January, 2020

• 11 January

  South Africa’s ANC commits to reserve bank mandate

  Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling African National Congress reaffirmed the central bank’s role, mandate and independence in an annual policy statement. The assurance may allay fears of renewed attacks by some ANC leaders on the South African Reserve Bank in the run-up to the party’s national general council later this year. The gathering will mark the mid-point of the current ANC ...

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• 11 January

  Powell likened dot-plot dangers to nuclear meltdown in 2014

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell likened the potential fallout surrounding the central bank’s interest-rate forecasts to a nuclear meltdown in what even he admitted was a stretched metaphor back in 2014. “The market doesn’t really understand how the SEP works and how it gets put together,” the then-Fed governor said in March 2014, referring to the central bank’s quarterly ...

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• 11 January

  Citi sees a busy year for Korea bond sales

  Bloomberg South Korea’s biggest arranger of offshore bond sales expects another busy year in 2020 due to a big wall of maturing debt and foreign investor demand at a time of rising uncertainties elsewhere. Korean issuers sold $33.3 billion of notes abroad last year, only slightly below the six-year high marked in 2018, Bloomberg-compiled data show. Issuance in 2020 will ...

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• 11 January

  Relief for Tata in India’s biggest corporate feud

  

  Bloomberg India’s Tata Group scored a temporary victory in a corporate feud after the nation’s top court said an ousted chairman can’t return to his old job, a move that promises to reduce the legal distractions threatening to stunt growth at the $111 billion conglomerate. A three-judge Supreme Court bench put on hold a lower court verdict last month that ...

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• 11 January

  Japan Post CEO puts growth aside to fix scandal-hit group

  

  Bloomberg Japan Post Holdings Co’s new chief executive officer vowed to restore the group’s reputation and said it’s too soon to think about growing business after an insurance scandal brought down his predecessor. “My mission is to forge a solid footing,” Hiroya Masuda said in Tokyo. “We have just received a business suspension order. We would lose investors’ trust if ...

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• 11 January

  China will reach 2019 growth goal, says NBS

  

  Bloomberg China will reach its target of economic growth of 6% to 6.5% in 2019, said National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) head Ning Jizhe, just days before the official release of data on gross domestic product from last year. China remains the world’s fastest-growing economy larger than $10 trillion, he said at a forum on Saturday, according to a report ...

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• 11 January

  Tycoon fires up Twitter with free money pledge

  Bloomberg A tweet from a Japanese billionaire to distribute 1 billion yen ($9 million) to his followers is attracting plenty of attention. Yusaku Maezawa pledged to give 1 million yen each to 1,000 of his Twitter followers who reposted a message from his @yousuck2020 account. It has been retweeted 4.1 million times since the New Year. Maezawa, 44, who founded ...

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• 11 January

  China subsidies haunting US steel industry that’s losing jobs

  

  Bloomberg If the latest monthly manufacturing data suggests anything, it’s that president Donald Trump’s tariffs haven’t yet solved a key issue haunting US steelmakers: China’s subsidising of its own industry. Manufacturing jobs in December unexpectedly fell by 12,000 with a key part of the drop coming in businesses that make raw and fabricated metals. The metal-making industries accounted for a ...

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• 11 January

  Second China trade deal hinges on phase one success: Kudlow

  

  Bloomberg One of president Donald Trump’s top economic advisers played down the prospects of the administration concluding further phases of a trade deal with China, saying any future negotiations would depend on how an initial accord — due to be signed next week — is implemented. “Phase two’s going to depend a lot on how phase one goes,” Larry Kudlow ...

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• 11 January

  US jobs trail forecasts; wages climb least since mid-2018

  

  Bloomberg The US labour market ended the year with less momentum, as payroll gains cooled by more than forecast and wages rose at the weakest annual pace since 2018, even as unemployment held at a half-century low of 3.5%. Nonfarm payrolls rose 145,000 in December, the least since May, after a downwardly revised 256,000 advance the prior month, according to ...

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