Category: Business

Thailand, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) chair next year, is committed in ensuring the continuity of the APEC Putrajaya Vision 2040 by pursuing the forum’s three economic drivers.

The three drivers are – trade and investment, innovation and digitalisation, and strong, balanced, secure, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan o-cha said Thailand will continue APEC’s work to keep markets open through the rules-based multilateral trading system.

“At the same time, we will take advantage of the opportunity to re-think APEC’s conversation on trade and investment…that reflects the evolving needs and interests of businesses and our wider communities,” he said at the APEC CEO Summit 2021 held virtually on Friday.

“This is the engine driving our APEC host year priorities,” he said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is to chair APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting (AELM) virtually later tonight with all 21 APEC Economic Leaders expected to participate in the meeting themed “Join, Work, Grow, Together”.

“I believe that our theme and priorities echo the call by the business community to revitalise our economies, and make them stronger and more resilient,” he said.

Meanwhile, in facilitating trade and investment, Prayuth said the region must be reconnected again.

“It is our priority to safely and seamlessly resume cross-border travel.

“Progress towards reconnecting the region is essential to APEC’s path to recovery. Therefore, restoring connectivity will be one of our priorities next year, and we will pursue APEC’s recommendation to come up with a way to strengthen coordination and drive APEC-wide work on safe passage,” he said.

He added that APEC needs to be ever more connected in the longer term, harnessing digitalisation and innovation to further facilitate cross-border movements within APEC to ensure a healthy flow of goods, services, business people and the public at large.

APEC launched the Putrajaya Vision 2040 in November 2020, under which the world’s most dynamic regional economies will cooperate toward building an open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific.

Source: Nam News Network

South African electricity public utility, Eskom, apologised yesterday, for continued rolling blackouts in the country.

Andre de Ruyter, CEO of Eskom, also announced that, load shedding will be reduced to stage three from stage four.

“We understand this is a huge inconvenience to the country, we apologise for the negative impact this had had, not only on the business industry but also on those students, who are currently writing matric exams,” de Ruyter told media.

The CEO said, stage four will be downgraded to stage three, which will last until Friday. After maintenance has been completed on several units, load shedding will cease Saturday morning.

Power outages started last month. Eskom escalated load shedding from stage two to stage four, due to unplanned breakdowns this week.

Eskom implements load shedding due to high demand or urgent maintenance at certain power stations.

Stage two load shedding means that up to 2,000MW of capacity needs to be shed. Consumers can expect to be shed up to six times over a four-day period for two hours at a time.

During Stage four load shedding, consumers can expect to be shed up to 12 times over a four-day period. These blackouts exerted devastating effects on small businesses and the overall economy.

CEO of Business Unity South Africa, Cas Coovadia, said, “economic impact” of load shedding was dire.

“New capacity must urgently be added to the grid,” he said, “we call on the president and his cabinet to demonstrate decisiveness in this crisis. The president must demonstrate to the nation that the government is doing everything in its power to address this crisis.”

Source: Nam News Network

GENEVA — A pair of diamond bracelets that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the famed wife of French King Louis XVI who met her fate at the revolutionary guillotine, sold for 7.46 million Swiss francs ($8.34 million) on Tuesday.

The opulent bracelets, among the rare pieces of jewelry from the ill-fated French royal that are still up for public sale today, were among standout features to a Christie’s auction in Geneva.

They feature 112 diamonds and each weighs 97 grams (3.4 ounces) and include silver and gold.

The pair sold for much more than the presale estimate of between 2 million and 4 million Swiss francs ($2.2 million to $4.4 million). The final price included taxes and fees on top of the hammer price. The buyer was not identified.

After Marie Antoinette’s death in the French Revolution in 1793, the bracelets that had been commissioned some 17 years earlier were passed on from her daughter Marie-Therese and kept within royal lineage for over 200 years, Christie’s said.

On Wednesday, as part of regular Geneva jewelry auctions, rival house Sotheby’s is set to put under the hammer a 26.8-carat oval sapphire surrounded by diamonds, and matching ear clips that once belonged to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia — pieces that were whisked out of Russia during the country’s 1917 revolution.

The trio is expected to garner as much as 480,000 francs ($525,800).

On Thursday, Sotheby’s will auction a pair of high-top Nike sneakers from Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard who died in a helicopter crash in California last year. The basketball shoes are expected to fetch up to 35,000 Swiss francs ($38,400).

Bryant wore the sneakers in a March 17, 2004, victory over the L.A. Clippers, according to the auction house.

Source: Voice of America

Renting an apartment can be a challenge for new college graduates who are facing the hottest U.S. rental market in a decade, along with some unexpected competition from millennials — people aged 24 to 40 — and even baby boomers — the over-57 club.

“You have aging millennials who are creating families who should be moving from rental situations into ownership but, because of the lack of housing supply, that has been stopped in a lot of instances. And so, what you see is the aging millennial population continues to rent,” says Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi-Matrix, a commercial real estate data and research firm.

“It’s not just about millennials, it’s not just about [Gen] Z [people under 24], we also see that boomers are making a transition, he added. “Their percentage of moving into rental properties is growing in the last five years.”

There are a variety of reasons older people are opting for rentals, according to Ressler.

“They’ve lived in a home for so long and they want to be able to reduce their expenses on a fixed income,” he says. “They want to live in a social cohort, like a retirement community, and things like that where it’s much more socially amenable to them.”

The asking price of apartment rentals was up 10.7% in September 2021 compared to last year at the same time, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

“It’s a hot market. We have never seen this market so hot in the last decade,” says Gay Cororaton, NAR’s senior economist and director of housing and commercial research. “The average rent growth, year-over-year, is about 3-to-5%. We’re seeing 11% rent growth now, so, clearly, way above trends we’ve had in the past.”

Renters are feeling the squeeze because the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply chain issues, slowing down home building in the United States. Instead of the usual 5-to-6 month supply of available single-family homes, supply dropped below two months in January 2021. The lack of housing supply means millennials are having a harder time buying a single-family home, which has been the traditional trajectory in the past.

“The whole building industry was beset by supply chain issues,” Cororaton says. “Shipments couldn’t come in, the price of lumber was rising, manufacturing slowed, workers could not come in [to work], so you have shortages of frames, appliances. So, essentially, just a short supply.”

The housing supply got even tighter during the pandemic as more investors put their money into housing, according to Cororaton, while existing homeowners looked for second homes.

“With the pandemic, there was also a big demand for second homes, for vacation homes. Typically, vacation homes accounted for just about 5% [of the market],” she says. “Early this summer they rose to about 8%. So again, strong demand and strong imbalance of demand and supply caused home prices to rise, made them less affordable.”

The hottest rental markets right now are in the West and South. More renters are moving to Dallas and Houston in Texas, followed by Atlanta, Georgia; New York; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Washington, D.C., according to NAR.

Cororaton expects the coming year to be a little better but says the housing shortage is likely to continue for the next few years.

“You know, the old adage of moving from rentals into homeownership, that whole polemic may be changing,” says Ressler. “The sweet spot was always the millennials, and now the millennials are being replaced by the [Gen] Z’s, but the millennials are staying longer and the Z’s are coming on board, and now you’ve got the demographic of the boomers … What it means is a very profitable and dynamic [rental] market that’s going to continue to grow.”

 

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. economy created 531,000 jobs in October, more than the 450,000 economists had forecast, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The unemployment rate also dropped slightly from 4.8% to 4.6%, the lowest since the pandemic hit. The unemployment rate in February of 2020 was 3.5%, an historic low.

Jobs numbers for August and September were also revised upward.

Celebrating the better-than-expected report, President Joe Biden called it “another great day for our economic recovery,” during comments Friday at the White House on the jobs report.

Most of the employment gains were in the leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing sectors.

“Overall, it was a really positive jobs report but leaves some questions about the structure of the labor market for the Fed,” Megan Greene, the global chief economist at the advisory firm Kroll Institute and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, told ABC News.

However, the jobs report was not all good news.

Labor participation, the number of people working or actively seeking a job, remained at a low 61.6%, and only 104,000 new people joined the workforce in October.

The disappointing labor participation rate has been fairly steady over the past year at the lowest levels seen since the early 1970s.

Businesses have tried to get workers back by raising wages or offering bonuses, but most of those gains have been offset by rising prices for food, gas and rent.

Source: Voice of America

KUALA LUMPUR, Business sentiment among Japanese companies in Malaysia is forecast to improve in the first half of 2022 (1H2022) based on a survey by the Japanese Chamber of Trade and Industry Malaysia (JACTIM).

According to the survey, which is conducted bi-annually, the business sentiment diffusion index is projected to improve to 3.1 points in 1H2022, after being in the negative territory since 2H2018.

JACTIM general advisor cum Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) Kuala Lumpur managing director Mai Onozawa said many Japanese companies are positive about Malaysia’s outlook, premised on the global recovery, and plan to continue their business activities in Malaysia.

JACTIM’s survey on business trends in Malaysia in 2H2021 was conducted in September, involving 552 JACTIM member companies, including 120 companies from the manufacturing sector and 71 companies from the non-manufacturing sector.

“In the survey, many respondents pointed out that production activities are gradually resuming following the relaxation of the Malaysian government’s restrictions on social and economic activities, in line with the rising vaccination rates,” Onozawa told Bernama in an interview recently.

The extension of the Sales and Services Tax exemptions for new car purchases to up to June 2022 has also supported the automotive industry, she said.

“As for the services sector, especially the manufacturing-related services, the government’s move to ease restrictions with the transition to Phase Four of the National Recovery Plan has galvanised manufacturing companies to increase their production activities.

“This led to an increase in demand for related services such as import/export, sales and transportation of related products,” she said.

Onozawa noted that business sentiments were low in 2H2021 due to the economic downturn and low operating rate due to the prolonged lockdowns.

She said labour shortage has been a prevailing issue even before the COVID-19 pandemic, as large-scale manufacturing industries have been finding it difficult to secure a sufficient number of workers.

“With the suspension of new hiring of foreign workers from June 2020, in addition to the COVID-19 infection countermeasure, many companies said the number of general workers they were able to secure had decreased significantly.

“Japanese companies are actively recruiting Malaysian workers, but the turnover rate is very high, particularly for companies located in areas with a high concentration of companies such as Selangor and Johor,” she said.

To continue their economic activities in Malaysia, she stressed that Japanese companies also need highly skilled human resources such as engineers and production managers, however, the number of talents is insufficient and the companies have difficulties in hiring them.

“It is also important to secure a stable minimum workforce. We would like to request the Malaysian government to provide more opportunities to train Malaysian workers to promote recruitment and resume hiring new foreign workers where it is needed,” she added.

According to Onozawa, many Japanese companies said that production has not been sufficient to meet the demand due to the labour shortage.

“Additionally, some companies are finding it difficult to procure parts and materials from both domestic and overseas sources due to problems such as disruptions in marine transportation.

“As these issues cannot be resolved immediately, companies are expecting the situation of excess demand to continue for the time being,” she said.

Given the current situation, JACTIM has urged the government to create a business environment that will allow foreign companies to continue their economic activities in Malaysia for a long time in a win-win situation.

“We hope that the government will continue to support the stable operation of existing companies.

“In light of the trade conflict between the United States and China, it is also important to have a conducive investment environment to get companies looking for new investment destinations to invest in Malaysia,” she said.

Onozawa highlighted that many of the Japanese companies which are currently operating in Malaysia have been in business for more than 30 to 40 years, and all of them are keen to continue their business activities in Malaysia.

She also commended the government’s move to extend the Additional Reinvestment Allowance, saying that this would be beneficial for both foreign companies and Malaysia to attract new investments.

Onozawa also emphasised the importance of a clear carbon-neutral policy.

“From the perspective of achieving both zero emissions and ensuring a stable energy supply in the journey towards zero emissions, it is necessary to continue supporting the current conventional power generation system using existing fossil fuels using transition finance.

“At the same time, an immediate and clear policy to support the goal, such as subsidies and preferential measures for carbon-free alternatives, is also necessary,” she added.

Source: Nam News Network

Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is leaving the bank after a dispute with British financial regulators over how he described his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Staley will be replaced as CEO by Barclays’ head of global markets C.S. Venkatakrishnan, who on Monday pledged to continue his predecessor’s strategy.

Staley’s shock departure comes after Barclays was informed on Friday of the unpublished findings of a report by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority into Staley’s characterization of his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges related to sex trafficking.

“In view of those conclusions, and Mr Staley’s intention to contest them, the Board and Mr Staley have agreed that he will step down from his role as Group Chief Executive and as a director of Barclays,” the bank said.

“It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr Epstein’s alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays’ support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019.”

Barclays shares fell 2% following the announcement.

‘I thought I knew him well’

Staley dealt with Epstein during his long career at JPMorgan, where Epstein was a major private banking client until 2013.

A college dropout who styled himself as a brilliant financier, Epstein socialized in elite circles, including former and future U.S. presidents. In 2008, he was registered as a sex offender but continued to maintain ties with powerful players in business and finance.

The New York Times reported in 2019 that Epstein had referred “dozens” of wealthy clients to Staley. It also reported that Staley visited Epstein in prison when he was serving a sentence between 2008-09 for soliciting prostitution from a minor, while Bloomberg reported he visited Epstein’s private island in 2015.

Staley told reporters last February that his relationship with Epstein had “tapered off significantly” after he left JPMorgan in 2013, and that he had not seen the disgraced financier since taking over Barclays in 2015.

“I thought I knew him well, and I didn’t. I’m sure with hindsight of what we all know now, I deeply regret having had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” he said at the time.

Epstein’s links with prominent men have come back to haunt some of them. Leon Black, the billionaire investor, stepped down from Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm he co-founded, earlier this year after an outside review found he had paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning.

Britain’s Prince Andrew has quit royal duties over his associations with Epstein, andnMicrosoft co-founder Bill Gates has said it was a “huge mistake” to spend time with him.

The FCA and PRA said in a statement they could not comment further on the Epstein investigation, which was launched after JPMorgan provided the regulators with emails between Epstein and Staley from Staley’s time as head of JPMorgan’s private bank, the Financial Times reported last year.

Right strategy

Staley told staff in an internal memo seen by Reuters that he did not want his ‘personal response’ to the investigations to be a distraction.

“Although I will not be with you for the next chapter of Barclays’ story, know that I will be cheering your success from the sidelines,” he said.

Staley has 28 days to formally notify the FCA that he is contesting its findings, after which an independent committee inside the watchdog will uphold or reject its conclusions, a source familiar with the process told Reuters.

If upheld, the probe passes to an independent Upper Tribunal which again can back or reject the findings, the source said, a process that could take months.

Venkatakrishnan, who followed Staley to Barclays from JPMorgan and is known as Venkat, told staff on Monday the strategy put in place by his predecessor was “the right one,” according to a separate memo also seen by Reuters.

Venkat added that he would announce changes to the organization of the investment bank in the coming days, likely to mean filling his previous role and any other resulting vacancies, sources at the bank said.

Barclay’s share price has fallen 9% since Staley’s tenure began six years ago, a period not without controversy.

His greatest success, insiders and analysts said, was to fight off a campaign launched by activist investor Edward Bramson in 2018 to have Staley removed on the grounds that Barclays’ investment bank was underperforming and should be cut back.

Bramson sold his stake earlier this year, and the bank’s recent results have seen the investment bank perform strongly.

Also in 2018, Britain’s financial regulators and Barclays fined Staley a combined $1.50 million after he tried to identify a whistleblower who sent letters criticizing a Barclays employee.

Source: voice of America

WASHINGTON —

Three U.S. retail giants have pulled products made by tech surveillance specialists Lorex and Ezviz, following revelations by the tech press that the companies are linked to human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, home to Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.

According to reports from American online news outlet TechCrunch and video surveillance news site IPMV, big-box retailers Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe’s terminated contracts with Lorex and Ezviz after the two news outlets questioned their partnerships.

In an email statement to VOA Mandarin, Home Depot said it has stopped selling products from both Lorex and Ezviz. “We committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical sourcing and we immediately stopped selling these products when this was brought to our attention,” said the statement, which is also on the company website.

Best Buy told TechCrunch that it was “discontinuing its relationship” with both Lorex and Ezviz. Lowe’s did not respond to a request from VOA Mandarin for comments, but a recent search shows neither Lorex nor Ezviz surveillance products are available on its website.

Lorex is a subsidiary of Dahua Technology. Ezviz is a brand of video surveillance cameras owned by Hikvision. Dahua and Hikvision were added to the U.S. government’s economic blacklist in 2019 for supplying Beijing with technology it uses to surveil ethnic groups.

Yet because the 2019 sanction covered only sales to the U.S. federal government, Lorex and Ezviz remained free to sell to private-sector buyers.

The proliferation of Chinese companies in the surveillance equipment sector reflects Beijing’s growing reliance on advanced technological tools to monitor the lives of its citizens in Xinjiang and to expand an already extensive surveillance infrastructure throughout China.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Xinjiang Bureau of Public Security uses what it calls the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, a system that gathers data on residents through iris scanners, digital cameras with face recognition, DNA samples and cellphone data.

In the China section of its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the U.S. State Department said that Hikvision and other tech companies are related to the development of a “Uyghur alarm” based on a face-scanning camera system.

The report said the Chinese government is conducting significant human rights abuses against Uyghurs, including “mass detention of more than one million Uyghurs and other members of predominantly Muslim minority groups in extrajudicial internment camps and an additional two million subjected to daytime-only ‘re-education’ training.”

China, which contends that Uyghurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, denies the allegations, saying that Xinjiang’s camps are “re-education” facilities aimed at combating terrorism.

Source: Voice of America

Car rental company Hertz says it will buy 100,000 electric cars from Tesla.

Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said the Model 3 cars could be ready for renters as early as November, The Associated Press reported.

Fields said the reason for the move was that electric cars are becoming mainstream, and consumer interest in them is growing.

“More are willing to try and buy,” he told AP. “It’s pretty stunning.”

All of the cars should be available by the end of 2022, the company said. When all are delivered, they will make up 20% of the company’s fleet.

Hertz, which emerged from bankruptcy in June, did not disclose the cost of the order, but it could be valued at as much as $4 billion, according to some news reports.

The company said it plans to build its own charging station network, with 3,000 in 65 locations by the end of 2022 and 4,000 by the end of 2023. Renters will also have access to Tesla’s charging network for a fee.

Tesla stock jumped as much as 12% on the news

Source: Voice of America