February, 2018

• 20 February

  Indonesia is forgoing billions of dollars in investment: US

  

  Bloomberg Indonesia is foregoing billions of dollars on offer from American companies eager to invest in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph Donovan said. As the US tries to arrest a deteriorating trade balance with Indonesia, which in 2017 found itself in President Donald Trump’s cross-hairs, Donovan has also rejected complaints of increasing American protectionism. Indonesia had ...

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• 20 February

  UK to EU: No Brexit bill without good trade deal

  

  Bloomberg The UK has warned that its promise to pay the Brexit bill depends on getting good trade terms from the European Union, as Theresa May’s team draws up plans to hold back money if the bloc backslides on a deal. Senior British officials have privately discussed the idea of halting payments to Brussels as a fall-back option that could ...

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• 20 February

  UK factories rein in price expectations as pound gains

  Bloomberg UK manufacturers scaled back their expectations of output prices in February as the pound gained. Expected prices, production and export orders are still well above long-term averages, though have slipped from the highs seen at the end of 2017, the Confederation of British Industry reported on Tuesday. The measure of average prices seen in the next three months fell ...

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• 20 February

  Britain sells former flagship HMS Ocean to Brazil for $117 million

  

  Bloomberg The UK has sold Royal Navy flagship HMS Ocean to Brazil for about 84 million pounds ($117 million) as new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth prepares to take over as leader of the fleet. HMS Ocean will be modified by BAE Systems Plc and Babcock International Group Plc, with the work funded by Brazil, before the 21,500 metric-ton ship ...

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• 20 February

  Reckitt Benckiser sees pricing squeeze after worst year ever

  

  Bloomberg After a cyberattack and a botched product launch spoiled Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc’s 2017, a pricing squeeze threatens to make this year almost as tough. The Slough, England-based maker of Nurofen painkillers said comparable sales will rise by only 2 percent to 3 percent in 2018, and profitability will be curtailed by deflationary conditions in the consumer-goods business. That ...

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• 20 February

  Trump plan to swap ‘cash payments’ for food faces skeptical Congress

  

  Bloomberg A Trump administration plan to replace food-stamp spending with boxes of “100 percent American grown food’’ landed on Congress’s doorstep with a thud. But the public attention heaped on the Agriculture Department’s plan to deliver “Harvest Boxes” to poor families also obscured the administration’s other efforts to cut the number of people eligible for the nation’s biggest food-aid programme. ...

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• 20 February

  Guyana’s big oil find could lead to riches or ruin

  

  Wedged between Brazil and Venezuela, Guyana could easily go unnoticed. It has fewer than 750,000 people and a per capita income of $4,300, half the regional average, qualifying it as the hemisphere’s third-poorest nation. At the moment, Guyana also might be its luckiest. Having struck big oil offshore starting in 2015, industry experts reckon total reserves at around 2 billion ...

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• 20 February

  Singapore can thank the bond market for avoiding a tax hike

  

  Singaporeans have dodged the bullet of higher consumption taxes, at least for the next three years. They should thank their new BFF — the bond market. Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat left the goods and services tax, last raised to 7 percent in 2007, unchanged on Monday. Most commentators, including yours truly, had expected an increase after Prime Minister Lee ...

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• 20 February

  Lloyds tiff with Standard Life may all be a lover’s ploy

  

  Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Standard Life Aberdeen Plc have fallen out after talks to merge their insurance businesses fell apart. But the two have left the door open to overcoming their differences and getting the deal back on track. News of the failed talks fills in some of the background to Lloyds’s announcement last week that it plans to ...

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• 20 February

  Does UK need a second Brexit referendum!

  Almost two years after the UK voted to quit the European Union, and barely more than a year before the actual exit is scheduled to happen, an all but leaderless Britain is fumbling its way to disaster. The country needs to find a way to change course. There should be a second referendum as soon as possible. It was a ...

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