March, 2018

• 20 March

  China’s ‘free traders’ find an unlikely friend in Trump

  Presume not that China is the thing it was. That’s certainly the message Premier Li Keqiang intends to convey with his promise to cut levies on imports. Almost simultaneously, Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration will impose tariffs on as much as $60 billion of Chinese products as soon as this week. Have the world’s great protectionist and its ...

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• 20 March

  US economy is in a boom, but wages aren’t rising much faster

  It’s now safe to say that the US economy is in a boom. Small business leaders are saying it. Measures of business optimism, tracked by the National Federation of Independent Business, are at all-time highs. These heady survey measures haven’t yet been matched by hard data, but the hard numbers are looking good too. Business investment as a percent of ...

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• 20 March

  A yen above 100? Bet your bottom dollar

  

  Imagine a world in which the Japanese currency strengthens past the psychologically important level of 100 yen per dollar. It wouldn’t be so bad. With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s approval rating edging toward July’s low, traders are doing a U-turn on their yen bets. Hedge funds are now in favour of a stronger Japanese currency for the first time since ...

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• 20 March

  Walmart shows online groceries are having their moment

  

  Take note of this moment. This is a tipping point for online grocery shopping in the US. Food and beverage retail is one of the largest categories of consumer spending, accounting for yearly sales of $800 billion or more in the US. And it has been stubbornly immune to e-commerce. Last year, Kantar Worldpanel estimated online shopping for groceries and ...

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• 20 March

  Supermarket casualties begin to pile up in Amazon-fuelled battle

  

  Bloomberg This is how the grocery industry lives now. Regional chains are filing for bankruptcy. European-born discounters are expanding, forcing competitors to keep their own prices low. And Kroger Co. and Walmart Inc., the two largest grocers in the US, are investing in technology and expanding delivery as they try to fend off an incursion by Amazon.com Inc. It’s a ...

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• 20 March

  Pratt to ship spare engines for grounded IndiGo jets

  

  Bloomberg Pratt & Whitney will provide spare engines within 40 days to get all grounded Airbus SE A320neo aircraft at India’s IndiGo flying again, with the first delivery scheduled for Wednesday, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The engine maker communicated its plan on Tuesday to the jet’s biggest customer, the people said, asking not to be identified ...

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• 20 March

  Jewellery chain Claire’s files for bankruptcy

  

  Bloomberg Claire’s Stores, known for tween jewellery and ear piercing, has become the latest victim of the retail apocalypse. The company filed for bankruptcy on March 19 and said it reached an agreement with creditors including its private-equity backer, Apollo Global Management LLC, to restructure around $1.9 billion in debt. Its plan to survive rests on its reputation for trendy ...

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• 20 March

  Airbus, Heathrow mark 10th anniv of first A380 flight to London

  

  Emirates Business Airbus and Heathrow airport are celebrating the 10th anniversary of A380 operations at the airport. They began on March 18, 2008 with the arrival of the first A380, a Singapore Airlines flight SQ308 from Singapore Changi airport making Heathrow one of the first to welcome Airbus’ iconic double decker. Heathrow is now the world’s busiest A380 airport by ...

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• 19 March

  World’s largest single-site solar energy park to come up in Dubai

  DUBAI / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, broke ground on the 700MW fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the biggest Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project in the world. The start of the new project advances the UAE’s global leadership ...

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• 19 March

  President issues federal budget law

  Abu Dhabi / WAM President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has issued a Federal Law on linking the general budget of the Federation and the budgets of the autonomous state institutions for the fiscal year 2018. According to the Law, published in the Federal Official Gazette, both the expenditures and the revenues in the Federation’s general budget ...

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