Month: September 2018

Greece’s lead creditor warned the country on Monday not to stray from reforms agreed upon before the end of its international bailout, as European monitors arrived to check the nation’s finances. The five-day inspection is expected to focus on government promises over the weekend to offer tax relief as well as plans to scrap promised pension cuts that are due to take effect in 2019. Klaus Regling, managing director of the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone’s rescue fund, told Austria’s Die Presse newspaper that Greece needed to stick to its commitments. `We are a very patient creditor. But we can stop debt relief measures that have been decided for Greece if the adjustment programs are not continued as agreed,” he said. “The debt level appears to be frighteningly elevated. But Greece can live with that as the loan maturities are very long and the interest rates on the loans are much lower than in most other countries.” Left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is trailing opposition conservatives in opinion polls and must call a general election within the next 12 months. Amid large protest rallies led by labor unions over the weekend, the prime minister said that relief measures promised to taxpayers would not jeopardize fiscal performance targets and would be introduced gradually. Greece has promised to deliver high primary surpluses — the budget balance before calculating the cost of servicing debt — for years to come, along with a series of reforms in exchange for better debt repayment terms. The …

Zimbabwe’s new finance minister has described his task of reviving the country’s moribund economy as extraordinarily difficult, but he is hopeful of success. “It’s enormous, it is Herculean. I am very energetic and I am very up to the task. I am starting now, but in the process what I will do is listen,” said Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, a former chief economist and vice president of the African Development Bank. He spoke to VOA at the State House after being sworn into office Monday by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Nearby, 21-year-old Isaac Madyira is jobless. He dropped out of school seven years ago after his also parents, also unemployed, failed to pay the fees. He now sells cash, which has been in acute short supply for the past two years in Zimbabwe. He says he expects change from the new Cabinet Mnangagwa put into office Monday. “What we want is corruption to be get rid of. We want development as quickly as possible. I think [on] the issue of money, we need our own currency which is valued as compared to other currencies, then bond notes must go [the last two words in Shona],” he said. Zimbabwe started printing bond notes about two years ago to ease cash shortages. They were supposed to trade at par with the U.S. dollar, but on the black market the notes are worth about half as much as a dollar and cash shortages have not ended. Almost as if Ncube had talked to Madyira, …

European Union trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom met her U.S. counterpart for the first time on Monday since President Donald Trump dropped his threat to impose tariffs on EU cars, saying they had discussed how to achieve concrete results soon. Malmstrom hosted United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Brussels on Monday. The two are set to meet again at the end of September. Malmstrom, who is the European Trade Commissioner, described the meeting as a first opportunity to follow through on an agreement between Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker two months ago. Lighthizer’s office described the talks as constructive, adding that experts would meet in October to identify tariff and non-tariff barriers that could be cut, with the trade chiefs following that up in November to finalize certain results. “Specifically, we hope for an early harvest in the area of technical barriers to trade,” the U.S. Trade Representative’s office statement said. Trump agreed with Juncker in July to refrain from imposing tariffs on EU cars while the two sides launched discussions to remove tariffs on non-auto industrial products. A working group, headed by the two trade chiefs, has also been charged with finding ways to cut tariffs, boost U.S. liquefied natural gas exports and to reform the World Trade Organization. “We discussed how to move forward and identify priorities on both sides and how to achieve concrete results in the short to medium term,” Malmstrom wrote. “Lots of work remains this autumn, our services will be in close …

Ford says it has no plans to move production of a small car from China to the United States despite President Donald Trump’s enthusiastic tweet Sunday. “It would not be profitable to the build the Focus Active in the U.S. given an expected annual sales volume of fewer than 500,000 units,” a Ford statement said. Ford earlier announced it would not ship the cars from China to the United States because tariffs would make them too expensive, prompting a Trump tweet saying “This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs.” Ford may keep building the Focus Active in China, but won’t not sell them in the United States. Trump has imposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports to remedy what he calls unfair Chinese trade practices. China has retaliated and both countries threaten more tariffs. …

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Saturday unveiled plans for tax cuts and pledged spending to heal years of painful austerity, less than a month after Greece emerged from a bailout program financed by its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund. Tsipras, who faces elections in about a year, used a keynote policy speech in the northern city of Thessaloniki to announce a spending spree that he said would help fix the ills of years of belt-tightening and help boost growth. But he said Athens was also committed to sticking to the fiscal targets pledged to lenders. “We will not allow Greece to revert to the era of deficits and fiscal derailment,” he told an audience of officials, diplomats and businessmen. Tsipras promised a phased reduction of the corporate tax to 25 percent from 29 percent from next year, as well as an average 30 percent reduction in a deeply unpopular annual property tax on homeowners, rising to 50 percent for low earners. He also said a pledge to maintain a primary budget surplus at the equivalent of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product could be achieved without further pension cuts, and that he would discuss this with the European Commission. The government had been expected to announce further pension cuts next year — a deeply controversial measure in a country where high unemployment means that pensioners are occasionally the primary family earners. It is also a group that has been targeted for cutbacks more than a dozen times since 2010. The leftist premier said he would also reinstate labor rights and increase the minimum wage. And he said the …

President Donald Trump concedes that some Apple Inc. products may become more expensive if his administration imposes “massive” additional tariffs on Chinese-made goods, but he says the tech company can fix the problem by moving production to the U.S. “Start building new plants now. Exciting!” Trump said Saturday in a tweet aimed at the Cupertino, California, company. This week, Apple said that a proposed additional round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports would raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini. The company is highly exposed to a trade war between the U.S. and China. It makes many of its products for the U.S. market in China, and it also sells gadgets including the iPhone in China, making them a potential target for Chinese retaliation against the Trump tariffs. Trump tweeted Saturday that “Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China — but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive,” if the company made its products in the U.S. instead of China. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has not announced plans to move manufacturing from China to the U.S. ‘Tax on U.S. consumers’ In its letter this week to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Apple said that “because all tariffs ultimately show up as a tax on U.S. consumers, they will increase the cost of Apple products …

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States and Japan have begun discussion over trade, saying that Tokyo “knows it’s a big problem” if an agreement cannot be reached, and that India has also asked to start talks on a trade deal. “We’re starting that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “In fact Japan has called us … they came last week.” “If we don’t make a deal with Japan, Japan knows it’s a big problem,” he added. Later in a speech in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Trump said: “India called us the other day. They said we’d like to start doing a trade deal. First time.” “They wouldn’t talk about it with the previous administrations. They were very happy with the way it was,” he said without giving further details. Trump, who is already challenging China, Mexico, Canada and the European Union on trade issues, has expressed displeasure about his country’s large trade deficit with Japan, but had not asked Tokyo to take specific steps to address the imbalance. On Thursday, though, CNBC reported he had told a Wall Street Journal columnist he might take on trade issues with Japan, causing the dollar to slip against the yen. The White House said Trump would push for fair trade. “The president has been clear that he will fight to promote free, fair, and reciprocal trade with countries around the world, including Japan, that impose a range of restrictions on U.S. market access,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters …

China’s trade surplus with the United States reached a record $31 billion in August, despite hefty tariffs recently imposed on Chinese goods.  The news of the surplus came just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose another $267 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese imports, which would cover virtually all the goods China imports to the United States.  The potential tariffs would come on top of punitive levies on $50 billion in Chinese goods already in place as well as another $200 billion that Trump says “could take place very soon.” He told reporters traveling with him to Fargo, North Dakota “behind that, there’s another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want.” “That changes the equation,” he added. Such a move would subject virtually all U.S. imports from China to new duties. The president’s comments Friday came one day after a public comment period ended on his proposal to add duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday the Trump administration would evaluate the public comments before making any decisions on the new proposed tariffs. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office received nearly 6,000 comments during seven days of public hearings on the proposal. The Trump administration has argued that tariffs on Chinese goods would force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cyber theft. The Trump administration …

U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on another $267 billion worth Chinese imports, which would cover virtually all the goods China imports to the United States. The potential tariffs would come on top of punitive levies on $50 billion in Chinese goods already in place, as well as tariffs on another $200 billion worth of goods that Trump says “could take place very soon.” He told reporters traveling with him to Fargo, North Dakota, on Friday that “behind that, there’s another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want.” “That changes the equation,” he added. Such a move would subject virtually all U.S. imports from China to new duties. The president’s comments came one day after a public comment period ended on his proposal to add duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Friday that the Trump administration would evaluate the public comments before making any decisions on the new proposed tariffs. The U.S. trade representative’s office received nearly 6,000 comments during seven days of public hearings on the proposal. The Trump administration has argued that tariffs on Chinese goods will force China to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. It has demanded that China better protect American intellectual property, including ending the practice of cybertheft. The Trump administration has also called on China to allow U.S. companies greater access to Chinese markets and to cut its U.S. trade surplus. China has retaliated against the U.S. tariffs …

Millions of people covered under the Affordable Care Act will see only modest premium increases next year, and some will get price cuts. That’s the conclusion from an exclusive analysis of the besieged but resilient program, which still sparks deep divisions heading into this year’s midterm elections. The Associated Press and the consulting firm Avalere Health crunched available state data and found that “Obamacare’s” health insurance marketplaces seem to be stabilizing after two years of sharp premium hikes. And the exodus of insurers from the program has halted, even reversed somewhat, with more consumer choices for 2019. The analysis found a 3.6 percent average increase in proposed or approved premiums across 47 states and Washington, D.C., for next year. This year the average increase nationally was about 30 percent. The average total premium for an individual covered under the health law is now close to $600 a month before subsidies. For next year, premiums are expected either to drop or increase by less than 10 percent in 41 states with about 9 million customers. Eleven of those states are expected to see a drop in average premiums. In six other states, plus Washington, D.C., premiums are projected to rise between 10 percent and 18 percent. Insurers also are starting to come back. Nineteen states will either see new insurers enter or current ones expand into more areas. There are no bare counties lacking a willing insurer. Even so, Chris Sloan, an Avalere director, says, “This is still a market that’s …

Hiring picked up in August as U.S. employers added a strong 201,000 jobs, a sign of confidence that consumers and businesses will keep spending despite the Trump administration’s conflicts with U.S. trading partners. The Labor Department said Friday the unemployment rate remained 3.9 percent, near an 18-year low.  Americans’ paychecks grew at a faster pace in August. Average hourly wages rose last month and are now 2.9 percent higher than they were a year earlier, the fastest year-over-year gain in eight years. Still, after adjusting for inflation, pay has been flat for the past year. The economy is expanding steadily, fueled by tax cuts, confident consumers, greater business investment in equipment and more government spending. Growth reached 4.2 percent at an annual rate in the April-June quarter, the fastest pace in four years. Most analysts have forecast that the economy will expand at an annual pace of at least 3 percent in the current July-September quarter. For the full year, the economy is on track to grow 3 percent for the first time since 2005.  Consumer confidence rose in August to its highest level in nearly 18 years. Most Americans feel that jobs are widely available and expect the economy to remain healthy in the coming months, according to the Conference Board’s consumer confidence survey. The buoyant mood is lifting spending on everything from cars to restaurant meals to clothes. Consumers’ enthusiasm is even boosting such brick-and-mortar store chains as Target, Walmart and Best Buy, which have posted strong sales …