Retailers in the UK experienced their worst Christmas in the past 10 years, as sales suffered from Brexit fears and a sharp decline in consumer confidence, reports The Guardian. Total sales growth in December slowed to zero for the first time since 2008, according to data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC). Sales declined in all categories except food. Comparable retail sales, which exclude...

Japanese prefecture Yamanashi is famous not only for its scenic views of Mount Fuji, but also for being the birthplace of national winemaking. The region is inextricably linked with high-quality wine, Kyodo News reports. With the free trade agreement between Japan and the European Union, which will enter into force on February 1, some opportunities are expected, including problems for the...

The Christmas holidays, due to which the entire world's largest stock exchanges stopped working for a while, gave the falling markets a short respite, and traders received an opportunity to think about further tactics. Meanwhile, investment banks are urgently changing forecasts for oil prices for 2019. However, if oil continues to fall in price at the same pace (Brent's barrel fell 6.22% to...

Right now, no one in the world knows what the Brexit will be like. Will the parties have a deal, that is, Prime Minister Theresa May’s highly criticized Agreement on withdrawal, or there won’t be any deal at all? Will the EU make concessions or will it extend the discussion of conditions after the March term? And will Brexit take place in general, taking into account the ruling of the European...

China's carbon industry will face a serious overcapacity in the second half of 2020, as manufacturers have rushed to increase capacity in pursuit of high profits, Reuters reported, citing the China Carbon Industry Association (CCIA). Carbonaceous products are widely used in sectors such as metallurgy, chemical industry, aviation, and renewable energy due to their high corrosion resistance and...

Handling personal data of citizens by governments of different countries creates difficulties in the work of IT companies. However, some regard these problems as new opportunities, as demonstrated by the Techcrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018 conference. The European start-up event Techcrunch Disrupt Berlin 2018 showed that in the coming years, the key requirement for successful startups (besides the...

After Qatar’s historic decision to withdraw from OPEC, Qatar Petroleum CEO Saad Sherida al-Kaabi announced that the state-owned oil and gas company plans to invest more than $ 20 billion in the US oil and gas sector, Reuters reported. Qatar Petroleum is considering investing in "traditional and unconventional gas and oil," Kaabi said. The Qatari company owns a controlling stake in the Golden...

On Wednesday, the US Fed expectedly raised its key rate by 0.25 percentage points, to the range of 2.25–2.5% per annum. The American watchdog is optimistic about the state of the economy in the country, despite the slowdown in inflation. However, it pointed to the risks associated with the state of the global economy. Softening of the position of participants in the open market committee is also...

Effectiveness of investments in design is underestimated. Companies investing in this direction are one-third more profitable and generate one and a half times a greater flow of dividends and capitalization gains for shareholders. These findings of McKinsey & Co study are very unusual: everyone theoretically knows about significance of design for business, yet it is a peripheral activity for...