March, 2019

• 2 March

  Orban’s political alliance nears end of road

  

  Bloomberg Europe’s main political family moved closer to a showdown with its most troublesome member, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, over his increasingly euroskeptic behavior. The European Union’s Christian Democrats sent two sets of warnings to Orban and his Fidesz party, signaling a greater determination to confront populist forces in the run-up to EU legislative elections in May. Manfred Weber, ...

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• 2 March

  Yellow Vests protests not comprehensible: Macron

  Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron said that grassroots Yellow Vests protests are no longer comprehensible and that “the country needs a return to calm.” “I hope that the weeks to come will show a decline” in the Yellow Vests movement, Macron said in Bordeaux. He spoke during a session that was part of a series of national public debates he ...

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• 2 March

  Promise of cheapest wind power hits snag in India

  

  Bloomberg India has drawn global attention since it started awarding wind power projects at record-low tariffs, spurring optimism that renewable energy could supplant the nation’s abundant coal resources in electricity generation. But about half of the more than one gigawatt of capacity awarded in the country’s first auctions in 2017 are incomplete, almost five months after their commissioning deadline, according ...

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• 2 March

  India’s economy slows as new risks emerge from Pakistan

  

  Bloomberg India’s economy slowed considerably last quarter, with little signs of a quick recovery amid rising political tensions with neighboring Pakistan and weaker global demand. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose 6.6 percent in the three months to December from a year ago, lower than the 6.7 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey and down from a revised 7 percent in ...

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• 2 March

  China defaults put focus on key gauge of industrial strains

  

  Bloomberg China’s mounting pile of distressed debt has elevated market players’ attention to one of the nation’s less obvious economic data points: the producer-price index (PPI). With many of the debtors that ran into trouble in the past year coming from the industrial world, gauges of manufacturing strain are particularly important. Some analysts point to the PPI as a forward ...

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• 2 March

  Japan’s lower house OKs record $907bn budget

  

  Bloomberg The lower chamber of the Japanese parliament early on Saturday approved the government’s record $907 billion initial budget bill for the fiscal year starting April 1. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito held a vote on the bill, clearing the way for its passage by the chamber to ensure it can be enacted ...

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• 2 March

  Indonesia inflation rate drops to lowest in almost a decade

  

  Bloomberg Inflation in Indonesia eased to a near-decade low, boosting odds that the next interest rate move by policy makers in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy could be down. Consumer prices rose 2.57 percent in February compared to a year earlier, the lowest since November 2009, according to figures released by the statistics office in Jakarta. That was lower than the ...

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• 2 March

  Tata to explore options for Jaguar Land Rover unit

  

  Bloomberg Tata Group is exploring strategic options for its Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc unit including a potential stake sale in the struggling luxury carmaker, people familiar with the matter said. India’s biggest conglomerate is considering alternatives ranging from a minority stake sale to finding a venture partner that would jointly develop vehicles and lower costs, said the people, who ...

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• 2 March

  Malaysia to halt palm oil expansion to fight bad image

  

  Bloomberg Malaysia plans to halt all expansion of oil palm plantations this year as it seeks to dispel the oil’s reputation as a driver of deforestation. The world’s second-largest producer will cap the area at around 6 million hectares, Minister of Primary Industries Teresa Kok said in an interview. That’s up from 5.85 million hectares at the end of last ...

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• 2 March

  Trump’s push for new Nafta could stall on metals tariffs

  

  Bloomberg Donald Trump might have to drop tariffs on steel and aluminum if he wants his new North American trade deal to see the light of day. US lawmakers and business groups are joining Canada and Mexico in pushing the president to lift the so-called Section 232 levies on those nations as, essentially, a condition of enacting the trade deal ...

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