YCLOAK

Greece welcomed Wednesday a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts.

The 8-billion-euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a key term of Greece’s international bailout and is closely watched by its official creditors and potential investors in the crisis-hit country.

Greek developer Lamda signed a 99-year lease with the state in 2014 for the 620-hectare (1,530-acre) area, once the site of Athen’s airport. But the project has faced delays, partly over a long-running disagreement between developers and those who fear it will damage the environment and cultural heritage.

Protection urged for part of site

After three inconclusive meetings in recent weeks, the Central Archaeological Council, an advisory body, recommended Tuesday that about 30 hectares (74 acres) of the 620-hectare plot under the project be declared an archaeological site.

“The decision is fine,” Deputy Economy Minister in charge of investments, Stergios Pitsiorlas, told Reuters. “The fact that a small area is declared of archaeological interest shields the whole process from future litigation.”

Pitsiorlas said the recommendation meant that archaeologists will have a closer supervision of construction work.

Backed by Chinese and Gulf funds, Lamda submitted its detailed development plan for Hellenikon in July, setting off a licensing process that will wrap up with a decree.

The Council approved the plan Tuesday and designated specific areas where construction should not be allowed. It was not immediately clear how the Council’s recommendation could affect Lamda’s construction plan.

​Impact on development

Lamda said it was waiting to be officially notified over the decision before making any public statement, saying “the importance of the archaeological findings has been included from the beginning in the company’s undertakings.”

It said it should be able to assess the impact of the Council’s decision on its development plan once it has reviewed the resolutions and accompanying diagrams.

The recommendation is not binding, however, the culture ministry always respects the body’s decisions.

Greece on Monday overcame another hurdle to the project by winning an appeal over objections by forestry officials.

Hellenikon has become a major political issue in Greece, which is slowly emerging from a multi-year debt crisis.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist party strongly opposed it before coming to power in 2015, is now seen as keen to implement the deal to help boost economic activity and reduce unemployment, the euro zone’s highest.

Referring to the council’s decision, Deputy Foreign Minister Giannis Amanatidis said it was “a complicated process which was resolved in the best possible way.”
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South Korea indicated Wednesday it was open to talks on revising a 2012 trade pact with the United States after initial differences that followed President Donald Trump’s threat to terminate the accord unless it was renegotiated.

After a day of talks in Washington, South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement, “The two sides recognized the need to amend the FTA to enhance mutual benefits of the KORUS FTA,” as the pact is called.

The U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, said the United States looked forward to stepped-up talks “to resolve outstanding implementation issues as well as to engage soon on amendments that will lead to fair, reciprocal trade.”

The statements mark a shift from an initial meeting in August, when the two sides failed to agree on next steps after Lighthizer had made demands to amend the agreement to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea.

Since the trade agreement went into effect in 2012, the U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea more than doubled to $27.6 billion last year. But through July 2017, the bilateral trade deficit fell to $13.1 billion from $18.8 billion during the same period of 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

No date was given for a third round of talks between the two countries, which comes as Lighthizer is also focused on revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.
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Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday that the Fed is committed to making sure that the regulations it imposes on the nation’s community banks are not overly burdensome, noting a proposed rule issued last week to simplify requirements governing how much capital these banks must hold.

In remarks to a community banking conference in St. Louis, Yellen said the proposed new rule on capital requirements was the latest effort by regulators to ease burdens on smaller banks. She says the Fed is seeking to increase the number of community banks eligible for less frequent examinations and loosen requirements for property appraisals on commercial real estate transactions.

Yellen has defended the tougher regulations imposed following the 2008 banking crisis but has said there is room to ease regulatory burdens on smaller banks.

“For community banks, which by and large avoided the risky business practices that contributed to the financial crisis, we have been focused on making sure that much-needed improvements to regulation and supervision are appropriate,” Yellen told the conference.

During last year’s election campaign, Donald Trump attacked the Dodd-Frank Act passed by Congress in 2010 to prevent future crises as a disaster that he said had stifled the economy by limiting bank lending. Yellen, however, has said that the major parts of Dodd-Frank have made the financial system safer and should be retained.
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U.S. business groups expressed frustration on Wednesday with what they said are China’s efforts to tilt the economic playing field in favor of domestic companies, adding that World Trade Organization rules are insufficient to police all of Beijing’s trade practices.

U.S. companies face increasing threats from Chinese investment rules, industrial policies, subsidies to state-owned enterprises, excess manufacturing capacity, cybersecurity regulations and forced technology transfers, the groups told a public hearing held by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The session will influence an annual report on China’s WTO compliance by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office as well as a USTR investigation into China’s intellectual property practices that could lead to imposition of trade sanctions by President Donald Trump.

China has woven a ‘tapestry’

Josh Kallmer, senior vice president of global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, said China had woven a “tapestry” of rules and policies that places foreign companies at a disadvantage and incentivizes the transfer of technology.

“It just in general puts a thumb on the competitive scale in a way that significantly and profoundly affects U.S.-based and foreign companies,” said Kallmer, who was representing a coalition of technology groups from semiconductors to software.

The concerns are not new. They were highlighted in the USTR’s last report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance issued on Jan, 1, 2017, and raised in subsequent meetings by Trump administration officials.

USTR Assistant Secretary Edward Gresser told the hearing that there was a growing recognition that WTO rules did not cover all of China’s practices viewed as unfair. The United States and other WTO members needed “to find effective ways to address those Chinese government practices that may violate the spirit of the WTO that nevertheless may not fall squarely within the WTO disciplines,” he said.

For investors, China less attractive

Jeremie Waterman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for Greater China, said China’s restrictive investment regime and other industrial policies requiring technology transfers in recent years have made China a less attractive place to invest for foreign firms, and not all of these policies can be changed with full WTO compliance.

This has been made worse by China’s “Made in China 2025” plan, which aims to supplant foreign products and technologies with domestic ones and new cybersecurity regulations that put foreign information technology products at a disadvantage, Waterman said.

“The ballast has become less stable in recent years” in the U.S.-China economic relationship, he added.
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Dozens of tourists pack beach chairs at a Tunisian luxury hotel, where everything from the swimming pool to the wall paint, the furniture at the shiny reception hall, the police post at its gate and even its name is new.

Nothing reminds holiday-makers of the day in June 2015 when an Islamic State militant shot dead 39 foreigners in this beach resort, triggering an exodus of tourists from the country and severely damaging its economy.

Now some of those tourists are coming back, thanks to a massive security presence and advertising abroad. Tourism revenues rose 21 percent to $851 million in the first nine months of 2017 compared with last year, central bank data show.

The rise is helping the government weather an economic crisis as it prepares an austere budget and tax increases. The reforms were agreed to with the International Monetary Fund in return for a new $350 million loan.

Hotels fill up

Westerners are still reluctant to come back, even though most countries have lifted travel warnings. But hotels have managed to fill rooms, mostly with Algerians and Russians — the latter avoiding Egypt since Islamic State downed a Russian plane in 2015.

“It’s great here. Security is better than in Egypt,” said Galina Rasputov, a vacationer from Moscow. “I’ll come back.”

Rasputov was taking a break from the beach at the bar of the hotel where a Tunisian gunman trained in Libya opened fire with a Kalashnikov in 2015. The hotel was called Imperial Marhaba then; it reopened this summer after undergoing a facelift and changing its name to the Steigenberger Kantaoui Bay.

“We are fully booked,” said Zohra Driss, who owns this and other hotels in Sousse, a tourist beach town 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of the capital, Tunis. “Many are Russians but we also have Algerians, Germans.”

Attacks in 2015

Tourism accounts for about 8 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product, provides thousands of jobs and is a key source of foreign currency, but it has struggled since two major attacks in 2015.

The first, at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, left 21 tourists dead. The Sousse attack killed 39, mostly British vacationers.

And risks remain. Jihadists are returning from Syria, Iraq and Libya after Islamic State lost most of its territory there.

But the number of foreign tourists rose by 23.4 percent to reach 5.366 million up to September, compared with the same period last year. Officials hope 6.5 million will come in all of 2017, which would be a return to the normal level.

The number of European visitors, however, rose by just 16.5 percent. Major tour operators like Thomas Cook have resumed bookings in select hotels, but the European tourists remain far below their pre-2015 levels.

That has left the industry relying on Algerians, whose numbers rose by 44 percent to 1.8 million up to September.

Almost half a million Russians also came.

“We seek to attract more tourists next year from new destinations like China and Canada while we will still focus on our traditional markets like U.K. and Germany,” said Neji Ben Othman, director general of the tourism ministry.

More security

Tunisia has increased security in Sousse and other tourist spots. Checkpoints were erected on the main roads and at hotels, ancient sites and airports. After police were criticized for a slow response to stop the hotel gunmen, security forces have cracked down on militants, dismantling dozens of cells.

With hotels resembling fortresses, many tourists book “all inclusive” tours that benefit chains and tour operators. But they stay indoors, leaving souvenir traders and cafes idle in the old city. Russians and Algerians, who come by car, also tend to spend less than Germans or Brits, the former clientele.

“Most come only to watch, like in a museum,” said Lutfi Laoun, a vendor who sells traditional pottery. “I haven’t had a single customer today.”
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Ford Motor Co.’s new CEO plans to cut $14 billion in costs, drop some car models and focus the company’s resources on trucks, SUVs and electric vehicles as part of a renewed effort to win over skeptical investors.

Jim Hackett, who became Ford’s CEO in May, met with around 100 investors Tuesday in New York to lay out his plans for the future. He said getting the company lean and flexible will help it handle the changes the auto industry is facing, from car-sharing to self-driving vehicles, to the shift to electric cars.

“I feel a real sense of urgency for what we’re doing here,” Hackett said.

Hackett and his executive team spent the summer reevaluating Ford’s operations after former CEO Mark Fields was ousted in May. Hackett traveled to Russia and Turkey and visited North American plants and Ford’s Silicon Valley research center as part of his review.

He said he was impressed by the talent at Ford, but wants to update factories and speed product development and decision-making. One of his first moves was to pare down the number of people reporting to him. Hackett has eight direct reports, compared to 18 for Fields.

Ford told investors it expects to reduce material costs by $10 billion by 2022 through new deals with suppliers and simpler designs. The company plans to share more parts between vehicles and reduce the options available for configuring a car. For example, customers can now order a Ford Fusion sedan in 35,000 possible combinations. Ford is reducing that to 96.

Ford also says it will cut $4 billion in engineering costs through 2022 by making fewer prototypes and reducing product-development time.

It plans to cut one-third of its engine development costs and redeploy them to electric and hybrid vehicles. Ford plans to introduce 13 new electrics and hybrids over the next five years, including a small electric SUV coming in 2020.

The company plans to reallocate $7 billion from cars to SUVs and trucks. Global demand for those vehicles is rising, and they are critical to Ford’s bottom line. Jim Farley, head of Ford’s global markets, said Ford plans more off-road SUVs like the upcoming Bronco for North America and more low-end small SUVs and seven-passenger SUVs for China.

The automaker plans to cut some cars from its lineup, but didn’t name them Tuesday. Farley said Ford will still offer small cars, like the Focus, but will stick to more expensive — and more profitable — versions.

Smarter vehicles

Ford emphasized that it’s open to new partnerships, such as its recent agreement with Indian automaker Mahindra Group to cooperate on mobility, electric cars and other projects. It is also working with ride-hailing company Lyft on self-driving technology and with China’s Zotye Automobile Co. about an electric car partnership.

The company says its vehicles will get smarter, with 90 percent of its global vehicles getting modem connectivity by 2020. That will allow things like software updates or apps that help drivers find parking. Ford can differentiate itself by offering, say, connected commercial vans that help small businesses keep track of their deliveries.

Marcy Klevorn, Ford’s head of mobility, said Ford launched a medical van service eight weeks ago that can pick up wheelchair-bound patients and take them to the doctor. The service uses Ford-developed software for scheduling appointments, and it will help the company figure out ways that consumers will eventually use self-driving vehicles.

“We have created a box of assets that we can pull out and use for various things,” Klevorn said.

Share price

Ford stuck to its previous guidance for 2017 on Tuesday. The company expects adjusted earnings of $1.65 to $1.85 for the full year. Ford earned $1.76 per share 2016.

Hackett, the former CEO of office furniture company Steelcase Inc., joined Ford’s board in 2013. He briefly led Ford’s mobility unit before being tapped as CEO.

Ford hired Hackett, in part, to turn around its share price, which has languished for the last two years even as rival General Motors Co. saw its shares rise to their highest level in seven years. Ford sunk below Tesla Inc. in market value earlier this year, even though it earned $4.6 billion in 2016 and Tesla has never made a full-year profit.

Ford’s shares rose 2 percent to close at $12.34 Tuesday before Hackett’s presentation. It’s not yet clear if his pitch will improve investors’ confidence.

“Straddling the now and the future will be tricky, especially in terms of profitability,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst for the car-buying site Autotrader.com.

Investors have been critical of Ford for waiting too long to bring a long-range electric vehicle to market, as GM did with the Chevrolet Bolt. They also struggled to understand Ford’s plans to compete on autonomous cars.

“In the past few years, Ford simply hasn’t had a compelling narrative that investors could latch onto,” Barclay’s analyst Brian Johnson wrote in a recent note to investors.
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North Korea’s U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Tuesday of imposing “an economic blockade” on his country and deploying nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula aimed at toppling leader Kim Jong Un.

Ja Song Nam said the U.S. push for countries to implement what he called “illegal and unjustifiable” U.N. sanctions on North Korea is part of America’s “frantic attempt to completely block our peaceful economy for people’s everyday lives and humanitarian cooperation.”

“The U.S. is clinging to unprecedented nuclear threats and blackmail, economic sanctions and blockade to deny our rights to existence and development, but they only result in our sharper vigilance and greater courage,” he told the General Assembly committee that deals with economic and financial issues.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed its toughest sanctions ever on North Korea in response to its continuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile tests, with the aim of pressuring Kim’s government into returning to negotiations on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

The measures include a ban on countries importing North Korean coal, iron ore and textiles and new limits on its crucial oil and petroleum product imports. But the economic pressure has had no visible impact on Kim’s government, which appears to be accelerating toward what it says is its goal: putting the entire United States within range of its nuclear weapons.

A week ago, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that U.S. President Donald Trump had “declared the war on our country” by tweeting that North Korea’s leadership “won’t be around much longer.” Hours later, the White House pushed back, saying: “We have not declared war on North Korea.”

No regime change

The Trump administration, referring to the tweet, stressed that the U.S. was not seeking to overthrow North Korea’s government. U.S. Cabinet officials, particularly Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have insisted that the U.S.-led campaign of diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea is focused on eliminating its nuclear weapons program, not its totalitarian government.

North Korea’s ambassador told the assembly committee that “our people will continue to uphold the line of simultaneous development of the state nuclear force and the economy.”

Ja said the country is committed to implementing U.N. goals to end poverty and preserve the environment by 2030 and said Trump’s announced intention to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement “illustrates the negative stand of the U.S. towards the sustainable development goals.”

To achieve these goals, Ja said, “we should immediately obliterate the high-handed measures of the U.S., including the sanctions imposed on the developing countries.”

And clearly aiming at the United States and other economic powers, he said the “monopolistic position” of countries that control the monetary and trade system should be destroyed at the same time.
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The recovery of eastern Caribbean islands hardest hit by recent hurricanes, including Dominica, Barbuda, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, could cost up to $1 billion, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a large-scale rebuilding effort that will take time,” said Stephen O’Malley, the U.N. resident coordinator for Barbados and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, “and it will be important to do that right.”

He told U.N. correspondents in a phone briefing from Dominica that “we don’t have exact figures yet,” but for the worst-affected islands the recovery bill will be “half a billion to a billion dollars.”

O’Malley said the United Nations, World Bank and Antigua government have conducted a post-disaster needs assessment for Barbuda, whose 1,800 residents were evacuated to Antigua before Hurricane Irma damaged 95 percent of its structures on Sept. 14. And he said a similar assessment will be done in Dominca, which was ravaged on Sept. 18 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, probably in about three weeks.

“They want to build back better and they take that very, very seriously — to make sure that that can be done,” O’Malley said.

Making plans for future

Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said he wants to have the world’s first “climate-resilient nation.”

He made an impassioned case for the world to do more to help vulnerable countries cope with the effects of global warming and urged the U.N. General Assembly 10 days ago to “let these extraordinary events elicit extraordinary efforts to rebuild nations sustainably.”

O’Malley said the effects of climate change are evident in the Caribbean, where the sea is heating up.

“The fact that the Caribbean Sea heats up, it intensifies the strengths of hurricanes; it doesn’t necessarily make them more frequent but it intensifies” the storm, he said.

O’Malley said the challenge for the islands in rebuilding is: “How do you protect yourself against that? How do you ensure that you have a resilient state and a resilient economy if you know that the risk factors are going to be elevating in this next period of time?”

Immediate disaster relief critical

As for immediate disaster relief following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, he said, regional efforts and military assistance from outside the region have been critical.

He singled out the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency which sent a ship from Barbados to Dominica with initial aid workers the day after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

When he landed at the airport in Dominica on Tuesday, he said there were policemen from St. Kitts, soldiers from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago securing the airport and other sites.

“That has helped the government set itself back up — that regional solidarity,” O’Malley said.

Some ‘green’ returning to Dominica

He said Dominica has also benefited from timely military support, especially helicopters and water desalination plants on naval vessels that produced water that could be taken inland and distributed.

He singled out military help to Dominica from Venezuela, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and the Netherlands.

Compared with the situation a week ago, O’Malley said he could already see some green returning to the almost totally brown island, streets were clear, roads were opening up, power and water supplies were being restored and the port was open. Now, he said, power and water need to be restored to everyone on Dominica and the economy needs to start operating quickly.

 
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