Група «ТАС» Сергія Тігіпка досягла попередньої домовленості про придбання приватного акціонерного товариства «Завод «Кузня на Рибальському», повідомило 27 вересня агентство «Інтерфакс-Україна» з посиланням на прес-службу групи. 

«До Антимонопольного комітету України подано заяву щодо можливості придбання акцій ПрАТ «Завод «Кузня на Рибальському». Після отримання дозволу від регулятора сторони мають намір продовжити роботу зі здійснення угоди», – вказали в групі «ТАС». 

«Вартість і терміни завершення угоди не розголошуються. Про плани групи «ТАС» щодо подальшого розвитку підприємства буде повідомлено після отримання рішення від Антимонопольного комітету України», – зазначили у прес-службі.

Також на цю тему: Президент продає суднобудівний завод: чому саме зараз?

Президент України Петро Порошенко продає свій суднобудівний завод «Кузня на Рибальському», повідомив 25 вересня речник голови держави Святослав Цеголко. Про те, хто є покупцем, він не інформував.

ПрАТ «Завод «Кузня на Рибальському» (раніше – ПАТ «Ленінська кузня») – одне з відомих на ринку підприємств суднобудівної промисловості України. Нині підприємство освоює виробництво нової продукції оборонного призначення. 

У 2016 році уряд надав ПАТ «Ленкузня» право на експорт товарів військового призначення власного виробництва та імпорт товарів військового призначення в інтересах власного виробництва терміном до 1 червня 2018 року. У 2017 році, з урахуванням перейменування підприємства на ПрАТ «Завод «Кузня на Рибальському», його повноваження спецекспортера були продовжені терміном до 1 січня 2021 року.
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Уряд США не розглядає постачання нафти зі стратегічних резервів, щоб запобігти зростанню цін у листопаді, коли наберуть чинності санкції проти нафтового сектору Ірану, заявив у Вашингтоні 26 вересня міністр енергетики Рік Перрі. На думку урядовця, цей крок мав би лише «незначний та короткостроковий вплив» на ціни.

Аналітики припускали, що адміністрація президента Дональда Трампа могла б використати резерви, щоб приборкати зростання цін на сировину перед призначеними на 6 листопада виборами до Конгресу, під час яких владна партія намагатиметься утримати контроль над обома палатами американського парламенту.

Ціни на нафту зростають після того, як Трамп у травні оголосив про вихід США з ядерної угоди з Іраном та відновлення масштабних санкцій проти Тегерана. Ці санкції передбачають і жорсткі обмеження на постачання іранської нафти, що скоротить пропозицію сировини на світовому ринку.

Ціни на еталонний сорт Brent цими днями зросли до найвищого з листопада 2014 року рівня і станом на 13:39 за Києвом становлять 81 долар 85 центів за барель.
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The United States and Japan have agreed to begin negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement, reducing the prospect that Washington might impose tariffs against another trading partner.

“We’ve agreed today to start trade negotiations between the United States and Japan,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

“This was something that for various reasons over the years Japan was unwilling to do and now they are willing to do. So we’re very happy about that, and I’m sure that we will come to a satisfactory conclusion, and if we don’t, ohhhhhh,” Trump added.

Fast-track authority

The White House released a statement after the meeting, stating the two countries would enter into talks after completing necessary domestic procedures for a bilateral trade agreement on goods and other key areas, including services.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer called it a “very important step” in expanding U.S.-Japan relations. He told reporters that the U.S. and Japan were aiming to approve a full free-trade agreement soon. Lighthizer said he would talk to Congress on Thursday about seeking authority for the president to negotiate the agreement, under the “fast track” trade authority law.

Lighthizer said he expected the negotiations to include the goal of reaching an “early harvest” on reducing tariffs and other trade barriers.

Tokyo’s reticence

Tokyo had been reluctant to commit to a bilateral free-trade pact and had hoped that Washington would consider returning to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a broader regional trade agreement championed by the Obama administration that Trump pulled out of in January 2017.

Trump has complained about Japan’s $69 billion trade surplus with the U.S. and has been pressuring Abe to agree to a two-way agreement to address it, including during Abe’s visit to Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, in April.

Japanese officials have expressed concern Trump might pressure Tokyo to open up its politically sensitive farm market. They also are wary Trump might demand a reduction in Japanese auto imports or impose high tariffs on autos and auto parts, which would be detrimental to Japan’s export-reliant economy.

Trump is expressing confidence the two sides will reach an agreement.

“We’re going to have a really great relationship, better than ever before on trade,” he said. “It can only be better for the United States because it couldn’t get any worse because of what’s happened over the years.”
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Ford chief Jim Hackett on Wednesday ramped up his warnings about the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, saying his company was seeing profits slashed by $1 billion.

Hackett said the global automaker could face more damage if the trade confrontations were not resolved quickly.

“The metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us,” Hackett said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “If it goes on longer, there will be more damage.”

Trump in June imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum and has hit $250 billion in Chinese products with tariffs, prompting retaliation from US trading partners and raising costs for many industries.

The company earlier this year estimated materials costs would be $1.5 billion over 2017, which had already seen a jump. 

And in the July earnings report Ford said it lost $500 million in China in the latest quarter due in part to the tariffs.

General Motors likewise warned the current trade wars should cost it $1 billion this year, mainly due to rising input costs.

Ford recently announced it was scrapping plans to import the compact Focus model from Chinese plants into the US market due to the tariffs.

Joseph Hinrichs, Ford’s executive vice president for global operations, said this week the company was speeding up plans to build some models in China since it was becoming less attractive to export amid the trade tensions.

He also said he did not see any easy resolution to the trade dispute between the United States and China. 
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Somalia’s finance minister says World Bank grants to the government are a sign the country has “trustable leadership” again after decades of chaos and corruption.

The World Bank said Tuesday it will provide $80 million in grants to Somalia’s federal government, the bank’s first direct grants to a Somali central authority in 27 years.

In an interview with VOA’s Somali service, Finance Minister Abdirahman Duale Beileh said the grants are “proof of Somalia’s merit.”

Beileh said $60 million will be used to increase the capacity of Somalia’s financial institutions, and $20 million will go toward education and energy projects to build the country’s resilience.

He said the grants show that international financial agencies have faith the government is capable of fighting against corruption.

“The work we have done and the trustworthiness we have earned brought us here,” he said. 

The World Bank cut ties with Somalia in 1991, following the collapse of the Mohamed Siad Barre government and the start of a long civil war.

Beileh said that in recent years, Somalia’s government has made tangible improvement in management of the economy and its institutions.

However, the latest global index of Transparency International put Somalia as the world’s most corrupt country.

Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohammed, also known as Farmajo, took power last year in an election by parliament that observers said was characterized by bribes and vote-buying.

Beileh acknowledged the government’s fight against corruption is “far from over.”

“There is a perception that Somalia cannot be trusted because of its corruption history. Most of that is not perception,” he said.

He added: “We are proud that we made progress to at least a transparent level that both the World Bank and the IMF can notice.”
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Антимонопольний комітет України (АМКУ) повідомив 26 вересня, що розпочав дослідження питання підняття плати за послуги мобільного зв’язку шляхом встановлення розрахункового періоду оплати – 4 тижні.

АМКУ вказує на приклади тарифних планів усіх трьох провідних операторів мобільного зв’язку – «Київстар», Vodafone та «Лайфселл».

«У зв’язку з вищенаведеним, трьом операторам направлені вимоги Антимонопольного комітету України для з’ясування правомірності таких нововведень мобільних операторів та донесення їх змісту до абонентів», – ідеться в повідомленні.

Мобільні оператори все ще мають чинні тарифні плани, які передбачають оплату один раз на місяць і, відповідно, 12 разів на рік. Водночас перехід на нові тарифні плани, як правило, передбачає плату за 28 днів або 13 разів на один календарний рік.
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Trade conflicts, rising debt and the potential impact from rising interest rates in the U.S. will likely dampen growth in the coming year, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday in an update of its regional economic outlook report. 

The Manila, Philippines-based regional lender said Wednesday that it expects economic growth to remain at a robust 6.0 percent in 2018 but to slip to 5.8 percent next year. 

It cited looming financial and trade shocks as the biggest sources of potential trouble. If the U.S. economy shows signs of overheating, interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve could disrupt currency markets and other capital flows, leading to problems with bad loans. 

Overly high housing prices also are risks for China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Korea, it said. 

But it said the bigger threat comes from potential damage to supply chains caused by trade conflicts, especially between the U.S. and China. 

President Donald Trump pushed ahead Monday with higher tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports.

In a conflict stemming from U.S. complaints Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology, Trump went ahead Monday with a tax hike on $200 billion of Chinese imports. Beijing retaliated by imposing penalties on $60 billion of U.S. goods.

That move will likely shave 0.5 percentage points off of China’s growth and 0.1 percentage points off of growth in the U.S., the report said. 

It said further expansion would cause still more pain across the region, though while the U.S. trade deficit with China might shrink, the deficit with Asia overall would not decline so much because other countries would likely exporting more to make up the difference. 

China and the United States had earlier imposed 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of each other’s goods. Combined, the tariffs now cover nearly half the goods and services China sells America and nearly 60 percent of what the United States sells China. 

“Prolonged trade conflict can damage confidence and deter investment,” the ADB report said. It said the impact would be large both regional and globally, especially if it expands to include autos and auto trade. 

“Estimates of impacts do not fully capture possible disruption to production units as overseas business networks are severed and investment plans are cancelled amid a reallocation of global production,” it said.
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Національна акціонерна компанія «Нафтогаз» повідомляє про створення трьох дочірніх підприємств для продажу газу. Як зазначають у прес-службі компанії, «дочки» мають зробити прозорими сегменти постачання газу.

«Нафтогаз» планує продавати імпортований газ за ринковою ціною власному торговому підрозділу «Нафтогаз Трейдинг». Він же купуватиме блакитне паливо в «Укргазвидобування».

Після цього «Нафтогаз Трейндинг» має продавати газ комерційним клієнтам, а також двом іншим дочірнім компаніям

«Нафтогаз Тепло» – для перепродажу тепловим електростанціям
Газопостачальній компанії «Нафтогаз» – для перепродажу населенню

На відміну від «Нафтогаз Трейдинг», яка продаватиме газ за ринковою ціною, «Нафтогаз Тепло» і ГК «Нафтогаз» мають статус постачальників зі спеціальними обов’язками.

«Навіщо потрібна ця нова система? В першу чергу – для прозорості кожного сегменту бізнесу. Кожна компанія матиме окрему звітність, її доходи і її витрати можна буде побачити і проаналізувати. Ніяких премій «за Стокгольм», зарплат правління там не буде, лише витрати і доходи, пов’язані з конкретним сегментом бізнесу», – заявляють у «Нафтогазі».

Напередодні суд зобов’язав голову правління НАК «Нафтогаз» Андрія Коболєва сплатити адміністративний штраф за те, що той не надав на вимогу народного депутата перелік членів правління компанії, премійованих за перемогу «Нафтогазу» в Стокгольмському арбітражі.
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After losing his job with a foreign food company in March, Alexander Costa surveyed Brazil’s anemic labor market and decided to start selling cheap lunches by the beach in Rio de Janeiro to try and provide for his young family.

“I could have stayed home, looking for work, sending out resumes, with few jobs and things very hard,” Costa said. “But I didn’t stand still. I decided to create something different … to reinvent myself.”

Many other Brazilians have also had to reinvent themselves in recent years, as Latin America’s largest economy struggles to overcome a jobs crisis more than a year after officially exiting recession.

Nearly 13 million people – or more than the entire population of Greece – are out of a job, with the unemployment rate hovering between 12 percent to 14 percent since 2016. As a result, unemployment is among voters’ top concerns ahead of next month’s election.

The desperate search for work amid a string of political graft scandals and rising violence has soured the mood, polarizing debate and distracting from the country’s underlying fiscal challenges.

But only by lowering the unemployment rate will Brazil achieve the rise in household spending it needs to maintain sustained growth, said Marcos Casarin, the head of Latin America macro research at Oxford Economics.

“The only way to have a prolonged recovery in economic activity is if unemployment starts to fall in a substantial way,” he said.

However, it could take several years to get the rate below 10 percent, he said, adding: “I’m not very optimistic.”

Divisive Figures

With no presidential candidate likely to win a majority in the first-round vote on Oct. 7, it looks increasingly likely voters will face a choice between two candidates in the Oct. 28 run-off: far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party.

Both are divisive figures — rejected by nearly half the electorate — making it likely that either one will face an uphill battle to pass ambitious economic reforms that foreign investors have long called for.

Bolsonaro has vowed to erase Brazil’s primary budget deficit by 2020 through controversial privatizations and spending cuts.

Haddad has proposed broadening the central bank’s mandate to include unemployment, while boosting government-led investments, revoking a spending ceiling and scuttling privatizations.

Both Bolsonaro and Haddad are pitching their proposals as ways to tackle the unemployment crisis, which has pushed many into the informal sector, sapping tax income and leaving workers without paid holidays, salary raises and other benefits.

Outgoing President Michel Temer last year passed an overhaul of the country’s labor laws, which was intended to make the job market more flexible and which the government said would help create new jobs, an effect that as yet has failed to materialize.

Bolsonaro supports Temer’s labor reform and wants to further cut work regulations to boost jobs. Haddad has suggested putting the labor reform, which was opposed by unions, to a referendum, while also advocating a short-term stimulus program.

Costa, however, was unwilling to wait and see what Brazil’s next president comes up with.

His meals-on-wheels business started slowly, selling 13-reais ($3) lunches from the back of his car in Rio’s wealthy Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. But business took off when he joined forces with his friend, Stefan Weiss, whose white BMW provides a ritzier shop window from which they now sell roughly 200 hot meals each day.

“At the moment, Brazil faces a big problem in relation to the economy and the lack of jobs,” said Weiss, who works on an offshore oil platform but sells meals on days off to earn extra cash. “The people who lost their jobs are trying to find new ways to establish themselves in the market.”
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When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012, the photo-sharing startup’s fiercely loyal fans worried about what would happen to their beloved app under the social media giant’s wings. 

None of their worst fears materialized. But now that its founders have announced they are leaving in a swirl of well wishes and vague explanations, some of the same worries are bubbling up again — and then some. Will Instagram disappear? Get cluttered with ads and status updates? Suck up personal data for advertising the way its parent does? Lose its cool? 

Worst of all: Will it just become another Facebook?

“It”s probably a bigger challenge (for Facebook) than most people realize,” said Omar Akhtar, an analyst at the technology research firm Altimeter. “Instagram is the only platform that is growing. And a lot of people didn’t necessarily make the connection between Instagram and Facebook.”

Instagram had just 31 million users when Facebook snapped it up for $1 billion; now it has a billion. It had no ads back then; it now features both display and video ads, although they’re still restrained compared to Facebook. But that could quickly change. Facebook’s growth has started to slow, and Wall Street has been pushing the company to find new ways to increase revenue.

Instagram has been a primary focus of those efforts.

Facebook has been elevating Instagram’s profile in its financial discussions. In July, it unveiled a new metric for analysts, touting that 2.5 billion people use at least one of its apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger — each month. While not particularly revealing, the measurement underscores the growing importance Facebook places on those secondary apps. 

Facebook doesn’t disclose how much money Instagram pulls in, though Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates it’ll be around $6 billion this year, or just over 10 percent of Facebook’s expected overall revenue of about $55.7 billion. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long seen Instagram’s promise. At the time, it was by far Facebook’s largest acquisition (although it was dwarfed by the $19 billion Zuckerberg paid for WhatsApp two years later). And it was the first startup allowed to operate mostly independently. 

That has paid off big time. Not only did Instagram reach 1 billion users faster than its parent company, it also succeeded in cloning a popular Snapchat feature, dealing a serious blow to that social network upstart and succeeding where Facebook’s own attempts had repeatedly failed. Instagram also pioneered a long-form video feature to challenge YouTube, another big Facebook rival.

Recently, Instagram has been on a roll. In June, Systrom traveled to New York to mark the opening of its new office there, complete with a gelato bar and plans to hire hundreds of engineers. Only a month earlier, Instagram had moved into sparkly new offices in San Francisco. In a July earnings call, Zuckerberg touted Instagram’s success as a function of its integration with Facebook, claiming that it used parent-company infrastructure to grow “more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own.”

But Instagram has also been a case study in how to run a subsidiary independently — especially when its parent is mired in user-privacy problems and concerns about election interference, fake news and misinformation. And especially when its parent has long stopped being cool, what with everyone and their grandma now on it.

Instagram’s simple design — just a collection of photos and videos of sunsets, faraway vacations, intimate breakfasts and baby close-ups — has allowed it to remain a favorite long after it became part of Facebook. If people go to Twitter to bicker over current events and to Facebook to see what old classmates are up to, Instagram is where they go to relax, scroll and feast their eyes.

So, will that change?

“I don’t think Zuckerberg is dumb,” Akhtar said. “He knows that a large part of Instagram’s popularity is that it’s separate from Facebook.”

As such, he thinks Facebook would be wise to reassure users that what they love about Instagram isn’t going to change — that they are not going to be forced to integrate with Facebook. “That’ll go a long way,” he said. 

Internally, the challenge is a bit more complicated. While Systrom and Krieger didn’t say why they’re leaving, their decision echoes the recent departure of WhatsApp’s co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, who resigned in April. Koum had signaled years earlier that he would take a stand if Facebook’s push to increase profits risked compromising core elements of the WhatsApp messaging service, such as its dedication to user privacy. When Facebook started pushing harder for more revenue and more integration with WhatsApp, Koum pulled the ripcord.

One sign that additional integration may be in Instagram’s future: Zuckerberg in May sent longtime Facebook executive Adam Mosseri to run Instagram’s product operation. Mosseri replaced longtime Instagrammer Kevin Weil, who was shuffled back to the Facebook mothership. 

That likely didn’t sit well with Instagram’s founders, Akhtar and other analysts said. Now that they’re gone as well, Mosseri is the most obvious candidate to head Instagram. 

“Kevin Systrom loyalists are probably going to leave,” Akhtar said. 

Which means Facebook may soon have a new challenge on its hands: Figuring out how to keep Instagram growing if it loses the coolness factor that has bolstered it for so long.
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A luxury hotel in Panama City that used to bear the Trump name has formally been rebranded after a bitter dispute over control.

The 70-story, sail-shaped tower is now the JW Marriott. It’s operated by U.S. hotelier Marriott International, which took over management.

Owners and administrators unveiled the new name Tuesday on a granite wall at the entrance where the Trump name was removed in March.

After a hotly-contested legal fight, majority investor Orestes Fintiklis was able to evict managers from the U.S. president’s family company this year.

The company had appealed to Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela to intervene, raising ethical concerns over possible mingling of Trump’s business and government interests.
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American Airlines is expanding its inflight food options with the addition of a light and healthy Mediterranean menu.

The world’s largest carrier on Monday announced an agreement with the restaurant chain Zoe’s Kitchen.

American, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas, says the new Zoe’s Kitchen menu will be sold on most domestic flights longer than three hours beginning Dec. 1. Options will include hummus topped with olives, a turkey sandwich with specialty cheese and crunchy Mediterranean slaw, and a chicken wrap with roasted tomatoes, arugula and artichokes.

American currently serves cookies and mini pretzels for free during flights over 250 miles (400 kilometers). Sandwiches, wraps and snack boxes are also available for sale on most domestic flights.

 
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