The sale of Nile Perch fish maw in Uganda has become a lucrative business, especially for distributors. The fish maw – or dried swim bladder – is used as an aphrodisiac in China. But Ugandan fishermen bringing in the perch say they are being exploited while others are reaping the profits. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday progress is being made toward a trade deal with China and denied that he was considering lifting tariffs on Chinese products.

“Things are going very well with China and with trade,” he told reporters, adding that he had seen some “false reports” indicating that U.S. tariffs on Chinese products would be lifted.

“If we make a deal certainly we would not have sanctions and if we don’t make a deal we will,” Trump said. “We’ve really had a very extraordinary number of meetings and a deal could very

well happen with China. It’s going well. I would say about as well as it could possibly go.”
…

World stock indexes jumped on Friday, with Wall Street posting a fourth straight week of gains, and the dollar had its first positive week since mid-December as optimism increased that an end is in sight to the U.S.-China trade conflict.

Stocks were boosted by a Bloomberg report that said China sought to raise its annual goods imports from the United States by more than $1 trillion in order to reduce its trade surplus to zero by 2024.    

That followed a report on Thursday that U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was considering lifting some or all tariffs imposed on Chinese imports. The Treasury denied Mnuchin had made any such recommendation.

Progress in trade talks

While the equity rally lifted all major sectors, trade-sensitive industrials posted among the biggest S&P 500 sector gains, up 1.9 percent on the day. The Philadelphia SE semiconductor index rose more than 2 percent and Germany’s exporter-heavy DAX was up 2.6 percent.    

“There seems to be some progress going in the trade negotiations,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

While that was the biggest influence, “we’ve still got momentum since the first of the year,” he said. “Some of the money that came out of the market at year-end, whether it was high frequency traders or tax-loss selling, is coming back in.”

Adding to strength in equities and supporting U.S. Treasury yields was data that showed U.S. manufacturing output increased the most in 10 months in December. 

Some strategists said relatively light equity trading volume this week indicated that some investors were still waiting on the sidelines.    

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 336.25 points, or 1.38 percent, to 24,706.35, the S&P 500 gained 34.75 points, or 1.32 percent, to 2,670.71 and the Nasdaq Composite added 72.77 points, or 1.03 percent, to 7,157.23.

The S&P 500 registered its biggest four-week percentage gain since October 2011. The index is now 8.9 percent below its Sept. 20 record close after dropping 19.8 percent below that level — near the 20-percent threshold commonly considered to confirm a bear market — on Christmas Eve.

STOXX 600 index is up

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 1.80 percent and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 1.23 percent.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States on Jan. 30 and 31 for another round of talks aimed at resolving the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

Recent indicators show signs that the Chinese economy is losing momentum.

The trade optimism boosted the dollar against other major currencies.

The dollar index rose 0.31 percent, with the euro down 0.26 percent to $1.1365.

U.S. Treasury yields rose to three-week highs as investors piled back into Wall Street.  

Oil prices jump

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 12/32 in price to yield 2.7878 percent, compared with 2.747 percent late on Thursday.

Oil prices jumped about 3 percent, rising after OPEC detailed specifics on its production-cut activity to ease global oversupply.   

Brent crude gained $1.52 to settle at $62.70 a barrel, or 2.48 percent higher. U.S. WTI crude futures added $1.73 to settle at $53.80 a barrel, or 3.32 percent up.

 
…

U.S. consumer sentiment tumbled in early January to its lowest level since President Donald Trump was elected more than two years ago as a partial shutdown of the federal government and financial market

volatility stoked fears of a sharp deceleration in economic growth.

The drop in confidence reported by the University of Michigan on Friday was the clearest sign yet that the impasse in Washington over Trump’s demands for $5.7 billion to help build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico was negatively affecting the economy.

Trump has touted high consumer confidence as an indication of the good job he is doing on the economy. While consumer sentiment remains relatively high, the gathering clouds over the economy could make households

more cautious about spending, leading to slower growth. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

“This report on consumer sentiment is the first concrete evidence that the economy is going to fall and fall hard if Washington does not end the shutdown,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. “It is going to be hard to see real GDP growth of more than 1 to 1½ percent in the first quarter if the consumer goes on a buying strike.”

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has left 800,000 government workers without paychecks. Private contractors working for many government agencies are also without wages.

The University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index fell 7.7 percent to a reading of 90.7 this month, the lowest reading since October 2016 and the steepest drop since September 2015. Economists had forecast a reading of a 97.0.

The survey’s measure of current economic conditions decreased to 110.0 from a reading of 116.1 in December. Its measure of consumer expectations tumbled to a reading of 78.3, the lowest since October 2016, from 87.0 in late December.

Several factors

The University of Michigan attributed the decline in sentiment to “a host of issues including the partial government shutdown, the impact of tariffs, instabilities in financial markets, the global slowdown, and the lack of clarity about monetary policies.”

It said that half of the survey’s respondents “believed that these events would have a negative impact on Trump’s ability to focus on economic growth.”

Economists estimate the partial shutdown of the government, which started Dec. 22, is subtracting as much as two-tenths of a percentage point from quarterly GDP growth every week.

Other surveys have also shown an ebb in business sentiment.

“Sentiment among both households and businesses has been coming off the sugar highs, which were caused by tax cut hopes at the beginning of the Trump presidency,” said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit in New York.

U.S. financial markets shrugged off the fall in sentiment, with investors focusing on another report Friday that showed manufacturing output had surged by the most in 10 months in December, and on hopes for progress in the U.S.-China trade row.

Stocks on Wall Street rallied, while the dollar rose against a basket of currencies and U.S. Treasury prices fell.

Factory activity

The broad-based jump in manufacturing output in December reported by the Federal Reserve could allay fears of a sharp slowdown in factory activity.

Manufacturing activity, which accounts for about 12 percent of the economy, is slowing as some of the boost to capital spending from last year’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package fades.

In addition, a strong dollar and cooling growth in Europe and China are hurting exports. Lower oil prices are also slowing purchases of equipment for oil and gas well drilling.

Production at factories increased at a 2.3 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter after expanding at a 3.7 percent pace in the July-September period. It increased 2.4 percent in 2018, the largest gain since 2012, after advancing 1.2 percent in 2017.

“While the manufacturing strength in December is a favorable signal for the economy, we should keep in mind that it came after soft results in earlier months,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York. “A broad range of manufacturing surveys also have been weakening lately, so the strength in the manufacturing output in December may prove to be short-lived.”

Last month, motor vehicle production surged 4.7 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in November. Excluding motor vehicles and parts, manufacturing advanced a solid 0.8 percent last month after gaining 0.1 percent in November.

December’s surge in manufacturing output, together with a rise in mining production, offset a weather-related drop in utilities, leading to a 0.3 percent increase in industrial production. Industrial output rose 0.4 percent in November. It increased at a 3.8 percent rate in the fourth quarter after

notching a 4.7 percent gain in the third quarter.
…

The European Union insisted Friday that agriculture be kept out of the EU-U.S. trade negotiations, despite Washington’s wishes to include the vast sector, and said any overall deal will be limited in scope.

The EU Commission announced its pro posals for a negotiating mandate from the 28 member states and said that the EU negotiations will be “strictly focused on the removal of tariffs on industrial goods, excluding agricultural products.”

EU Trade Chief Cecilia Malmstrom also said that she is preparing a target list of American products it will hit with punitive tariffs if the Trump administration goes through with its threat to impose duties on European auto imports.

Last July, during a period of heightened tensions over trade, U.S. President Donald Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed to start talks meant to achieve “zero tariffs” and “zero subsidies” on non-automotive industrial goods.

With the U.S. criticizing the Europeans for allegedly dragging their feet in the talks, Malmstrom said “the EU is committed to upholding its side of the agreement reached by the two Presidents.”

Any agreement would fall well short of the scope of the free trade deal that had been discussed in recent years — but paused in 2016 after Trump slammed such wide-ranging international deals as unfair to the U.S.

Instead, Malmstrom said, the deal both sides are now looking at could be concluded “quite quickly. We could finalize this and it would be beneficial to all of us.”

 
…

An array of crises will keep several world leaders away from the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos next week, which takes place against a backdrop of deepening gloom over the global economic and political outlook.

Anxieties over trade disputes, fractious international relations, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy into recession are set to dominate the Jan. 22-25 Alpine meeting.

The WEF’s own Global Risks Report set the tone this week with a stark warning of looming economic headwinds, in part because of geopolitical tensions among major powers.

​No Trump, Macron or May

Some 3,000 business, government and civil society figures are scheduled to gather in the snow-blanketed ski resort, but among them are only three leaders of the Group of Seven most industrialized countries: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

Donald Trump, who stole the Davos limelight last year with a rare appearance by a sitting U.S. president, pulled out of this year’s event as he grapples with a partial U.S. government shutdown.

On Thursday, the White House said Trump had also canceled his delegation’s trip to Davos because of the shutdown, now in its 27th day. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been expected to lead the U.S. team, according to two senior administration officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron is also skipping the meeting as he seeks to respond to the “yellow vest” protests, while British Prime Minister Theresa May battles to find a consensus on Brexit.

​No Xi, either

Outside the G7, the leaders of Russia and India are shunning Davos, while China —whose president, Xi Jinping, was the first Chinese leader to attend the elite gathering in 2017 to offer a vigorous defense of free trade — is sending Xi’s deputy instead.

That will leave the likes of British Finance Minister Philip Hammond, Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and a host of central bankers with the task of trying to reassure business chiefs.

“Davos will be dominated by a high level of anxiety about stock markets, a slowdown in growth and international politics,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit. “The leadership presence is lower than last year but those who are going … will be seeking to impart a sense of confidence and calm business and investors’ nerves.”

​Forum still has its glitz

Before the U.S. cancellation, a Trump administration official had said the U.S. delegation would also discuss the importance of reforming institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Trump has harshly criticized globalization and questioned U.S. participation in multilateral institutions such as the WTO, calling for a revamp of international trade rules.

Davos watchers said the absence of so many top leaders this year did not mean the glitzy forum had lost its status as a global stage for top politicians to present their agendas.

“Abe is going to Davos not just as Japanese prime minister but also as chair of the G20. It will be a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork of upcoming G20 meetings,” said a Japanese government source familiar with international affairs.

“Of course there may be inconveniences such as missing opportunities to hold bilateral meetings, but that won’t undermine the importance of Davos,” he said.

A Chinese official who has attended Davos regularly but will not go this year said China had never expected to make progress at the meeting on the trade dispute with the United States. 

“It’s just an occasion for making a policy statement,” he said.

​Networking opportunities

The low turnout among major Western leaders may also give more prominence to political personalities who may otherwise be upstaged. Davos will be the first major international outing for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, elected on a wave of anti-establishment and conservative nationalism also seen elsewhere.

He said on Twitter he would present “a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption.”

For business chiefs, the value of Davos lies not so much in the public sessions but in the networking and deal-making opportunities on the sidelines of the main conference.

“It’s the best place to pitch for ideas, build connections and get your brand known,” said Chen Linchevski, chief executive of Precognize, an Israel-based start-up developing software that prevents technical or quality failures at manufacturing plants.

“It’s the kind of place where in a few days you meet people you wouldn’t easily meet otherwise,” said Linchevski, who is paying 50,000 Swiss francs ($50,495) to attend the event.
…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed lifting some or all tariffs imposed on Chinese imports and suggested offering a tariff rollback during trade discussions scheduled for Jan. 30, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the internal deliberations.

But Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has resisted the idea, and the proposal had not yet been introduced to President Donald Trump, according to the Journal.

U.S. stocks advanced on the news even as a Treasury spokesman working with the administration’s trade team denied the report.

“Neither Secretary Mnuchin nor Ambassador Lighthizer have made any recommendations to anyone with respect to tariffs or other parts of the negotiation with China,” the spokesman said.

“This an ongoing process with the Chinese that is nowhere near completion.”

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will visit the United States on Jan. 30 and 31 for the latest round of trade talks aimed at resolving a bitter trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

In December, Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods.

Mid-level U.S. and Chinese officials met in Beijing last week to discuss China’s offers to address U.S. complaints about intellectual property theft and increase purchases of U.S. goods and services.

Lighthizer did not see any progress made on structural issues during those talks, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said earlier this week.

The Trump administration is scheduled to increase tariffs March 2 on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent.

The timeline is seen as ambitious, but the resumption of face-to-face negotiations has bolstered hopes of a deal.

China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfers.

Industrial stocks, which have been sensitive to trade developments, jumped 1.4 percent after the Wall Street Journal report.
…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has accused his election rival of allowing corrupt candidates on his legislative ticket and failing to include women in senior positions.

Widodo and former General Prabowo Subianto, along with their running mates, faced off Thursday in the first of five debates before the April 17 election. The debate focused on terrorism, human rights, corruption, and law and order.

Opinion polls show Widodo commanding 52 percent to 54 percent popular support and Subianto 30 percent to 35 percent. About 10 percent of voters are undecided and another 15 percent are considered swing voters, meaning the race has the potential to tighten.

Subianto, making his second bid for president after being narrowly defeated by Widodo in 2014, waffled when asked why his party has the highest number of candidates with corruption records.

“Maybe the corruption they did was not huge, maybe he or she just, what I mean is, the theft was indeed wrong, but the most important thing to be eradicated was a corrupter who stole trillions of rupiah (hundreds of millions of dollars) of state money, of people’s money,” he said.

Questioning Subianto’s opening statement of a commitment to empowering women, Widodo said he has nine women in important Cabinet positions but there are few women in the leadership of Subianto’s Gerindra party.

Subianto said his party has many female candidates and criticized the quality of decision making by Widodo’s women ministers.

Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the country’s Jakarta elite, has made upgrading Indonesia’s infrastructure the signature policy of his five year-term.

In debating human rights, none of the candidates addressed Subianto’s involvement in human rights abuses during the dictator Suharto’s regime that ended two decades ago.

 
…

Workers around Tunisia went on strike Thursday to demand higher pay in a standoff with a government struggling to reduce unemployment, poverty and social tensions.

All flights in and out of the North African country’s main airport were cancelled, and schools nationwide were closed. Ports, public transport, hospitals and other public services were also disrupted.

Marathon last-minute negotiations between the government and union umbrella group UGTT failed to avert Thursday’s strike by public sector workers.

Thousands of people gathered at the national union headquarters in Tunis and marched through the capital’s main thoroughfare, carrying signs reading “Get Out!” and “The People Want the Fall of the Regime.” Rallies were also held in other cities.

Addressing the crowd in Tunis, the head of the UGTT, Noureddine Tabboubi, accused the government of “neglecting the workers” as runaway inflation has eroded purchasing power.

The International Monetary Fund has urged public sector salary freezes and other reforms in exchanges for loans to Tunisia’s struggling economy.

The union boss accused the government of being afraid to “move a little finger without the green light” of the IMF. Unions want an end to salary freezes for Tunisia’s 600,000 public sector workers.

President Beji Caid Essebsi has called for calm. Thursday’s strike comes after new tensions erupted last month when a journalist set himself on fire to protest unfulfilled promises of Tunisia’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution.

Similar rallies were held throughout the country, notably in southern provinces where the strike nearly paralyzed public services.

Prime Minister Youssef Chahed warned that the strike would result in a “considerable cost” to an already fragile economy and might push the government to seek further foreign loans with tough conditions.

Speaking on public television Wataniya 1 on Wednesday night, Chahed said, “We did everything possible to avoid the strike in presenting proposals that improve purchasing power while at the same time taking into account the country’s capabilities.”

He invited the unions back to the negotiating table after Thursday’s strike.

 
…

John C. Bogle, who simplified investing for the masses by launching the first index mutual fund and founded Vanguard Group, died Wednesday, the company said. He was 89.

Bogle did not invent the index fund, but he expanded access to no-frills, low-cost investing in 1976 when Vanguard introduced the first index fund for individual investors, rather than institutional clients.

The emergence of funds that passively tracked market indexes, like the Standard & Poor’s 500, enabled investors to avoid the higher fees charged by professional fund managers who frequently fail to beat the market. More often than not, the higher operating expenses that fund managers pass on to their shareholders cancel out any edge they may achieve through expert stock-picking.

Mutual fund industry critic

Bogle and Vanguard shook up the industry further in 1977. The company ended its reliance on outside brokers and instead began directly marketing its funds to investors without charging upfront fees known as sales loads.

Bogle served as Vanguard’s chairman and CEO from its 1974 founding until 1996.

He stepped down as senior chairman in 2000, but remained a critic of the fund industry and Wall Street, writing books, delivering speeches and running the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center.

The advent of index funds accelerated a long-term decline in fund fees and fostered greater competition in the industry. Investors paid 40 percent less in fees for each dollar invested in stock mutual funds during 2017 than they did at the start of the millennium, for example. But Bogle continued to maintain that many funds were overcharging investors, and once called the industry “the poster-boy for one of the most baneful chapters in the modern history of capitalism.”

Bogle also believed that the corporate structure of most fund companies poses an inherent conflict of interest, because a public fund company could put the interests of investors in its stock ahead of those owning shares of its mutual funds. Vanguard has a unique corporate structure in which its mutual funds and fund shareholders are the corporation’s “owners.” Profits are plowed back into the company’s operations, and used to reduce fees.

$5 trillion under management

Vanguard, based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, manages $5 trillion globally. It helped usher in a new era of investing, and index funds have increasingly become the default choice for investors. In 2017, investors plugged $691.6 billion into index funds while pulling $7 billion out of actively managed funds, according to Morningstar.

Vanguard offers both index and managed funds, but remains best-known for its index offerings. Vanguard’s original index fund, now known as the Vanguard 500 Index, is no longer the company’s biggest, but remains among the company’s lowest-cost funds.

Bogle spent the first part of his career at Wellington Management Co., a mutual fund company, then based in Philadelphia. He rose through the ranks and, in his mid-30s, was tapped to run Wellington.

He engineered a merger with a boutique firm that was making huge sums, but was ousted after the stock market tanked in the early 1970s, wiping out millions in Wellington’s assets. He said he learned an important lesson in how little money managers really know about predicting the market.

Knack for math

Bogle suffered several heart attacks and underwent a heart transplant in 1996, the year he stepped down as CEO. He reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 for Vanguard directors in 1999 and left as senior chairman the next year.

Vanguard did not provide a cause of death. Philly.com is reporting he died of cancer, citing Bogle’s family.

John Clifton Bogle was born in May 1929 in Montclair, New Jersey, to a well-off family; his grandfather founded a brick company and was co-founder of the American Can Co. in which his father worked.

Bogle attended Manasquan High School in Manasquan, N.J, for a time, then got a scholarship to the prestigious all-boys Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey. It was at Blair that Bogle discovered his knack for math. He graduated from Blair in 1947 and was voted most likely to succeed.

Bogle graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics in 1951. His thesis was on the mutual fund industry, which was then still in its infancy.

Bogle is survived by his wife, Eve, six children, 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
…

Female employees at Citigroup Inc around the world are paid just 71 percent of what men earn, the giant bank said on Wednesday, declaring its intentions to close its gender pay gap.

A Citigroup shareholder group that sought data on the pay gap said the bank is the first U.S. company to disclose such figures.

The U.S.-based bank employs more than 200,000 people in more than 100 countries, and more than half those employees are female, it said.

Tackling the 29 percent gap means increasing the number of women in senior and higher-paying roles, promoting women to at least 40 percent of assistant vice president through managing director jobs, Citigroup said in a statement.

Citigroup said it disclosed the data in response to a shareholder proposal from Arjuna Capital, an investment management firm.

The bank said its “raw pay gap” showed median pay for females globally was 71 percent of the median for men.

The raw gap measures the difference in median total compensation not adjusted for job function, level and geography.

With those adjustments, women are paid an average of 99 percent of what men are paid, it said.

“We have work to do, but we’re on a path that I’m confident will allow us to make meaningful progress,” Sara Wechter, head of human resources, said in a statement.

In the United States overall, women last year working full-time year-round earned 80 percent of what men earned, according to commonly cited data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Congress outlawed pay discrimination based on gender in 1963, yet public debate over why wages still lag drastically for women has snowballed in recent years.

Globally, the World Economic Forum reported an economic gap of 58 percent between the sexes for 2016, costing the global economy $1.2 trillion annually.

Last January, Citigroup said it was increasing compensation for women and minorities to bridge pay gaps in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, becoming the first big U.S. bank to respond to a shareholder push to analyze and disclose its gender pay gap.

This past year it expanded its pay equity review beyond those three countries to its workforce globally, it said.

 
…

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Wednesday said they set all-time records for moving cargo in 2018, after U.S. retailers and manufacturers pulled forward imports to avoid higher tariffs on Chinese goods. The Port of Los Angeles, North America’s busiest container port, handled 9.46 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last year, the most in its 111-year history and 1.2 percent more than in 2017.

The neighboring Port of Long Beach processed more than 8 million TEUs for the first time last year, after container cargo totals jumped 7 percent from 2017.

“This is a rush of cargo based on political trade policy,” said Gene Seroka, executive director for the Port of Los Angeles, where direct trade with China accounted for just over half of the $284 billion in cargo the port handled in 2017. “Many people were fearful that we were going to go from a 10 percent tariff on certain items to 25 percent on January 1,” Seroka said.

The U.S. and China in late November agreed to a 90-day cease-fire in their bitter trade war. Under that deal, the U.S. will keep tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports at 10 percent.

That news came after many importers sped up orders for everything from apparel to auto parts to avoid the higher tariffs.

The cargo surge at Los Angeles/Long Beach and other major U.S. ports spurred disruptions that are rippling through the supply chain. U.S. warehouses are stuffed to the rafters, forcing some importers to delay port cargo pickups or to park containers in parking lots.

The National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates’ Global Port Tracker expect 2018 imports to jump 5.3 percent to a record 21.6 million TEUs. They also project cooling in the early months of 2019, as imports typically soften due to a post-holiday drop in demand and Lunar New Year factory shutdowns in Asia.

“We’ll see a little bit of a lull during Lunar New Year and thereafter. That in and of itself will allow us to catch up,” Seroka said.
…

A Gillette ad for men invoking the #MeToo movement is sparking intense online backlash, with accusations that it talks down to men and groups calling for a boycott. But Gillette says it doesn’t mind sparking a discussion. Since it debuted Monday, the Internet-only ad has garnered nearly 19 million views on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter — a level of buzz that any brand would covet.

The two-minute ad from Procter & Gamble’s razor brand shows men and boys engaging in bullying and sexual harassment and encourages men to “say the right thing” and “act the right way.” Taking on bullying, sexual harassment and toxic masculinity is a big task for a razor brand. Many critics took to social media saying it was insulting to men and laden with stereotypes.

The uproar comes as Gillette battles upstarts like Harrys Razors, Dollar Shave Club, and others for millennial dollars. Gillette controlled about 70 percent of the U.S. market a decade ago. Last year, its market share dropped to below 50 percent, according to Euromonitor.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of branding firm Metaforce, called the ad a “hail Mary” pass from the 117-year-old company. But he added that online buzz, whether positive or negative, rarely makes a long-term difference for a marketer since memory fades quickly.

“Getting noticed and getting buzz is no easy task, and they’ve managed to break through,” Adamson said. “Most advertisers advertise, and no one notices because there is so much noise in the marketplace, so just getting noticed Is a big win, especially for low-interest category like a razor.”

On the flip side, it probably won’t sell many razors either, he said.

Advertisers and social issues

Gillette’s ad echoes other attempts by major advertisers to take on social issues. Pepsi pulled an ad in 2017 showing Kendall Jenner giving a cop a Pepsi during a protest and apologized after an outcry that it trivialized “Black Lives Matter” and other protest movements. Nike polarized the nation with an ad featuring ex-NFL player Colin Kaepernick who started a wave of protests among NFL players of police brutality, racial inequality and other social issues.

Sales weren’t affected in either of those cases. When controversy does affect sales, it is usually over something more substantive than an ad. Lululemon saw sales tumble in 2013 after a string of PR disasters including manufacturing problems that caused their pricey yoga pants to become see through and fat-shaming comments from their founder. But even that was short lived.

Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR, said that much like Nike’s Kaepernick ad, Gillette likely knew the ad would garner online debate.

“Nike knew what they were getting themselves into,” Torossian said. The ad with Kapernick was “making a lot of noise, and it can’t be a surprise to [Gillette] that this is making a lot of noise.”

Gillette response

P&G, one of the world’s largest advertisers, is known for its anthemic spots that appeal to emotions during the Olympics and other events, often aimed at women, such as the tear-jerking “Thank You Mom” Olympics branding campaign and Always “Like a Girl” 2014 Super Bowl ad.

Pankaj Bhalla, North America brand director on Gillette, says the controversy was not the intended goal of the ad, which is part of a larger campaign that takes a look at redefining Gillette’s longtime tagline “The Best a Man Can Get,” in different ways. Another online ad features one-handed NFL rookie Shaquem Griffin.

While he doesn’t want to lose sales or a boycott over the ad, “we would not discourage conversation or discussion because of that,” he said.

“Our ultimate aim is to groom the next generation of men, and if any of this helps even in a little way we’ll consider that a success,” he said.

Larry Chiagouris, marketing professor at Pace University, is skeptical.

“Treating people with respect, who can argue with that, but they’re kind of late to the party here, that’s the biggest problem,” he said. “It’s gratuitous and self-serving.”
…

More than 3,200 government, business, academics and civil society leaders will address issues of globalization, climate change and other matters of world importance next week at the annual World Economic Forum in the plush Swiss Alpine village of Davos.

The list of participants reads like the Who’s Who of the most powerful, successful and inventive movers and shakers in the world. They will be rubbing shoulders during hundreds of formal sessions and workshops, as well as in private bilaterals on the sidelines of the meeting. They will discuss and seek solutions to some of humanity’s most vexing problems.

The theme of this year’s gathering is Globalization “4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” That refers to the emerging technology breakthroughs in such fields as artificial intelligence and robotics.

Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab says this fourth wave of globalization needs to be human-centered. He says globalization in its present form is not sustainable. He says globalization must be made more inclusive.

“Globalization produced winners and losers, and so there were many more winners in the last 24, 25, 30 years. But now we have to look after the losers — after those who have been left behind…what we need is a moralization, or re-moralization, of globalization,” he said.

The program is very wide-ranging. For example, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will discuss the state of the world. He will broach issues like climate change, fighting poverty and sustainable development. There will be special sessions by others about ways to make economic growth more inclusive, on rethinking world trade, as well as many scientific, artistic and cultural meetings.

Leaders from all regions of the world will attend. The Middle East will be represented by the presidents of Libya and Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there. So will Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

Six or seven presidents from Africa will be in attendance. And organizers of the forum say there is great interest in an appearance by the new Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who has established peace with Eritrea during his first six months in office.

The forum president, Borge Brende, says a strong United States delegation will attend next week’s event, although President Donald Trump canceled his participation.

“We fully understand that, of course, President Trump will have to stay in D.C. as long as the government is facing this shutdown. We are very pleased, though, that the U.S. will be participating with key secretaries,” he said.

Brende confirms that among those coming will be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fresh from his travels in the Middle East, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
…

Although it is unclear if the United States and China will be able to meet a 90-day deadline and strike a deal on trade by March 2, the tussle is clearly adding to uncertainty about the future fate of the Chinese government’s strategic plan named “Made in China 2025.”

The plan itself is much like other countries’ goals to move up the industrial value chain. According to Beijing’s plan, China aims to make the country a world leader in 10 key sectors such as robotics, information technology, and artificial intelligence by 2025.

However, what has raised concerns is how China is going about reaching that goal.

Foreign companies and governments have voiced growing concern about the plan and the Chinese policy and practice of forcing companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the country’s massive economy.

At the same time, analysts believe Beijing has done little to stop Chinese companies from stealing technology through their operations overseas.

Dilute or delay?

Pushback from abroad has already impacted the implementation of Made in China 2025, said Anna Holzman, a junior research associate with the Berlin-based Mercator Institute of China Studies (MERICS).

“The tough stance followed by actions taken by the United States has notably increased the sense of urgency amongst Chinese policymakers to speed-up the development of domestic capabilities,” she said.

Aside from the trade deficit, forced technology transfers are a key reason why President Donald Trump launched the trade war. It is also the main component of ongoing negotiations between the world’s two biggest economies.

During last week’s talks, China said the two sides made progress on addressing the issue of technology transfers as well as other structural problems.

But the trade dispute, rising investment restrictions on its companies in western countries, and declines in its own industrial economy have some arguing that Beijing may be forced to either dilute or delay the plan.

Over the past few months, officials have stopped mentioning the plan. Beijing recently ordered Chinese companies not to force foreign firms based in China to surrender their technologies. And for the first time in years, the Made in China 2025 plan did not figure in the list of development priorities outlined by the central government for 2019.

Great leap forward

The move by officials to downplay and stop mentioning the plan and other recent measures to open up China’s economy are positive signals, said Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.

“But they are going to need to be backed up by a much more broad, clear, transparent, change in policies that everyone can see, that are across the board, if you really want to convince the United States and others that China is taking a great leap forward in economic liberalization,” he said.

But while Washington waits for China to change its tune, it is unlikely to shift its increasingly tough stance on technology that has already impacted major Chinese tech firms such as Huawei and ZTE.  A growing number of countries have taken steps to ban Huawei from participating in the build of fifth-generation networks or 5G.

“Technology issues will continue to be there. President [Donald] Trump has a very confrontational position against Huawei as well as ZTE. So this will continue,” Lourdes Casanova, director at Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute, said while referring to two major Chinese technology companies.

Last week, Poland arrested a Huawei employee on spying charges. Polish authorities say there is no connection between the arrest and the company, but at the same time, they have taken steps to urge the EU and NATO to jointly ban Huawei products.

The arrest of the Huawei employee in Poland follows the detention of the company’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada.

Chinese investments slump

Chinese companies often pour money into investments in the U.S. to acquire new technologies and learn new ways of doing business. But now, stepped up scrutiny of investments imposed by Washington and the deterioration of U.S.-China trade relations has led to a sharp decline.

Last year, according to data compiled by the research firm Rhodium Group, Chinese investments in the U.S. hit a seven-year low of $4.8 billion, a steep drop of 84 percent from $29 billion in 2017.

And 2019 is likely to be equally dismal.

“Washington is moving to implement tougher screening of venture capital and other high-tech acquisitions; and the dark cloud over U.S.-China relations is unlikely to disappear, although a major deal between China and the U.S. could help revitalize investor appetite in sectors with low national security sensitivities,” said New York-based Rhodium Group.

Digging in

However, some analysts believe that Western restrictions and criticisms has made the 2025 program a lot more important for China than in the past. Instead it has pushed Beijing to step up its pursuit of technological leadership and self-sufficiency.

China is merely reducing the propaganda around the 2025 program and talking less about it, said Xiaoyu Pu, author of a recent book, “Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order.”

“Regardless of any re-branding exercises and concessions made by the Chinese government to appease Western minds, efficient policy implementation in industries and technologies listed under the Made in China 2025 scheme remains a top priority,” Pu said.

 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron is formally launching a “grand debate” to try to appease the yellow vest movement following weeks of anti-government protests.

Macron heads Tuesday to Grand Bourgtheroulde, a small town in Normandy, where he is to meet about 600 mayors and local officials.

Despite a high security presence, a ban on traffic and restricted access to the town, dozens of yellow vests protesters gathered outside the town to express their discontent.

“We are being prevented from accessing the village,” said protester Florence Clement. “I was crossing the road with my yellow vest but I was asked to remove it because it’s forbidden.”

Macron started his journey with a stop in the small town of Gasny to attend a local officials’ meeting, where some expressed their concerns over the loss of purchasing power of retirees and civil servants.

Macron addressed this week a “letter to the French” to encourage people to express their views on a series of economic and political matters during a three-month “grand debate.”

The consultation will take place through local meetings and on the internet. The debate will focus on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy.

The French leader, whose popularity ratings hit record lows at the end of last year, hopes the process will help quell anger over his economic policies.

About 84,000 people turned out last weekend for the ninth round of anti-government demonstrations across France, according to the French Interior Ministry.

The yellow vest movement, prompted in November by a tax hike on diesel fuel, has expanded to encompass demands for wider changes to France’s economy to help struggling workers. Protesters have denounced Macron’s pro-business policies as favoring the rich.

The movement is named for the fluorescent garments French motorists are required to keep in vehicles.

 
…

China’s trade surplus with the United States rose dramatically in 2018, despite a tit-for-tat tariff war with the U.S. that has roiled global markets.

The surplus stood at a record-high $323.3 billion, compared to $275.8 billion recorded the year before. 

Data released Monday by China’s customs bureau shows the country’s exports to the U.S. grew more than 11 percent in 2018. Imports from the United States rose only slightly (0.7 percent). 

But the data also revealed that exports slowed by 3.5 percent last month, as the administration of President Donald Trump imposed a series of stiff tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods to force Beijing to buy more American goods and to resolve issues involving technology, intellectual property and cyber theft issues.

The data also revealed mixed news about the strength of the world’s second-biggest economy – while China’s global trade surplus was $352 billion for 2018, its global exports dropped 4.4 percent in December compared to a year earlier, while imports plunged 7.6 percent, suggesting softening demand both at home and abroad.

Figures released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that car sales fell in 2018 – the first time in 20 years for a decline.
…

The auto industry gathered in Detroit on Sunday, on the eve of the last winter edition of North America’s premiere auto show, as carmakers grapple with a contracting market and uncertainty in the year ahead.

Concerns over the health of the global economy and a US-China trade war loomed over the North American International Auto Show, as it prepared to open Monday with the first five days dedicated to the media and industry insiders. The show opens to the general public on January 19.

While a number of major announcements were expected — including an anticipated strategic alliance between Ford and Volkswagen — there will be fewer automakers and new car unveilings, making it more subdued. 

“This is a transition year for the Detroit show,” said analyst Michelle Krebs of Autotrader. “It’s kind of emblematic of where the industry is. We’re in a transition in the industry.”

After a 10-year boom, analysts expect North American auto sales to contract in 2019, as consumers face pressures and carmakers grapple with multiple uncertainties. 

Rising interest rates and car prices have squeezed car buyers, and fewer of them are able to afford increasingly pricey, technology-heavy cars. 

Kelley Blue Book predicted the average new-car price was up about three percent in 2018 to more than $36,000.

• Tariffs cause uncertainty –

Meanwhile, tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products and a potentially intensifying trade dispute between the Donald Trump administration and Beijing has automakers spooked, analysts said.

“Tariffs already had an impact in 2018,” said Cox Automotive chief analyst Jonathan Smoke, adding that 47 percent of the vehicles sold in the US in 2018 were imported. 

“We believe about two percent of today’s prices are because of the tariffs that were already implemented.”

The US is considering additional tariffs of 25 percent. Should it announce such a move by the February 17 deadline, it could have a substantial impact on the industry and stock markets, Smoke said. 

“We believe that they are likely to move forward with some form of that tariff, because it becomes then a lever for them to force… further negotiations.”

Should tariffs raise car prices further, analysts said it could substantially depress the new car market. Consumers would flock to relatively cheaper used cars, which are in ample supply. 

A growing number of lightly-used, tech-heavy vehicles leased during the sales boom of the last few years are being returned to dealerships.

The auto dealers association, which organizes the show, also was contending with the uncertainty of the show’s very relevance. Almost all German carmakers abandoned the show this year, as more and more important announcements are made at other gatherings. 

Next year, the Detroit show will move from January, when it has been held for some 40 years, to June.

• Goodbye winter – 

Organizers hope the summer weather will allow for outdoor events that allow attendees to try out the new cars and technologies on display.

“It’s run out of gas now,” said Krebs. “June could be a rebirth for the show.”

Among the few notable unveilings this year will be from Ford, which is expected to display a redesigned Explorer SUV and a more powerful version of its iconic Mustang sports car under the name Shelby GT500. 

SUVs and trucks will once again be the highlight, a symptom of North American consumers’ shift away from sedans and small cars. Trucks and SUVs made up a majority of new purchases in the US last year. 

“The SUVs have become cars with SUV bodies sitting on top of them,” said Karl Brauer of Kelly Blue Book. 

Detroit’s big three automakers have been ending production of almost all of their sedans and small cars, succumbing to the pressure of falling demand.

To hedge against the threat of a global economic downturn, GM has announced plans to close underutilized US plants that made smaller, less profitable vehicles. 

Ford planned similar cost-cutting moves in Europe.
…

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said Sunday that major oil producers need to do better to narrow swings in prices that dip below $60 a barrel and rise above $86.

“I think what we need to do is narrow the range… of volatility,” Khalid al-Falih said.

“We need to do better and the more producers that work with us, the better we’re able” to do so, he told the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Cautious not to set a price target or range, he explained there are consequences when oil prices dip too low or rise too high.

Last month, OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, and other major oil producers agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day to reduce oversupply and boost prices for the first six months of 2019.

Oil producers are under pressure to reduce production following a sharp fall in oil prices in recent months because major producers — including the United States — are pumping oil at high rates.

Brent crude, the international standard, traded at $60.48 a barrel in London on Friday. Benchmark U.S. crude stood at $51.59 a barrel in New York.

Analysts say the kingdom needs oil between $75 and $80 a barrel to balance its budget, with spending for this year to reach a record high of $295 billion.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the forum, al-Falih said that despite continued concerns over the volatility in price seen in the fourth quarter of 2018, he is hopeful it can be brought under control.

“I think early signs this year are positive,” he said.

Last week, Saudi Arabia announced it has 268.5 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, a figure 2.2 billion barrels higher than previously known. The kingdom’s Energy Ministry also revised upward the country’s gas reserves by around 10 percent, to 325.1 trillion standard cubic feet as of the end of 2017.

The kingdom’s oil reserves are among the cheapest in the world to recover at around $4 per barrel.

Al-Falih said the revision, conducted as an independent audit by consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton, points to why the kingdom believes state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco “is indeed the world’s most valuable company.”

He said plans for an initial public offering of shares in Aramco in 2021 remain on track.

 
…

Zimbabwe will introduce a new currency in the next 12 months, the finance minister said, as a shortage of U.S. dollars has plunged the financial system into disarray and forced businesses to close.

In the past two months, the southern African nation has suffered acute shortages of imported goods, including fuel whose price was increased by 150 percent Saturday.

Zimbabwe abandoned its own currency in 2009 after it was wrecked by hyperinflation and adopted the greenback and other currencies, such as sterling and the South African rand.

But there is not enough hard currency in the country to back up the $10 billion of electronic funds trapped in local bank accounts, prompting demands from businesses and civil servants for cash that can be deposited and used to make payments.

​Two weeks of reserves

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told a townhall meeting Friday a new local currency would be introduced in less than 12 months.

“On the issue of raising enough foreign currency to introduce the new currency, we are on our way already, give us months, not years,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s foreign reserves now provide less than two weeks cover for imports, central bank data show. The government has previously said it would only consider launching a new currency if it had at least six months of reserves.

Bad memories of Zimbabwean dollar

Locals are haunted by memories of the Zimbabwean dollar, which became worthless as inflation spiraled to reach 500 billion percent in 2008, the highest rate in the world for a country not at war, wiping out pensions and savings.

A surrogate bond note currency introduced in 2016 to stem dollar shortages has also collapsed in value.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is under pressure to revive the economy but dollar shortages are undermining efforts to win back foreign investors sidelined under his predecessor Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa told reporters Saturday that the price of petrol had increased to $3.31 per liter from $1.32 since midnight but there would be no increase for foreign embassies and tourists paying in cash U.S. dollars.

Locals can pay via local debit cards, mobile phone payments and a surrogate bond note currency.

With less than $400 million in actual cash in Zimbabwe, according to central bank figures, fuel shortages have worsened and companies are struggling to import raw materials and equipment, forcing them to buy greenback notes on the black market at a premium of up to 370 percent.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries has warned some of its members could stop operating at the end of the month because of the dollar crunch.

Cooking oil and soap maker Olivine Industries said Saturday it had suspended production and put workers on indefinite leave because it owed foreign suppliers $11 million.

A local associate of global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Inbev said this week it would invest more than $120 million of dividends and fees trapped in Zimbabwe into the central bank’s savings bonds.
…

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX will reduce its workforce by about 10 percent of the company’s more than 6,000 employees, it said on Friday.

The company said it will “part ways” with some of its manpower, citing “extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead.”

“To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space based

Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations,” a spokesman said in an email.

In June, Elon Musk fired at least seven people in the senior management team leading a SpaceX satellite launch project, Reuters reported in November. The firings were related to disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites.

SpaceX’s Starlink program is competing with OneWeb and Canada’s Telesat to be the first to market with a new satellite-based internet service.

The management shakeup involved Musk bringing in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired in Seattle.

Last month, SpaceX launched its first U.S. national security space mission, when a SpaceX rocket carrying a U.S. military navigation satellite blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.

In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX was raising $500 million, taking its valuation to $30.5 billion.

The Hawthorne, California-based company had earlier outlined plans for a trip to Mars in 2022, to be followed by a manned mission to the red planet by 2024.

Another Elon Musk company, electric car maker Tesla Inc , said in June it was cutting 9 percent of its workforce by removing several thousand jobs across the company in cost reduction measures.

 
…

The United States on Friday signaled it would not bow to the European Union’s request to keep agriculture out of planned U.S.-EU trade talks, publishing negotiating objectives that seek comprehensive EU access for American farm products.

The objectives, required by Congress under the “fast-track” trade negotiating authority law, seek to reduce or eliminate EU tariffs on U.S. farm products and break down non-tariff barriers, including on products developed through biotechnology, the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said.

Agricultural issues were among the major sticking points in past negotiations for a major U.S.-EU trade deal, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), before talks were shelved after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington on Wednesday that the 28-country bloc could not negotiate on agriculture in a new, more limited set of negotiations expected to start this year.

“We have made very clear agriculture will not be included,” Malmstrom told reporters after meeting Lighthizer, adding that the two sides had not yet agreed on the scope of the talks.

Trump and EU president Jean-Claude Juncker agreed last July to re-launch negotiations to cut tariffs on industrial goods, including autos, and also discuss ways for Europe to buy more U.S. soybeans.

Trump told Juncker that he would refrain from levying threatened 25-percent tariffs on EU-produced cars and auto parts, which he is considering imposing worldwide on national security grounds.

Trump has long complained about Europe’s 10-percent import tariff on autos. The U.S. passenger car tariff is only 2.5 percent, although U.S. tariffs on pickup trucks and other commercial trucks are 25 percent.

The U.S. negotiating wish list does not specifically mention autos, but pledges to seek duty-free market access for U.S. industrial goods that eliminate non-tariff barriers such as “unnecessary differences in regulation.”

USTR’s decision to push for a full-fledged trade negotiation on agricultural goods follows a hearing in December at which U.S. farm, food and beverage groups argued for their products to be included.

Influential lawmakers such as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa farmer, have warned they might not support an EU deal that did not include agriculture. Now that the U.S. objectives have been published, the USTR may be ready to formally launch negotiations in as little as 30 days.

But the EU’s own negotiating mandates on industrial goods and regulatory cooperation need to be cleared by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, and approved by member states, and it is unclear how long that process will take.

The United States had a $151 billion goods deficit with the EU in 2017, despite two-way annual trade of about $1.1 billion. USTR also said it will seek commitments by Europe not to impose duties on any digital downloads of U.S. software, movies, music and other products nor any rules that restrict cross-border data flows or require data localization, USTR said.

In an objective aimed at Europe’s efforts to tax products and services from U.S.-based internet giants, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook and Amazon.com, USTR said it would seek a “guarantee that these products will  not face government-sanctioned discrimination based on the nationality or territory in which the product is produced.”
…

Uganda’s growing debt is sustainable, and the country is not at risk of losing state assets to China, the country’s finance minister, Matia Kasaija, said this week.

Uganda’s auditor-general warned in a report released this month that public debt from June 2017 to 2018 had increased from $9.1 billion to $11.1 billion.

The report — without naming China — warned that conditions placed on major loans were a threat to Uganda’s sovereign assets. 

It said that in some loans, Uganda had agreed to waive sovereignty over properties if it defaults on the debt — a possibility that Kasaija rejected.

“China taking over assets? … in Uganda, I have told you, as long as some of us are still in charge, unless there is really a catastrophe, and which I don’t see at all, that will make this economy going behind. So, … I’m not worried about China taking assets. They can do it elsewhere, I don’t know. But here, I don’t think it will come,” he said.

China is one of Uganda’s biggest country-lenders, with about $3 billion in development projects through state-owned banks.

China’s Exim Bank has funded about 85 percent of two major Ugandan power projects — Karuma and Isimba dams. It also financed and built Kampala’s $476 million Entebbe Express Highway to the airport, which cuts driving time by more than half. China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation, France’s Total, and Britain’s Tullow Oil co-own Uganda’s western oil fields, set to be tapped by 2021.

Economist Fred Muhumuza says China’s foot in Uganda’s oil could be one way it decides to take back what is owed. 

“They might determine the price, as part of recovering their loan,” he said. “By having a foot in there they will say fine, we are going to pay you for oil. But instead of giving you $60 a barrel, you owe us. We’ll give you $55. The $5 you are paying the old debt. But we are reaching a level where you don’t see this oil being an answer to the current debt problem.”

China’s reach

Uganda’s worries about China seizing national assets are not the first in Africa.

A leaked December report in Kenya showed China was promised parts of Mombasa Port as collateral for financing a $3 billion railway it built from the port to Nairobi. Both Chinese and Kenyan officials have denied that the port’s ownership is at risk.

Reports in September that China was taking over Zambia’s state power company over unpaid debt rippled across Africa, despite government denials.

But the fear of a Chinese takeover of a sovereign state’s assets over debt is not completely without merit. Struggling to pay back loans to state-owned Chinese firms, Sri Lanka in 2017 handed over a strategic port.
…

Despite the U.S. stock market recovery, Macy’s and American Airlines’ revised revenue forecasts for 2018 have sent their stock prices spiraling. Other retail stocks fell, too, including J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and Kohl’s. The reports come amid news of another iconic department store, Sears, fighting for survival. But U.S. trade and financial officials say the U.S. economy is on solid ground and will continue to grow for years to come. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…