The market continues to struggle in the aftermath of the bigger drawdown a week ago.”

Mnuchin’s decision sparked worries of potential strain in U.S.-Saudi relations, especially if Saudi leaders were found to have been involved in Khashoggi’s disappearance. Investors raised concern that if Saudi Arabia were sanctioned, it could restrict oil supply, prompting a rise in energy prices.

Shares of military contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Co. also fell on concerns that U.S. lawmakers may block arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

U.S. stocks had opened lower as weak earnings reports from companies such as Cessna business jet maker Textron Inc. and equipment rental company United Rentals Inc. raised concerns about the impact of tariffs, climbing borrowing costs and rising wages on corporate profits.

Textron shares fell 10.8 percent and United Rentals shares sank 14.7 percent, while Sealed Air Corp. shares slid 8.7 percent after the packaging company cut its full-year profit outlook because of higher raw material and freight costs.

Worries about rising interest rates following Wednesday’s release of the Federal Open Market Committee’s minutes from its September meeting also pressured U.S. stocks.

“The market is coming to grips with the reality that the Fed may make financial conditions a little tighter than they originally thought,” said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies and solutions at Voya Investment Management in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 417.17 points, or 1.62 percent, to 25,289.51; the S&P 500 lost 47.59 points, or 1.69 percent, to 2,761.62; and the Nasdaq composite dropped 168.31 points, or 2.2 percent, to 7,474.39.

Among the few bright spots was Philip Morris International Inc., which rose 3.4 percent after the Marlboro cigarette maker topped analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit and sales.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a

3.72-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.43-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
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Several major Russian companies are exploring ways to do deals abroad without using dollars, spurred on by a U.S. threat to broaden sanctions that have impeded access of some Russian firms to the international banking system.

The Kremlin has been pushing companies to conduct more deals using other currencies to reduce reliance on the dollar.

Russian Alrosa, the world’s biggest producer of rough diamonds in carat terms, said it had completed a pilot deal with a Chinese client using yuan in the summer and another non-dollar transaction with an Indian client.

Other companies working on similar transactions include energy firm Surgutneftegaz, agricultural company Rusagro and miner Norilsk Nickel.

Russia’s central bank said this week the amount of non-dollar dealings was growing, with the share of rouble settlements in the Russia-China and Russia-India goods trade now between 10 and 20 percent.

The share was higher in the service industry, it added.

But there are limits to how much business can be shifted.

Major companies still rely heavily on dollar deals and most of Russia’s foreign earnings come from oil sales priced in dollars.

In addition, foreign banks with major U.S. activities may still be wary of business with any entity under U.S. sanctions even if transactions are not in dollars, bankers say.

The United States and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Washington said in August more measures could follow, after accusing Moscow of using a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

The new steps, which could be announced in November, may target dollar dealings, U.S. lawmakers have said.

Speed helps

One challenge facing companies dealing in the rouble is the Russian currency’s volatility. Between April 6 and 11, after Washington imposed sanctions on Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and some of his companies, the rouble lost almost 13 percent of its value against the dollar.

Alrosa said it avoided the fluctuation risk by completing the Chinese deal in a day. U.S. dollar deals tend to take longer due to associated compliance checks required.

“An increase in the speed of operations is an advantage in such an operation,” the company said in an emailed statement.

Alrosa did not give a value for its China and India deals but said the Chinese buyer had bought a lot at its auction of diamonds of 10.8 carats or larger in Hong Kong. Alrosa data indicates that its lots are on average worth about $100,000.

Alrosa said the banker for its Chinese deal was Shanghai office of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank. An industry source, asking not to be named, said Russia’s biggest bank lender Sberbank worked on the Indian deal.

VTB and Sberbank declined to comment.

The Chinese client settled its purchase in yuan, which VTB converted into roubles and transferred to Alrosa.

“We carried out the transaction itself in one day, in several hours,” Alrosa said, adding that on this occasion the currency move was in the client’s favor.

No currency hedging was required because of the speed of the deal, the company said, but the client had to open an account in VTB’s branch in Shanghai to complete the transaction.

Alrosa said it was also considering settlement for future deals in Hong Kong dollars, adding that other Chinese clients had shown interest in non-dollar transactions.

Non-dollar limits

But there are limits on how much of Alrosa’s business can switch to other currencies. China accounts for just 4 percent of its sales, while India accounts for 17 percent.

Among initiatives by other Russian firms, Surgutneftegaz has been pushing buyers to agree to pay for oil in euros instead of dollars, Reuters reported in September.

Russian farming conglomerate Rusagro told Reuters that some of its trading operations were in yuan and said this would increase with the expansion of business with China.

Russian nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel said it was discussing the option of rouble payments with foreign customers which have rouble revenue, although it said it had not secured deals under those terms.
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