May, 2020

• 13 May

  India to provide unsecured loans worth $40b to small businesses

  

  Bloomberg India will provide collateral-free loans worth $40 billion to boost liquidity for small businesses and help the economy tide over the coronavirus outbreak. The loans will benefit up to 4.5 million small businesses, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in New Delhi on Wednesday. The program will be open until October 31. “Essentially this is to spur growth and to ...

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• 13 May

  Emirates resumes passenger flights to nine destinations

  

  DUBAI / Emirates Business Emirates has announced its plan to operate scheduled flight services from May 21 to nine destinations: London Heathrow Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney and Melbourne.* The airline will also offer connections in Dubai for customers travelling between the UK and Australia. These flights will be available for booking on emirates.com. Travellers will only be ...

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• 13 May

  China’s energy shift sets mega hybrid facilities in motion

  

  Bloomberg In China’s latest efforts to pit renewable energy against fossil fuels, it is again betting on size. Resources such as wind and solar don’t stand much of a chance if there isn’t a way to store energy when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. So some of China’s biggest state-owned companies are pouring in billions of ...

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• 13 May

  IEA sees oil use below pre-virus levels for a year

  Bloomberg It will take more than a year, and perhaps several, for oil demand to recover to what it was before the coronavirus shuttered conomies and caused energy markets to collapse, according to the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Crude demand of about 100 million barrels a day prior to the pandemic plummeted by about 30% last month, ...

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• 13 May

  Covid-19: The death of the “hot” economy

  

  The US economy has taken a turn for the worse — much worse. The collapse of the job market in late April and early May raises the question (for which there is no clear answer) of whether the economy has fallen into a depression or, if not, faces a long stretch of slow growth, high unemployment and stagnating incomes. The ...

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• 13 May

  What impairs India’s virus recovery

  

  The gradual reopening of India’s economy after a 43-day coronavirus lockdown has been marred by a hyper-centralisation of decision-making. Deepening mistrust between New Delhi and the 28 states threatens to splinter the country’s common market of 1.3 billion people, its biggest draw for investors. With infections surging by nearly 50% to cross 70,000 since the shutdown was eased about a ...

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• 13 May

  Britain’s furlough plan is only just the start

  When Boris Johnson said “we must act like any wartime government,” he also meant Britain must spend like one — and the prime minister has certainly lived up to the promise. His Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak told Parliament that Britain had one of the most comprehensive financial relief plans for the Covid-19 outbreak anywhere in the world. That ...

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• 13 May

  Is US’s tax return case about Donald Trump?

  You might think that the Supreme Court case regarding President Donald Trump’s tax returns is about him, or least about the power of the presidency. It isn’t. As the live-streamed oral arguments made clear, this is a case about Congress — and whether its oversight authority will be stripped away by an activist Supreme Court. The Constitution gives Congress “all ...

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• 13 May

  Amazon: Delivery speed returns to normal after virus crush

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc says the one- and two-day delivery times that shoppers have come to expect should gradually return in coming weeks as the online retailer catches up from a demand surge tied to the coronavirus outbreak. The company lifted restrictions on the amount of inventory its suppliers can send to Amazon warehouses and is shortening delivery times — which ...

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• 13 May

  Ryanair sees its rivals failing, cheaper Max deal after virus

  

  Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc sees an opportunity to buy planes for less and reduce other costs with weaker rivals out of the picture once the airline industry emerges on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic. Dublin-based Ryanair is in “advanced discussions” with Boeing Co over pricing for 737 Max jets, Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said at a Financial ...

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