Cuba’s decision to change its constitution and allow private property ownership has been shrugged off by small farmers, who say the island will never feed itself without far broader reform of state-run agriculture.

Economists would expect farmers to welcome the shift towards private property after decades of strict government control left the island dependent on food imports and farmers unable to earn a decent living.

And though older Cubans are wary of change, younger farmers have indeed welcomed the recent reforms to recognize private property ownership, even if few expect huge dividends.

With 30 hectares of well-maintained guava trees, sweet potato plants and concrete pig pens, Alexei Gonzales has a deep desire to buy the farmland he currently rents from the state.

But a complex web of bureaucracy — be it currency controls, fuel shortages or a lack of private credit — mean Gonzales and six other farmers who spoke with the Thomson Reuters Foundation do not expect to reap big gains from owning their own land.

“Making it easier to buy land won’t really change much if I can’t get diesel,” said 41-year-old Gonzales, pointing to his idle Soviet-made tractor. “They (lawmakers) give lots of speeches but nothing changes… My whole life is working on the land, and I have nothing to show for it.”

On July 22, Cuba’s government voted in favor of a draft for a new constitution that includes the right to own private property.  The reforms were presided over by Miguel Diaz-Canel, who became Cuba’s president in April, replacing brothers Fidel and Raul Castro, who had governed the island since 1959.

The changes are part of a broader shift as Cuba tries to woo foreign investment, boost growth and cut poverty, all while keeping political control in the hands of a single party.

Rich Soil, Slim Pickings

Despite rich soil and 20 percent of its population working in agriculture, Cuba imports more than 60 percent of its food, at an annual cost of about $2 billion.

Cubans, who on average earn about $30 a month, receive a monthly package of subsidized food from the state, including rice, beans, eggs and milk for young children.

To make up for shortfalls at state-run stores – which worsened after the collapse of its Soviet benefactor – Cubans were encouraged to grow urban gardens or cultivate small plots of land for personal consumption.

Today, Cubans can buy food from market stalls, but workers who earn the minimum government salary often cannot afford the bananas, plantain and pork sold in the private sector.

Prior to the constitutional changes approved by lawmakers last month, the state owned about 80 percent of Cuba’s farmland, leasing most of it to farmers and cooperatives.

The rest is owned by small farmers whose families received allotments from the government after Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

With sluggish economic growth, and renewed tensions with Washington hampering foreign investment, the government is eager to wean Cuba’s 11 people million off costly food imports.

The constitutional change allowing for private land ownership still needs to pass a referendum, to be held some time in coming months. The draft document will be submitted for public consultations and the final document, which could include changes, will then be put to a national referendum.

The reforms will help food production but private property rights alone will not give agricultural output a substantial boost, said Mario Gonzalez-Corzo, an economics professor at City University of New York, whose family own farms in Cuba.

In other countries, farmers can use their land as collateral for loans to buy equipment, seeds or fertilizer.

“Private ownership does not mean you can use land as collateral: in Cuba, there is no such thing as a private bank,” Gonzalez-Corzo said, so the reforms will not make it easier for farmers to buy the fuel or fertilizer they crave.

Price controls on how much farmers get for their products and other strict rules compound the inefficiencies, he added.

“The government has extensive control over agriculture, which creates massive distortions.”

Fallow Fields

Yasmany Falcon Bacallao farms 26 hectares in Matanzas, Cuba’s second largest province and home to the tourist hotspot of Varadero.

Living the inefficiencies on a daily basis, he supports private property reforms, but is not optimistic they will change his daily reality in the fields.

Much of the land inherited from family members lies fallow; he cannot find workers willing to accept $20 per month to toil in the fields or enough diesel to run his farm machinery.

Bacallao sells most of his produce to a government agency, “but often they don’t even have boxes for the mangoes when they arrive, so I can’t sell anything,’ the 37-year-old said.

Cuba’s National Association of Small Farmers, a government-linked body responsible for agriculture, declined requests for interviews or additional information about the changes.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Cuba declined to comment on the proposed reforms, underlining the sensitivity of the issue in the socialist state.

Generational Shift

While young farmers tend to support greater private property rights, in principle at least, older Cubans are skeptical.

“I don’t want to see the big time selling of land,” said 82-year-old Miguel Barroz Lozano, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse he inherited in 1962.

“I was here before the revolution and it’s better for farmers now,” said the fruit grower, recounting how his father had toiled on a plantation owned by a rich, absentee owner.

Unease about possible exploitation has caused the government to move slowly with reform, said John Finn, a professor who studies Cuban agriculture at Christopher Newport University in the U.S. state of Virginia.

“Land reform was massively important for the ideology of the revolution,” Finn said. “They (officials) are trying to maintain the broad structures of a socialist economy, while harvesting the obvious power of entrepreneurship.”
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Foreign-brand automakers with U.S. plants do not support Trump administration rules to raise the amount of local content in North American-made vehicles, a group representing companies including Toyota, Volkswagen AG and Hyundai has told key U.S. lawmakers.

Talks between Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are due to resume on Tuesday in Washington to try to resolve remaining bilateral issues so that Canada, which has been sidelined for weeks from the negotiations, can return to the bargaining table.

The automakers’ position was in a previously unreported Aug. 16 letter from their “Here for America” group to top trade-focused members of Congress. The letter could raise resistance to a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement from lawmakers in southern states, where foreign manufacturers have built auto plants.

“We remain concerned that, without further clarifications, assurances and modifications, many of those companies producing vehicles in multiple states will not be in a position to support legislation implementing a NAFTA 2.0,” the group said in the letter, signed by John Bozzella, president of the Association of Global Automakers.

Automotive experts have said that some foreign brand automakers with smaller North American manufacturing footprints and fewer U.S. research and development staff may have difficulty meeting the more stringent content requirements for years.

The group said its members, which also include Honda, Daimler, BMW, Nissan, Kia Motors, Subaru, and Volvo, a unit of China’s Geely Automobile Holdings , account for nearly 50 percent of U.S. vehicle production.

Detroit supportive

At the same time, the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Detroit’s Big Three automakers is “encouraged by the direction of the discussions,” said Matt Blunt, who heads the trade group.

“We share the administration’s overall goals of strengthening U.S. auto manufacturing and creating jobs and given the importance of NAFTA to U.S. industry we urge the negotiators to quickly complete the negotiations,” added Blunt, whose group represents General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.

The United States and Mexico are closing in on a bilateral deal on autos that would lift the requirement for North American content in regionally made vehicles to at least 70 percent from the current 62.5 percent.

The deal is expected to require that some 40 percent of  the value come from high wage locations paying at least $16 an hour, meaning the United States and Canada, a Mexican source close to the talks told Reuters.

USTR officials have been meeting in recent days with individual automakers to secure support for potential changes, according to auto industry sources.

A USTR spokeswoman declined comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who launched the renegotiation of the 1994 pact a year ago, has said he wants the reworked deal to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, particularly in autos and auto parts.

Other key unresolved issues include the phase-in time for the new automotive rules to take effect and whether the U.S. demand for a “sunset” clause that forces a renegotiation every five years is adopted, making long-term investment decisions more difficult.

The letter from the ad-hoc “Here for America” group also raised concerns that national security tariffs on autos, auto parts, steel and aluminum would undermine the benefit of a NAFTA agreement.
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Iran’s oil minister says France’s oil giant Total SA has pulled out of Iran after cancelling its $5 billion, 20-year agreement to develop the country’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field over renewed U.S. sanctions.

The parliament’s website ICANA.ir quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying on Monday that since Total first announced its decision a while ago, Iran has been in the process of “looking for an alternative” to Total. He didn’t elaborate.

There was no immediate comment from TotaI.

Earlier this month, Iran said China’s state-owned petroleum corporation took a majority 80 percent share of the project. CNPC originally had some 30 percent of shares in the project.

The renewed U.S. sanctions took effect in August, after America’s pullout from the nuclear deal in May.

 
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Vietnam is trying to get a grip on inflation that might otherwise threaten its quick economic growth again as it did a decade ago, analysts and domestic media say.

Consumer prices in June were 4.67 percent higher than in the same month last year following an increase of 3.29 percent in the first half of 2018, the Vietnamese General Statistics Office said. The legislature had set a target of no more than 4 percent.

Prices of commodities, including crude oil, are contributing heavily to inflation, and a fuel tax proposed for October would exacerbate it, the VnExpress International news website said. Currency weakness, a rising middle class and credit growth are further raising prices.

“I think generally the trend has been upward and that’s just a result of increased spending power on behalf of Vietnamese people,” said Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City.

Inflation of more than 20 percent in 2008 throttled Vietnamese economic growth over the following three years. The target of 4 percent inflation is aimed at stopping a repeat.

“It’s something to watch,” Brown said. “Obviously, if things go way, way high, then that’s a problem. But that’s not what’s happening right now.”

Noticeable change in prices

Consumers notice the higher fuel prices when pumping gas for cars and scooters. Some also found that rice prices didn’t fall as expected after a 10 percent hike before the major annual Tet holiday in February this year, said Vietnamese consumer Phuong Hong, communications director with a tech firm in Ho Chi Minh City.

Electricity costs more every year, she added, while salaries do not necessarily help common people afford the increases.

“Normally the rate of price rising is always too much and always higher than the rate we’ve got from salary support,” she said.

Vietnam raised its minimum wage 6.5 percent this year with plans for another 5.3 percent in 2019. About a third of the 93 million Vietnamese will be middle-class or above by 2020, the Boston Consulting Group estimates. Rising wealth reflects creation of jobs, a function of economic growth driven by manufacturing.

The country faces pressure to keep wages in check as low labor costs drive foreign investors to the country from around Asia, as well as a few giant American firms.

Vietnam’s GDP in the first half of this year grew about 7 percent after several years near 6 percent. The Asian Development Bank estimates 7.1 percent growth for the full year.

Risk of fallout, government follow-up

Last year “marked a breakthrough” in government work to manage prices of electricity, fuel, formula milk and healthcare fees, VnExpress International said.

Government agencies “should closely monitor price movements,” take a lead in readying goods for Tet so prices stay controlled and “set out rational measures” to stabilize the market, the Communist Party of Vietnam’s website Nhan Dan said. Last month legislators were reexamining the fuel tax.

Officials are on guard for a relapse of inflation in 2008, which followed an influx of foreign currency into the export-reliant country due to the demand for imports, analysts say. Inflation then rippled into the broader economy until 2011.

Prices have been rising now since 2015.

The inflation of 2008 prompted hundreds of wildcat labor strikes by workers who wanted more pay. Prices, strikes and a devalued Vietnamese currency then took the annual economic growth rate down to 5.3 percent before it began to rebound.

Those pressures sparked a fall in pledges for foreign direct investment – the likes of factories that make garments, furniture and car parts. Pledges fell in 2011 to $14.7 billion, from $19.9 billion in 2010, and the amount of actual foreign direct investment plummeted 35 percent that year.

Vietnam’s growth is one of the fastest in Asia today.

Analysts expect Vietnam to weather the current price hikes without the blowup of 10 years ago but warn against currency deflation that has swept other parts of Asia – partly because of the Sino-U.S. trade war. Weaker currencies usually push prices up.

“At the moment we don’t expect really a ramp-up of inflationary pressure,” said Marie Diron, managing director with Moody’s Investors Service in Singapore. But, she said, “with the weakening of the currency, inflation is likely to go up a bit further in Vietnam and other countries.”
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“For the first time since early 2010, Greece can stand on its own feet,” the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) rescue fund said as Athens exited its final, three-year international bailout program on Monday.

The ESM allocated about $71 billion over the past three years, after an agreement was reached in August 2015 to help the country cope with fallout from an ongoing debt crisis.

“Today we can safely conclude the ESM program with no more follow-up rescue programs,” Mario Centeno, the chairman of the ESM’s board of governors, said in a statement. “This was possible thanks to the extraordinary effort of the Greek people, the good cooperation with the current Greek government and the support of European partners through loans and debt relief.”

In 2010, Greece was declared at risk of default after struggling with massive debt, loss of investment and huge unemployment. Overall, nearly $300 billion in emergency loans were provided in three consecutive bailout packages from a European Union bailout fund and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In exchange, Athens was required to put in place severe austerity-based measures and reforms.

The completion of the loan program is a major accomplishment for Greece, but the country still faces an uphill battle to regain its economic stability.

The office of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras described the final bailout loan last week as the “last act in the drama. Now a new page of progress, justice and growth can be turned.”

“Greece has managed to stand on her feet again,” his office said.

Economic growth in Greece is slowly growing again, tourism is up nearly 17 percent in Athens this year, and once-record levels of joblessness are finally receding.

However, the country still faces massive challenges, including weak banks, the highest debt load in the European Union at 180 percent of GDP, and the loss of about a half-million mostly younger Greeks to Europe’s wealthier neighbors. Greece will also need to continue to repay its international loans until 2060.

The country’s three international bailouts took Europe to the brink of crisis.

The financial troubles exposed dangers in the European Union’s common currency and threatened to break the bloc apart. The large debt that remains in Greece and an even larger debt in Italy continue to be a financial danger to the EU.

The bailouts also led to regular and sometimes violent demonstrations in Athens by citizens angry at the government’s budget measures required by international lenders in return for the bailouts.

While Greece has begun to make economic progress, economics say the bulk of the austerity measures will likely need to remain in place for many years for the country to tackle its massive debt.

Some international economists have called for part of Greece’s loans to be written off in order for Greece to keep its ballooning debt payments in check. However, any kind of loan forgiveness would be a tough sell in Germany where the initially bailouts were unpopular.

The austerity measures included massive tax hikes as high as 70 percent of earned income and pension cuts that pushed nearly half of Greece’s elderly population below the poverty line.

Pensioner Yorgos Vagelakos, 81, told Reuters that five years ago he would go to his local market with 20 euros in his pocket, while today, he has just 2 euros. He says for him, the bailout will never end.

“It’s very often that just like today, I struggle, because I see all the produce on display at the market and I want to buy things, but when I don’t have even a cent in my pocket, I get really sad,” Vagelakos said.
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Americans drink a lot of beer, according to the Beer Institute, almost 100 liters for every drinking age American each year. That’s a lot of malted barley, the main ingredient that gives beer its alcoholic kick. Even smaller craft breweries in the U.S. alone, throw out some two million tons of the spent grain each year into landfills. But one entrepreneur has found other uses for all that wasted grain. She’s recycling spent barley into flour. VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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Uncertainty reigned in Venezuela Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro unveiled a major economic reform plan aimed at halting the spiraling hyperinflation that has thrown the oil-rich, cash-poor South American country into chaos.

Ahead of a major currency overhaul Monday, when Caracas will start issuing new banknotes after slashing five zeroes off the crippled bolivar, Maduro detailed other measures he hopes will pull Venezuela out of crisis.

Those measures include a massive minimum wage hike, the fifth so far this year.

But analysts say the radical overhaul could only serve to make matters worse.

“There will be a lot of confusion in the next few days, for consumers and the private sector,” said the director of the Ecoanalitica consultancy, Asdrubal Oliveros. “It’s a chaotic scenario.”

​‘Pure lie’

The embattled Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, said the country needed to show “fiscal discipline” and stop the excessive money printing that has been regular practice in recent years.

The new currency, the sovereign bolivar — to distinguish from the current, and ironically named, strong bolivar — will be anchored to the country’s widely discredited cryptocurrency, the petro.

Each petro will be worth about $60, based on the price of a barrel of Venezuela’s oil. In the new currency, that will be 3,600 sovereign bolivars, signaling a massive devaluation.

In turn, the minimum wage will be fixed at half a petro (1,800 sovereign bolivars), starting Monday. That is about $28, more than 34 times the previous level of less than a dollar at the prevailing black market rate.

Maduro also said the country would have one fluctuating official exchange rate, also anchored to the petro, without saying what the starting level would be.

As it stands, the monthly minimum wage, devastated by inflation and the aggressive devaluation of the bolivar, is still not enough to buy a kilo of meat.

In the capital Caracas, residents were skeptical about the new measures.

“Everything will stay the same, prices will continue to rise,” 39-year-old Bruno Choy, who runs a street food stand, told AFP.

Angel Arias, a 67-year-old retiree, dubbed the new currency a “pure lie!”

1 million percent inflation

The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit a staggering 1 million percent this year in Venezuela, now in a fourth year of recession, hamstrung by shortages of basic goods and crippled by paralyzed public services.

Maduro blames the country’s financial woes on opposition plots and American sanctions, but admits that the government will “learn as we go along” when it comes to the currency redenomination.

His government pushed back Saturday against criticism of the economic reform plan.

“Don’t pay attention to naysayers,” Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said. “With oil income, with taxes and income from gasoline price hikes … we’ll be able to fund our program.”

Electronic transactions are set to be suspended from Sunday to facilitate the introduction of the new notes.

Economy in turmoil

Oil production accounts for 96 percent of Venezuela’s revenue, but that has slumped to a 30-year low of 1.4 million barrels a day, compared to its record high of 3.2 million 10 years ago.

The fiscal deficit is almost 20 percent of GDP while Venezuela struggles with an external debt of $150 billion.

Venezuela launched the petro in a bid for liquidity to try to circumvent US sanctions that have all but stamped out international financing.

But there’s a good reason the redenomination hasn’t generated renewed hope or investor confidence: Venezuela has done this before.

Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez stripped three zeroes off the bolivar in 2008, but that failed to prevent hyperinflation.

Also, Cryptocurrency rating site ICOindex.com has branded the petro a scam, and the U.S. has banned its nationals from trading in it.
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A budding trade war between the U.S. and Turkey over a detained American pastor is having global consequences. A sharp drop in Turkey’s lira, inflation and the threat of loan defaults, could drag down other economies, particularly in emerging markets. Turkey’s troubles are causing ripple effects in countries as far away as Argentina and Indonesia, while weighing on Asian currency rates and triggering currency fluctuations. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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Turkey’s currency this month has suffered heavy falls triggered by U.S.-Turkish tensions over the ongoing detention of an American pastor. Washington’s threat to impose new economic sanctions sparked another steep currency drop Friday. Dorian Jones reports on the economic fall out for people in Istanbul.
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Tesla shares dropped nearly 9 percent in value Friday, amid reports of CEO and co-founder Elon Musk meeting with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Musk wrote on Twitter last week of his plans to take the company private for a price of $420 per share, writing that he had “funding secured.” On Monday, in a blog post, Musk admitted that was not true, as he was still waiting on a finalized deal with his investors, a Saudi Arabian foreign investment fund.

“I continue to have discussions with the Saudi fund, and I also am having discussions with a number of other investors, which is something that I always planned to do since I would like for Tesla to continue to have a broad investor base,” Musk wrote.

Since Musk’s original tweet, the company’s shares have dropped 12 percent overall, and reports of subpoenas being issued by the SEC have sent the company into turmoil.

In a New York Times interview Thursday, Musk said, “This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career.” The Times also reported that members of Tesla’s board are concerned with Musk’s drug use, notably his use of the sleep aid Ambien, which some believe have contributed to Musk’s controversial Twitter statements.

Last month, Musk came under fire for calling one of the cave divers who rescued 12 Thai soccer players and their coach a pedophile, citing no evidence. He later apologized for that remark.
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Stocks rose late in the day Friday as investors welcomed signs of progress in resolving the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. The Wall Street Journal reported that the countries hope to have a resolution by November.

Industrial, health care and basic materials companies made some of the biggest gains. The report came a day after China said it will send an envoy to Washington for the first talks between the countries since early June.

Marina Severinovsky, an investment strategist at Schroders, said stocks could jump if the U.S. and China make real progress toward a trade agreement. But stocks in emerging markets might make even bigger gains.

“The rally that could come, if there is a better outcome, would be in emerging markets,” she said. “China has suffered pretty greatly … the U.S. has held up pretty well.”

The late gains came in spite of weak results for several chipmakers. Electric car maker Tesla took its biggest drop in two years on reports of a wider government investigation into the company and concerns about CEO Elon Musk’s health.

The S&P 500 index rose 9.44 points, or 0.3 percent, at 2,850.13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 110.59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 25,669.32. The Nasdaq composite edged up 9.81 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,816.33. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gained 7.19 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,692.95.

The Wall Street Journal cited officials in both the U.S. and China as it said negotiators want to end the trade war before U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet at multilateral events in November.

Industrial companies made some of the biggest gains after agricultural equipment maker Deere posted stronger than expected sales. Its stock rose 2.4 percent to $140.59.

Construction equipment maker Caterpillar rose 2.3 percent to $139.34 and engine maker Paccar added 2.3 percent to $67.16.

Chipmakers fell after two companies gave weaker forecasts for the third quarter. Nvidia said it no longer expects much revenue from products used in mining digital currencies, and its stock fell 4.9 percent to $244.82. Applied Materials slumped 7.7 percent to $43.77.

While big names like Netflix, Facebook and Amazon slipped, Apple led technology companies slightly higher overall. Apple stock rose 2 percent to $217.58.

Nordstrom jumped 13.2 percent to $59.18 after raising its annual profit and sales forecasts and posting better earnings and sales than analysts expected. It’s been a mostly difficult week for department stores as Macy’s and J.C. Penney both plunged after issuing their quarterly reports.

The S&P 500 finished this week with a solid gain of 0.6 percent, but it took a difficult path to get there. Stocks fell early this week due to worries about Turkey’s currency crisis, and later investors fretted about China’s economic growth.

The recovery started Thursday as investors hoped the upcoming talks between the U.S. and China will help end the impasse that has resulted in higher tariffs from both countries.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong has fallen 13 percent since early June as the dispute has dragged on, and other emerging market indexes have also taken a hit. The S&P 500 has risen over that time.

Tesla was hit with a series of reports that concerned shareholders. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission started investigating the electric car maker last year to determine if it made false statements about production of its Model 3 sedan.

The SEC is also reportedly looking into CEO Elon Musk’s comment on Twitter about possibly taking the company private.

Tesla stock rose from about $345 a share to about $380 following Musk’s tweet last week, which said Tesla could go private for $420 a share. On Friday it dropped 8.9 percent to $305.50.

Musk also gave an emotional interview to the New York Times, published Friday, about the stress he’s experienced as the company tries to ramp up production. He said this year has been “excruciating” and described working up 120 hours a week, raising concerns about his health.

Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.86 percent from 2.87 percent.

U.S. crude picked up 0.7 percent to $65.91 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, added 0.6 percent to $71.83 per barrel in London.

Wholesale gasoline dipped 0.3 percent to $1.98 a gallon. Heating oil inched up 0.1 percent to $2.10 a gallon. Natural gas rose 1.3 percent to $2.95 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Gold was little changed at $1,184.20 an ounce. Silver fell 0.6 percent to $14.63 an ounce. Copper added 0.5 percent to $2.63 a pound.

The dollar dipped to 110.60 yen from 110.88 yen. The euro rose to $1.1443 from $1.1365.

The German DAX lost 0.2 percent and France’s CAC 40 fell 0.1 percent. The FTSE 100 in Britain was little changed.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index added 0.4 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4 percent. In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.3 percent.
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Unions at Air France-KLM voiced concern after the company appointed Benjamin Smith as the new CEO with the support of the French state.

The company said Thursday that Smith, who is 46 and was previously Air Canada’s chief operating officer, will fill the role by Sept. 30.

Vincent Salles, unionist at CGT-Air France union, said on France Info radio that unions fear Smith’s mission is to implement plans that would “deteriorate working conditions and wages.”

The previous CEO, Jean-Marc Janaillac, resigned in May after Air France employees held 13 days of strike over pay and rejected the company’s wage proposal, considered too low.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire welcomed an “opportunity” for Air France-KLM and expressed his confidence in Smith’s ability to “re-establish social dialogue.”
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President Donald Trump says he’s asking federal regulators to look into the effectiveness of the quarterly financial reports that publicly traded companies are required to file.

In a tweet early Friday, Trump said that after speaking with “some of the world’s top business leaders,” he’s asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether shifting to a six-month reporting regimen would make more sense.

The SEC requires such companies to share profit, revenue and other figures publicly every three months.

Some believe executives are making decisions based on short-term thinking to satisfy the market at the expense of the long-term viability of their companies.

There are also tremendous expenses tied to preparing quarterly and annual reports.
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