Долар впав до п’ятимісячного мінімуму, свідчать дані на сайті Національного банку України.

З 28 січня його вартість стосовно гривні знизилася на 60 копійок: на 6 лютого офіційний курс встановлений на рівні 27 гривень 21 копійки.

Востаннє ціна національної валюти перебувала нижче цього рівня 10 серпня 2018 року.
…

Україна отримає понад 735 мільйонів гривень завдяки вже завершеним аукціонам з «малої» приватизації, повідомило Міністерство економічного розвитку у Twitter.

«Гарні новини від «Prozorro.Продажі». У системі завершилось 567 аукціонів з малої приватизації – вони принесуть державі понад 735 мільйонів гривень», – розповіли у відомстві.

У Мінекономрозвитку заявили, що початкова вартість об’єктів була 395 мільйонів гривень. Завдяки конкуренції їхня ціна зросла в середньому на 86%.

«Prozorro.Продажі» – це система з реалізації активів неплатоспроможних банків, оренди та продажу державного та комунального майна. Станом на кінець грудня система заробила 12,2 мільярда гривень.
…

Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model.

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon.

“It is unrealistic to expect success in any negotiation of new WTO rules that would restrict China’s current approach to the economy and trade in a meaningful way,” the USTR said in the report.

Some U.S. allies, including Canada, the European Union and Japan, which are also frustrated with pressures created by China’s economic policies, have begun talks on the first potential changes and modernization of WTO rules since it was founded in 1995.

But any WTO rule changes must be agreed by all 164 member nations, and past efforts have stalled. It was “highly unlikely” China would agree to new disciplines targeting changes to its trade practices and economic system, the USTR said.

Tariff deadline

The report shed little light on progress in talks between the United States and China to ease a bruising tariff fight, despite a swiftly approaching March 2 deadline to hike U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods imports.

The WTO report follows two days of intense talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials last week centered on U.S. demands for structural policy changes. These include enforcing intellectual property protections, ending cyber theft of trade secrets, halting the forced transfers of American technology to Chinese firms and reining in industrial subsidies.

While U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to hammer out a trade deal, the USTR report makes clear a massive amount of work will be needed to bridge the gulf between the two countries.

It cited the key structural issues in the talks, which also include China’s new cybersecurity law and discriminatory regulatory practices, as examples of how China aids domestic firms at the expense of foreign competitors in ways that escape WTO rules, adding that China has become “a unique and pressing problem for the WTO and the multilateral trading system.”

The criticism also comes as the United States weakens the WTO’s role as global commerce watchdog by blocking the appointments of judges to its appellate body, which may no longer be able to function by December, when two judges step down.

‘Holding China accountable’

USTR said the United States intends to “hold China accountable” for adhering to existing WTO rules and “any unfair and market-distorting trade practices that hurt U.S. workers, businesses, farmers or ranchers.”

“Until China transforms its approach to the economy and trade, the United States will take all appropriate actions to ensure that the costs of China’s non-market economic system are borne by China, not by the United States,” USTR said.

The agency reiterated a broad array of concerns over China’s key structural issues, such as its 2025 plan for investment in particular sectors and its failure to follow market-oriented principles expected of WTO members, the report said.

“China retains its non-market economic structure and its state-led, mercantilist approach to trade, to the detriment of its trading partners,” it said.
…

Brazil’s government has opened discussions with congressional leaders, state governors and mayors on a pension reform bill that would set the minimum retirement age for men and women at 65, a government official said on Monday.

The proposal is one of several under consideration, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to get the legislative ball rolling on his ambitious plans to overhaul Brazil’s creaking social security system.

Currently, if workers have contributed into the system for at least 15 years, the earliest men can retire is 65 and for women it is 60. But men can retire at any age if they have paid into the system for at least 35 years, and women if they have contributed for 30 years.

Speaking to reporters outside the Economy Ministry in Brasilia, Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the ministry, confirmed talks were underway on the proposal to change that.

Part of the proposal, which was originally reported by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, stipulates that workers must pay into the system for a minimum of 20 years.

“Until a draft has been finalized, Bolsonaro cannot confirm anything on social security,” Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said on Monday.

Bolsonaro has put overhauling social security at the top of his agenda. Depending on the final proposals, it could save up to 1.3 trillion reais ($354 billion) over the next decade, economy ministry sources reckon.

Investors have pinned much of their optimistic outlook for Brazil this year on Bolsonaro delivering on pension reform. The elections of Bolsonaro allies as house and senate presidents last week were seen as a step in that direction.

The Bovespa stock market hit a record high on Monday above 98,500 points, and the real has risen around 7 percent against the dollar in the last six weeks.

($1 = 3.6707 reais)
…

Long before she became just one of the financially destitute legions of street sweepers that dot Moscow’s bitterly cold winter landscape, Shaknoza Ishankulova had simply wanted to do the right thing.

It was 2008, and the recent Uzbekistan National University graduate was ecstatic to secure a teaching post at a Tashkent high school, finally making good use of her diploma in secondary education.

Twenty-two years old and eager to guide younger Uzbeks toward a better life, she was shaken when Uzbekistan’s notoriously vast culture of entrenched corruption revealed itself in the form of a personal mentor and supervisor — a deputy principal at the school who notified her that, if she wished to keep her job, a full third of her weekly salary would have to be kicked back to him.

It was his cut, he explained, for having hired her in the first place.

Years passed before Shaknoza gathered the courage to broach the issue with the school’s principal, a suspiciously wealthy public servant who promptly dismissed the complaint as naively frivolous.

Taking her cue from the anti-corruption initiatives she had seen in Uzbekistan, marketed in the form of public service announcements since 2005, Shaknoza escalated her complaint to Russia’s Ministry of Education, and was summarily placed on paid leave pending further investigation. 

Two years and a cancer battle later, Shaknoza’s case had wound its way through ministry proceedings, leaving her fate in the hands of her employer, who summarily fired her, demanded reimbursement for the two years of salaried leave, and permanently blacklisted her from any professional employment.

Like many unemployed Uzbek nationals, Shaknoza was lured by Moscow’s abundance of service sector jobs that paid more than similar work in Tashkent. After spending nearly a year as a sweeper, she lucked out by landing a relatively well-paid waitressing job, only to lose the position when a Russian supervisor publicly castigated her for making conversation with foreign diners, an experience she attributed to the ethnic workplace discrimination many Uzbeks face in Russia.

Tall and slender with distinctly Asian facial features and straight shoulder-length hair, Shoksana, appearing older than her 34 years, is now a cashier and produce vendor at one of Moscow’s many 24-hour convenience stores.

Speaking with VOA on a frigid afternoon in Moscow, her bare hands balled in fists as she stood stock still in seemingly arctic gales, the former high school teacher said she has done reasonably well for herself when compared to fellow migrants sleeping 10 to a room on the city’s outskirts.

Making $37 per 24-hour shift, each of which is followed by 24 hours off, she said the salary is enough to share a two-room apartment with three other laborers: two Uzbek men and a woman, with whom she shares the bedroom.

After feeding and clothing herself, she says, she sends a small amount home to her mother.

“But it’s not enough to save anything,” she said, explaining that she lacks the resources to get ahead in Moscow and that, as a blacklisted whistleblower, any path back to Tashkent is surely a dead end.

Millions seek opportunity

By 2017, Russia was home to nearly 12 million migrants — the world’s third largest foreign-born population.

Much like in western European nations and the United States, the large numbers of immigrants have triggered unease, and a majority of Russians have become increasingly intolerant of the newcomers.

A 2018 survey by the Washington-based Pew Charitable Trust showed that nearly 70 percent of Russian nationals felt the country should allow fewer or no migrants in the future.

While many of the migrants from China, eastern Europe and the West possess a broad range of professional skill sets, the vast majority of Russia’s lowest-paid laborers hail from impoverished central Asian countries, of which Uzbeks are the largest group.

This makes them the most visible targets of anti-immigrant vitriol.

Some high-level Russian officials have relayed largely context-free statistics that they portray as an immigrant-fueled crime wave for which Uzbeks in particular are to blame.

“If you create a ranking of criminality, you will find citizens of Uzbekistan at the top,” Moscow chief prosecutor Sergei Kudeneyev told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2014. “They have committed 2,522 crimes; next is Tajikistan, with 1,745 crimes; and in third place there is Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens committed 1,269 crimes.”

“The unremitting crime rates among foreign citizens are causing serious concern, particularly since crimes of this nature draw a lot of public attention,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top security officials in 2016. During the televised statement, the president demanded a swift crackdown on foreign criminals.

Alexander Verkhovsky of SOVA, the Center for Information and Analysis, a think tank in Moscow, questioned the veracity and transparency of these datasets.

“Any statistics on working migrants are very blurry,” he said. “While there are police crime statistics — or at least crime documentation — that may indicate a given perpetrator’s country of origin, that specific data is never published in full.

“In general, data on crimes is organized by categories of crime, and even whether these crimes may have been committed by or against a foreigner,” he said. But by the time police records are internally digested into statistics and prepared for public presentation via the prosecutor’s office, hard data about specific countries of origin has been scrubbed.

“You never get to see the complete data,” he said.

A 2016 report by Columbia University’s Eurasia.org news site suggests migrants who have committed crimes may have acted in response to a series of new Russian laws that drastically increased living costs.

Migrant work permit requirements unveiled in 2015 required applicants to “undergo a battery of tests for HIV, tuberculosis, drug addiction and skin diseases.” Permit holders, the report says, were also required to purchase health insurance, acquire taxpayer identification numbers, and be tested on Russian language, history and laws.

Failure to satisfy requirements within a month of arriving in Russia subjected migrants to a $152 fine.

“Once migrants have jumped through all the hoops, they must pay 14.5 thousand rubles ($219) for their work permit and another four thousand rubles ($61) every month to renew the document,” the report says. “All told, this costs almost $1,000 per year.”

A December 2018 SOVA report on hate crimes that was compiled from official statistics and field research said although attacks targeting foreigners are decreasing, ethnic migrants are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks on Russian soil.

“People perceived as ethnic outsiders constituted the largest group of victims in 2017,” says the report, which recorded 28 ethnically motivated attacks, down from 44 attacks (7 fatal) in 2016.

“Migrants from Central Asia were the most numerous group in this category of victims … followed by individuals of unidentified non-Slavic appearance,” the report states. “Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these people were also from Central Asia, since their appearance was described as Asian.”

Foreigners targeted

All of the migrants VOA spoke with mentioned that they had been intimidated by racists or nationalists, swindled into weeks of free labor by dishonest employers, or were the victims of robbery.

Oibek Usupov, a construction worker from Tashkent, recounted the time he and his brother accepted jobs at an apartment development, wherein the employer required them to sign contracts to work throughout the winter. They received a small advance up front, followed by a handful of paychecks well below what they were promised.

Once the units began selling, the developer said, they would be reimbursed in full. Then payments stopped and, a week before spring, it was announced the project had been bought out by another developer.

The new boss, Usupov told us, said prior contracts weren’t binding because his company hadn’t authorized them.

“We lost months of back pay,” he said.

Adkham Enamov, an Uzbek artist who lives an hour north of Moscow, says he became stranded in Russia after intermediaries who sold his paintings at a famous Moscow arts bazaar disappeared with the profits.

“At the time, my dream was to see Moscow, to sell my paintings in Russia, but I didn’t know that half of Moscow are artists,” he said. “So my current dream is to see my motherland, to return in good health.”

Emanov, 46, who speaks very little Russian, has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy. His purpose in Moscow was to cover the medical expenses stacking up in Tashkent.

And then in early 2018, tragedy struck when his 4-year-old daughter, Nama, died from an undiagnosed illness.

“She was buried without me due to the Muslim tradition,” he said, referring to the Sharia ritual of washing and burying the dead within 24 hours of passing. “Well, I sent some money there. Not much.”

After a long, reflective pause, he added, “I should come back being quite rich, but my dream didn’t come true.”
…

З банку «Хрещатик» за кілька місяців перед його банкрутством вивели майже 2,3 мільярда гривень, повідомив Фонд гарантування вкладів фізичних осіб.

У відомстві заявили, що перед створенням тимчасової адміністрації управління банку купували «цінні» папери компаній з ознаками фіктивності.

«На момент запровадження тимчасової адміністрації таких облігацій на балансі ПАТ «КБ «Хрещатик» було виявлено загалом на 2,3 мільярда гривень. При цьому майже 85% з них виявились незабезпеченими, і у 91,8% випадків емітенти виявилися пов’язаними з банком особами. Після того, як термін погашення облігацій сплив, кошти банку повернуті не були», – заявили у фонді.

Заступниця директора-розпорядника фонду Світлана Рекрут розповіла, що через це до правоохоронних органів спрямували 77 заяв.

Національний банк України 5 квітня 2016 року визнав неплатоспроможним банк «Хрещатик», в якому місту Києву належить 25%, і передав його до Фонду гарантування вкладів фізичних осіб, який ввів у нього тимчасову адміністрацію.
…

British lawmakers are debating new proposals on the European Union Withdrawal Agreement this week, amid a series of stark warnings over the consequences of Britain crashing out with no deal on 29 March.

Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to negotiate changes to the Withdrawal Agreement in meetings with Brussels in the coming days, after a majority of British MPs backed calls to change the deal last week. The European Union has flatly rejected reopening the talks.

There are growing signs that uncertainty over Brexit is starting to hit investment, as Japanese car giant Nissan has announced Sunday it is moving production of the X-trail — one of its most popular SUV models — out of the UK. The decision reverses a pledge made by Nissan in the wake of the 2016 referendum.

It’s emerged that Britain offered Nissan over $100 million in 2016 to persuade it to keep its operations in the UK. The reversal was met with dismay by British lawmakers.

‘”It concerns me that they have noted the uncertainty around Brexit and I think that is a serious signal to all of us in Parliament, that now is the time to resolve that uncertainty,” Business Minister Greg Clark told reporters Sunday.

As Britain’s ties stumble, Japan and the European Union are celebrating the entry into force of a trade deal, covering a third of global GDP. Visiting Tokyo Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a Brexit deal was still possible.

“But we need to know from Britain — and this is the critical point — what it envisages,” Merkel said in a press conference.

The threat of a no deal Brexit is growing starker by the day. Government contingency plans leaked to British media purportedly entail evacuating the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace. Worst-case scenarios envisage rioting on the streets amid food and medicine shortages, as waste export restrictions create mountains of garbage.

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU Law at HEC Paris, says neither Britain nor Europe can accurately predict the consequences of a no-deal exit.

“Obviously it’s a very complicated scenario, which entails incredible implications for citizens, for businesses on both sides of the Channel. But the other option is to rethink the Withdrawal Agreement. But not entirely — it’s just about arranging the process that might lead the Withdrawal Agreement to finally find a majority in the Houses [of Parliament].”

That might not be enough. Britain is demanding changes to the so-called “Irish backstop” clause, which seeks to keep Britain tied to EU rules until a trade deal is in place — aimed at preventing a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, which will become the EU’s external border.

But the EU is unlikely to budge, says analyst Anand Menon of the UK in a Changing Europe program at Kings College London.

“They won’t give us a time-limited backstop, because as the Irish keep staying, if it’s time-limited it’s not a backstop,” said Menon.

Reopening the Withdrawal Agreement could see other EU member states request their own changes, notably Spain’s demands for talks on the sovereignty of Gibraltar.

“Some member states could have some possible claims, certainly Spain might be one of them. But also the political context in Europe is also moving, and very fast, ahead of the next European elections,” notes Professor Alemmano.

It is a reminder that the current deadlock is just the beginning of Britain’s recasting its relationship with a fast-changing Europe — a process that could take years, if not decades.
…

Президент України Петро Порошенко підписав закон про продовження мораторію на продаж земель сільськогосподарського призначення в Україні до 2020 року. Як йдеться на сайті Верховної Ради, 4 лютого документ був повернутий з підписом президента.

«Перед запровадженням в Україні обігу земель сільськогосподарського призначення спершу необхідно напрацювати та ухвалити законодавчу базу щодо формування розвинутої мережі фермерських господарств та сільськогосподарської кооперації», – йдеться у пояснювальній записці до закону про продовження мораторію на продаж землі. 

Наприкінці січня Мінекономрозвитку пропонувало президентові Петру Порошенку ветувати закон про мораторій на продаж сільгоспземлі. У відомстві заявляли, що відсутність ринку завдає шкоди не тільки економіці, а й самим власникам земельних паїв, які здають свої ділянки в оренду за заниженою ціною.

Відкриття ринку землі підтримують західні організації, зокрема Міжнародний валютний фонд і Європейський суд із прав людини.

17 січня Верховна Рада не підтримала скасування чергового річного продовження мораторію на продаж землі. Попередня заборона на продаж землі діяла до 1 січня 2019 року.
…

Гривня зміцнилася ще на 15 копійок стосовно долара, свідчать дані на сайті Національного банку України.

На 5 лютого офіційний курс встановлений на рівні 27 гривень 42 копійок за долар.

Українська національна валюта продовжує зміцнюватися з 28 січня, коли вартість долара становила 27 гривень 81 копійку.
…

With Brexit just seven weeks away, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was locked in tense negotiations with itself Monday to rework the U.K.’s divorce deal with the European Union — as the EU stood firm in ruling out any renegotiation.

Meanwhile, pro-EU and pro-Brexit U.K. politicians traded allegations about whether Nissan’s decision not to build a new SUV in northern England was the latest Brexit-induced damage to Britain’s economy.

Prime Minister Theresa May was gathering pro-Brexit and pro-EU Conservative lawmakers into an “alternative arrangements working group” seeking to break Britain’s Brexit deadlock.

The group is holding three days of meetings with ministers and civil servants to investigate possible changes to the EU divorce deal, which was rejected by Parliament last month.

The changes center on replacing a measure known as the backstop, designed to keep an open border between the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland.

The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible frontier now underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The EU insists the Brexit withdrawal agreement can’t be renegotiated, and has already rejected some of the arrangements under discussion in London, including a time limit on the backstop and unspecified technological solutions to customs checks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday the already-agreed Brexit withdrawal agreement could not be renegotiated, although questions surrounding border arrangements could be addressed in a declaration on the future relationship between the EU and Britain.

Speaking during a trip to Japan, she said a Brexit agreement was still possible, but first  “we must hear from Great Britain how they envision that.”

May has not spoken to EU leaders since Wednesday, a day after British lawmakers instructed her to seek changes to the Brexit withdrawal agreement she had spent a year and a half negotiating with Brussels.

But May’s spokesman, James Slack, denied that the Brexit process was deadlocked. He said the government was working with “urgency” on border solutions.

“What we are doing right now is working at home on the proposal we will take to Brussels,” he said.

Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29, and the government doesn’t have an approved agreement on the rules and conditions that will replace the 45 years of frictionless trade that came with being an EU member.

Many businesses fear a cliff-edge “no-deal” departure from the EU will cause economic chaos. The uncertainty has already led many firms to shift some operations abroad, stockpile goods or defer investment decisions.

Over the weekend, Japan’s Nissan said it had decided not to build the X-Trail model at its existing U.K. plant in Sunderland, England, canceling plans announced two years ago after May’s government made undisclosed concessions designed to ensure the carmaker’s ability to compete after Brexit.

The company said it instead plans to consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced. It will continue producing three other models at the Sunderland plant, which employs 7,000 people.

The company said it had made the decision “for business reasons,” but added that “the continued uncertainty around the U.K.’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future.”

Pro-Brexit British politicians insisted the decision was motivated largely by falling sales of diesel vehicles in Europe, rather than by Brexit.

But U.K. Business Secretary Greg Clark told the Financial Times that Nissan’s decision was “a warning sign.”

He said senior Nissan managers had told him that a no-deal Brexit would “cast a shadow over their future in Britain.”
…

The growing use of mobile phones, computers, and televisions in Africa has left the continent with huge amounts of electronic waste. According to the United Nations Environment Program, 40 percent of the world’s electronic dumpsites are found in Africa. To reduce the growing problem, a group in Kenya is helping manage E-waste through local and exported recycling. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi.
…

Nissan announced Sunday it has cancelled plans to make its X-Trail SUV in the UK — a sharp blow to British Prime Minister Theresa May, who fought to have the model built in northern England as she sought to shore up confidence in the British economy after it leaves the European Union.

Nissan said it will consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced, allowing the company to reduce investment costs in the early stages of the project.

That reverses a decision in late 2016 to build the SUV at Nissan’s Sunderland plant in northern England, which employs 7,000 workers. That plant will continue to make Nissan’s Juke and Qashqai models. The announcement Sunday made no mention of any layoffs relating to the X-Trail SUV decision.

“While we have taken this decision for business reasons, the continued uncertainty around the UK’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future,” Nissan Europe Chairman Gianluca de Ficchy said in a statement.

Less than two months before Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29, Britain still doesn’t have an agreement on what will replace 45 years of frictionless trade. This has caused an enormous amount of concern among businesses in Britain, which fear the country is going to crash out of the vast EU trade bloc without a divorce deal, a scenario economists predict would hurt the U.K. economy.

The Nissan decision, first reported by Sky News, is a major setback for May’s Conservative government, which had pointed to Nissan’s 2016 announcement that Sunderland would make the SUV — months after the country’s Brexit referendum — as proof that major manufacturers still had confidence in Britain’s economic future.

Nissan’s announced its plans to build the X-Trail and Qashqai models in Sunderland after the government sent a letter to company officials offering undisclosed reassurances about its ability to compete in the future.

British politicians have sharply criticized May’s Brexit deal and voted it down in Parliament.

May’s government has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, saying the threat strengthens her hand with EU negotiators. Parliament voted last week to give May more time to try to iron out a compromise with the bloc.

Nissan’s change of heart comes just days after Britain’s carmakers issued a stark assessment about Brexit’s impact on the industry, warning that their exports are at risk if the U.K. leaves the EU without an agreement.

Investment in the industry fell 46 percent last year and new car production dropped 9.1 percent to 1.52 million vehicles, in part because of concerns over Brexit, the Society of Motor Manufacturing said.

The group’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the threat of a no-deal Brexit as “catastrophic.”

He says the drop in investment is only a foreshadowing of what could happen if the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29 without a deal.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” Hawes said Thursday. “Brexit uncertainty has already done enormous damage to output, investment and jobs.”

 
…