March, 2021

• 1 March

  Emirates to fly daily to Khartoum

  

  Dubai / WAM Emirates airline will boost its frequencies to Sudan with the introduction of daily flights to and from Khartoum starting on March 9. The introduction of additional frequencies will provide more options and added convenience for those wishing to travel to Dubai and beyond to Emirates’ network of over 90 destinations. Emirates continues to take measured steps to ...

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• 1 March

  Texas power market $1.3b short post crisis

  

  Bloomberg Texas’s grid operator needs to come up with $1.3 billion to pay power plants for energy they supplied during last week’s historic blackouts, raising the prospect it may require a state bailout. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s grid, said it’s still waiting on more than $2 billion in payments from retail power ...

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• 1 March

  China’s overseas energy lending drops to lowest since 2008

  

  Bloomberg China’s overseas energy financing dropped to the lowest level since 2008 after the pandemic hampered deal-making in developing nations. Financing for foreign energy projects, including power plants and mines, fell by 43% to $4.6 billion, according to Boston University’s Global Energy Finance Database, which tracks data from two state-owned development banks. More than half of lending was for a ...

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• 1 March

  The looming test for US central bank independence

  

  In the first two columns in this series, I asked what the pandemic meant for short-term fiscal policy and, looking farther ahead, for measures to accommodate structural shifts in our economies. This time I’ll ask what it means for monetary policy — and the starting point is to look back at a key moment in history. March 4 is the ...

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• 1 March

  HK property boom built on ‘slums’

  

  A booming stock market at a time of pandemic recession and widening inequality is an unfortunate combination, so the tax raid on the Hong Kong exchange shouldn’t be a surprise. Soaking well-to-do finance types to help pay for consumption handouts sends a convenient populist message. It may also serve to deflect attention from the government’s failure to tackle the biggest ...

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• 1 March

  Increasing pollution is an ineluctable law of nature

  Looking at the way the world’s carbon emissions have risen in recent decades, it’s tempting to believe that increasing pollution is an ineluctable law of nature. That’s by no means a heretical view. Vaclav Smil, the Czech-Canadian energy analyst revered by Bill Gates, has often pointed to the growth in pollution since the 1980s as evidence that a transition to ...

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• 1 March

  If London can’t beat SPACs, better join them

  London’s regime for special purpose acquisition companies serves no one well. Its approach to investor protection is so crude as to have prevented the SPAC market from taking off at all. As the UK scrambles to bolster its post-Brexit finance industry, it should not dismiss the US model unless it can devise something better. SPACs are publicly traded cash shells ...

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• 1 March

  China still has ‘major safety concerns’ about 737 Max

  

  Bloomberg China still has major safety concerns about Boeing Co’s 737 Max, the deputy head of the country’s aviation regulator said on Monday when asked if it was considering following others in allowing the plane to fly again. Once issues have been fully addressed, China will conduct a final review of the aircraft, Dong Zhiyi said at a briefing in ...

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• 1 March

  Thai Air seeks $1.65bn infusion under revamp

  

  Bloomberg Thai Airways International Pcl is seeking a capital infusion of as much as 50 billion baht ($1.65 billion) under a debt restructuring plan set to be submitted to a bankruptcy court to keep the flag carrier operational, according to people familiar with the matter. The fund may be raised through equity, loans or convertible securities, said the people, who ...

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• 1 March

  City of London wants retail expansion despite slump

  

  Bloomberg London’s main financial district expects demand for stores from workers and visitors to increase even as retailers go bust because more consumers are shopping online. The City of London’s local government expects investors to add 122,500 square metres (1.3 million square feet) of retail space in the district over the coming 15 years, according to a proposed development plan. ...

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