Nepalis stand to lose millions of dollars held in high-value Indian bank notes that India banned last year and has yet to exchange, a Nepali central bank official said on Tuesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November banned 500 rupee ($7.77) and 1,000 rupee bank notes as part of a drive against unaccounted wealth in India that has also hit Nepal where Indian rupees are widely used.

People holding the notes in India were given a little less than two months to exchange them at banks.

In March, officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) visited Nepal and promised to allow every Nepali citizen to exchange 4,500 Indian rupees ($70) worth of the old notes for new ones.

“That was only a verbal assurance but no formal decision from India has come to us,” said Chinta Mani Shivakoti, a deputy governor of the central Nepal Rastra Bank.

“Even if this amount was exchanged, individuals holding more than 4,500 Indian rupees risk losing the excess,” Shivakoti said.

Nepal depends heavily on funds from workers in India, who sent home $640 million in 2016, or about 3 percent of its gross domestic product.

The Indian central bank declined to comment. An Indian Finance Ministry spokesman also declined to comment, saying it was a central bank matter.

India fears that if it agrees to Nepal’s demand to allow Nepalis to exchange unlimited amounts, a large number of Indians may launder their ill-gotten old notes through Nepal.

Shivakoti said Nepal’s banks hold 78.5 million Indian rupees worth of the old notes, while business officials estimate that up to 10 billion in old Indian rupees ($155 million) may be held by individuals in Nepal’s informal sector.

Another NRB official, Bhisma Raj Dhungana, said the delay in resolving the issue was causing concern.

“India should have allowed the exchange facility much earlier,” Dhungana said.

Ordinary Nepalis say they have been hit badly by the delay.

“My savings are worth no more than waste papers. I can’t do anything about it,” said Saila Thakuri, who has 8,000 Indian rupees in old notes sent by his son who works in a restaurant in New Delhi.

 
…

House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a 10-year budget blueprint that would dramatically increase military spending while putting the GOP on record favoring Medicare cuts opposed by President Donald Trump.

The GOP plan, authored by Budget Chairman Diane Black, R-Tenn., would also pave the way for overhauling the U.S. tax code this fall, and would pair that effort with cuts to benefit programs such as food stamps. The plan also lays out a plan to balance the budget inside a decade through deep cuts to a wide swath of domestic programs — though GOP leaders have no intention of actually carrying out the cuts.

 

Black announced a committee vote for Wednesday, but action by the entire House could be delayed by an ongoing quarrel between the GOP’s tea party and moderate factions over spending cuts.

 

Medicare is the second largest mandatory program after Social Security, and the House GOP plan again proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program in which future retirees would receive a fixed benefit to purchase health insurance on the open market. Republicans have proposed the idea each year since taking back the House in 2011, but they’ve never tried to implement it — and that’s not going to change now, even with a Republican as president.

 

The plan, in theory at least, promises to balance the budget through unprecedented and unworkable cuts across the budget. It calls for turning this year’s projected $700 billion or so deficit into a tiny $9 billion surplus by 2027. It would do so by slashing $5.4 trillion over the coming decade, including almost $500 billion from Medicare, $1.5 trillion from Medicaid and the Obama health law, along with enormous cuts to benefits such as federal employee pensions, food stamps, and tax credits for the working poor.

 

“The status quo is unsustainable. A mounting national debt and lackluster economic growth will limit opportunity for people all across the country,” Black said in a statement. “But we don’t have to accept this reality. We can move forward with an optimistic vision for the future and this budget is the first step in that process. This is the moment to get real results for the American people. The time for talking is over, now is the time for action.”

 

But in the immediate future the GOP measure is a budget buster. It would add almost $30 billion to Trump’s $668 billion request for national defense, which already exceeds an existing “cap” on spending by $54 billion. But while Trump proposed taking that $54 billion from domestic agencies and foreign aid, the GOP budget plan would restore most of the cuts, trimming non-defense agencies by just $5 billion.

 

All told, the GOP plan would spend about $67 billion more in the upcoming annual appropriations bills than would be allowed under harsh spending limits set by a failed 2011 budget and debt agreement and pads war accounts by $10 billion. And, like Trump’s budget, the House GOP plan assumes rosy economic projections that would erase another $1.5 trillion from the deficit over 10 years.

 

The measure, called a budget resolution, is nonbinding. It would allow Republicans controlling Congress to pass follow-up legislation through the Senate without the threat of a filibuster by Democrats. GOP leaders and the White House plan to use that measure to rewrite the tax code.

 

As proposed by House leaders, tax reform would essentially be deficit neutral, which means cuts to tax rates would be mostly “paid for” by closing various tax breaks such as the deduction for state and local taxes. However, the GOP plan would devote $300 billion claimed from economic growth to the tax reform effort.

 

But conservatives are insisting on adding cuts to so-called mandatory programs, which make up more than two-thirds of the federal budget and basically run on autopilot. After extended negotiations, Black would instruct 11 House panels to draw up $203 billion worth of mandatory cuts. But neither tea party lawmakers nor moderates are pleased with the idea. Conservatives want larger cuts, while moderates are blanching at voting to cut popular programs such as food stamps.
…

The Trump Administration has launched “Made In America Week” to highlight the importance of U.S. manufacturing and tout its policies to bring more such jobs back home from overseas. But as VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman reports, many Trump family products are made in foreign factories, leading to criticism of the president’s trade campaign.
…

Foreign fishing vessels, many from China, prowl the waters off West Africa every day. They capture millions of fish — catches that used to go to local boats. The fish are then shipped to China, Europe and the United States, satisfying a global demand for seafood and fueling a multibillion-dollar industry.

The foreign vessels make life hard for West African fishermen.  

Foreign trawlers from Asia and Europe have cost West Africa’s economy 300,000 jobs and $2 billion in income, according to John Hocevar, a marine biologist with Greenpeace.

However, what to do about the problem — and possible damage to regional fish populations — has eluded experts and officials.

Chinese presence

Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but experts agree no single country has a greater presence off the coast of West Africa than China.

In a 2015 report, Greenpeace estimated that, two years earlier, China had 426 distant water fishing vessels off Africa’s West Coast.

Between 2000 and 2011, 64 percent of China’s average annual catches, valued at more than $7 billion, came from that area, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Fishing isn’t a big part of China’s economy, representing less than one percent of total gross domestic product. But for many in China’s coastal provinces, it’s both a livelihood and way of life, according to Haibing Ma, the China program manager for the Worldwatch Institute, a nonprofit group that researches sustainability.

Chinese fishers have traveled to Africa because their own fish stock has nearly run out. “Overfishing has destroyed the sustainability of China’s inshore fisheries,” Ma said.

Lack of oversight

Fishing practices are inherently difficult to monitor and regulate. Oceans are vast, vessels are hard to reach, and a mix of local and international laws and regulations complicates enforcement.

Domestic laws regulate waters up to 200 miles off the coast, and international laws control waters past that, according to Todd Dubois, assistant director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement.

This complex environment has led to a variety of creative ways to maximize profits without breaking the law.

For example, legislation in Guinea-Bissau has kept large industrial fishing vessels away from its coast.  So, fishing companies have deployed small boats that don’t need licenses from nearby countries such as Senegal. Those boats will fish in Guinea-Bissau and return their catches to a large “mothership,” which in turn takes its bounty back to Senegal to be traded.

In other cases, “floating factories” — large, nearby vessels used for processing and packaging catches — have enabled other boats to catch small pelagics, such as mackerels and sardines, quickly and on a massive scale for prolonged periods.

And bottom trawls, a kind of gear that contributes to overfishing, were installed on most Chinese vessels studied by Greenpeace in 2015.

Many see international fishing off Africa’s West Coast as an exploitation of local resources by foreign powers. But some of the most damaging practices occur within the law, and local African economies sometimes benefit from illegal fishing.

In Mauritania, for example, a Chinese company made a secret deal with the local government to build a fish-processing factory and bring 80 large vessels to the coast in exchange for a $100 million investment in the country.

That deal may have benefited both countries, says Andre Standing, an adviser at the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, but it has had a profoundly negative impact on small-scale fishermen.

Responsible practices

Fishing, even when done on a massive scale, can be sustainable, provided there’s adequate planning and reporting. That means understanding the vulnerability of local fish populations and managing catches accordingly.

“Some reproduce very fast and can handle quite heavy fishing, such as tuna, and some of the small pelagics like the sardines,” Standing said, but other fish, such as sharks, develop very slowly. “We’re already seeing across Africa and across the world that industrial fishing and long line fishing in particular, they’ve decimated populations of the other types of fish.”

Standing cautions against drawing conclusions about the entire Chinese fishing industry. Individual fishing companies need to be judged on their own merits, he said. There are good Chinese companies, just as there are bad European companies.

China’s presence off Africa’s west coast shows no signs of shrinking, though. The Chinese government has enabled the industry to expand far beyond the country’s own shores. In 2013, the government gave the fishing sector about $6.5 billion in subsidies, according to a brief Standing wrote for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Whether considering the actions of China, the European Union, or local African governments and businesses, the root of the problem comes from a lack of focus on long-term sustainability, according to Standing.

“In many areas, there really isn’t this careful, precautionary approach to managing fishing intensity,” he said. “A lot are being driven by short-term profit, and that’s really at the heart of the unsustainable nature of fisheries.”

Zhan Yang, Teng Xu and Ricci Shryock contributed to this report.
…

The United States needs more foreign workers to keep some American businesses from floundering, according to a decision announced by U.S. officials Monday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it will make 15,000 additional H-2B visas available for companies to hire temporary, non-agricultural foreign workers before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

In a written statement, DHS Secretary John Kelly called the move a “one-time increase,”

The Trump administration promotes what it calls a “Hire American” policy and the president has repeatedly called for more limited immigration. Pressed by a reporter about how the policy announcement to allow more foreign workers into the U.S. supports American jobs, a DHS spokesperson said that without those extra workers, U.S. businesses could suffer “irreparable harm.”

Exemption is not renewed

In order to hire foreign workers through the non-immigrant visa program, businesses must show there are not enough U.S. workers “able, willing, qualified, and available” for the jobs.

The H-2B program is capped at 66,000 new visas annually; of that, 33,000 is reserved for workers who are hired during the first half of the fiscal year (Oct. 1 — March 31) and the remainder are for the latter half (April 1 — Sept. 30).

Since 2015, however, some returning workers were able to participate beyond the cap, increasing the number of H-2B visas issued last year to nearly 85,000, according to State Department data.

But Congress did not renew the returnees exemption when it expired last fall, effectively curbing the number of available visas. Businesses that rely heavily on seasonal workers, like the tourism industry, said they have struggled to fill vacancies since then.

Businesses need to petition for visas

Part of budget legislation passed in May, however, gave the Department of Homeland Security — which includes U.S. CItizenship and Immigration Services — discretion to go over the 66,000 cap to compensate for the shortfall.

Businesses will be able to petition for the additional visas when the rule is published in the General Register later this week, according to senior DHS officials. Previous applicants who did not make the earlier cut-off for the fiscal year will have to reapply, the officials added, but if hired by the end of the fiscal year, they will be able to work past Sept. 30.

President Donald Trump uses the H-2B visa program to staff his Florida private club, where he has hosted visiting heads of state since his inauguration in January. 

 
…

EU foreign ministers approved on Monday measures to allow Ukraine to export more industrial and agricultural products free of tariffs to the bloc in recognition of reforms undertaken by Kyiv and the country’s fragile economy.

By the end of September, Ukraine will be able to export greater tonnage of farm products, including grains, honey and processed tomatoes for three years.

The EU will also remove for the same period import duties on fertilizers, dyes, footwear, copper, aluminum, televisions and sound recording equipment.

The measures add to a free-trade agreement provisionally in place since January 2016 that has opened both markets for goods and services.

“It is our duty to support Ukraine and strengthen our economic and political ties, also in the face of the ongoing conflict on its soil,” said Estonia Foreign Minister Sven Mikser, whose country holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

Trade has been at the heart of a dispute between Russia and the European Union over relations with Ukraine, with Moscow and Brussels both competing to bring Kyiv closer to their side through offers of greater economic integration.

While Kyiv has moved westward, Russia has sought to destabilize Ukraine, EU governments and NATO say, by annexing Crimea and providing separatists with weapons and troops in Ukraine’s industrial east.
…

On a sweltering summer morning in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a dozen garment workers crowd into a small courtroom for the latest hearing in a protracted battle over low wages in factories supplying global fashion brands.

The women are among tens of thousands of workers in Tamil Nadu state – the largest hub in India’s $40 billion-a-year textile and garment industry – who are seeking millions of dollars in compensation following a landmark court ruling last year that declared they had long been grossly underpaid.

The Madras High Court ordered that the garment workers should receive a pay rise of up to 30 percent – the first minimum wage hike for 12 years – and that they could claim arrears going back to 2014.

But 12 months on, many factory bosses have failed to pay up.

Squeezed into a corner at the back of the stuffy Chennai courtroom, a middle-aged woman leans against the blue walls, clutching polythene bags full of documents to prove her claim.

Normally she spends her days hunched over a sewing machine, stitching skirts, shirts and dresses destined for high streets around the world.

But for months she has been taking days off work to attend court.

“I forgo a day’s salary to come for these hearings. It may not seem like a big amount, but for us it is hard earned money,” said the 48-year-old seamstress, who did not wish to be identified fearing it would impact her case. “I am only asking for what is rightfully mine. And they won’t even tell me how they are calculating my dues.”

More than 150 claims have been filed against tailoring and export garment manufacturing units in the Chennai region alone, according to data requested by the Thomson Reuters Foundation under the Right to Information Act.

The claims, which would benefit at least 80,000 workers at factories around the port city, add up to more than 490 million Indian rupees ($7.6 million).

But workers’ unions say these claims are probably the tip of the iceberg as they only represent cases filed by government labor inspectors.

Salary cuts

Under the 2016 Madras court ruling, Tamil Nadu’s garment and textile workers should see their pay rise from a monthly average of 4,500 to 6,500 rupees – which campaigners say is comparable to wages for textile jobs in most other states.

But workers say managers have defaulted or delayed on payments since the ruling, with some even introducing pay cuts.

Despite the state’s minimum wage laws, salaries continue to be “grossly low” for thousands of workers who are still not given pay slips or are often hired only as apprentices, campaigners say.

“Instead of paying workers their correct salaries, companies are finding ways to surreptitiously squash their rights,” said Selvi Palani, a lawyer helping workers’ unions fight their cases. “There is a court order but the money is not on the table.

Workers continue to be underpaid.”

Sujata Mody of Penn Thozhilalargal Sangam, a women workers’ union, said some companies that had raised wages were now docking pay for sick days, and for factory meals and shuttle buses which were previously free, meaning many workers had seen little or no change in pay.

Some factories were also firing more expensive workers on trivial grounds, she added.

“The workers are struggling to be heard and the managements are coming up with new forms to deduct their income,” Mody said.

Repeated delays

Under the 1948 Minimum Wages Act, state governments are required to increase the basic minimum wage every five years to protect workers against exploitation, but textile manufacturers have repeatedly challenged pay rises in Tamil Nadu.

The state’s labor commissioner, Ka Balachandran, said inspectors were verifying every company’s records to check that wages were now in line with last year’s ruling.

“We are doing everything to ensure workers get fair wages, and get it quickly,” he added.

But manufacturers in Tamil Nadu say the hike is too high, putting them at a disadvantage to competitors in other states. Some say they are already paying workers more than the minimum wage.

“The new norms are not distinguishing clearly between skilled and non-skilled workers,” said S Shaktivel of the Tirupur Exporters’ Association.

He said some companies had launched an appeal against the order at the Madras High Court.

In the Chennai labor court, case numbers are called out in quick succession.

The seamstress, who is expecting arrears of up to 5,000 rupees, strains to listen over the slow whirring of the ceiling fan.

“My financial situation is not very good,” she whispers. “My husband had surgery a few months back, we have a loan to pay back and a house to run. The company owes me arrears for almost one year. I need that income desperately.”

Her case is called. The lawyer representing the company asks for more time. Another date is set, with the judge warning against further delays.

“I hope I get a good settlement,” the seamstress said as she left court. “After all these years, I would like to stop working, but that looks unlikely. At least if they paid me properly, I would feel a little better.”
…

A severed marine cable has left Somalia without internet for weeks, triggering losses for businesses, residents said, and adding a layer of chaos in a country where Islamist insurgents are carrying out a campaign of bombings and killings.

Abdi Anshuur, Somalia’s minister for posts and telecommunications, told state radio that internet to the Horn of Africa state went down a month ago after a ship cut an undersea cable connecting it to global data networks.

Businesses have had to close or improvise to remain open and university students told Reuters their educational courses had been disrupted.

Anshuur said the outage was costing Somalia the equivalent of about $10 million in economic output.

“The night internet went off marked the end of my daily bread,” Mohamed Nur, 22, told Reuters in the capital Mogadishu.

Nur said he now begged “tea and cigarettes from friends” after the internet cutoff also severed his monthly income of $500 that he took in from ads he developed and placed on the video website, YouTube.

Somalia’s economy is still picking up slowly after a combined force of the army and an African Union peacekeeping force helped drive the Islamist group, al Shabaab, out of Mogadishu and other strongholds.

Al Shabaab wants to topple the western backed government and rule according to its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

The group remains formidable and lethal, with its campaign of frequent bombings and killings a key source of significant security risk for most businesses and regular life.

Now the internet outage potentially compounds the hardships for most firms. Most young people who say they are unable to work because of the outage spend hours idling in front of tea shops.

Mohamed Ahmed Hared, commercial manager of Somali Optical Networks(SOON), a large internet service provider in the country, told Reuters his business was losing over a million dollars a day. Hared’s clients, he said, had reported a range of crippled services including passport and e-tickets printing and money remittances.

Some students and staff at the University of Somalia in Mogadishu told Reuters their learning had been disrupted because Google, which they heavily rely on for research, was now inaccessible.

The absence of especially popular internet sites like Facebook and YouTube and Google was, however, cause for celebration for some in the conservative, Muslim nation.

“My wife used to be (on) YouTube or Facebook every minute,” Mohamud Osman, 45, said, adding the online activity would sometimes distract her from feeding her baby and that the habit had once forced him to try to get a divorce.

“Now I am happy … internet is without doubt a necessary tool of evil.”

 
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Gibraltar will not be a victim of Brexit and has had guarantees from the British government it will not do a trade deal with the European Union which doesn’t include the territory, its chief minister said on Sunday.

The future of Gibraltar, a rocky enclave on the southern tip of Spain captured by Britain in 1704, and its 30,000 inhabitants is set to be a major point of contention in Brexit negotiations. The EU annoyed Britain and Gibraltar in April by offering Spain a right of veto over the territory’s post-Brexit relationship with the bloc.

Gibraltar, which Spain wants back, voted strongly in favor of remaining in the EU at last year’s referendum but is committed to staying part of Britain.

Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told Sky News he had had “cast iron assurances” from Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis that the government would not do a trade deal with the EU if it did not include Gibraltar.

“I’m the backbone of this negotiation for Gibraltar and the backbone is made of limestone rock, it’s not going to be easy to buckle on that. We can have the War of the Summer, the War of the Autumn or the War of the Winter, if you like, on that, Gibraltar is not going to change its position,” he said.

“It’s our obligation now to energetically and enthusiastically pursue the result of the referendum and deliver a successful Brexit. We’re not going to get in the way of Brexit but we’re not going to be the victims of Brexit.”

During a state visit to Britain this week, Spain’s King Felipe said he was confident an acceptable arrangement could be worked out with Britain over the future of Gibraltar, but Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokeswoman said the topic had not come up during their bilateral meeting.

“There is not going to be any new arrangements in relation to the sovereignty of Gibraltar, that is going to remain 100 percent British,” Picardo said.
…

Bilateral talks aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China have yielded some initial deals, but U.S. firms say much more needs to be done as a deadline for a 100-day action plan expires Sunday.

The negotiations, which began in April, have reopened China’s market to U.S. beef after 14 years and prompted Chinese pledges to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas. American firms have also been given access to some parts of China’s financial services sector.

More details on the 100-day plan are expected to be announced in the coming week as senior U.S. and Chinese officials gather in Washington for annual bilateral economic talks, rebranded this year as the “U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue.”

A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman declined to discuss potential areas for new agreements since a May 11 announcement on beef, chicken, financial services and LNG.

​Trade deficit grows

Earlier in April, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time at his Florida resort, Xi agreed to a 100-day plan for trade talks aimed at boosting U.S. exports and trimming the U.S. trade deficit with China.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached $347 billion last year. The gap in the first five months of 2017 widened about 5.3 percent from a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“It is an excellent momentum builder, but much more needs to be done for U.S.-China commercial negotiations to be considered a success,” said Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) in Beijing.

Biggest irritants

There has been little sign of progress in soothing the biggest trade irritants, such as U.S. demands that China cut excess capacity in steel and aluminum production, lack of access for U.S. firms to China’s services market, and U.S. national security curbs on high-tech exports to China.

The Trump administration is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum on national security grounds, partly in response to what it views as a glut of Chinese production that is flooding international markets and driving down prices.

Deals struck

American beef is now available in Chinese shops for the first time since a 2003 U.S. case of “mad cow” disease, giving U.S. ranchers access to a rapidly growing market worth around $2.6 billion last year.

More beef deals were signed during an overseas buying mission by the Chinese last week.

“There are hopes there will be even more concrete results,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing on Friday. He did not elaborate.

Critics of the 100-day process said China had agreed to lift its ban on U.S. beef last September, with officials just needing to finalize details on quarantine requirements.

China, meanwhile, has delivered its first batch of cooked chicken to U.S. ports after years of negotiating for access to the market. 

But unlike the rush by Chinese consumers for a first taste of American beef, Chinese poultry processors have not had a flurry of orders for cooked chicken.

Biotech crops, financial services

Other sectors in China under U.S. pressure to open up have moved more slowly.

Beijing had only approved two of the eight biotech crops waiting for import approval, despite gathering experts to review the crops on two occasions in a six-week period.

U.S. industry officials had signaled they were expecting more approvals. U.S. executives say the review process still lacks transparency.

Financial services is another area where little progress has been made, U.S. officials say.

USCBC’s Parker said it is unclear how long it will take for foreign credit rating agencies to be approved, or whether U.S.-owned suppliers of electronic payment services will be able to secure licenses.

The bilateral talks have also not addressed restrictions on foreign investment in life insurance and securities trading, or “the many challenges foreign companies face in China’s cybersecurity enforcement environment,” Parker said.

In an annual report released Thursday, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said China remained a “difficult market.”
…

Take care of your soil, and your soil will take care of you. That’s the message agriculture experts have for farmers worldwide. They say farmers can halt the degradation of their land and save money by using techniques known as conservation agriculture. But as VOA’s Steve Baragona reports, adopting those techniques takes a change of attitude.
…

Ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft have been so disruptive to New York City’s taxi industry, they are causing lenders to fail.

 

Three New York-based credit unions that specialized in loaning money against taxi cab medallions, the hard-to-get licenses that allow the city’s traditional cab fleet to operate, have been placed into conservatorship as the value of those medallions has plummeted.

 

Just three years ago, cab owners and investors were paying as much as $1.3 million for a medallion. Now they are worth less than half that, and some medallion owners owe more on their loans than the medallions are worth.

Like subprime loans

 

“You’ve got borrowers who are under water. This is just like the subprime loan crisis,” said Keith Leggett, a credit union analyst and former senior economist at the American Bankers Association.

LOMTO Federal Credit Union, which was founded by taxi drivers in 1936 for mutual assistance, was placed into conservatorship by the National Credit Union Administration on June 26 “because of unsafe and unsound practices.”

 

New York City has the nation’s largest taxi industry, with more than 13,000 medallions.

Value went up, then down

 

Marcelino Hervias bought his medallion in 1990 for about $120,000 and thought its value would hit $2 million by the time he was ready to retire.

 

Instead, the 58-year-old said he owes $541,000 and is driving 12 to 16 hours a day to make ends meet.

While some medallions are held by large owners with fleets, owning a single medallion was long seen as a ticket to the middle class for immigrants like Hervias, who is from Peru.

 

Many of them now owe more on their medallion loans than they originally paid for the medallions because they used their equity in the medallion for a home, a child’s education or other expenses.

 

Other medallion owners tell similar stories.

 

Constant Granvil bought his medallion for $102,000 in 1987 and said he now owes more than $300,000 to his lender. He could have sold the medallion for two or three times that a few years ago, “but I said no, I’m not going to sell it,” said Granvil, who is 76. “And then I got caught.”

 

The value of Granvil’s medallion is hard to pinpoint because 2017 sale prices have varied from the $200,000s to the $500,000s depending on whether lenders are willing to finance the purchase. 

 

Meanwhile, Granvil, who no longer drives because of poor health and uses a broker to hire a driver, said he is facing threats from the lender, Melrose Credit Union, to foreclose on not just his medallion, but also his house.

Level playing field

Supporters of the yellow cab industry have sued and pushed for city legislation to try to level the playing field between taxis and ride-hailing apps, which they say enjoy advantages like not paying a public transportation improvement surcharge that’s levied on yellow cabs and not having to outfit a percentage of cars with disabled-access features.

 

City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, called this week for a panel to investigate the fall in medallion values. 

 

According to a Morgan Stanley report, there were 11.1 million yellow cab trips in the city in April 2016, compared with 4.7 million Uber trips and 750,000 Lyft trips. The 11.1 million taxi rides were 9 percent fewer than the April 2015 number.

 

Some observers believe that the yellow cab’s market share will continue to shrink and that the value of a medallion won’t recover.

 

“This is a commodity that has been fundamentally disrupted,” said Leggett, who has written about medallion loans in his online newsletter Credit Union Watch. “I don’t see the value of the medallions getting close to what they were.”
…

The White House said Friday that worsening tax revenues would cause the budget deficit to jump to $702 billion this year. That’s a $99 billion spike from what was predicted less than two months ago.

The report from the Office of Management and Budget came on the heels of a rival Congressional Budget Office analysis that scuttled White House claims that its May budget, if implemented to the letter, would balance the federal ledger within 10 years. The OMB report doesn’t repeat that claim and instead provides just two years of updated projections.

The White House budget office also said the deficit for the 2018 budget year that starts on October 1 would increase by $149 billion, to $589 billion. But lawmakers are already working on spending bills that promise to boost that number even higher by adding to President Donald Trump’s Pentagon proposal and ignoring many of his cuts to domestic programs.

Last year’s deficit registered $585 billion.

The White House kept the report to a bare-bones minimum and cast blame on “the failed policies of the previous administration.”

“The rising near-term deficits underscore the critical need to restore fiscal discipline to the nation’s finances,” said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. “Our nation must make substantial changes to the policies and spending priorities of the previous administration if our citizens are to be safe and prosperous in the future.”

In late May, Trump released a budget plan proposing jarring cuts to domestic programs and promising to balance the budget within a decade. But the CBO said Trump relied on rosy predictions of economic growth to promise a slight surplus in 2027.

Trump’s budget left Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare alone, though House Republicans are poised next week to again propose cutting Medicare as they unveil their nonbinding budget outline.

Trump’s budget predicted that the U.S. economy would soon ramp up to annual growth in gross domestic product of 3 percent; CBO’s long-term projections predict annual GDP growth averaging 1.9 percent.
…

The top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee has voiced concerns about Amazon.com Inc.’s $13.7 billion plan to buy Whole Foods Market Inc and is pushing for a hearing to look into the deal’s potential impact on consumers.

The deal announced in June marks the biggest acquisition for the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon has not said what it will do with Whole Foods’ stores and other assets, but analysts and investors worry the move could upend the landscape for grocers, food delivery services and meal-kit companies.

U.S. Representative David Cicilline requested the hearing on Thursday in a letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee chairman. Shares of Amazon were up 0.3 percent in mid-morning trading on Friday.

“Amazon’s proposed purchase of Whole Foods could impact neighborhood grocery stores and hardworking consumers across America,” Cicilline said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to fully scrutinize this merger before it goes ahead.”

The deal must be approved by U.S. antitrust enforcers, in this case most likely the Federal Trade Commission. Congress plays no formal role in that process but hearings are often used to highlight the possible impact of deals on consumers. The hearing is unlikely to happen without Republican support.

Amazon and Whole Foods declined to comment.

Also this week, hedge fund manager Douglas Kass from Seabreeze Partners Management Inc. said he was shorting shares of the retailer because of concern about Amazon in Washington.

Kass said he had heard rumblings on Capitol Hill regarding concern about Amazon’s size and clout but did not specify what the concerns were.

“I am shorting Amazon today because I have learned that there are currently early discussions and due diligence being considered in the legislative chambers in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote in a note to investors late on Wednesday. “If I am correct, word of this could lower Amazon’s shares by 10 percent overnight.”

Kass said in emailed comments to Reuters on Friday that he has what he called a “core” short position in Amazon, meaning a sizeable bet based on a long-term outlook.

“This has the potential of being the biggest business news story of [the] year,” he said. Kass declined to comment when asked for more details about pressure from Capitol Hill.

Kass is followed for his bets on declines in companies’ share prices. He shorted Marvel Entertainment in 1992 when its shares were in the high $60s, and the company went bankrupt 1-1/2 years later.

He also bet against big U.S. banks leading into the 2007-2009 financial crisis, shorting Bank of America, MGIC, Citigroup and several other financials that ultimately averaged a 98 percent price decline by the time they bottomed in 2009.

While antitrust experts have said they expect Amazon’s bid to win regulatory approval, some critics argue the deal should be blocked because it gives the retailer a big head start towards domination of online grocery delivery.

They argue the Whole Foods acquisition will give Amazon an unfair advantage over traditional grocers and new players that might emerge in the market, potentially grounds for the deal to be blocked for antitrust reasons.
…

The German Transport Ministry says the country’s motor transport authority will examine cars made by Daimler amid an investigation into suspected manipulation of diesel emissions controls.

Daimler said in May that prosecutors would search several offices in Germany and it was cooperating with the probe.

Company representatives met with a Transport Ministry commission Thursday following a report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, citing a search warrant, that over a million vehicles may have had engines whose software manipulated emissions levels. Neither the company nor prosecutors commented on that detail.

Ministry spokesman Ingo Strater said Friday the company “set out its position that Daimler is behaving in accordance with the law.”

Strater said the Federal Motor Transport Authority is examining Daimler cars, as it has in the past other manufacturers’ vehicles.
…

Radio Flyer is rolling its largest “little” red wagon into its hometown of Chicago in celebration of the company’s 100-year anniversary.

Radio Flyer’s gargantuan wagon was the centerpiece for the company’s anniversary event Thursday in the city’s downtown area, the Chicago Tribune  reported. The wagon was created 20 years ago for the brand’s 80th anniversary.

 

Attendees of the event had the opportunity to take a photo with the large wagon and participate in free giveaways. Radio Flyer also will donate 2,000 wagons to children’s hospitals across the country in partnership with Starlight Children’s Foundation.

According to Guinness World Records, the wagon, which is 27 feet (8.23 meters) long and weighs over 15,000 pounds (6803.96 kilograms), is the world’s largest toy wagon. It was inspired by a 1930s statue featured in the World’s Fair in Chicago.

Radio Flyer has locations around the world, but Robert Pasin, chief wagon officer of Radio Flyer, said Chicago is still the company’s home.

“Chicago has so much to do with our heritage and story,” Pasin said. “It’s truly a part of the brand’s DNA.”

The company has evolved since its establishment in 1917 and now offers customizable wagons made of various materials and other products, including tricycles, bicycles and scooters.
…

The electricity supply to Gaza’s 2 million residents has dropped to unprecedented lows, with blackouts lasting for more than 24 hours, the territory’s power distribution company said Thursday, prompting fears of a humanitarian and environmental crisis.

The Palestinian enclave needs at least 400 megawatts of power a day, but only 70 megawatts were available as of late Wednesday, when Gaza’s power plant shut down after fuel shipments from Egypt were interrupted following a militant attack last week.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the power cuts have caused a rapid deterioration in basic services, “especially health and environmental services, including water and sewage draining.”

The coastal strip had been experiencing the worst electricity shortage in years, limiting Gazans to about four hours of electricity per day.

​Abbas asks Israel to cut shipments

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently asked Israel, the main provider of power to Gaza, to cut shipments as a way of pressuring the Islamic militant group Hamas, which seized power in Gaza a decade ago.

Several neighborhoods were without electricity for more than 24 hours Thursday.

Late Thursday, Hamas said 27 Egyptian trucks with 1.5 million liters of diesel entered Gaza for the power plant. It was unclear when operations would resume.

Diesel fuel from neighboring Egypt had kept the station running at half capacity since June 21, but deliveries were interrupted after a deadly attack on Egyptian soldiers last week near the border. Gaza’s power station has low storage capacity, and requires new fuel shipments on an almost daily basis.

Abbas pressures Hamas

Abbas has tried to squeeze Hamas financially in recent months, hoping to force it to cede power. He slashed salaries of his employees there, stopped payments for ex-prisoners and reinstated heavy taxes on the power plant’s fuel.

Palestinians have been split since 2007, with Hamas ruling Gaza and Abbas governing parts of the West Bank. Repeated reconciliation attempts have failed.

The Egyptian diesel shipments were facilitated by Mohammed Dahlan, a former leading figure in Abbas’ Fatah movement who fell out with the Palestinian president in 2010, went into exile and has since forged strong ties with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
…

Venezuela’s crude and fuel deliveries to Cuba have slid almost 13 percent in the first half this year, according to documents from state-run oil company PDVSA viewed by Reuters, threatening to worsen gasoline and power shortages in the communist-run island.

Cuba’s government since 2016 has reduced fuel allocations 28 percent to most state-run companies, and has cut electricity consumption. Public lighting was cut 50 percent, while residential electric use was spared.

Beginning in March, Cubans also have reported minor gasoline and diesel shortages at service stations.

Cuba’s economy depends heavily on Venezuelan crude shipments under a series of bilateral agreements started in 2000 by the South American country’s late President Hugo Chavez. In return, the island nation has provided Venezuela with Cuban doctors and other services.

Venezuela’s shipments of crude for Cuba’s refineries dropped 21 percent to 42,310 barrels per day (bpd), the documents showed. Last year, Venezuela made up for a shortfall in crude shipments by sending Cuba more fuels, but this year’s data showed refined products sent to Cuba remained almost unchanged at around 30,040 bpd.

In total, PDVSA sent Cuba an average of 72,350 bpd of crude and refined products in the first half of 2017, down almost 13 percent from the same period of last year, according to the data from internal PDVSA trade reports.

“Cuba needs at least 70,000 bpd from Venezuela to cover its energy deficit and avoid deeper rationing. A larger or total loss of the Venezuelan supply would have a high political and financial cost for Cuba,” which has been gearing up to welcome more tourists, said Jorge Pinon, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas in Austin.

Cuba suffered severe energy rationing in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, an ally that had provided cheap fuel. In 2016, Cuba’s economy went into recession for the first time since those days, declining almost 1 percent as shrinking export earnings left it short of funds to import oil on the open market and replace declining Venezuelan supplies.

With Venezuela’s crude production sliding in 2017 for the sixth year in a row, the OPEC nation has had less oil to send Cuba and other customers in regions from Asia to North America and the Caribbean.

Cuba, which produces extremely heavy crude used by industry and power plants, received 103,226 bpd of oil from Venezuela in the first half of 2015, according to the same data.

PDVSA, whose full name is Petroleos de Venezuela SA, did not reply to a request for comment.

Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba have been falling since 2008, when they peaked at 115,000 bpd mainly due to a decline in crude exports. The poor shape of Venezuelan refineries cut into fuel exports this year, and Venezuela has also had to boost fuel imports to meet domestic demand.

Cuba, in addition to rationing fuel, is seeking oil cargoes from other producers including Russia, something it had not done for more than a decade.

In one of several recent shipments, the Ocean Quest tanker loaded with fuel oil at Russia’s Tuapse terminal, arrived in Havana on July 9 and is waiting to discharge, according to Reuters vessel tracking data. The Tuapse terminal is operated by state-run Rosneft.

Cuba’s three aged refineries have been operating at reduced rates since last year due to a shortage of light crude, which also affects Venezuela’s 1.3-million-bpd refining network.
…

Corruption is undermining all efforts to rebuild Ukraine in line with European Union norms, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday, as President Petro Poroshenko vowed to pursue ever-closer integration with the bloc.

Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk were in Kyiv for a 24-hour summit with Poroshenko following the final ratification of a new trade pact that has angered Russia.

“What we are asking … is to increase the fight against corruption, because corruption is undermining all the efforts this great nation is undertaking,” Juncker said at a joint briefing. “We remain very concerned.”

The criticism suggests the EU delegation may have taken a tougher-than-expected line in talks forecast to be largely upbeat after the confirmation on Tuesday of an association agreement for closer political and trade ties.

Seven conditions still in works

Separately, European Commission Vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said Kyiv had a shrinking window to meet 21 conditions to unlock 600 million euros ($684 million) of further financial assistance from the EU, of which seven are outstanding.

These conditions include making sure that a landmark reform forcing officials to declare their assets online is properly implemented, and Kyiv lifting a ban on wood exports.

“What we are emphasizing currently is that we have quite limited time,” Dombrovskis told reporters. “So all the conditions need to be implemented already in October … because the macrofinancial assistance program ends on Jan. 4 next year.”

Reforms lead to investments

The pro-Western government in Kyiv has sought to boost EU relations since the ousting of a Moscow-backed president in 2014, implementing reforms in exchange for billions of dollars in aid and a new visa-free travel deal with the European Union.

But Ukraine’s allies have repeatedly expressed concern that vested interests and corrupt practices remain entrenched, partly due to weak rule of law.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s main financial backer, have called for the creation of a specialized anti-corruption court, but Juncker said a new solution had been agreed at the summit.

“Today we agreed that if Ukraine establishes … a special chamber devoted to this issue, that will be enough,” he said.

EU membership remains far off

Mykhailo Zhernakov, a judicial expert at the non-governmental coalition Reanimation Package of Reforms, said the agreement would be a disappointment to those campaigning for greater accountability.

“There’s no way that a chamber in any court will be as independent as a separate court,” he told Reuters. “It’s not going to help.”

While full EU membership for Ukraine remains far off, Poroshenko stressed that Kyiv hopes to integrate further by joining the customs union and becoming a member of the bloc’s Schengen open-border zone.

“As early as today, it’s important to start developing a roadmap to the realization of our dreams,” he said.
…

United Nations human rights experts on Thursday called on Peru to suspend negotiations on a new contract for a large oilfield in the Amazon until past pollution was cleaned up and the rights of indigenous groups respected.

Canada’s Frontera Energy Corporation now operates Block 192 in the Peruvian Amazon and is in talks with Peru about renewing its contract once the current one expires in September.

U.N. Special Rapporteurs Baskut Tuncak and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, independent experts tasked with investigating human rights issues, said Peru had failed to clean up pollution from oil spills in the region and was not doing enough to ensure indigenous groups had a voice in talks.

“The Peruvian Government must suspend the direct negotiations with companies until the right to free, prior and informed consent is guaranteed, and all environmental damage has been remedied,” Tuncak and Tauli-Corpuz said in a statement from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The remarks will likely be welcomed by indigenous rights activists in Peru who say a law requiring the government to include native groups in talks on projects affecting them has not been fully enforced.

Peru’s environment ministry and energy and mines ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In previous years, the government has declared several environmental emergencies in the region due to oil pollution.

Frontera did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Peru’s government has been trying to jump start investments in the country’s oil industry that have dropped sharply since global oil prices fell and a series of ruptures largely shuttered the main pipeline serving the sector.

The aging pipeline, operated by state-owned oil company Petroperu, suffered a new rupture this week, Petroperu said Wednesday. The company has blamed most of the dozen spills from the pipeline last year on attacks from unknown parties.

In June, Frontera reached a deal with indigenous people who had occupied Block 192 in a land-use dispute. The company agreed to pay them for use of land and finance community projects.

Block 192 has produced an average of 2,565 barrels of oil per day this year, a sharp drop from previous years when it churned out some 10,000 bpd, according to data from state regulator Perupetro.

U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum produced oil from Block 192 for decades before Argentine energy company Pluspetrol took over operations in 2001. Frontera was awarded a two-year contract in 2015.
…

McDonald’s is hoping to make a difference in its future seven seconds at a time.

 

The company that helped define fast food is making supersized efforts to reverse its fading popularity and catch up to a landscape that has evolved around it. That includes expanding delivery, digital ordering kiosks in restaurants, and rolling out an app that saves precious seconds.

 

Much of the work is on display in an unmarked warehouse near the company’s headquarters in suburban Chicago, where a blowup of a mobile phone screen shows the app launching nationally later this year. McDonald’s estimates it would take 10 seconds for a customer to tell an employee their order number from the app, down from the 17-second average of ordering at the drive-thru, a difference that could help ease pileups. Elsewhere at the Innovation Center, the digital ordering kiosk shows how customers can skip lines at the register.

 

“Five, 10 years ago, we were the dominant player in convenience, as convenience was defined in those days,” CEO Steve Easterbrook said last month. “But convenience continually gets redefined, and we haven’t modernized.” 

 

The push come as McDonald’s Corp.’s stock has hit all-time highs as investors cheer a turnaround plan that has included slashed costs and expansion overseas. Yet the asterisk on the headlines is the chain’s declining stature in its flagship U.S. market, where it is fighting intensifying competition, fickle tastes and a persistent junk food image.

 

In an increasingly crowded field of places to eat, the number of McDonald’s locations in the U.S. is set to shrink for the third year in a row. At established locations, the frequency of customer visits has declined for four straight years, even after the launch of a popular “All-Day Breakfast” menu. 

 

The chain that popularized innovations like drive-thrus in the 1970s acknowledges it has been slow to adapt, and is scrambling to better fit into American lifestyles. 

 

Running to keep up

 

Lots of once-dominant restaurant chains are feeling the pressure of people having more eating options.

 

An estimated 613,000 places were selling either food or drink in the U.S. last year, up 17 percent from a decade earlier, according to government figures. Supermarkets and convenience stores are offering more prepared foods, and meal-kit delivery companies have been expanding. 

 

“Better burger” places like Shake Shack and Habit Burger Grill don’t come close to McDonald’s roughly 14,000 U.S. locations, but they’re growing. And even if Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts don’t serve burgers and fries, they are among those promoting food more aggressively.

 

“They’re still taking customers from the same market pool,” said Nick Karavites, a McDonald’s franchisee with 22 locations in the Chicago area and chairman of a regional leadership committee.

 

Richard Adams, a former McDonald’s franchisee who is now a consultant to those businesses, has questioned whether the chain can return to the height of its popularity in such a fragmented marketplace. He also noted that many of the new offerings the company is pursuing, such as delivery, are already available at other places.

 

Still, McDonald’s needs to make changes to keep customer visits from falling further. 

 

‘Turning a very large ship’

 

One main focus is the drive-thru, where McDonald’s gets roughly 70 percent of its business. 

 

Customers who place orders on the mobile app, for instance, could also pull into a designated parking spot where an employee would bring out their order. That would theoretically ease backups at the drive-thru, which in turn might prevent potential customers from driving past without stopping during peak hours.

 

Then there’s the partnership with UberEats to offer delivery. McDonald’s gives an undisclosed percentage of the sale to UberEats, in addition to a fee of about $5 that customers pay. So a risk is that delivery could draw from in-store sales, eating into profitability.

 

So far, however, McDonald’s says delivery is bringing in new business during slower times at the roughly 3,500 locations where it has rolled out since the start of the year. 

 

Either way, such changes aren’t likely to transform operations overnight, since most of McDonald’s customers might prefer to order the way they always have. 

 

“That’s like turning a very large ship,” said Karavites, noting the range of company efforts intended to build sales over time. At his remodeled restaurant in Chicago where delivery was recently launched, he said sales are climbing. 

 

To bring more people in over the short-term, the company is promoting $1 sodas and $2 McCafe drinks. Glass cases displaying baked goods are also popping up in stores. And at about 700 locations, the company is testing “dessert stations” behind the counter where employees can make sundaes topped with cake or brownie chunks. 

 

Those stations could eventually handle an expanded menu of sweets.

 

Junk food image

 

At the same time, McDonald’s is trying to shake its image for serving junk food, especially since its appeal to families with children has long helped keep it ahead of rivals like Burger King and Wendy’s.

 

It’s made changes to its Happy Meal, and made a high-profile pledge to offer healthier options. It plans to start using fresh beef instead of frozen patties in Quarter Pounders. But as other chains emphasizing quality or health keep emerging, it may get harder for McDonald’s to hold onto families or change perceptions. 

 

Larry Light, a former chief marketing officer at McDonald’s, says the company strayed in recent years by chasing customers who may have been going to places like Chipotle, but that it is refocusing on burgers and fries. He thinks that will help get people visiting more often.

 

“You cannot build an enduring, profitable business on a shrinking customer base,” Light said.

 

And Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore cited the changes the company is pursuing in raising her rating on McDonald’s to “buy” in April.

 

“I wouldn’t underestimate the power of scale,” Senatore said.
…

Working 50 meters (164 feet) under ground with minimal air supply, Uuganbaatar is one of thousands of Mongolians trying to make a living digging for coal.

Although the mining season does not begin until autumn, when the ground freezes and work is safer, the 31-year-old and his colleagues are seeking to gain a head start by digging a shaft in Nalaikh, one of the nine districts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, in late June.

But their mine could soon be shut by the government, which has launched an unprecedented crackdown on sites that don’t meet safety standards.

That would mean even fewer opportunities for Mongolia’s individual prospectors, who have already been hit hard by the privatization of mines previously open to all.

Miners such as Uuganbaatar dig for coal under loose arrangements with local unions and private companies.

“Things seem really tough for private miners now,” said Uuganbaatar, who, like many Mongolians, goes by one name. “All the licenses have been bought up by influential big shots. Whenever you start to dig somewhere, someone shows up and chases us away. It’s impossible to find a place or mine to dig in.”

A weak economy and particularly harsh winters drove herdsman from across Mongolia to Nalaikh’s private mines in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The district, with a population of nearly 30,000, was home to Mongolia’s first state mining company, which collapsed in the 1990s in the midst of a post-communist economic crisis. The firm’s dilapidated buildings dot the landscape.

With the economy slowing again after a commodities boom earlier in the decade, authorities fear more people could be tempted down the mines.

“More mines will probably be shut down,” said Byambadorj, a woman who ran two private mine shafts with her husband for 13 years until the government closed them in June.

“In Nalaikh, life revolves around mining, and mining is the main means to support our lives,” she says, insisting that her mines were operating according to the safety standards.

The government had tried to get companies to improve safety by issuing licenses. An official said nine companies had been granted licenses, but not all had met the standards.

“People were working in shafts with no air supply,” said S. Battulga, an official whose department is responsible for reviewing mining licenses across the country.

“Therefore, it was requested that the private mining licenses in Nalaikh be cancelled” on health and safety grounds, he added.

Nalaikh authorities would like people to switch from mining to work in brick factories, but no one seems keen to switch despite the danger.

In the past 25 years, the government has recorded 234 fatalities in Nalaikh’s coal mines, although residents say the real number is hundreds higher.
…

Spanish companies will commit millions of pounds of investment to Britain on Thursday, the British government said, as it seeks to limit the economic impact of leaving the European Union.

The investment plans, which include building trains and trams in Britain, coincide with a three-day state visit to Britain by Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia.

King Felipe and British trade minister Liam Fox are due to address a U.K.-Spain business forum in London on Thursday, before the Spanish monarch holds bilateral talks with Prime Minister Theresa May at her Downing Street residence.

Britain said the investments would include Spanish manufacturer CAF committing 30 million pounds ($39 million) to build trains and trams at a new factory in Wales, creating 300 jobs, and Spanish infrastructure company Sacyr unveiling plans for a new office in London.

Bilateral trade strong

Bilateral trade between the two countries was worth 40 billion pounds in 2015, and more than 400 Spanish companies are registered in Britain, the government said.

“The sheer scale of Spanish investment in Britain demonstrates Spain’s continued confidence in the strength of the UK economy, and shows that we can and will maintain the closest possible relationship,” May said in a statement.

The government also highlighted more than 100 million pounds which is being invested in the expansion of Luton Airport, majority owned Spanish airport operator AENA, and the construction of a 26 million pound factory in the West Midlands by Spanish steel producer Gonvarri Steel Services.

Gibraltar remains issue

Away from the financial deals, the Spanish royal visit comes amid tensions over the post-Brexit future of the British territory of Gibraltar, which Spain wants back.

The future of Gibraltar, a rock on the southern tip of Spain captured by Britain in 1704, and its 30,000 inhabitants, is set to be a major point of contention in the Brexit talks.

During an address to members of both houses of parliament in London on Wednesday, Felipe said he was confident that Spain and Britain could work towards an acceptable arrangement over Gibraltar.

May to meet with King Felipe

The EU and Britain have also yet to agree on guarantees for EU citizens living in the UK and British expats living in other EU countries. More than 300,000 Britons live in Spain, while more than 130,000 Spaniards live in Britain.

On Wednesday, Felipe said these citizens had “a legitimate expectation of decent and stable living conditions” and urged the British and Spanish governments to work to ensure the Brexit agreement provided sufficient assurance and certainty.

May’s office said that during her talks with Felipe she would welcome the contribution that Spanish citizens make to Britain’s economy and society.

 
…

It’s nearly midday at the bustling Tegeta bus terminal in Tanzania’s biggest city and Olivia Mbiku is busy preparing ugali – a popular maize meal – beef stew and vegetables for her customers.

“I wake up early, light up the fire and rush to the market to buy meat, cooking oil, tomatoes and everything I need for the day,” said the 25-year-old mother of two.

Shrouded in a cloud of smoke, and with a traditional colorful ‘khanga’ tied round her waist, Mbiku takes some maize flour from a sachet and sprinkles it into boiling water while briskly stirring with a stick to make it stiff.

“I cook ugali every day because most of my customers like it,” Mbiku told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It’s not a lucrative business, but I get enough to feed my family.”

Mbiku is among dozens of food vendors trying to earn a living amid the hubbub of the Dar es Salaam bus terminal, where conductors hoot and yell to attract customers.

She works eight hours and day, earning around 45,000 shillings ($20) to supplement her husband’s income as a mason.

But unlike licensed hawkers who work from rows of wooden stalls, Mbiku cooks in the open air and is often harassed by the city militias for selling food without the proper papers.

“They often seize my cooking pots and sometimes lock me up. I have to pay some money to be released and get my stuff back,” she said.

Mbiku and other women with unlicensed businesses finally have a glimmer of hope after the Tanzanian government last month announced it would recognize them as part of its broader policy of empowering women.

Maria Ezekiel, 31, who has a stall serving chicken soup, chapati and tea along the busy Bagamoyo highway each morning, said the move to formalize micro-enterprises like hers was an important milestone for small-scale entrepreneurs.

A license would allow her to apply for credit to upgrade her business, she said.

“I think it’s a very good opportunity for me. As soon as the identity cards are issued I will start processing my bank loan,” Ezekiel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I want to borrow at least 500,000 shillings ($225) to modernize my cooking business.”

The roadside chef wants to buy better equipment and switch to a gas stove to replace the smoky firewood she now cooks on.

Unprotected

Operating in the informal sector leaves women without protection and unable to access credit, experts say.

“Urban food vending may be a good tool for creating livelihood security for the urban poor, but to achieve this there has to be better policy initiatives,” said Haji Semboja, economics professor at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Presenting the annual budget in June, Tanzania’s finance minister, Philip Mpango, said all food vendors – most of whom are women – would be brought into the mainstream sector.

The government would work with regional authorities to identify informal businesses and license them before 2020, he said.

“We will issue identity cards and designate special premises for them,” the minister told parliament.

Margareth Chacha, a banker and former chief executive of Tanzania Women’s Bank that supports small-scale women entrepreneurs, said women are held back because of strict loan conditions imposed by banks.

“Most of the women can’t access the loans because the conditions are too tough,” she said. “But if the government can act as a guarantor, I’m sure the banks will be willing to give loans.”

The benefits of thriving women-led businesses are felt throughout the economy, she said.

Back at Tegeta bus terminal, Olivia Mbiku says she is now hoping for a more stable, prosperous future.

“I would very much like to get a bank loan and start a big catering business,” she said.
…