Month: April 2017

With economic growth rates close to 7 percent, Laos is a star in South East Asia, buoyed by investment and business ties with China, the country’s largest investor. In a new assessment the Lao government and Asian Development Bank predict the country’s good economic fortunes will continue. The ADB said national output (GDP) should reach 6.9 percent in 2017, and 7 percent in 2018, despite fiscal constraints and weaker global demand for minerals in recent years. Rattanatay Luanglathbandith, Vientiane-based ADB public management specialist, said, “The key driver of Laos’ economic growth is mainly the resources sector, hydropower and mining, namely copper, silver and gold.” Laos’ ambition as the “battery of South East Asia” has seen development of hydro-power dams with 10 now operating. Three more proposed for the Mekong River are moving forward despite criticism from conservationists because of their environmental impact, especially on fish stocks. Meanwhile, the Tourism Development Department says tourism contributed $724 million to the national budget in 2016. Visitor arrivals stood at 4.23 million, down from 4.68 million a year earlier, but Laos is spending $61 million to expand Wattay International airport. Service sector growing Rattanatay said the tourism industry is a key to absorbing rising numbers entering the workforce. “The expansion of the services’ sector is happening right now. [It will] start to absorb labor into the total labor employed, but it happens slowly in the hotel, restaurant and retail trade and then some service provider in the IT sector,” Ratanatay told VOA. China is …

South Korea is expecting tough trade talks ahead with the United States after President Donald Trump strongly criticized the free trade agreement between the two countries for dramatically increasing the U.S. trade deficit. A report by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) laid out key trade objectives for the Trump administration that include “breaking down unfair trade barriers” and ensuring American businesses have a “fair opportunity to compete.” And it specifically points to South Korea, along with China and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as egregious examples of unbalanced and unfair trade. The South Korea/U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) was the largest trade deal implemented during the administration of former President Barack Obama. Since it took effect in 2012, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea has more than doubled. U.S. exports to South Korea fell by $1.2 billion, while U.S. imports from South Korea grew by more than $13 billion. “Needless to say,” the report notes, “this is not the outcome the American people expected from that agreement.” ”Those are harsh words and that is the economic and political reality that we have to deal with,” said Jeffrey Jones, an international trade attorney with the law firm Kim & Chang at a recent Korea International Trade Association forum. Deficit vs. investment Business leaders and some former trade officials in Seoul have voiced concern that the Trump administration is being overly critical of the KORUS FTA by putting too much emphasis on the trade deficit that is …

President Donald Trump plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, his office said, a victory for American manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric which have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Trump first told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill two vacancies on the agency’s five-member board that have prevented the bank from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. Trump’s picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama. Trump told the Journal that the bank benefits small businesses and creates jobs, a reversal of his earlier criticism of the bank being “featherbedding” for wealthy corporations. Bank offers loans to foreign entities The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enables them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment. The bank’s acting chairman, Charles “CJ” Hall, was not immediately available for comment. The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who have worked in Congress to kill the bank, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs. Trump’s about-face on the export bank comes after meeting on Tuesday with former Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney, who left the company last year but oversaw the corporation’s aggressive lobbying effort in support of the bank in …

Zimbabwean entrepreneurs could soon use movable assets, including livestock and vehicles, to secure loans from banks, according to a bill brought before the country’s Parliament this week. The southern African country’s economy is dominated by informal business following the formal sector’s contraction by as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2008, according to government data, after President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms decimated the key agriculture sector. The Movable Property Security Interest Bill, introduced Tuesday by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, seeks to make it easier for Zimbabwe’s burgeoning informal sector to access bank funds. A copy of the bill seen Wednesday by Reuters defines movable property as “any tangible or intangible property other than immovable property.” New economic reality Presenting the bill, which still has to go through several stages before becoming law, Chinamasa said the majority of small businesses did not have the immovable assets that banks require as collateral for loans. “The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act will be amended to achieve the objective of this bill, and the assets to be considered include any type, such as machinery, motor vehicles, livestock and accounts receivable,” Chinamasa told lawmakers. The finance minister said banks had failed to adjust to Zimbabwe’s new economic reality, in which the informal sector, mostly made up of small businesses, plays a dominant role. Loans to small businesses amounted to $250 million in the year to date, Chinamasa said, out of total bank loans of nearly $4 billion. “As minister in charge of …

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration would not label China a currency manipulator, backing away from a  campaign promise, even as he said the U.S. dollar was “getting too strong” and would eventually hurt the economy. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump also said he would like to see U.S. interest rates stay low, another comment at odds with what he had often said during the election campaign. A U.S. Treasury spokesman confirmed that the Treasury Department’s semiannual report on currency practices of major trading partners, due out this week, would not name China a currency manipulator. The U.S. dollar fell broadly on Trump’s comments on both the strong dollar and interest rates, while U.S. Treasury yields fell on the interest rate comments, and Wall Street stocks slipped. Trump’s comments broke with a long-standing practice of both U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations of refraining from commenting on policy set by the independent Federal Reserve. It is also highly unusual for a president to address the dollar’s value, which is a subject usually left to the Treasury secretary.   A day-one promise “They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told the Journal about China. The statement was an about-face from Trump’s election campaign promises to slap that label on Beijing on the first day of his administration as part of his plan to reduce Chinese imports into the United States. The Journal paraphrased Trump as saying that he’d changed his mind on the currency issue because China has …

United Airlines saw its stock price decline by 4 percent or more after a viral video showing a passenger being dragged off a flight and injured sparked outrage in the U.S. and several nations. One airline analyst says he has never seen such a “parade of incompetence.” …

Russia is struggling to source gas turbines for two new power plants it is building in Crimea, Russian Energy Ministry Alexander Novak said Wednesday. European Union sanctions bar European individuals and companies from providing energy technology to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Black Sea peninsula has suffered electricity shortages since then. Three sources told Reuters last year that turbines for the Crimean plants would be made by Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies LLC, a joint venture in which Siemens has a 65 percent share. The German company categorically denied it intended to send turbines to Crimea. The joint venture’s factory is the only one in Russia capable of making turbines which will be compatible with the Crimean power plants. “Work is continuing despite problems related to the delivery of equipment from a Western company. We are working on buying other equipment,” Novak told the upper house of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday. He did not name the Western company. Novak later told reporters Russia was considering various options, including sourcing equipment from other countries, using Russian machinery, or using foreign equipment on Russian territory that was imported before sanctions were introduced. The two new power plants were due to be commissioned at the end of 2017, but Novak said last month their launch had been delayed by a few months. …

Former Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, the moving force behind organizing last year’s Olympics, is being investigated for allegedly accepting at least 15 million reals ($5 million) in payments to facilitate construction projects tied to the games. Paes is one of dozens of top politicians implicated in a sweeping judicial corruption investigation in which construction giant Odebrecht illegally paid billions to help win contracts. Paes’ name appears in documents published Tuesday by Brazil’s top court, and could stand trial if the country’s attorney general decides to prosecute. In a statement Wednesday from his spokeswoman, Tereza Fayal, the former mayor strongly denied the allegations made in several plea bargains signed by former and present Odebrecht employees, calling the accusations “absurd and untruthful.” “He vehemently denies that he has accepted bribes to facilitate, or to benefit, the interests of the Odebrecht company,” the statement said. Paes stepped in forcefully about two years before the Olympics opened, shortly after International Olympic Committee Vice President John Coates called Rio’s preparations “the worst” he’d ever seen and woefully behind schedule. The IOC repeatedly credited Paes with speeding up preparations and cutting through red tape. As rumors swirled around Olympic preparations, Paes often challenged reporters to find any corruption in city-hall contracts. Days after the trouble-plagued Olympics ended, Paes and Carlos Nuzman — an IOC member and the president of the organizing committee — were awarded the “Olympic Order” by IOC President Thomas Bach. In a statement Wednesday to The Associated Press, the IOC said …

President Donald Trump told a group of chief executives Tuesday that his administration was revamping the Wall Street reform law known as Dodd-Frank and might eliminate the rules and replace them with “something else.” At the beginning of his administration, Trump ordered reviews of the major banking rules that were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, and last week he said officials were planning a “major haircut” for them. “For the bankers in the room, they’ll be very happy because we’re really doing a major streamlining and, perhaps, elimination, and replacing it with something else,” Trump said Tuesday. “That will be the minimum. But we’re doing a major elimination of the horrendous Dodd-Frank regulations, keeping some obviously, but getting rid of many,” he said. The many provisions of the Dodd-Frank measure were aimed at decreasing risks in the U.S. financial system. The White House is not unilaterally able to upend Dodd-Frank’s rules, almost all of which are implemented by independent regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve. A sweeping change to the law would require congressional action, though in some cases regulators may also have wiggle room to make changes through a formal rule-making process. Report on regulations In February, Trump issued an executive order requiring Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to consult with U.S. regulators and submit a report outlining a proposal for possible regulatory and legislative changes that will help fuel economic growth and promote American business interests. That report, due to …

United Airlines saw its stock price decline by 4 percent or more after a viral video showing a passenger being dragged off a flight and injured sparked outrage in the U.S. and several nations. One airline analyst says he has never seen such a “parade of incompetence.” …

South Asian migrants powering the construction boom in oil-rich Gulf countries are often illegally made to pay for their own recruitment, adding to hardships of poor working conditions and wages, according to an investigation released Tuesday. Millions of migrants seeking a way out of poverty by working in Gulf nations from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates must routinely pay fees that can equal a year’s salary, U.S. researchers said in a report. “Recruitment is not free,” said report co-author David Segall of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “Somebody does have to bear these costs, but that of course should be the employing company.” The findings came as conditions for construction workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the 2022 FIFA World Cup host, Qatar, have drawn scrutiny from rights groups who say migrants live in squalor and work without proper access to water and shelter. In five fact-finding missions to the Gulf and South Asia, the researchers found workers are typically made to pay for their airfare from South Asia and their work visa, often at inflated prices. Selling visas for profit is illegal in the six Gulf countries the researchers investigated — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But violations rarely lead to prosecution and punishment, the report said. Fees highest for Bangladeshis Bangladeshi workers paid as much as $5,200 in recruitment fees, according to the study, the highest price among other South Asian construction workers, who number …

“No one should ever be treated this way,” reads part of a new public statement issued Tuesday by United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, following Sunday’s incident when a passenger was bloodied after being dragged off an overbooked United airliner at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. “I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight,” the Munoz statement also says. The incident has gone viral through social media after being captured on other passengers’ cell phones. Munoz added that the company will conduct a review of how the airline handles overbooking situations and how it interacts with airport authorities and law enforcement. He said the company will release the results of its review April 30.   Munoz released two earlier statements staunchly supporting the crew, saying in a statement late Monday that United attendants “followed established procedures” when the passenger was forcibly removed. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump has seen what Spicer describes as the “troubling” video recorded on the United Airlines flight. Besides the global social media firestorm, the incident also has stirred up threats of a boycott. Spicer told reporters at a White House briefing Tuesday the incident was “unfortunate” but does “not necessarily need a federal response,” adding there are “plenty” of law enforcement agencies available to conduct an investigation. Because the Chicago to Louisville flight was overbooked, the crew asked passengers to voluntarily take another flight in exchange for financial compensation. According to media reports, the airline needed to make room for four …

China Southern Airlines has flown its inaugural Guangzhou to Mexico City flight, via Vancouver, the first route operated by a domestic Chinese carrier to the Latin American nation, the Mexican government said on Tuesday. China’s interest in Mexico, including tourism and investment, has been on the rise in recent years. In 2016, 74,300 Chinese tourists visited Mexico, up 33.5 percent from a year earlier. Mexican authorities expect over 100,000 Chinese tourists to visit this year. China and Mexico recently pledged to deepen ties at a meeting between their top diplomats following the U.S. presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has tested Washington’s relationship with both countries.   …