Markets & Industries
Toyota, Honda cut production due to semiconductor shortages - 03/18/2021
The global shortage of semiconductors resulted production cuts in North America in two Japanese car companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. Honda announced that it would suspend production at almost all of its plants in the U.S. and Canada starting March 22. It is assumed that work at five plants will be suspended for one week, but the company's managers do not rule out that the downtime...
UK carmakers ask to delay ban on gasoline cars - 03/16/2021
UK's biggest car makers have called on the UK government to delay a ban on petrol and diesel-powered cars because of the risk of falling sales and job losses, the Guardian reports. The UK government plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and lorries by 2030, 10 years earlier than originally planned. Hybrid cars will be allowed to be sold until 2035. According to the Guardian,...
Mainland China's FDI in use rise up to 31% - 03/15/2021
The volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) actually used in the Chinese mainland economy rose 31.5 per cent year-on-year to 176.76 billion yuan in the first two months of the year, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said. In dollar terms, inflows rose 34.2 percent year on year to $26.07 billion. Foreign investment in services amounted to 141.74 billion yuan in the period, up 48.7 percent from a...
Survey: Three-quarters of business heads expect GDP growth - 03/12/2021
The majority of global CEOs believe that global GDP will improve this year and that business revenues will grow. This is evidenced by data from a PwC survey of 5,000 CEOs from 100 countries. GDP growth is expected by 76% of respondents, the highest since the question was included in the survey in 2012. At the end of 2019 there were only 22% of such optimists, while 53% were expecting a slowdown...
Saudi Aramco maximises oil prices for Asia and the US - 03/09/2021
Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil and gas company Saudi Aramco has raised April selling prices for all grades of oil for US and Asian customers, while prices have been cut for European customers, Bloomberg reported. "Saudi Aramco raised prices for Arab Light crude for Asia ... by 40 cents a barrel, to $1.4 above the benchmark price," the agency wrote. The report also specified that oil...
UN expert: The world is running out of sand - 03/08/2021
The world is running out of one of its most important commodities, sand. It is considered the most sought-after resource after water, CNBC says. Sand is the main material used to build roads, bridges, high-speed trains, as well as in the production of glass, silicon chips and others. The world is already facing its scarcity, which will become one of the greatest problems of the 21st century,...
US Fed to continue soft policy until economy recovers - 03/05/2021
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed on Thursday that the central bank intends to keep monetary policy soft until there is a significant improvement in the labour market. "We are still extremely far from our goals of maximum employment and an average annual inflation rate of 2.0%," the Fed chief told the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, long-term borrowing costs are rising on the...
S&P: EMEA countries are increasing borrowings - 03/03/2021
Borrowing by EMEA countries (Europe, Middle East and Africa) from the market and commercial banks (including the volume of debt securities placed on foreign and domestic markets and loans) this year will decrease compared with last year by $100bn, to $571bn, as a result the total debt of the governments of these countries may increase by the end of the year at $288bn, to $3.2 trillion, says the...
Retail investors buy up Bank of Japan shares - 03/02/2021
After GameStop and Nokia, retail investors chose a new, not the most obvious, target: they bought up shares in the Japanese central bank, giving it its biggest rise in 16 years. The Bank of Japan is one of the few publicly traded central banks, but its securities offer little advantage to holders, Bloomberg notes. Retail investors appear to have chosen a new target after "run-up" stocks of gaming...
UK government to invest up to £375M in tech start-ups - 03/01/2021
The UK government intends to create a fund money from which will be used to buy up stakes in promising technology start-ups in the country. The £375 million fund will be part of the UK budget that will be presented on Wednesday, March 3, reports the Financial Times, citing its own sources. The money from the fund will be allocated to buy shares in those start-ups whose developments can help the...
