YCLOAK

French President Emmanuel Macron is formally launching a “grand debate” to try to appease the yellow vest movement following weeks of anti-government protests.

Macron heads Tuesday to Grand Bourgtheroulde, a small town in Normandy, where he is to meet about 600 mayors and local officials.

 

Despite a high security presence, a ban on traffic and restricted access to the town, dozens of yellow vests protesters gathered outside the town to express their discontent.

 

“We are being prevented from accessing the village,” said protester Florence Clement. “I was crossing the road with my yellow vest but I was asked to remove it because it’s forbidden.”

 

Macron started his journey with a stop in the small town of Gasny to attend a local officials’ meeting, where some expressed their concerns over the loss of purchasing power of retirees and civil servants.

Macron addressed this week a “letter to the French” to encourage people to express their views on a series of economic and political matters during a three-month “grand debate.”

 

The consultation will take place through local meetings and on the internet. The debate will focus on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy.

 

The French leader, whose popularity ratings hit record lows at the end of last year, hopes the process will help quell anger over his economic policies.

About 84,000 people turned out last weekend for the ninth round of anti-government demonstrations across France, according to the French Interior Ministry.

 

The yellow vest movement, prompted in November by a tax hike on diesel fuel, has expanded to encompass demands for wider changes to France’s economy to help struggling workers. Protesters have denounced Macron’s pro-business policies as favoring the rich.

 

The movement is named for the fluorescent garments French motorists are required to keep in vehicles.

 

 
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China’s trade surplus with the United States rose dramatically in 2018, despite a tit-for-tat tariff war with the U.S. that has roiled global markets.

The surplus stood at a record-high $323.3 billion, compared to $275.8 billion recorded the year before. 

Data released Monday by China’s customs bureau shows the country’s exports to the U.S. grew more than 11 percent in 2018. Imports from the United States rose only slightly (0.7 percent). 

But the data also revealed that exports slowed by 3.5 percent last month, as the administration of President Donald Trump imposed a series of stiff tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods to force Beijing to buy more American goods and to resolve issues involving technology, intellectual property and cyber theft issues.

The data also revealed mixed news about the strength of the world’s second-biggest economy – while China’s global trade surplus was $352 billion for 2018, its global exports dropped 4.4 percent in December compared to a year earlier, while imports plunged 7.6 percent, suggesting softening demand both at home and abroad.

Figures released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that car sales fell in 2018 – the first time in 20 years for a decline.
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The auto industry gathered in Detroit on Sunday, on the eve of the last winter edition of North America’s premiere auto show, as carmakers grapple with a contracting market and uncertainty in the year ahead.

Concerns over the health of the global economy and a US-China trade war loomed over the North American International Auto Show, as it prepared to open Monday with the first five days dedicated to the media and industry insiders. The show opens to the general public on January 19.

While a number of major announcements were expected — including an anticipated strategic alliance between Ford and Volkswagen — there will be fewer automakers and new car unveilings, making it more subdued. 

“This is a transition year for the Detroit show,” said analyst Michelle Krebs of Autotrader. “It’s kind of emblematic of where the industry is. We’re in a transition in the industry.”

After a 10-year boom, analysts expect North American auto sales to contract in 2019, as consumers face pressures and carmakers grapple with multiple uncertainties. 

Rising interest rates and car prices have squeezed car buyers, and fewer of them are able to afford increasingly pricey, technology-heavy cars. 

Kelley Blue Book predicted the average new-car price was up about three percent in 2018 to more than $36,000.

• Tariffs cause uncertainty –

Meanwhile, tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products and a potentially intensifying trade dispute between the Donald Trump administration and Beijing has automakers spooked, analysts said.

“Tariffs already had an impact in 2018,” said Cox Automotive chief analyst Jonathan Smoke, adding that 47 percent of the vehicles sold in the US in 2018 were imported. 

“We believe about two percent of today’s prices are because of the tariffs that were already implemented.”

The US is considering additional tariffs of 25 percent. Should it announce such a move by the February 17 deadline, it could have a substantial impact on the industry and stock markets, Smoke said. 

“We believe that they are likely to move forward with some form of that tariff, because it becomes then a lever for them to force… further negotiations.”

Should tariffs raise car prices further, analysts said it could substantially depress the new car market. Consumers would flock to relatively cheaper used cars, which are in ample supply. 

A growing number of lightly-used, tech-heavy vehicles leased during the sales boom of the last few years are being returned to dealerships.

The auto dealers association, which organizes the show, also was contending with the uncertainty of the show’s very relevance. Almost all German carmakers abandoned the show this year, as more and more important announcements are made at other gatherings. 

Next year, the Detroit show will move from January, when it has been held for some 40 years, to June.

• Goodbye winter – 

Organizers hope the summer weather will allow for outdoor events that allow attendees to try out the new cars and technologies on display.

“It’s run out of gas now,” said Krebs. “June could be a rebirth for the show.”

Among the few notable unveilings this year will be from Ford, which is expected to display a redesigned Explorer SUV and a more powerful version of its iconic Mustang sports car under the name Shelby GT500. 

SUVs and trucks will once again be the highlight, a symptom of North American consumers’ shift away from sedans and small cars. Trucks and SUVs made up a majority of new purchases in the US last year. 

“The SUVs have become cars with SUV bodies sitting on top of them,” said Karl Brauer of Kelly Blue Book. 

Detroit’s big three automakers have been ending production of almost all of their sedans and small cars, succumbing to the pressure of falling demand.

To hedge against the threat of a global economic downturn, GM has announced plans to close underutilized US plants that made smaller, less profitable vehicles. 

Ford planned similar cost-cutting moves in Europe.
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Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Sunday that major oil producers need to do better to narrow swings in prices that dip below $60 a barrel and rise above $86.

“I think what we need to do is narrow the range… of volatility,” Khalid al-Falih said.

 

“We need to do better and the more producers that work with us, the better we’re able” to do so, he told the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.

 

Cautious not to set a price target or range, he explained there are consequences when oil prices dip too low or rise too high.

 

Last month, OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, and other major oil producers agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day to reduce oversupply and boost prices for the first six months of 2019.

 

Oil producers are under pressure to reduce production following a sharp fall in oil prices in recent months because major producers — including the United States — are pumping oil at high rates.

 

Brent crude, the international standard, traded at $60.48 a barrel in London on Friday. Benchmark U.S. crude stood at $51.59 a barrel in New York.

 

Analysts say the kingdom needs oil between $75 and $80 a barrel to balance its budget, with spending for this year to reach a record high of $295 billion.

 

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the forum, al-Falih said that despite continued concerns over the volatility in price seen in the fourth quarter of 2018, he is hopeful it can be brought under control.

 

“I think early signs this year are positive,” he said.

 

Last week, Saudi Arabia announced it has 268.5 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, a figure 2.2 billion barrels higher than previously known. The kingdom’s Energy Ministry also revised upward the country’s gas reserves by around 10 percent, to 325.1 trillion standard cubic feet as of the end of 2017.

 

The kingdom’s oil reserves are among the cheapest in the world to recover at around $4 per barrel.

 

Al-Falih said the revision, conducted as an independent audit by consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton, points to why the kingdom believes state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco “is indeed the world’s most valuable company.”

 

He said plans for an initial public offering of shares in Aramco in 2021 remain on track.

 

 
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Zimbabwe will introduce a new currency in the next 12 months, the finance minister said, as a shortage of U.S. dollars has plunged the financial system into disarray and forced businesses to close.

In the past two months, the southern African nation has suffered acute shortages of imported goods, including fuel whose price was increased by 150 percent Saturday.

Zimbabwe abandoned its own currency in 2009 after it was wrecked by hyperinflation and adopted the greenback and other currencies, such as sterling and the South African rand.

But there is not enough hard currency in the country to back up the $10 billion of electronic funds trapped in local bank accounts, prompting demands from businesses and civil servants for cash that can be deposited and used to make payments.

​Two weeks of reserves

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told a townhall meeting Friday a new local currency would be introduced in less than 12 months.

“On the issue of raising enough foreign currency to introduce the new currency, we are on our way already, give us months, not years,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s foreign reserves now provide less than two weeks cover for imports, central bank data show. The government has previously said it would only consider launching a new currency if it had at least six months of reserves.

Bad memories of Zimbabwean dollar

Locals are haunted by memories of the Zimbabwean dollar, which became worthless as inflation spiraled to reach 500 billion percent in 2008, the highest rate in the world for a country not at war, wiping out pensions and savings.

A surrogate bond note currency introduced in 2016 to stem dollar shortages has also collapsed in value.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is under pressure to revive the economy but dollar shortages are undermining efforts to win back foreign investors sidelined under his predecessor Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa told reporters Saturday that the price of petrol had increased to $3.31 per liter from $1.32 since midnight but there would be no increase for foreign embassies and tourists paying in cash U.S. dollars.

Locals can pay via local debit cards, mobile phone payments and a surrogate bond note currency.

With less than $400 million in actual cash in Zimbabwe, according to central bank figures, fuel shortages have worsened and companies are struggling to import raw materials and equipment, forcing them to buy greenback notes on the black market at a premium of up to 370 percent.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries has warned some of its members could stop operating at the end of the month because of the dollar crunch.

Cooking oil and soap maker Olivine Industries said Saturday it had suspended production and put workers on indefinite leave because it owed foreign suppliers $11 million.

A local associate of global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Inbev said this week it would invest more than $120 million of dividends and fees trapped in Zimbabwe into the central bank’s savings bonds.
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Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX will reduce its workforce by about 10 percent of the company’s more than 6,000 employees, it said on Friday.

The company said it will “part ways” with some of its manpower, citing “extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead.”

“To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space based

Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations,” a spokesman said in an email.

In June, Elon Musk fired at least seven people in the senior management team leading a SpaceX satellite launch project, Reuters reported in November. The firings were related to disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites.

SpaceX’s Starlink program is competing with OneWeb and Canada’s Telesat to be the first to market with a new satellite-based internet service.

The management shakeup involved Musk bringing in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired in Seattle.

Last month, SpaceX launched its first U.S. national security space mission, when a SpaceX rocket carrying a U.S. military navigation satellite blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.

In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX was raising $500 million, taking its valuation to $30.5 billion.

The Hawthorne, California-based company had earlier outlined plans for a trip to Mars in 2022, to be followed by a manned mission to the red planet by 2024.

Another Elon Musk company, electric car maker Tesla Inc , said in June it was cutting 9 percent of its workforce by removing several thousand jobs across the company in cost reduction measures.

 
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The United States on Friday signaled it would not bow to the European Union’s request to keep agriculture out of planned U.S.-EU trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for American farm products.

The objectives, required by Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek to reduce or eliminate EU tariffs on U.S. farm products and break down non-tariff barriers, including on products developed through biotechnology, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said.

Agricultural issues were among the major sticking points in past negotiations for a major U.S.-EU trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), before talks were shelved after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington on Wednesday that the 28-country bloc could not negotiate on agriculture in a new, more limited set of negotiations expected to start this year.

“We have made very clear agriculture will not be included,” Malmstrom told reporters after meeting Lighthizer, adding that the two sides had not yet agreed on the scope of the talks.

Trump and EU president Jean-Claude Juncker agreed last July to re-launch negotiations to cut tariffs on industrial goods, including autos, and also discuss ways for Europe to buy more U.S. soybeans.

Trump told Juncker that he would refrain from levying threatened 25-percent tariffs on EU-produced cars and auto parts, which he is considering imposing worldwide on national security grounds.

Trump has long complained about Europe’s 10-percent import tariff on autos. The U.S. passenger car tariff is only 2.5 percent, although U.S. tariffs on pickup trucks and other commercial trucks are 25 percent.

The U.S. negotiating wish list does not specifically mention autos, but pledges to seek duty-free market access for U.S. industrial goods that eliminate non-tariff barriers such as “unnecessary differences in regulation.”

USTR’s decision to push for a full-fledged trade negotiation on agricultural goods follows a hearing in December at which U.S. farm, food and beverage groups argued for their products to be included.

Influential lawmakers such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa farmer, have warned they might not support an EU deal that did not include agriculture. Now that the U.S. objectives have been published, the USTR may be ready to formally launch negotiations in as little as 30 days.

But the EU’s own negotiating mandates on industrial goods and regulatory cooperation need to be cleared by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, and approved by member states, and it is unclear how long that process will take.

The United States had a $151 billion goods deficit with the EU in 2017, despite two-way annual trade of about $1.1 billion. USTR also said it will seek commitments by Europe not to impose duties on any digital downloads of U.S. software, movies, music and other products nor any rules that restrict cross-border data flows or require data localization, USTR said.

In an objective aimed at Europe’s efforts to tax products and services from U.S.-based internet giants, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook and Amazon.com, USTR said it would seek a “guarantee that these products will  not face government-sanctioned discrimination based on the nationality or territory in which the product is produced.”
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Uganda’s growing debt is sustainable, and the country is not at risk of losing state assets to China, the country’s finance minister, Matia Kasaija, said this week.

Uganda’s auditor-general warned in a report released this month that public debt from June 2017 to 2018 had increased from $9.1 billion to $11.1 billion.

The report — without naming China — warned that conditions placed on major loans were a threat to Uganda’s sovereign assets. 

It said that in some loans, Uganda had agreed to waive sovereignty over properties if it defaults on the debt — a possibility that Kasaija rejected.

“China taking over assets? … in Uganda, I have told you, as long as some of us are still in charge, unless there is really a catastrophe, and which I don’t see at all, that will make this economy going behind. So, … I’m not worried about China taking assets. They can do it elsewhere, I don’t know. But here, I don’t think it will come,” he said.

China is one of Uganda’s biggest country-lenders, with about $3 billion in development projects through state-owned banks.

China’s Exim Bank has funded about 85 percent of two major Ugandan power projects — Karuma and Isimba dams. It also financed and built Kampala’s $476 million Entebbe Express Highway to the airport, which cuts driving time by more than half. China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation, France’s Total, and Britain’s Tullow Oil co-own Uganda’s western oil fields, set to be tapped by 2021.

Economist Fred Muhumuza says China’s foot in Uganda’s oil could be one way it decides to take back what is owed. 

“They might determine the price, as part of recovering their loan,” he said. “By having a foot in there they will say fine, we are going to pay you for oil. But instead of giving you $60 a barrel, you owe us. We’ll give you $55. The $5 you are paying the old debt. But we are reaching a level where you don’t see this oil being an answer to the current debt problem.”

China’s reach

Uganda’s worries about China seizing national assets are not the first in Africa.

A leaked December report in Kenya showed China was promised parts of Mombasa Port as collateral for financing a $3 billion railway it built from the port to Nairobi. Both Chinese and Kenyan officials have denied that the port’s ownership is at risk.

Reports in September that China was taking over Zambia’s state power company over unpaid debt rippled across Africa, despite government denials.

But the fear of a Chinese takeover of a sovereign state’s assets over debt is not completely without merit. Struggling to pay back loans to state-owned Chinese firms, Sri Lanka in 2017 handed over a strategic port.
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Despite the U.S. stock market recovery, Macy’s and American Airlines’ revised revenue forecasts for 2018 have sent their stock prices spiraling. Other retail stocks fell, too, including J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and Kohl’s. The reports come amid news of another iconic department store, Sears, fighting for survival. But U.S. trade and financial officials say the U.S. economy is on solid ground and will continue to grow for years to come. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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The 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid or are working without pay during the partial government shutdown were the first to feel its impact. But as Anna Kook reports, other segments of the economy are also being hurt, especially in Washington, home to the largest number of federal workers in the country.
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U.S. officials expect a visit from China’s top trade negotiator this month in Washington, signaling that higher-level discussions are likely to follow this week’s talks with midlevel officials in Beijing as the world’s two largest economies try to reach a deal to end a tit-for-tat tariff war.

“The current intent is that the Vice Premier Liu He will most likely come and visit us later in the month and I would expect the government shutdown would have no impact,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters Thursday in Washington. “We will continue with those meetings just as we sent a delegation to China.”

The U.S. government is in the 20th day of a partial shutdown with President Donald Trump, a Republican, and congressional Democrats feuding over funding and Trump’s desire for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

People familiar with the talks in Beijing said Thursday that hopes were mounting that Liu would continue talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mnuchin.

Higher level, key decisions

Talks at that level are viewed as important for making the key decisions to ease a festering trade war, which has disrupted trade flows for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods and roiled global markets.

Trump has demanded better terms of trade with China, with the United States pressing Beijing to address issues that would require structural change such as intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and other non-tariff barriers.

On Thursday Trump said the United States was having “tremendous success” in its trade negotiations with China. A spokeswoman for Lighthizer’s office declined to comment.

​Few details on progress

More than halfway through a 90-day truce in the U.S.-China trade war agreed on Dec. 1 when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the G20 summit in Argentina, there have been few details provided of any progress made.

Trump has vowed to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports March 2 if China fails to take steps to protect U.S. intellectual property, end policies that force American companies to turn over technology to a Chinese partner, allow more market access for U.S. businesses and reduce other non-tariff barriers to American products.

Ambitious timeline and hope

The timeline is seen as ambitious, but the resumption of face-to-face negotiations has bolstered hopes of a deal.

“We have the two sides back at the table. That’s encouraging,” said Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s head of international affairs, while speaking to reporters at an event Thursday.

China’s commerce ministry said Thursday that additional consultations with the United States were being arranged after the Beijing talks addressed structural issues and helped establish a foundation to resolve U.S. and Chinese concerns.

Commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters the two sides were “serious” and “honest.”

Asked about China’s stance on issues such as forced technology transfers, intellectual property rights, non-tariff barriers and cyber attacks, and whether China was confident it could reach agreement with the United States, Gao said these issues were “an important part” of the Beijing talks.

“There has been progress in these areas,” he said without elaborating.

China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfers.

‘Cordial standoff’

Discussions on those issues were an extensive part of the talks, said people in Washington familiar with the discussions.

Chinese officials listened “politely” to U.S. grievances, they said, but responded by saying that the Americans had some issues wrong and misunderstood others, but that some other issues could be addressed.

“It was a cordial standoff,” said one person familiar with the discussions. China has said it will not give ground on issues that it perceives as core.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said officials from the two sides discussed “ways to achieve fairness, reciprocity and balance in trade relations,” and focused on China’s pledge to buy a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured, and other products and services from the United States.”

The U.S. trade agency said the talks also focused on ways to ensure enforcement and verification of Chinese follow-through on any commitments it makes to the United States.

Steps taken

U.S. and Chinese officials made more progress on straightforward issues such as working out the details of Chinese pledges to buy a “substantial amount” of U.S. agricultural, energy and manufactured goods and services, sources said.

Since the Trump-Xi meeting, China has resumed purchases of U.S. soybeans. Buying had slumped after China imposed a 25 percent import duty on U.S. shipments of the oilseed on July 6 in response to U.S. tariffs.

China has also cut tariffs on U.S. cars, dialed back on an industrial development plan known as “Made in China 2025” and told its state refiners to buy more U.S. oil.

Earlier this week, China approved five genetically modified crops for import, the first in about 18 months, which could boost its overseas grains purchases and ease U.S. pressure to open its markets to more farm goods.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday stressed again that the U.S. central bank can be patient in approving any further rate increases as officials gauge whether the U.S. economy will slow this year, as some in financial markets worry, or continue motoring ahead as the Fed itself expects.

Powell’s second appearance in less than a week generated a subdued response in financial markets, a sign he may have found his footing in how to describe central bank policy without surprising investors. Several of his recent appearances have generated large market swings in both directions.

With no sign of excessive inflation or outsized risk in financial markets, Powell said the Fed would be “waiting and watching” in coming months.

“Especially with inflation low and under control, we have the ability to be patient and watch patiently and carefully as we … figure out which of these two narratives is going to be the story of 2019,” Powell said at the Economic Club of Washington.

 

WATCH: Despite Volatility in Retail Stocks, US Officials Predict Continued Growth

The S&P 500 edged up 0.45 percent on Thursday, while yields on Treasury securities were unchanged. In contrast, his remarks in his three previous appearances since late November moved stocks an average of 2.4 percent in either direction, and his comments last Friday spurred the largest market reaction yet to any of his 17 public appearances since taking office last February.

The S&P gained 3.43 percent, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose 11 basis points.

In that appearance Powell emphasized the Fed’s flexibility and patience in evaluating data, easing expectations of steady rate hikes in a message amplified by a half dozen other Fed officials in recent days.

Bullard is blunt

In remarks at an appearance in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Thursday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was blunt, saying that the central bank had reached the “end of the road” in its current rate increase cycle.

Powell and others have been less demonstrative and noted that economic data remains strong, particularly after a recent payroll report that showed more than 300,000 jobs added in December. 

The central bank’s vice chairman, Richard Clarida, said later on Thursday that if the global slowdown and tightening of financial markets persists, the Fed would take policy steps to offset that. It would not want to wait too long to see overseas weakness affect the U.S. economy, he added.

Powell on Thursday also reiterated that, separate from what happens with interest rates, the Fed would continue allowing its nearly $4 trillion portfolio of bonds to shrink each month, to a level “substantially smaller” than it is now.

The monthly reductions, effectively running on autopilot, have been criticized by some as a steady tightening of financial conditions the Fed should reconsider.

New narrative 

 Still, Powell’s comments and those of other officials “are developing a new narrative … Big picture: they don’t have that much further to go and they don’t have to go there fast,” said Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist with PGIM Fixed Income in Newark, New Jersey.

Part of that message is meant to downplay the significance of the policy projections that officials issue every three months. The latest forecasts issued in December suggested rates could rise by a median of two more times in 2019, but Powell said it was a mistake to construe that as any sort of official forecast or “plan.”

“There is no such plan,” Powell said. “That was conditional on a very strong outlook for 2019,” which may or may not materialize, with the Fed adjusting policy accordingly.

The U.S. central bank raised rates four times last year in the face of robust economic growth and unemployment that touched its lowest level in half a century.

Fed officials and many forecasters expect growth to slow in 2019, but to remain strong enough to continue generating jobs and keeping the unemployment rate near its almost 50-year low.

No evidence of recession

While markets may be concerned about global trade tensions and slower growth overseas, Powell said there is no evidence of a U.S. recession on the horizon. If conditions weaken, the Fed would react.

“There is no pre-set path for rates … particularly now,” he said. If global growth slows more, “I can assure you … we can flexibly and quickly move policy, and we can do so significantly if that’s appropriate,” he added. 

The Fed chief was also asked about the partial U.S. government shutdown. He said an “extended” shutdown would show up in economic data “pretty quickly” and, since it shutters some agencies that provide economic data, it would also make the picture of the economy less clear for the Fed.
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Rising global authoritarianism, trade protectionism and the weakening of global institutions threaten U.S. businesses, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned Thursday.

In his annual address, Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said for now the U.S. economy is strong and business owners are consistently optimistic, crediting “deregulation and tax reform.”

But Donohue also defended the system of alliances and multilateral institutions set up by the United States after World War II – an implicit criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.

“The U.S. and our allies spent the last 70 years working to expand democracy and freedom,” Donohue said. “Today, we face the task of rebuilding domestic consensus for supporting democracy abroad.”

Donohue also warned against domestic political dysfunction, including the inability of U.S. lawmakers to pass immigration reform.

The comments come amid a prolonged partial government shutdown related to President Donald Trump’s demand for Congress to provide funds to build a wall on the southern U.S. border.

Building the wall would fulfill a key campaign promise for Trump, who regularly portrays immigrants as a threat. Though he didn’t criticize Trump directly, Donohue said immigrants are crucial to the U.S. economy.

“Employers don’t have the workers they need at every skill level in key industries such as health, agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation,” Donohue said. “Our nation must continue to attract and welcome industrious and innovative people from all over the world.”

U.S. lawmakers, he said, should reach a compromise that would provide legal protection for the so-called Dreamers, who came to the U.S. illegally as children. He also called for Congress to approve the “resources necessary to secure the border.”

Donohue also slammed Trump’s trade policies, saying tariffs on China and other countries are “taxes paid by American families and American businesses, not by foreigners.”

“Instead of undermining our own economy, let’s work with our allies to apply pressure on China and use the tools provided by the U.S. trade and international laws that we helped create,” he said.
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Jaguar Land Rover said Thursday it will cut 4,500 jobs as the carmaker addresses slowing demand in China and growing uncertainty about the U.K.’s departure from the European Union.

The luxury carmaker, owned by India’s Tata conglomerate, said the cuts will be in addition to 1,500 people who left the business in 2018. The cost-cutting program will begin with a voluntary reduction program in the U.K., where some 44,000 people are employed.

 

The latest job losses follow on from last year’s 2.5 billion-pound ($3.2 billion) turnaround plan that was designed to deal with many of the headwinds facing the company — Brexit, rising trade tensions between China and the U.S. and new European emissions standards combined to push Jaguar into the red in the three months to Sept. 30, compared with the same period the year before. The company also announced further investment in electrification.

 

“The next chapter in the story of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands will be the most exciting — and challenging — in our history,” CEO Ralf Speth said in a statement. “Revealing the iconic Defender, investing in cleaner, smarter, more desirable cars and electrifying our facilities to manufacture a future range of British-built electric vehicles will all form part of building a globally competitive and flourishing company.”

 

Christian Stadler, professor of strategic management at Warwick Business School, said Jaguar was facing a “perfect storm of challenges,” with the drop in Chinese sales being the most immediate problem.

 

“That is JLR’s biggest market, but car buyers there are reluctant to make expensive purchases as the economy is growing at its slowest rate for a decade and the country is locked in a trade war with the U.S.,” Stadler said. “At the same time Chinese dealers are demanding better terms, which JLR has resisted.”

 

The cuts will not just be bad news for the Jaguar staff, Stadler said. Thousands more workers in the U.K. are part of Jaguar supply chain to the carmaker — jobs that will now also be at risk.

 

“Brexit is another factor, with businesses increasingly concerned about the prospect of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, which would mean tighter border controls,” he said. “That would cause massive disruption as the U.K. car manufacturing industry is so closely integrated with Europe.”

 

Also Thursday, Ford signaled “significant” cuts among its 50,000-strong workforce under plans to make it more competitive. The Dearborn Michigan-based company also said it would shift to more electric models.
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India’s Parliament on Wednesday approved a bill providing a 10 percent quota in government jobs for the poor members of upper castes who have been excluded from existing quotas for low-ranking castes.

The Congress party and other opposition parties supported the legislation, but criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for getting it approved just months before the national elections, in an effort the opposition claimed was aimed at winning votes.

The Modi government surprised the opposition by unexpectedly moving the bill in the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday and getting it approved. The upper house adopted it by sitting late into night on Wednesday during the final day of the current parliamentary session. The bill now only needs the approval of India’s president, a formality, to become law.

Discrimination under the caste system was outlawed soon after India’s independence from Britain in 1947. But the system’s influence remains strong and the government has sought to redress discrimination against those on the lower rungs by setting up quotas for government jobs and university spots.

Until now, 49.5 percent of government jobs and places in state-funded educational institutions were allocated to the lower castes.

The economically poor among higher castes have been clamoring for a similar quota to improve the quality of their lives.

Modi on Wednesday hailed the passage of the bill in Parliament in a tweet as a way for younger, economically disadvantaged Indians from higher castes “to showcase their prowess and contribute toward India’s transformation.”

Opposition lawmakers, including D. Raja of the Communist Party of India and Satish Mishra of the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party representing the lower castes, said the government provided the job quota to upper caste Indians to save embarrassment from its failure to create 2 millions jobs every year as promised after coming to power in 2014.

“Job quotas are being provided as a substitute for jobs,” said Ashish Nandy, a well-known political commentator.

The new law will face a test in India’s Supreme Court, which has put a 50 per cent cap on job quotas in the country based on social and educational backwardness.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the job quota for upper castes would not be affected by any court restrictions because it was introduced because of an economic need.

Critics have said the lower castes should be strengthened through education rather than quotas because many jobs and university spots that have been reserved for them remain empty.

 
…

China’s Commerce Ministry says that the United States and Beijing made progress in discussions about structural issues such as forced technology transfers and intellectual property rights during trade talks this week. But the lack of details from both sides following the meetings highlights the uncertainty that remains, analysts say.

The talks, which were originally scheduled to wrap up on Tuesday stretched to the evening and into Wednesday.

 

U.S. officials have said the talks are going well, a point Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng echoed on Thursday at a regular briefing.

 

“The length of the meetings shows that both sides were serious and sincere about the talks,” he said. “Structural issues were an important part of this round of talks and there has been progress in these areas.”

 

Gao did not comment, however, on whether he was confident that the talks could be wrapped up in the 90-day period laid out by President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.

 

Also, he did not say when the next round of talks might be held or who might attend, only that discussions between the two sides continue.

 

In early December, Washington and Beijing agreed to hold off on raising tariffs and to try and reach a deal before the beginning of March. Structural issues and concerns about barriers to investment in China are seen as some of the biggest obstacles to the deal.

 

On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told the U.S cable news Fox Business Network that the administration is expecting something to come out of the talks.

“We are moving towards a more balanced and reciprocal trade agreement with China,” she said, adding that no one knows yet what that agreement will look like or when it will be ready.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office gave only a few details about the talks in Beijing, noting in a statement that the discussions “focused on China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured goods, and other products and services from the United States.”

At the briefing, Gao did not provide any details about what further purchases China might make.

Darson Chiu, an economist and research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said the pledges China made looked similar to those it had offered earlier last year. He said it was hard to be optimistic about this first round of talks.

“It looks like short-term compromises have been made, but it remains to be seen if both superpowers are able to resolve their [structural] conflicts,” Chiu said.

 

He said that if more compromises are made when Chinese Vice Premier Liu He meets U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, an official who is viewed as being more hawkish on trade with China, the crisis will only be halfway averted.

 

“I don’t think the U.S. will easily remove tariffs that have been imposed on Chinese goods. This is what China has wished for, but I think the U.S. will wait and see,” Chiu said.

 

Issues such as intellectual property enforcement are very difficult and complex, notes Xu Chenggang, a professor of economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. China can say it will do more, but it already has laws for intellectual property protection.

 

“Really here the key is the reality,” Xu said. “It’s the enforcement of the law and the enforcement of the law is an institutional issue,” which depends on the independence of China’s judiciary system.

 

Washington has given Beijing a long list of changes that it would like to see from intellectual property rights protection enforcement to industrial subsidies and other non-tariff barriers.

The United States has said that any deal with China must be followed up with ongoing verification and enforcement.

If the two sides are unable to reach a deal by March, President Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25 percent and to possibly levy additional tariffs that would extend to all imports from China.

Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
…

The United States says talks in Beijing on ending a bruising trade war focused on Chinese promises to buy more American goods. But it gave no indication of progress on resolving disputes over Beijing’s technology ambitions and other thorny issues.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday the two sides would “maintain close contact.” But neither side gave any indication of the next step during their 90-day cease-fire in a tariff fight that threatens to chill global economic growth.

That uncertainty left Asian stock markets mixed Thursday. Share prices had risen Wednesday after President Donald Trump fueled optimism on Twitter about possible progress.

The U.S. Trade Representative, which leads the American side of the talks, said negotiators focused on China’s pledge to buy a “substantial amount” of agricultural, energy, manufactured goods and other products and services.

No signs of progress

However, the USTR statement emphasized American insistence on “structural changes” in Chinese technology policy, market access, protection of foreign patents and copyrights and cybertheft of trade secrets. It gave no sign of progress in those areas. 

Trump hiked tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods over complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. 

Washington also wants changes in an array of areas including the ruling Communist Party’s initiatives for government-led creation of global competitors in robotics, artificial intelligence and other industries.

American leaders worry those plans might erode U.S. industrial leadership, but Chinese leaders see them as a path to prosperity and global influence and are reluctant to abandon them.

The two sides might be moving toward a “narrow agreement,” but “U.S. trade hawks” want to “limit the scope of that agreement and keep the pressure up on Beijing,” said Eurasia Group analysts of Michael Hirson, Jeffrey Wright and Paul Triolo in a report.

“The risk of talks breaking down remains significant,” they wrote.

​White House optimism

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders expressed optimism to Fox Business Network. She said the timing was unclear but the two sides “are moving towards a more balanced and reciprocal trade agreement with China.”

The U.S. statement said negotiations dealt with the need for “ongoing verification and effective enforcement.” That reflects American frustration that the Chinese have failed to live up to past commitments.

Beijing has tried to defuse pressure from Washington and other trading partners over industrial policy promising to buy more imports and open its industries wider to foreign competitors.

Trump has complained repeatedly about the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year likely exceeded the 2017 gap of $336 billion.

​Enthusiasm wears thin

U.S. stocks surged Wednesday on optimism higher-level U.S. and Chinese officials might meet.

That enthusiasm was wearing thin Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.5 percent while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.4 percent.

Economists say the 90-day window is too short to resolve all the conflicts between the biggest and second-biggest global economies.

“We can confidently say that enough progress was made that the discussions will continue at a higher level,” said Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “That is very positive.”

Chinese exports to the U.S. have held up despite tariff increases, partly because of exporters rushing to fill orders before more increases hit. Forecasters expect American orders to slump this year.

China has imposed penalties on $110 billion of American goods, slowing customs clearance for U.S. companies and suspending issuing licenses in finance and other businesses.

U.S. companies also want action on Chinese policies they complain improperly favor local companies. Those include subsidies and other favors for high-tech and state-owned industry, rules on technology licensing and preferential treatment of domestic suppliers in government procurement.

For its part, Beijing is unhappy with U.S. export and investment curbs, such as controls on “dual use” technology with possible military applications. They say China’s companies are treated unfairly in national security reviews of proposed corporate acquisitions, though almost all deals are approved unchanged.

This week’s talks went ahead despite tension over the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Canada on U.S. charges related to possible violations of trade sanctions against Iran. 
…

Three days of trade talks in Beijing between the United States and China ended Wednesday with the White House expressing optimism.

“We expect something will come out of this,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told the Fox Business Network. “We are moving towards a more balanced and reciprocal trade agreement with China.”

But Sanders said no one knows yet what that agreement will look like or when it will be ready.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office gave no details on the talks in Beijing other than saying they are “focused on China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured goods, and other products and services from the United States.”

But it also said any deal with China must be followed up with ongoing verification and enforcement.

There was no comment from Beijing on the talks, which were supposed to last just two days, but were extended for a third day after progress was apparently being made.

These were the first direct talks between U.S. and Chinese officials since Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in December in Argentina and agreed to a 90-day truce in their trade war.

Both sides imposed heavy tariffs on each others’ exports last year after Trump complained about China’s theft of U.S. technology and pressure on U.S. companies doing business there to hand over such information.

The U.S. has also long complained about China’s government subsidies that make Chinese products cheaper than U.S. goods on the world market.

China says it is trying to protect its own economic interests and has accused the U.S. of violating international trading rules.

Asian stocks surged at the conclusion of the trade negotiations. Hong Kong was up 2.1 percent and Tokyo up more than 1 percent.

But U.S. indexes posted modest gains.
…

Visitors to Singapore’s Orchard Road, the city’s main shopping belt, will find fancy malls, trendy department stores, abundant food courts — and a small farm. 

 

Comcrop’s 600-square-meter (6,450-square-foot) farm on the roof of one of the malls uses vertical racks and hydroponics to grow leafy greens and herbs such as basil and peppermint that it sells to nearby bars, restaurants and stores. 

 

The farm’s small size belies its big ambition: to help improve the city’s food security. 

 

Comcrop’s Allan Lim, who set up the rooftop farm five years ago, recently opened a 4,000-square-meter farm with a greenhouse on the edge of the city. 

 

He believes high-tech urban farms are the way ahead for the city, where more land cannot be cultivated. 

 

“Agriculture is not seen as a key sector in Singapore. But we import most of our food, so we are very vulnerable to sudden disruptions in supply,” Lim said. 

 

“Land, natural resources and low-cost labor used to be the predominant way that countries achieved food security. But we can use technology to solve any deficiencies,” he said. 

 

Singapore last year topped the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Food Security Index of 113 countries for the first time, scoring high on measures such as affordability, availability and safety. 

 

Yet, as the country imports more than 90 percent of its food, its food security is susceptible to climate change and natural resource risks, the EIU noted. 

 

With 5.6 million people in an area three-fifths the size of New York City — and with the population estimated to grow to 6.9 million by 2030 — land is at a premium in Singapore. 

 

The country has long reclaimed land from the sea, and plans to move more of its transport, utilities and storage underground to free up space for housing, offices and greenery. 

 

It has also cleared dozens of cemeteries for homes and highways.  

Agriculture makes up only about 1 percent of its land area, so better use of space is key, said Samina Raja, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo in New York. 

 

“Urban agriculture is increasingly being recognized as a legitimate land use in cities,” she said. “It offers a multitude of benefits, from increased food security and improved nutrition to greening of spaces. But food is seldom a part of urban planning.” 

 

Supply shocks

Countries across the world are battling the worsening impacts of climate change, water scarcity and population growth to find better ways to feed their people. 

 

Scientists are working on innovations — from gene editing of crops and lab-grown meat to robots and drones — to fundamentally change how food is grown, distributed and eaten. 

 

With more than two-thirds of the world’s population forecast to live in cities by 2050, urban agriculture is critical, a study published last year stated. 

 

Urban agriculture currently produces as much as 180 million metric tons of food a year — up to 10 percent of the global output of pulses and vegetables, the study noted. 

 

Additional benefits, such as reduction of the urban heat-island effect, avoided stormwater runoff, nitrogen fixation and energy savings could be worth $160 billion annually, it said. 

 

Countries including China, India, Brazil and Indonesia could benefit significantly from urban agriculture, it said. 

 

“Urban agriculture should not be expected to eliminate food insecurity, but that should not be the only metric,” said study co-author Matei Georgescu, a professor of urban planning at Arizona State University. 

 

“It can build social cohesion among residents, improve economic prospects for growers, and have nutritional benefits. In addition, greening cities can help to transition away from traditional concrete jungles,” he said. 

 

Singapore was once an agrarian economy that produced nearly all its own food. There were pig farms and durian orchards, and vegetable gardens and chickens in the kampongs, or villages. 

 

But in its push for rapid economic growth after independence in 1965, industrialization took precedence, and most farms were phased out, said Kenny Eng, president of the Kranji Countryside Association, which represents local farmers.  

The global food crisis of 2007-08, when prices spiked, causing widespread economic instability and social unrest, may have led the government to rethink its food security strategy to guard against such shocks, Eng said. 

 

“In an age of climate uncertainty and rapid urbanization, there are merits to protecting indigenous agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods,” he said. 

 

Local production is a core component of the food security road map, according to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore, a state agency that helps farmers upgrade with technical know-how, research and overseas study tours. 

 

Given its land constraints, AVA has also been looking to unlock more spaces, including underutilized or alternative spaces, and harness technological innovations to “grow more with less,” a spokeswoman said by email. 

 

Intrinsic value

A visit to the Kranji countryside, just a 45-minute drive from the city’s bustling downtown, and where dozens of farms are located, offers a view of the old and the new. 

 

Livestock farms and organic vegetable plots sit alongside vertical farms and climate-controlled greenhouses. 

 

Yet many longtime farmers are fearful of the future, as the government pushes for upgrades and plans to relocate more than 60 farms by 2021 to return land to the military. 

 

Many farms might be forced to shut down, said Chelsea Wan, a second-generation farmer who runs Jurong Frog Farm. 

 

“It’s getting tougher because leases are shorter, it’s harder to hire workers, and it’s expensive to invest in new technologies,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

 

“We support the government’s effort to increase productivity through technology, but we feel sidelined,” she said. 

 

Wan is a member of the Kranji Countryside Association, which has tried to spur local interest in farming by welcoming farmers’ markets, study tours, homestays and weddings. 

 

Small peri-urban farms at the edge of the city, like those in Kranji, are not just necessary for food security, Eng said. 

 

“The countryside is an inalienable part of our heritage and nation-building, and the farms have an intrinsic value for education, conservation, the community and tourism,” he said. 

 

At the rooftop farm on Orchard Road, Lim looks on as brisk, elderly Singaporeans, whom he has hired to get around the worker shortage, harvest, sort and pack the day’s output. 

 

“It’s not a competition between urban farms and landed farms; it’s a question of relevance,” he said. “You have to ask: What works best in a city like Singapore?” 
…

The fight against poverty is getting help from a new direction: up.

Satellite imagery is helping researchers map areas of extreme poverty. It may help officials identify faster and more accurately when development policies and programs are working, and when they aren’t.

Eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015.

Experts usually measure poverty by using census data and household surveys. But these tools are expensive, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Countries typically do them only once every several years.

On the other hand, satellites map the entire surface of the globe at high resolution every several days. The imagery is getting better and cheaper as a growing number of public and private satellite networks go into service.

What satellites see

Researchers have used the brightness of lights in nighttime photos to estimate a region’s economic activity. Others have applied machine learning to identify richer and poorer villages from satellite imagery. Another group sorted wealthy and impoverished villages and neighborhoods based on building density and vegetation cover.

A new study takes the most detailed look to date. Within a single village, it distinguished the poorest individual households from their wealthier neighbors with 62 percent accuracy.

The study focuses on Sauri, a village in rural Kenya that was part of the Millennium Villages Project, a large-scale poverty alleviation experiment. Detailed information on each household’s income and assets was collected in 2005.

In satellite images of the village, researchers measured the size of each dwelling and studied the agricultural land surrounding it.

Not surprisingly, smaller homes generally housed poorer people.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that poorer households tended to have more bare farm fields in September. In this part of Kenya, that usually means farmers are preparing the land for a second crop.

That’s a risky undertaking, said University of Edinburgh geographer and study lead author Gary Watmough, because the late-season rains fail up to half the time in this region.

“Generally, [late-season planting] is only done by the poorer households because it’s a necessity,” he said. “They either don’t have enough land or they need to have that insurance, just in case something else goes wrong.”

Satellite imagery also found poorer households’ fields were growing crops for shorter periods of time.

“When we looked back into our field data, we could see that often poorer households were actually not planting their crops in their own fields as early as others,” Watmough said. “That was because they were contracting themselves out to plant other, wealthier households’ crops first.”

The money they earned went toward buying seeds. But that meant their own crops had less time to grow.

Exciting and a little scary

The study is a big step forward, demonstrating “the potential for satellite data to distinguish between the wealth of you and your neighbor,” said World Bank economist David Newhouse, who was not involved with the research. “Which is scary, a little bit, but also somewhat exciting.”

He suggested that privacy concerns would need to be addressed before it could be scaled up.

Also, the markers of poverty found in this area will not be the same everywhere. The approach would need to be tailored to different locations. And the system’s accuracy — 62 percent — is not great on its own.

“I think the science is pretty far ahead of the practical feasibility,” Newhouse said.

It’s probably best not to rely solely on satellite data, experts say. The charity GiveDirectly used satellite images to target donations to people in villages with a high proportion of thatched roofs. These villages were considered worse off than those with more metal roofs.

But people figured it out. Some claimed to live in thatched-roof structures next to their metal-roofed houses in order to qualify for donations.

“This is really a way to use the data, but it’s also an example of how people can quickly game it,” said remote sensing expert Damien Jacques. GiveDirectly has since changed its methods.

There’s power, however, in combining satellite data and on-the-ground surveys.   

“Using the two types of data, one that is cheap to collect and very frequently available to complement traditional data that are expensive to collect and not frequent, you can get the best of the two,” Jacques said.

And remote sensing data on its own can be helpful in places surveyors can’t go, such as Yemen or North Korea, or in the wake of disasters.

But it’s not clear that changes in poverty are visible from space. That’s something Watmough and colleagues will be investigating. They have survey data from Sauri from 2005 and 2008. The next step is to look for differences in the imagery.

“Nobody has ever looked at how poverty has changed over a time period and looked at how a satellite image has changed over that same time period,” he said.
…

For the women of Tuluroba village’s self-help group, the goal was simple: use their combined savings to buy cattle, fatten them and sell them to the beef industry for slaughter.

But there was a problem.

“We had no land to graze the cattle. Nor could we obtain a loan from a bank to buy land, because as women we do not own title deeds,” said Fatuma Wario, who chairs the 13-strong group.

That is common. Few women in Kenya have land title documents, and few are getting them: Since 2013, less than 2 percent of issued titles have gone to women, the Kenya Land Alliance, a non-profit, said in March 2018.

And because getting a loan from a mainstream bank requires collateral — typically in the form of a land title document — most women are locked out of the chance to start a business.

In the end, the women of the HoriJabesa group borrowed money from an institution that loans money to women’s groups without requiring land title. Instead, the cash from their savings underwrites the loan.

In Wario’s case, that meant switching their savings account to the bank that was prepared to extend a $1,000 loan. Using that money and some of their savings, “we bought cattle and hired land to graze our stock.”

That was in 2017. Doing so meant the group could rent 10 acres (4 hectares) of pasture at a cost of 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($300) annually.

Interest on the loan is 12 percent per year. In their first year, they earned $10,000 from their investment — with each fattened head of cattle bringing in a $30 profit.

Thousands benefit

The first step for Wario’s group was to become a partner with the Program for Rural Outreach of Financial Innovations and Technologies (PROFIT), which is funded by the U.N International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

David Kanda, an adviser at the SNV Netherlands Development Organization who has seen the impact PROFIT has had on women like Wario, said about 60 women’s groups in eastern Kenya alone were benefiting from the PROFIT program.

“Apart from livestock enterprises, the program also supports women to do poultry and bee-keeping on hired land.”

The program began in December 2010 and is scheduled to run until June this year. After that, it will be evaluated with an eye to continuing it, an official from AGRA said.

Getting a loan requires that the person be an active member of an agribusiness network. She can then apply to a farmer-lending institution for a loan as an individual — in which case her share in the agribusiness network is her collateral — or with her group, as Wario’s collective did.

The Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), a government agency, is one such lending institution.

To date, said Millicent Omukaga, AFC’s head of operations, more than 40,000 women in Kenya have benefited from non-collateralized loans. None of those loans has gone bad.

“Our aim is to double the number … of women beneficiaries. But the overall aim is to see them financially empowered so that they can fight for their land rights.”

Grass bounty

That has proven the case for Mabel Katindi, a widow who lives in Kathiani village in Machakos county, 195 kilometers south of Wario’s village.

The 42-year-old lost her husband a decade ago. Since then she has had to fight off relatives trying to chase her and her three children from the one-acre plot she inherited.

The problem is that her late husband did not have a title deed. As it is ancestral land, it fell under one title deed held by the eldest member of his family, she said.

And without title, Katindi could not get a loan to finance money-earning ventures on her acre.

“Our land is not very good for growing food crops because the rains are not enough. Feeding my children alone has been the most difficult task,” she said.

But after joining the local women’s organization in 2017, Katindi learned that, as an active member of the agribusiness group, she could use her share to apply for a loan.

In March of that year, she borrowed 50,000 shillings from a savings and credit cooperative, and used that to plant drought-resistant brachiaria grass on half an acre of her land.

The grass has thrived, she said.

“Demand for the grass is very high because it makes cattle produce a lot of milk. It also does not require a lot of rain to grow,” Katindi said.

Each bale of grass earns up to 300 shillings, with the half-acre generating 100 bales each year. She uses the other half-acre to grow staple foods for the family.

“My children are all in school. I do not have to worry about feeding them,” Katindi said, adding that the financial returns from the loan had also helped to mend relations with her late husband’s family.

“I even use some of my money to support the relatives who wanted to chase me away from the land.”
…

About 1,000 furloughed federal workers have turned to online fundraising to help cover their expenses as a partial shutdown of the U.S. government drags on for nearly three weeks, a spokeswoman for GoFundMe.com said Wednesday.

Some 800,000 federal employees have been ordered to stay home or work without pay because of the standoff between U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress over Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall on the southern U.S. border — a promise he made in his 2016 campaign that he said at the time would be paid for by Mexico.

The online fundraising pleas have raised over $100,000 in the last three weeks, according to GoFundMe spokeswoman Katherine Cichy.

Alphonzo Breland, an Internal Revenue Service employee in Oakley, California, told Reuters he has been losing sleep and trying to get a night job at a warehouse to cover his family’s expenses.

On Tuesday, he started a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising more than $2,500.

“My heart is always fluttering, my head is racing,” Breland, 41, said in a phone interview. “My mortgage is due now, I have until the 15th and then I get a late fee. I had to cancel the tuition deduction for my daughter’s school.”

Cichy said the company has a special team dedicated to reviewing all campaigns related to the government shutdown for potential fraud.

Most of the pages, created by people who say they are furloughed federal employees or their families, aimed to raise a few thousand dollars to cover expenses of military personnel and employees of shuttered agencies including the IRS and Transportation Security Agency.

“I was struggling financially even before the shutdown occurred, essentially living paycheck to paycheck, so having it happen at Christmastime was the worst possible scenario,” James Gass, who described himself as a single father of a 15-year-old who works for the Department of Agriculture in Massachusetts, wrote on his GoFundMe page.

Robert and Tristan, 14 and 12, wrote that they started a GoFundMe to help their mother, a federal employee in Seattle.

“My mom can’t get a second job because we are her second job,” they wrote.
…

China approved five genetically modified (GM) crops for import on Tuesday, the first in about 18 months in a move that could boost its overseas grains purchases and ease pressure from the United States to open its markets to more farm goods.

The United States is the world’s biggest producer of GM crops, while China is the top importer of GM soybeans and canola.

U.S. farmers and global seed companies have long complained about Beijing’s slow and unpredictable process for approving GM crops for import, stoking trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The approvals, announced on the agriculture ministry’s website, were granted while a U.S. trade delegation is meeting with its counterparts in the Chinese capital this week.

“It’s a goodwill gesture towards the resolution of the trade issue,” said a China representative of a U.S. agricultural industry association.

“It’s been in the system for a long time but they chose today to release this good news,” he added, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The approved products included DowDuPont Inc.’s DP4114 Qrome corn and DAS-44406-6 soybean, known as Enlist E3, as well as the SYHT0H2 soybean developed by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta but now held by German chemical company BASF.

The other two newly approved products – BASF’s RF3 canola and Bayer-owned Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant MON 88302 canola – had been waiting six years for permission.

The approvals came as farmers in North America were deciding which seeds to plant this spring. China before the trade war bought some 60 percent of U.S. soybeans and U.S. farmers do not widely plant varieties it has not approved.

The newly approved canola will allow farmers in Canada to boost production, according to Jim Everson, president of industry group the Canola Council.

“The industry expects growers will produce $400 million more canola every year using the same amount of land – a step-change for canola productivity,” Everson said in a statement.

Five other products known to be seeking approvals were not given the green light, including two GM alfalfa products developed by Monsanto and two DowDuPont soybean traits.

Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture unit of DowDuPont, said, “We are happy to see the regulatory approval of our seed traits progressing in China.”

Bayer said in a statement it welcomed the news but noted “many of these products were stuck in China’s regulatory process for many years and others were not granted approvals, underscoring the need for continued improvement in China’s regulatory processes.”

Chinese officials met their U.S. counterparts in Beijing on Monday for the first face-to-face talks since U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in December to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has roiled global markets.

China had not approved any GM crops for import since July 2017, when it cleared two products following high-level talks with Washington. It also approved two products in June 2017.

China’s scientific advisory board on GM crops met in June but did not give the go-ahead for imports of any products.

“China’s approval of the new GMO products is paving the way for China to import large volumes of U.S. soybeans in the future. It is a positive signal,” said Li Qiang, chief analyst with Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. Ltd.

The truce in the Sino-U.S. trade war prompted a resumption of U.S. soybean purchases. Buying had slumped after China imposed a 25 percent import duty on U.S. shipments of oilseed on July 6 in response to U.S. tariffs.

Only a Fraction

China does not allow the planting of genetically modified food crops, but imports of GM crops such as soybeans and corn for animal feed are fine.

The country, the world’s biggest soybean consumer, has so far purchased only about 5 million tons of the 2018 U.S. soy harvest, a fraction of its typical purchases.

The United States has demanded that China change its GM crop import application process to make it more transparent, timely and based on scientific methods.

The latest approvals should not be taken as a sign that China is conceding to those demands, said a China-based industry source, who also asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“It’s another piece of evidence that China’s approval process is not entirely scientific but political,” said the source, who also believed the approvals were timed for the trade visit.

The ministry also announced on Tuesday the extension of import approvals for 26 other GM crops by a further three years.
…

Venezuela’s opposition-run congress on Tuesday issued a resolution calling deals between state-run oil company PDVSA and U.S. and French companies announced this week illegal, since they had not been sent to lawmakers for approval.

The body said the oilfield deals with France’s Maurel & Prom and little-known U.S. company Erepla violated article 150 of Venezuela’s constitution, which requires that contracts signed between the state and foreign companies be approved by the National Assembly, as Venezuela’s congress is known. 

“They are giving concessions that violate the law,” said lawmaker Jorge Millan, mentioning the two contracts.

Congress, largely stripped of its power since the opposition took it over in 2016, is unlikely to be able block the deals from going forward. But the rejection could create legal complications under a future government.

Maduro is set to be inaugurated for his second consecutive term on Thursday following a May vote considered a sham by the domestic opposition and many foreign governments. A regional bloc of Latin American countries last week called on Maduro, a protege of the late Hugo Chavez, not to take office.

The deals are part of Maduro’s effort to reverse a sharp decline in the OPEC nation’s crude output that has crippled its economy. Erepla said it would invest up to $500 million in three fields, while Maurel & Prom said it would invest up to $400 million for a 40 percent stake in an oilfield joint venture.

PDVSA did not respond to a request for comment. Maurel & Prom did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of normal business hours in France.

A spokesman for Erepla, registered in Delaware in November and part-owned by a prominent Florida Republican donor and shipping magnate, said Venezuela’s hydrocarbons law “allows PDVSA to contract with companies like Erepla to execute field services without any additional approvals required.”

Referring to the Erepla deal during the congressional session earlier on Tuesday, Millan said that while PDVSA referred to the agreement as an oilfield service contract, “the company will be conducting oil exploration and production activities.”

Maurel & Prom Chief Executive Michel Hochard said the company would act “in accordance with the instructions given” by Maduro and Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo, according to a statement attributed to him in a PDVSA press release.

 

 
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