Month: August 2017

Ford Tuesday became the latest carmaker to launch a car scrappage scheme in Britain, joining the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, after months of procrastination from the government over whether to begin a national program. The U.S. automaker is offering customers a 2,000 pound ($2,580) discount off a range of Ford models when they trade in vehicles registered before the end of 2009. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Vauxhall, the British version of the Opel brand sold on the continent, have all launched similar schemes in recent weeks to incentivize motorists to reduce emissions by replacing their gas-guzzling models with greener cars. The plans come after Britain delayed in July a decision over whether to introduce a nationwide or targeted vehicle scrappage scheme, with a consultation due to take place later this year, despite worries over emissions levels. “Ford shares society’s concerns over air quality,” its managing director in Britain Andy Barratt said Tuesday. “Removing generations of the most polluting vehicles will have the most immediate positive effect on air quality.” Car sales slowing Ford, BMW, Vauxhall and Mercedes sell around 1 million cars in Britain, more than a third of all new car registrations. The scrappage schemes will help support sales at a time when demand for new cars is beginning to slide substantially for the first time in around six years. In July, new car registrations fell for the fourth consecutive month, hit by a number of factors including uncertainty over Brexit and lack of clarity over future government plans …

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman separate contracts to continue work on the replacement of the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Pentagon said on Friday. Though the award for the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) comes amid rising tensions with North Korea, the Air Force had asked the defense industry last summer for proposals to replace the aging ICBM system and its nuclear cruise missiles as the military moved ahead with a costly modernization of its aging atomic weapons systems. “The Minuteman III is 45 years old. It is time to upgrade,” Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said in a statement on Monday. Northrop Grumman was awarded $328 million, and Boeing $349 million over the three-year contract. A milestone contract The relatively small award is a milestone that would allow Boeing and Northrop to continue parallel detailed development and prototyping for the Minuteman replacement. The Pentagon’s office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) has said the total could cost the United States $85 billion. The Air Force has estimated $62 billion. Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop and Boeing were all competing for the contract which is needed to perform the three-year technology maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase of Minuteman replacement. A Lockheed representative said the company was “disappointed” and looked “forward to a debrief about the selection.” Boeing’s Strategic Deterrence Systems Director, Frank McCall, said in a statement, “Since the first Minuteman launch in 1961, the U.S. Air Force …

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is “zero chance” Congress will allow the country to default on its debts by voting to not increase the borrowing limit.   McConnell’s comments came Monday during a joint appearance in his home state of Kentucky with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It was one of McConnell’s first public appearances since President Donald Trump publicly criticized him for failing to pass a repeal and replacement of former President Barack Obama’s health care law.   McConnell did not mention Trump in his remarks, and he did not take questions from reporters after the event. But in response to a question about where he gets his news, McConnell said he reads a variety of sources, including The New York Times.   “My view is most news is not fake,” McConnell said, which appeared to be a subtle rebuke of one of Trump’s favorite phrases. “I try not to fall in love with any particular source.”   The government has enough money to pay its bills until Sept. 29. After that, Congress would have to give permission for the government to borrow more money to meet its obligations, including Social Security and interest payments. McConnell sought to calm a crowd of nervous business leaders by interjecting at the end of Mnuchin’s answer to a question about what would happen if lawmakers did not increase the borrowing limit.   “Let me just add, there is zero chance, no chance, we won’t raise the debt ceiling,” McConnell said. …

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro says new measures will be rolled out this week to combat economic speculation in the crisis-ridden country.   In an interview distributed via state-run media Sunday, Maduro said he was working with a “special commission” of the new, pro-government Constituent Assembly to clamp down on price gouging.   The commission is “going to announce a set of actions so that the maximum price of the products is respected,” Maduro said, without providing details. He also warned that “very severe justice” would “shake the society.” ​Venezuelans constantly complain of scarcity of food, medicine and personal hygiene products — and of outrageous prices amid soaring inflation. The currency has shriveled in value, down from eight bolivars to the dollar in 2010 to more than 8,000 bolivars last month, as CNN Money recently pointed out. A single-serve bottle of water can cost about 1,200 bolivars.   Maduro previously declared a war on speculation in 2013, according to the Washington Office on Latin America.  Carlos Larrazabal, president of Fedecamaras, a union representing Venezuela’s business sector, accused the socialist administration of trying to smother private enterprise.   “The government has a political agenda. Instead of correcting problems of supply and production,” the Constituent Assembly has “deepened” Venezuela’s crisis, Larrazabal said in an interview Sunday with Caracas television station Televen. The assembly declared on Friday that it would wrest legislative power from the opposition-led National Assembly, a move denounced by many in Venezuela and beyond. The United States does not recognize the Constituent …

China’s Great Wall Motor Co Ltd is interested in bidding for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), a company official said on Monday, confirming earlier reports that it is pursuing all or part of the owner of brands including Jeep and truckmaker Ram. There has been speculation over Chinese interest in FCA since Automotive News reported last week that an unidentified “well-known Chinese automaker” made an offer earlier this month, triggering a jump in FCA’s Milan-listed shares. “With respect to this case, we currently have an intention to acquire. We are interested in (FCA),” an official at Great Wall Motor’s press relations department, who declined to give his name, told Reuters by telephone. He gave no further details. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne is seeking a partner or buyer for the world’s seventh-largest automaker to help it manage rising costs, comply with emissions regulations and develop technology for electric and self-driving cars. An acquisition by Great Wall Motor would be audacious, and one of China’s highest profile manufacturing deals to date. Earlier on Monday, two people familiar with the matter said Great Wall Motor had asked for a meeting with FCA, with the aim of making an offer for all or part of the Italian-American auto group. Also on Monday, citing an email from Great Wall Motor President Wang Fengying, Automotive News reported that Great Wall Motor had contacted FCA to express interest specifically in the Jeep brand. The industry publication cited a Great Wall Motor spokesman confirming interest, but saying the …

The founder of a Chinese luxury online retailer has been extradited from Indonesia to face charges his company smuggled goods into China by having travelers pretend they were personal belongings, news reports said Monday. Ji Wenhong of Xiu.com joins a growing number of Chinese fugitives who are being returned from abroad to face charges of corruption or financial misconduct. Ji faces charges of smuggling goods worth a total of 438 million yuan ($65.5 million) into China while failing to report their true value, the news reports said, citing government officials. The reports said Ji was accused of arranging for his company to buy designer clothing from Europe and the United States and have it shipped to Hong Kong. They said the company arranged for travelers to carry it to the mainland in their baggage, avoiding import duties. Ji left China in May 2016 after being charged with smuggling, according to the China Daily newspaper. He was returned Saturday by Indonesian authorities. In a statement, Xiu.com said some individuals at the company were under investigation but didn’t mention Ji. It said the company was operating normally. …

The port of Tripoli in northern Lebanon wants the world to know it’s ready for business.   British safety managers are training local hires to operate heavy machinery and Chinese technicians are running diagnostics on two new container cranes that tower over the harbor, just 28 kilometers (18 miles) from the Syrian border.   After six years of civil war in Syria, markets across the Middle East are anticipating a mammoth reconstruction boom that could stimulate billions of dollars in economic activity. Lebanon, as Syria’s neighbor, is in prime position to capture a share of that windfall and revive its own sluggish economy.   Battles still rage in Syria’s north and east, and in pockets around the capital, Damascus, but the survival of President Bashar Assad’s government now appears beyond doubt.   That is introducing an element of stability into forecasts not seen since 2011, when the war broke out. The Damascus International Fair, a high-profile annual business event before the war, opened on Thursday evening for the first time since war broke out. The 10-day event kicked off with much fanfare, with participants from 43 countries and hundreds of attendees.   The World Bank estimates the cost to rebuild Syria at $200 billion.   For Lebanon, that could be just the stimulus it needs — the tiny Mediterranean country’s growth rate has hovered around 1.5 percent since 2013. And though the capital, Beirut, has grown visibly richer over the years, Tripoli and the impoverished north have lagged behind. “Lebanon …

The United States, Canada and Mexico wrapped up their first round of talks on Sunday to revamp the NAFTA trade pact, vowing to keep up a blistering pace of negotiations that some involved in the process said may be too fast to bridge deep differences. In a joint statement issued at the end of five days of negotiations in Washington, the top trade officials from the three countries said Mexico would host the next round of talks from Sept. 1 to 5. The talks will move to Canada later in September, then return to the United States in October, with additional rounds planned for later this year, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said. “While a great deal of effort and negotiation will be required in the coming months, Canada, Mexico and the United States are committed to an accelerated and comprehensive negotiation process that will upgrade our agreement,” the officials said. One person directly involved in the talks described the schedule as exceedingly fast, given that past trade deals took years to negotiate. The three countries are trying to complete a full modernization of the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement by early 2018, before Mexico’s national election campaign starts. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scrap NAFTA without major changes to reduce U.S. goods trade deficits with its North American neighbors, describing it as a disaster that cost Americans hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The joint …

Add next week’s total eclipse of the sun to the list of worker distractions that cost U.S. companies hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity. American employers will see at least $694 million in missing output for the roughly 20 minutes that outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates workers will take out of their workday on Monday, Aug. 21 to stretch their legs, head outside the office and gaze at the nearly two-and-a-half minute eclipse. And 20 minutes is a conservative estimate, said Andy Challenger, vice president at the Chicago-based firm. Many people may take even longer to set up their telescopes or special viewing glasses, or simply take off for the day. “There’s very few people who are not going to walk outside when there’s a celestial wonder happening above their heads to go out and view it,” Challenger said, estimating that 87 million employees will be at work during the eclipse. To get the overall figure of nearly $700 million, Challenger multiplied that by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest estimate for average hourly wages for all workers 16 and over. Just as the Earth is a mere speck in the universe, however, Challenger said this is still a small sum. “Compared to the amount of wages being paid to an employee over a course of a year, it is very small,” Challenger said. “It’s not going to show up in any type of macroeconomic data.” It also pales when compared with the myriad other distractions …

Brexit minister David Davis called on the European Union on Sunday to relax its position that the two sides must first make progress on a divorce settlement before moving on to discussing future relations. After a slow start to negotiations to unravel more than 40 years of union, Britain is pressing for talks to move beyond the divorce to offer companies some assurance of what to expect after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019. This week, the government will issue five new papers to outline proposals for future ties, including how to resolve any future disputes without “the direct jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ)”, Davis said. “I firmly believe the early round of the negotiations have already demonstrated that many questions around our withdrawal are inextricably linked to our future relationship,” Davis wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper. “Both sides need to move swiftly on to discussing our future partnership, and we want that to happen after the European Council in October,” he wrote, saying the clock was ticking. EU officials have said there must be “sufficient progress” in the first stage of talks on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement before they can consider a future relationship. That has frustrated British officials, who say that until there has been discussion of future ties, including a new customs arrangement and some way of resolving any future disputes, they cannot solve the Irish border issue or …