More than a decade after it was proposed, India’s most ambitious tax reform measure is set to roll out in six weeks following the passage of a law that will replace a plethora of confusing levies with a single, nationwide tax.  

The new goods and services tax (GST) will unite the world’s fastest growing economy into a common market of 1.3 billion people.

The measure is seen as a major achievement for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who struggled for two years to build a political consensus.

 The government says the GST will be implemented from July 1 after state legislatures ratify it.   

 The new tax is expected to make it vastly easier to do business as it dismantles tax checkpoints at every state border. Businesses have often complained that India’s complicated tax system leaves them grappling with a mesh of separate duties levied by each of the country’s 29 states, and goods are often stranded for hours or even days at state borders as payments are worked out.

 By making distribution more efficient and less expensive, Ankur Bisen at New Delhi based consultancy, Technopak, sees big benefits for consumer-oriented businesses, which have to move goods across state lines in the vast country. 

Another huge benefit will be increased transparency. “It will have implications on corruption because taxation regime will not be vague anymore, it will be very clearly defined,” says Bisen.

For the government, the GST is expected to improve tax compliance and draw more people into the tax net in a country where tax evasion is common. It will also make India more attractive for foreign investors by simplifying rules for a huge and increasingly attractive market.

The government estimates the new tax will boost economic growth by about half a percentage point in its first year of implementation and in the long run by as much as 2 percent.

However several economists say that the political compromises that had to be struck win approval of the new tax mean the sweeping benefits India had hoped to see may not accrue in the short run.  

Taxes will be levied at four levels – five, 12, 18 and 28 percent. Many say the 18 percent and 28 percent tax rates are too high.  

 “It could potentially have been a transformative measure if the structure of GST would have been characterized by a large base and low and single rate,” says D.K. Srivastava at consultancy Ernst and Young. But, he says, “it is going as a multiple-rate system and some of the rates are very high and the tax base is still narrow. Therefore it is a kind of a fragmented GST. ”

Despite the shortfalls, Srivastava says that “given the complications of the size of the Indian economy, it might be useful to start off with a functioning model and then go on reforming it as matters progress.”

Many also warn against a hasty implementation, saying that rushing ahead with a July 1 deadline could make it difficult to handle the transition in a country which has always struggled with bureaucratic ineptitude.

Many businesses, which had long clamored for such a tax, are asking the government for more time to prepare for the switch, saying six weeks is too little. They worry that the tax rates for various products have still be to be decided.

Others point out that the GST will be serviced by state-of-the-art technology and an electronic portal where taxpayers can register, eliminating the conventional and discretionary role of tax authorities.
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Along northeastern Cape Cod off the coast of Massachusetts, April doesn’t usually equate with sunshine and sandcastles. The month is mostly a time of waiting for the fog and chill to lift off the Atlantic Ocean and the tourists to arrive.

But this year is a problem for seasonal businesses, whose model is built around five-to-six-month, low-skilled jobs in areas like hospitality. Few Americans are willing to fill them and now, thousands of foreign seasonal workers may not be allowed into the U.S. to take them.

Changes to the U.S. temporary work visa program, called H2B, are keeping out the workers that businesses count on.

For affected businesses, the financial loss could be plenty.

“It could be 20 percent,” said Allen Sylvester, president of American Tent & Table, Inc., a family-owned tent rental and party accessory business in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Sylvester, who has been with the company since 1996, says it earns roughly 85 to 90 percent of its profits in five months — the region’s outdoor wedding season. Fully staffed, the company employs seven to eight Americans and 13 H2B visa workers.

Normally it’s the former group Sylvester has a hard time hiring. But last September, Congress failed to renew a provision that effectively quadrupled the number of H2B visas available in 2016 by not counting returnees against the annual cap. This year, instead of potentially 264,000 visas, there are 66,000 — half allocated in the spring, the other half in the fall.

Businesses in colder areas like Cape Cod, which typically have later start dates, find themselves at a loss. By the time many could complete their visa applications, the cap had been reached.

“Instead of bringing 3,000 workers here, we right now are bringing 300 workers,” said Jane Nichols Bishop, president of Peak Season Workforce, a family-owned business that helps local companies secure annual H2B visas.

Bishop, who calls herself “Mama Visa,” says the 90-day application process that businesses must follow to gain seasonal employment is stringent, including evidence of advertising to recruit American workers.

Of the 171 applications she personally filed for clients, Bishop says 24 made their way through the Department of Homeland Security before all the visas were gone.

Why not hire more Americans?

At 3.4 percent, the February unemployment rate in Massachusetts is lower than the current national average, 4.5 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But as Falmouth, Massachusetts, resident Paul Skudder said, the numbers don’t paint the whole picture on Cape Cod, a community with a growing number of retirees and decreasing number of youth.

“There is a limited number of job opportunities on the Cape for college-educated professional or near professional people, which overall leads to a little bit of an exodus of bright, educated young people,” Skudder said.

Eligible job seekers who are willing to accept low-skilled employment, generally need a permanent source of income. And students can offer just three months of labor during their summer breaks, not five or six.

The well-being of the younger population is also a factor. In 2015, Cape Cod suffered the highest per capita death rate by opioid overdose in Massachusetts and remains one of the most affected areas in the country.

“A lot of the kids I used to know have now passed away,” said Prince Wright, who attended high school in Falmouth. “That’s the big problem right now … most of our locals are not coming in no more. Either they’re locked up or they moved away because of the changes on the Cape.”

More effort needed?

But along Main Street in the Cape’s largest town, not all are convinced that businesses are trying their best to hire local.

“It’s good for the [foreigners] that are coming over here on work visas, but it also takes away from the people that are living on the streets that can work,” said Mary Richard. “I just think it’s hard on the people here too.”

Politicians are divided on the H2B visa program, seeing it as either economically exploitative or a job-killer for Americans.

Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, send mixed messages. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the country’s top law enforcement official, has called the H2B program “detrimental to wages and job opportunities of American workers.” But Donald Trump, before he was president, employed H2B workers during peak resort season at his Florida golf club, Mar-a-Lago.

H2B-reliant businesses worry that the visa is unfairly lumped into Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration. And in Bishop’s mind, some legislators simply don’t understand seasonal economies.

“When people come to Cape Cod and the islands, they come to see and visit us. It’s full employment, we are busy, there’s traffic, so they don’t even realize there is a labor shortage,” Bishop said. “But when you come here in January, you may be the only car on the road for quite a while.”

Hiring strategy

Jim Underdah, general manager at the Coonamessett Inn, considers himself one of the lucky few to secure his share of foreign seasonal workers from Jamaica. Still, a backlog in the system has delayed their arrival and forced him to repurpose the limited workforce he retains year-round.

In anticipation of this, Underdah says many businesses like his choose to employ workers full-time even during the offseason, when he doesn’t need them.

“I have people in the kitchen that we work 40 hours for the winter, so they’re not going to leave me,” Underdah said. “They’re gonna say, ‘Hey, they’re treating us good.’ They’re going to be here this spring. They’re going to get me through till hopefully the workers get in.”

Paul Dean, who runs a seafood retail and catering business, was not as lucky. Lacking the workforce he needs to keep his multiple operations running, he says he may be forced to close one of his locations a couple days a week.

Like Sylvester, Dean predicts this would amount to a loss of 20 percent of annual income.

“That means I’m buying 20 percent less product from local vendors,” Dean said. “We’re obviously collecting 20 percent less in meals tax toward the state. We’re not paying payroll taxes … there’s a huge trickle-down effect.”

Dean and Sylvester are crossing their fingers for a last-ditch effort by lawmakers to reinstate an H2B returning worker exemption before April 28, as part of its fiscal year 2017 federal spending bill. But in case that doesn’t happen, Sylvester offers last-resort advice for summer tourists.

“If you’re going to stay over, bring your sheets and some towels,” he joked, “because there’s going to be no one to clean your room.”

WATCH: One Business Owner Talks about the Challenges
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Національна акціонерна компанія «Нафтогаз України» завершила купівлю планових обсягів імпортного газу на травень 2017 року. Про це повідомив комерційний директор «Нафтогазу» Юрій Вітренко.

«Ціна газу з Європи з поставкою в травні була нижче на 25–30 доларів, ніж ціна за контрактом з «Газпромом» в другому кварталі 2017 року. Тобто тільки на закупівлі з постачанням у травні різниця склала як мінімум 21 мільйон доларів», – стверджує Вітренко у Facebook.

Він також вказав, що потенційна купівля газу у «Газпрому» несе додаткові ризики, оскільки «наші платежі можуть бути зараховані в рахунок зобов’язань «бери-або-плати», а це бездонна бочка, і газ ми не отримаємо».

10 квітня Національна акціонерна компанія «Нафтогаз України» повідомила, що Україна не імпортує природний газ із Росії 500 днів.

Імпорт газу з Росії за контрактом «Нафтогазу» і «Газпрому» припинений 25 листопада 2015 року. Як стверджують у «Нафтогазі», купівля газу за цим контрактом не відновиться до рішення Арбітражного інституту Торговельної палати Стокгольма (Швеція), що очікується до травня.

Офіційно відмова купувати газ у «Газпрому» аргументувалася неприйнятно високою ціною.

За опалювальний сезон 2016 – 2017 років Україна спожила близько 6,7 мільярда кубометрів газу. Станом на момент завершення відбору в підземних сховищах газу залишилося понад 8 мільярдів кубометрів палива.

На початку квітня 2016 року Президент Петро Порошенко, виступаючи в Японії, назвав відмову України від імпорту газу з Росії доказом енергетичної незалежності України.
…

At first glance, U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen may have little in common.

Yellen is an academic economist and veteran of Democratic administrations who is committed to an open global economy, while Trump is a real estate mogul with an electoral base suspicious of the economic order Yellen helped to create.

Yet the two may have interests in common now that Trump is president and both want to get as many Americans working as possible.

Since her appointment as Fed chair in February 2014, Yellen has kept interest rates low and she currently pledges to raise them only slowly even though unemployment, at 4.5 percent, is at its lowest in nearly 10 years.

Meanwhile, Trump’s election campaign promises to cut taxes, spend money on infrastructure and deregulate banking, have helped propel a surge in the U.S. Conference Board’s consumer confidence index to its highest level since the internet stocks crash 16 years ago.

Former Fed staff and colleagues who know Yellen said Trump’s surprising remarks this week in a Wall Street Journal interview, in which he did not rule out Yellen’s reappointment to a new four-year term next year, are not as outlandish as they may appear now that the president has a vested interest in keeping markets and the economy on an even keel.

And the same staff and colleagues say Yellen may well accept reappointment, despite Trump’s criticism of her during last year’s election campaign.

Many in Trump’s Republican party have called for tighter monetary policy and a less activist Fed, but “the president would not really find that useful,” said former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn.

If Trump fills three existing Federal Reserve board vacancies with people Yellen thinks she could work with, “it would be really difficult to turn down” a reappointment when her term as chair expires in February 2018.

“If she continues to do well, he’d be nuts to ditch her for an unknown quantity,” said University of California, Berkeley, economics professor Andrew Rose, a long-time colleague and co-author with Yellen of an oft-cited study of labor markets.

Yellen took over from Ben Bernanke as Fed chair in February 2014 with the U.S. economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis still on shaky ground, and she has made no secret she puts a priority on growth in jobs and wages and a broad recovery in U.S. household wealth.

In a slow return to more normal monetary policy, Yellen has stopped the purchase of additional financial securities by the Fed and in December 2015 began raising short term interest rates for the first time in 10 years.

So far those policy shifts have been engineered with little apparent impact on job growth, and so mesh with Trump’s core election campaign promises to restore employment and earnings.

The slow rise in interest rates in the past year has also happened while U.S. stock prices have risen to record highs, though Trump has claimed the credit for himself.

Precedent for Fed Chair to Stay On

There is precedent for Trump to stick with a former president’s Fed chair appointment. Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, the three previous Fed chairs, served at least two four-year terms and were nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

However it may be a more difficult step for Trump.

During last year’s election campaign, Trump accused Yellen of accepting orders from then President Obama to keep interest rates low for political reasons, and he said he would replace her as Fed chair because she is not a Republican party member.

In a particularly biting moment last year, in a campaign video advertisement, he labeled her as among the “global special interests” who had ruined life for middle America.

The Fed on Thursday said it had no response to Trump’s comments published on Wednesday on Yellen and or on whether Yellen would consider a second term.

Much Could Still Go Wrong

Some of Trump’s advisers and some Republican lawmakers want a more conservative Fed in which the chair has less power and would see a Yellen reappointment as yet another step away from his promise to “drain the swamp” of the Washington establishment.

There are also three current vacancies on the Fed’s seven member Board of Governors, and unorthodox new members could make it difficult for Yellen to manage policy or accept another four-year term.

But if the choice is her consensus style or someone unproven in their ability to manage public and market expectations, “he’d be wise to reappoint her,” said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed staffer and Berkeley colleague of Yellen’s currently at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“I don’t see what is in his interests to appoint someone who is going to jack up interest rates.”
…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company plans to unveil an electric semi-truck in September.

Musk tweeted the announcement Thursday. He offered no other details about the semi, such as whether it will be equipped with Tesla’s partially self-driving Autopilot mode.

Musk also said the company plans to unveil a pickup truck in 18 to 24 months.

Tesla currently sells two electric vehicles, the Model S sedan and Model X SUV. Its lower-cost Model 3 electric car is due out by the end of this year.

But Musk revealed last summer that the Palo Alto, California-based company is working on several more vehicles, including the semi and a minibus.

Tesla shares rose nearly 3 percent in late trading Thursday in response to Musk’s tweet.
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Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced on Wednesday evening that she was sending to Congress a bill that would dramatically increase the size of

public pensions in the face of growing opposition to the nation’s current system.

The bill would include an increase in the amount of savings held collectively, a new 5 percent payroll tax, and a corresponding boost in retirement savings. Current pensioners would see savings rise by around 20 percent, while workers currently paying into the system would see increases of up to 50

percent.

“We must advance toward a truly mixed social security system, where all play their part, where solidarity comes from personal effort, where the state and employers play their corresponding role,” Bachelet said in a speech.

Chile’s privatized pension plan was started in the 1980s during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and the so-called ‘Chilean model’ has been copied and adopted worldwide.

But opposition to it is rising in Chile, with regular street protests demanding changes. Opponents say the payouts are meager, and they complain the pensions are managed by for-profit funds.

It is unclear if Bachelet’s bill can become law. Her governing coalition is severely divided, and parliamentary elections are set to take place in November, while debate on complex bills can take years in Chile.

Earlier in April, Chile’s finance minister said divisions in the government might make any pension reform impossible, and earlier this week, a major education bill pushed by Bachelet failed in committee.

Under the system proposed by Bachelet, the new 5 percent tax would be divided into two parts and have a six-year implementation period. Three percent would go into the personal savings of each worker, while 2 percent would go into a collective account, managed by the state.

The bill would also give pensioners more say in the investment decisions of the pension investment funds, known as AFPs.
…

Національний банк України ухвалив рішення про зниження облікової ставки до 13% річних з 14 квітня.

Як повідомляє прес-служба Нацбанку, відновлення циклу пом’якшення монетарної політики узгоджується з необхідністю досягнення цілей щодо інфляції у 2017-2019 роках.

У НБУ зазначають, що інфляція у березні 2017 року становила 15.1% у річному вимірі, зростання цін прискорилося переважно внаслідок ефекту бази порівняння та збільшення виробничих витрат.

Фактичне прискорення споживчої інфляції було очікуваним, наголошують у Нацбанку.

У березні 2015 року НБУ облікова ставка була на рівні 30%, згодом Нацбанк почав поступово знижувати облікову ставку, зокрема, у жовтні минулого року – до 14%.

Облікова ставка є одним із інструментів, за допомогою якого Нацбанк встановлює для комерційних банків орієнтир щодо вартості залучених і розміщених коштів. Фактично вона визначає ціну грошей.
…

President Donald Trump plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, his office said, a victory for American manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric which have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products.

Trump first told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill two vacancies on the agency’s five-member board that have prevented the bank from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. Trump’s picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama.

Trump told the Journal that the bank benefits small businesses and creates jobs, a reversal of his earlier criticism of the bank being “featherbedding” for wealthy corporations.

Bank offers loans to foreign entities

The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enables them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment.

The bank’s acting chairman, Charles “CJ” Hall, was not immediately available for comment.

The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who have worked in Congress to kill the bank, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs.

Trump’s about-face on the export bank comes after meeting on Tuesday with former Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney, who left the company last year but oversaw the corporation’s aggressive lobbying effort in support of the bank in 2015.

Trump also met at the White House on Feb. 23 with GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Caterpillar Inc CEO Mark Sutton, both vocal supporters of the bank.

It is not known if they discussed the bank at those meetings.

Bank helps level playing field

Large American corporations that do significant amounts of exports say other countries have similar agencies and the export bank levels the playing field.

“This is an encouraging development on a key competitive issue for U.S manufacturers and their extensive supply chains,” Boeing spokeswoman Kate Bernard said in statement to Reuters.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, which includes companies like Ingersoll-Rand, United States Steel and Pfizer, cheered the move.

“Manufacturers are encouraged by President Trump’s vocal support for the bank,” said NAM Vice President of International Economic Affairs Linda Dempsey in a statement.

A 2015 fight to shutter the bank led by conservatives in Congress allowed the bank’s charter to expire for five months.

After overwhelming bipartisan support emerged to renew the bank’s charter, which is needed for it to operate, conservatives blocked nominees to the board, preventing it from financing large exports like aircraft and power turbines.

Groups work to shut down bank

Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity, two groups funded by the Republican donor Koch brothers, worked aggressively for years to kill the bank. Brothers Charles and David Koch have opposed the bank for what they call damaging interference into the free market by government.

Nathan Nascimento, Freedom Partners vice president of policy, called the bank on Wednesday “the epitome of what’s wrong with Washington.”

“Reopening the flood gates to Ex-Im’s corporate welfare is a bad deal for hardworking taxpayers and a bad deal for American businesses,” he said.

The Club for Growth, which spends heavily in electing conservative candidates and was one of the few groups to campaign against Trump during the Republican primary in 2016, also lamented the change in position.

“Ex-Im has a long history of cronyism and corruption that is well-known to many in the Trump Administration, and while we hoped it would be done away with, the administration now has taken on the almost impossible challenge of reforming a federal agency whose mission has been to pick winners and losers with taxpayer dollars,” spokesman Doug Sachtleben said in a statement to Reuters.

 
…

Zimbabwean entrepreneurs could soon use movable assets, including livestock and vehicles, to secure loans from banks, according to a bill brought before the country’s Parliament this week.

The southern African country’s economy is dominated by informal business following the formal sector’s contraction by as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2008, according to government data, after President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms decimated the key agriculture sector.

The Movable Property Security Interest Bill, introduced Tuesday by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, seeks to make it easier for Zimbabwe’s burgeoning informal sector to access bank funds.

A copy of the bill seen Wednesday by Reuters defines movable property as “any tangible or intangible property other than immovable property.”

New economic reality

Presenting the bill, which still has to go through several stages before becoming law, Chinamasa said the majority of small businesses did not have the immovable assets that banks require as collateral for loans.

“The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act will be amended to achieve the objective of this bill, and the assets to be considered include any type, such as machinery, motor vehicles, livestock and accounts receivable,” Chinamasa told lawmakers.

The finance minister said banks had failed to adjust to Zimbabwe’s new economic reality, in which the informal sector, mostly made up of small businesses, plays a dominant role.

Loans to small businesses amounted to $250 million in the year to date, Chinamasa said, out of total bank loans of nearly $4 billion.

“As minister in charge of financial institutions, I feel there is need for a change of attitude by our banks to reflect our economic realities,” Chinamasa said.

The bill provides for a collateral registry to be set up by the central bank, which would maintain a database of all movable assets put up as loan security.

“The purpose of the registry is to facilitate commerce, industry and other socioeconomic activities by enabling individuals and businesses to utilize their movable property as collateral for credit,” reads part of the bill.

Pitching the proposed law to legislators, Chinamasa cited several developing economies — including those of Liberia, Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Lesotho, Peru and Ukraine — that he said used movable assets as collateral to increase lending to small businesses.

“Their access to banking finance increased by 8 percent [on average], while interest rates declined by 3 percent per annum,” he said.

Foreign currencies

Zimbabwe’s economy enjoyed a temporary reprieve after it adopted the use of multiple foreign currencies — mainly the U.S dollar and South Africa’s rand — in 2009 to replace its inflation-ravaged local unit.

The currency move initially paid dividends, with the economy expanding by an average 11.3 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to World Bank data, while inflation came down to single digits.

However, declining exports from the mineral-dependent country following weaker mineral commodity prices coincided with a sharp rise in imports, triggering an acute foreign currency shortage and slowing down the economy as credit to businesses dried up.
…

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration would not label China a currency manipulator, backing away from a  campaign promise, even as he said the U.S. dollar was “getting too strong” and would eventually hurt the economy.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump also said he would like to see U.S. interest rates stay low, another comment at odds with what he had often said during the election campaign.

A U.S. Treasury spokesman confirmed that the Treasury Department’s semiannual report on currency practices of major trading partners, due out this week, would not name China a currency manipulator.

The U.S. dollar fell broadly on Trump’s comments on both the strong dollar and interest rates, while U.S. Treasury yields fell on the interest rate comments, and Wall Street stocks slipped.

Trump’s comments broke with a long-standing practice of both U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations of refraining from commenting on policy set by the independent Federal Reserve. It is also highly unusual for a president to address the dollar’s value, which is a subject usually left to the Treasury secretary.

A day-one promise

“They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told the Journal about China. The statement was an about-face from Trump’s election campaign promises to slap that label on Beijing on the first day of his administration as part of his plan to reduce Chinese imports into the United States.

The Journal paraphrased Trump as saying that he’d changed his mind on the currency issue because China has not been manipulating its yuan for months and because taking the step now could jeopardize his talks with Beijing on confronting the threat from North Korea.

Separately Wednesday, at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis surrounding North Korea without China if necessary.

The United States last branded China a currency manipulator in 1994. Under U.S. law, labeling a country as a currency manipulator can trigger an investigation and negotiations on tariffs and trade.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that Trump’s decision to break his campaign promise on China was “symptomatic of a lack of real, tough action on trade” against Beijing.

“The best way to get China to cooperate with North Korea is to be tough on them with trade, which is the number one thing China’s government cares about,” Schumer said.

Yellen’s future

Trump also told the Journal that he respected Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and said she was “not toast” when her current term ends in 2018.

That was also a turnaround from his frequent criticism of Yellen during his campaign, when he said she was keeping interest rates too low.

At other times, however, Trump had said that low rates were good because higher rates would strengthen the dollar and hurt American exports and manufacturers.

“I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that’s my fault because people have confidence in me. But that’s hurting — that will hurt ultimately,” Trump said Wednesday.

“It’s very, very hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency,” Trump told the Journal.

The dollar fell broadly Trump’s comments on the strong dollar and on his preference for low interest rates. It fell more than 1.0 percent against the yen, sinking below 110 yen for the first time since mid-November.

“It’s hard to talk down your currency unless you’re going to talk down your interest rates, and so obviously he’s trying to get Janet Yellen to play ball with him,” said Robert Smith, president and chief investment officer at Sage Advisory Services in Texas.

Trump’s comments on the Fed were his most explicit about the U.S. central bank since he took office in January, and they suggested a lower likelihood that he plans to try to push monetary policy in some unorthodox new direction.

Fed overhaul

Some key Republicans have advocated an overhaul of how the Fed works, using a rules-based policy that would most likely mean higher interest rates, not the lower ones Trump said he prefers.

The Fed in mid-March hiked interest rates for the second time in three months, increasing its target overnight rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

“Maybe he’s learning on the job,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago, noting that with Trump’s transition from candidate to president he was now being counseled by more orthodox voices sensitive to what is needed to keep global bond markets on an even keel.

The president is also “very close” to naming a vice chair for banking regulation and filling another open seat that governs community banking on the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during the interview.
…

President Donald Trump told a group of chief executives Tuesday that his administration was revamping the Wall Street reform law known as Dodd-Frank and might eliminate the rules and replace them with “something else.”

At the beginning of his administration, Trump ordered reviews of the major banking rules that were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, and last week he said officials were planning a “major haircut” for them.

“For the bankers in the room, they’ll be very happy because we’re really doing a major streamlining and, perhaps, elimination, and replacing it with something else,” Trump said Tuesday.

“That will be the minimum. But we’re doing a major elimination of the horrendous Dodd-Frank regulations, keeping some obviously, but getting rid of many,” he said.

The many provisions of the Dodd-Frank measure were aimed at decreasing risks in the U.S. financial system. The White House is not unilaterally able to upend Dodd-Frank’s rules, almost all of which are implemented by independent regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve.

A sweeping change to the law would require congressional action, though in some cases regulators may also have wiggle room to make changes through a formal rule-making process.

Report on regulations

In February, Trump issued an executive order requiring Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to consult with U.S. regulators and submit a report outlining a proposal for possible regulatory and legislative changes that will help fuel economic growth and promote American business interests.

That report, due to be released in June, will most likely serve as a blueprint for possible changes down the road. However, congressional action on a Wall Street bill is not expected in the near term, as Congress focuses primarily on health care and tax reform.

Participants in the Tuesday meeting included Rich Lesser, chief executive of Boston Consulting Group; Doug McMillon, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores; Indra Nooyi, chief executive of PepsiCo; Jim McNerney, former chief executive of Boeing; Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM; and Jack Welch, former chairman of General Electric.

The business leaders are part of Trump’s “Strategy and Policy Forum” that last met with him in February.

Trump also reiterated his criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“NAFTA is a disaster. It’s been a disaster from the day it was devised. And we’re going to have some very pleasant surprises for you on NAFTA, that I can tell you,” he said.
…

United Airlines saw its stock price decline by 4 percent or more after a viral video showing a passenger being dragged off a flight and injured sparked outrage in the U.S. and several nations. One airline analyst says he has never seen such a “parade of incompetence.”
…

South Asian migrants powering the construction boom in oil-rich Gulf countries are often illegally made to pay for their own recruitment, adding to hardships of poor working conditions and wages, according to an investigation released Tuesday.

Millions of migrants seeking a way out of poverty by working in Gulf nations from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates must routinely pay fees that can equal a year’s salary, U.S. researchers said in a report.

“Recruitment is not free,” said report co-author David Segall of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “Somebody does have to bear these costs, but that of course should be the employing company.”

The findings came as conditions for construction workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the 2022 FIFA World Cup host, Qatar, have drawn scrutiny from rights groups who say migrants live in squalor and work without proper access to water and shelter.

In five fact-finding missions to the Gulf and South Asia, the researchers found workers are typically made to pay for their airfare from South Asia and their work visa, often at inflated prices.

Selling visas for profit is illegal in the six Gulf countries the researchers investigated — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But violations rarely lead to prosecution and punishment, the report said.

Fees highest for Bangladeshis

Bangladeshi workers paid as much as $5,200 in recruitment fees, according to the study, the highest price among other South Asian construction workers, who number some 10 million people in the Gulf.

In rare cases, construction companies took on expenditures to recruit their workers, the study found. The fees had the effect of pushing already destitute migrants further into poverty by tying them to high-interest loans.

“These are people who are already desperate enough that they feel that they need to undertake this journey, leave their families in order to just achieve the possibility of economic success,” Segall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “For them to be in debt before they even start this journey is really an injustice.”

Reports of abuse of migrant domestic workers have prompted countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Indonesia to ban their citizens in recent years from seeking jobs in the Middle East.

The New York University report expanded on the findings of an investigation conducted in Qatar and released last week, which concluded hundreds of Asian workers had paid recruitment fees.
…

У березні 2017 року споживча інфляція прискорилася до 15,1%, порівняно з 14,2% у лютому, у місячному вимірі зростання індексу споживчих цін становило 1,8%. 

Як повідомляє прес-служба Національного банку України, прискорення інфляції в річному вимірі було очікуваним. 

За даними НБУ, інфляція сирих продуктів харчування пришвидшилася за рахунок збільшення виробничих витрат, активного експорту та низької бази порівняння, також вплинуло планове підвищення окремих тарифів та акцизів. 

На поточний рік Нацбанк очікує інфляції 9,1%.
…

Industrial air pollution causes nearly 3.5 million deaths a year, and international trade is shifting some of the harmful effects from consuming nations to producing nations, according to a study in the journal Nature.  

The authors say high consumption in the United States and Western Europe harms health in manufacturing countries such as China, and the pattern is continuing among developing nations in Asia.

“Take an example of a toy,” says Steve Davis, an Earth system scientist with the University of California, Irvine, and one of the report’s authors.  He explains that toys sold in America are most often made in China, displacing the emissions that would otherwise be released in the United States.  

“We’re effectively outsourcing the pollution that comes from the manufacture of that product,” he said.

750,000 premature deaths

Worldwide, the scientists estimate air pollution produced by exported goods and services caused more than 750,000 premature deaths in the baseline year of the study, 2007.

The report by Davis and his colleagues at Beijing’s Tsinghua University and other institutions found the cross-border effects of trade-related pollution is greater than the cross-boundary impact of industrial pollution caused by weather patterns.

Particulate matter from China was linked to 65,000 premature deaths outside of China, largely in Japan and the Korean peninsula, and including 3,100 deaths in the United States and Western Europe.  But U.S. and European consumption of goods produced in China was linked to nearly 110,000 premature deaths in China.

The researchers say that as China becomes a consuming society, its manufacturing is shifting, but the pattern is similar, as production and pollution are “outsourced by China into other up-and-coming industrialized countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, India,” said Davis.

Those countries are bearing the health costs.

The study examined 13 regions of the world and Davis said researchers were surprised levels of harm from emissions that were displaced from one country to another by outsourcing.

Trump order criticized

Davis notes that China’s industrial cities are plagued with pollution, and the country is working to clean up its air.  Yet as China expands its use of “scrubbers” that remove fine particulate matter from industrial emissions, environmentalist are accusing President Donald Trump of reversing the U.S. commitment to clean air.  On March 28, Trump signed a sweeping executive order to increase America’s energy independence and boost American jobs by reducing the federal government’s role in controlling emissions.

“There’s a concern that in the pursuit of economic gains, we’re maybe willing to now sacrifice our environmental quality,” Davis said, noting the United States has long “pointed a finger at China” for its emissions.

The study’s authors say environmental pollution caused by manufacturing, and by worldwide trade, requires a global response that balances the need for clean air and economic growth.
…

Several minutes after a passenger recorded a video watched around the world that showed security officers dragging another passenger off an overbooked United Express flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, a smaller snippet of video showed an even more troubling scene.

There stood the passenger who had been dragged on his back to the front of the plane, appearing dazed as he spoke through bloody lips and blood that had spilled onto his chin.

“I want to go home, I want to go home,” he said.

The treatment of the passenger on Sunday night prompted outrage and scorn on social media, and anger among some of the passengers on the flight as the unidentified man was evicted.

The incident risks a backlash against United from passengers who could boycott the airline as the busy summer travel season is about to begin. For Chicago, it is another public relations nightmare, adding to its reputation as a city unable to curb a crime wave in some neighborhoods, which President Donald Trump has highlighted with critical tweets.

The embarrassing incident spiraled out of control from a common air travel issue – an overbooked flight. United was trying to make room for four employees of a partner airline, meaning four people had to get off the flight to Louisville.

At first, the airline asked for volunteers, offering $400 and then when that didn’t work, $800 per passenger to relinquish a seat. When no one voluntarily came forward, United selected four passengers at random.

Three deplaned but the fourth, a man who said he was a doctor and needed to get home to treat patients on Monday, refused.

Three men, identified later as city aviation department security officers, got on the plane. Two officers tried to reason with the man before a third came aboard and pointed at the man “basically saying, ‘Sir, you have to get off the plane,’ ” said Tyler Bridges, a passenger whose wife, Audra D. Bridges, posted a video on Facebook.

One of the security officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from his window seat, across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms.

Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” “What are you doing?” “This is wrong,” “Look at what you did to him” and “Busted his lip.”

“We almost felt like we were being taken hostage,” said Tyler Bridges. “We were stuck there. You can’t do anything as a traveler. You’re relying on the airline.”

United Airlines’ parent company CEO Oscar Munoz late Monday issued a letter defending his employees, saying the passenger was being “disruptive and belligerent.”

While Munoz said he was “upset” to see and hear what happened, “our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this.”

Chicago’s aviation department said the security officer who grabbed the passenger had been placed on leave.

“The incidence on United Flight 3411 was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officer are obviously not condoned by the Department,” the department said in a statement.

After a three-hour delay, United Express Flight 3411 took off without the man aboard.

Airlines are allowed to sell more tickets than seats on the plane, and they routinely overbook flights because some people do not show up.

It’s not unusual for airlines to offer travel vouchers to encourage people to give up their seats, and there are no rules for the process. When an airline demands that a passenger give up a seat, the airline is required to pay double the passenger’s one-way fare, up to $675 provided the passenger is put on a flight that arrives within one to two hours of the original. The compensation rises to four times the ticket price, up to $1,350, for longer delays.

When they bump passengers, airlines are required to give those passengers a written description of their compensation rights.

Last year, United forced 3,765 people off oversold flights and another 62,895 United passengers volunteered to give up their seats, probably in exchange for travel vouchers. That’s out of more than 86 million people who boarded a United flight in 2016, according to government figures. United ranks in the middle of U.S. carriers when it comes to bumping passengers.

ExpressJet, which operates flights under the United Express, American Eagle and Delta Connection names, had the highest rate of bumping passengers last year. Among the largest carriers, Southwest Airlines had the highest rate, followed by JetBlue Airways.

___

Associated Press Writer David Koenig contributed to this report.

AP-WF-04-11-17 1128GMT
…

President Donald Trump’s relentless push for more manufacturing jobs has forced the auto industry into a delicate dance of contradictions in order to keep him happy, tell the truth, and avoid alienating customers in both red and blue states.

Toyota did the waltz with Monday’s announcement that it would spend $1.33 billion to retool its gigantic factory in Georgetown, Kentucky, an investment in the heart of Trump country that has been planned for years.

Trump wasn’t included in a company statement sent on Friday in advance of the announcement, but Kentucky’s governor and both of the state’s U.S. senators were quoted. In a paragraph added Sunday evening, Trump claimed credit for the investment, saying it is “further evidence that manufacturers are now confident that the economic climate has greatly improved under my administration.”

The company said the Trump quote was added at the administration’s request, but the White House said Toyota requested it and pointed to a poll of manufacturers showing record optimism. Later Monday, Toyota said that it had asked the White House for a Trump quote.

Either way, an investment of that size takes years to plan, and Toyota confirmed that it’s been in the works four or five years, long before Trump was elected. The company is switching its midsize Camry sedan, long the top-selling car in America, to new underpinnings that make it more modern and fun to drive. Although the investment doesn’t add jobs, it sustains 8,200 workers at the plant, which also manufactures the Toyota Avalon and Lexus ES 350 cars.

The dealings with Toyota show how businesses — especially automakers whose brands cater to both ends of the political spectrum — must tread carefully when dealing with Trump or other politicians. Depending on their response, they run the risk of angering a president who has authority to regulate their industry or alienating customers who are on both sides of the political divide.

“That’s kind of the reality of the situation you’re operating in,” said Joseph Holt, a University of Notre Dame associate professor who specializes in business ethics and leadership. “I think it’s a shame that they have to do this dance, but I understand why they’re doing it.”

All politicians play the same game as Trump, taking credit for accomplishments they had nothing to do with, said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan. What makes Trump unique is the demand for jobs announcements was done publicly rather than in private conversations, Gordon said.

Many CEOs grudgingly supported President Barack Obama’s health care plan even though they disagreed with it, Gordon said.

“With President Trump, the difference is the volume is up to 11 or 12 instead of at 10,” he said. “I don’t find him to be that different in terms of what he wants credit for, and putting the arm on people to get on his program, other than he does it publicly.”

Detroit automakers are in the most precarious position, Gordon said, because they are perceived as more American. Take General Motors. Its Chevrolet brand, with the top-selling Silverado pickup truck, caters largely to America’s mid-section, which largely voted for Trump. But GM’s Cadillac luxury brand wanted so much to distance itself from the Midwest that it moved its offices to Manhattan, which supported Democrat Hillary Clinton.

If GM either confronts Trump or is continually in his Twitter sights, that could upset the automaker’s lucrative customer base in the Midwest. If the company is too supportive, it could hurt GM’s efforts to grow Cadillac sales on the mostly blue coasts.

That’s why with few exceptions, GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler have made jobs announcements that largely were in the works long ago, Gordon said.

Because the country is so politically polarized, a social-media fueled PR mistake for or against an issue could touch off a boycott that can quickly hurt a company, Gordon said.

“Now the companies are really under the magnifying glass,” he said. “Many customers want to know who you are and what you stand for before they even think about your product.”

Holt and others say companies shouldn’t allow such deception and would be better off in the long run by not playing politics.

While the Trump administration was showing a commitment to manufacturing with the announcement, it may send a different message to government regulators such as the Environmental Protection Agency or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should there be any problems with a factory, said Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

“Do those agencies feel constrained from enforcing the law because the president has just associated himself with that company or investment?” Weissman asked. “It’s just on its face inappropriate.”

 
…

Кабінет міністрів України запропонує Верховній Раді скасувати оподаткування пенсій для пенсіонерів, які працюють, з 1 жовтня поточного року. Про це заявив у вівторок прем’єр-міністр України Володимир Гройсман на прес-конференції за підсумками року діяльності уряду.

«Наша реформа передбачає, що з 1 жовтня ми запропонуємо скасувати оподаткування пенсій для працюючих пенсіонерів», – сказав Гройсман.

За його словами, також із 1 жовтня буде збільшено пенсії для 5,6 мільйона громадян. Для різних категорій підвищення складе від 200 до 1000 гривень.

Працюючі пенсіонери в Україні отримують 85% пенсії. Крім того, діє тимчасове обмеження виплати пенсій деяким групам пенсіонерів, які працюють. Так, позбавлення пенсійних виплат стосується держслужбовців, прокурорів, депутатів та деяких інших груп працюючих пенсіонерів. В уряді пояснили необхідність таких обмежень дефіцитом бюджету Пенсійного фонду.
…

When they are not tending to international affairs, diplomats based in Havana can be found these days stewing in interminable queues at gas stations and concocting ways to increase the octane in fuel as Cuba’s premium gasoline shortage takes its toll.

Cuba sent around an internal memo last week advising that it would restrict sales of high-octane, so-called “special fuel” in April. That is not an issue for most Cuban drivers, whose vintage American cars and Soviet-era Ladas use regular fuel.

But it is for the embassies that use modern cars whose engines could be damaged by the fuel at most Havana gas stations. So the diplomats are taking a leaf out of the book of Cubans, used to such shortages, and becoming resourceful.

Given the U.S. trade embargo, Cubans have for decades had to invent new ways to keep their cars on the road, replacing original engines with Russian ones and using homemade parts.

“I bought octane booster, and the embassy has bought lubricants, meant to help the motor deal with rubbish gasoline,” said one north European diplomat, who got a relative to bring the booster in his luggage given it is unavailable in Cuba.

“At the moment we are using the car that runs on diesel, so we can ‘survive’,” said an Eastern European diplomat.

Cuba has not announced the measure officially yet. According to the memo, “the special fuel remaining in stock at gas stations from April will only be sold in cash and to tourists until the inventory is depleted.”

“It’s very serious. I have already suspended a trip to Santiago de Cuba for fear of lack of gas,” said one Latin American diplomat, adding that it seemed like the problem would last. “Diplomats are very worried.”

Some embassies in Havana have people scouting out which stations still have some higher-octane fuel and are sending around regular updates to staff. One gas station worker said they were getting small deliveries of fuel each day still.

The embassies are also advising people to carpool or use the diplomatic shuttle.

Meanwhile the European Union has requested from the ministry of foreign affairs that one or more service centers be set aside for diplomats with special gas, according to a European diplomat.

Cuba has become increasingly reliant on its socialist ally Venezuela for refined oil products but the latter has faced its own fuel shortage in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the Communist-ruled island cannot easily replace subsidized Venezuelan supplies as it is strapped for cash.

Although the memo referred to April, it is not clear how long the shortage will last. Cubans joke that once something disappears in Cuba, it is never to return, referring to products that have disappeared from their ration book like cigarettes, beef and condensed milk.

The Peugeot dealership in Havana has sent its clients lists of technical tips how to protect their motors while using lower-grade gasoline, including more frequent maintenance and ensuring vehicles at running at optimum temperature before driving.

The shortage is also impacting others using modern cars such as taxi drivers, tourists and workers at joint ventures.
…

Голова Національного банку України Валерія Гонтарєва заявила, що власники збанкрутілих банків винні НБУ мільярди гривень, які мають бути повернуті. Про це Гонтарєва оголосила 10 квітня на прес-конференції після оприлюднення заяви про відставку.

«Банк «Надра», Дмитро Фірташ, винен Національному банку 9,8 мільярда гривень; Олег Бахматюк за кредитами двох своїх банків – «Фінансової ініціативи» та «Ві-Ей-Бі-банку» – понад 10 мільярдів гривень. Наступний герой – це Микола Лагун, винен за кредитами «Дельта-банку» 8 мільярдів гривень. Костянтин Жеваго та його банк «Фінанси та кредит» винні Національному банку 6,3 мільярда гривень. Леонід Клімов, він досі сидить нашим народним депутатом і навіть входить до комітету з фінансів і банківської діяльності, – 3,4 мільярда гривень за кредитами «Імекс-банку», – вказала голова НБУ.

«Наголошую: банкрутство банку не означає, що тепер ці горе-власники повністю вільні від боргів своїх банків. Державні кошти потрібно повертати – і крапка!» – додала Гонтарєва.

Перераховані головою НБУ бізнесмени наразі не коментували звинувачень Валерії Гонтарєвої.

Раніше на цій же прес-конференції голова Національного банку України Валерія Гонтарева підтвердила, що подала заяву про відставку президентові України. За її словами, у відставку за власним бажанням вона йде з 10 травня.

Гонтарєва очолює НБУ з 2014 року. Під її керівництвом відбулося значне зменшення кількості банків у фінансовій системі України, оскільки регулятор збільшив вимоги до статутного капіталу та інших показників діяльності фінансових установ. Також Гонтарєва причетна до встановлення гнучкого обмінного курсу гривні, що дозволяє не витрачати валютні ресурси в разі зростання попиту на долар США чи інші провідні валюти.
…

Національна комісія, що здійснює регулювання енергетики й комунальних послуг (НКРЕКП), скасувала 10 квітня своє рішення про встановлення з 1 квітня для населення й промислових споживачів тарифів за розподіл природного газу як плату за приєднану потужність.

Ми сьогодні повинні ухвалити рішення щодо того, щоб скасувати це рішення (про абонплату), провести додаткові консультації, забезпечити, щоб для жодного українця не було жодного підвищення в результаті цього рішення. Ми хочемо всім повідомити, що наше рішення приймалося відповідно до законодавства, прозоро й привселюдно», – заявив голова регулятора Дмитро Вовк.

4 квітня комісія оголосила про призупинення свого попереднього рішення про запровадження абонплати за газ.

Активісти кількох партій правого спрямування та профспілок пікетували 10 квітня зранку офіс Національної комісії, що здійснює державне регулювання у сферах енергетики і комунальних послуг (НКРЕКП). Біля входу до будівлі регулятора зібралися до 300 осіб. Активісти тримали партійні прапори і плакати з вимогами зниження тарифів на послуги ЖКГ. На засідання комісії прибули представники Радикальної партії на чолі з лідером партії Олегом Ляшком.

Раніше до НКРЕКП із пропозицією припинити рішення щодо абонплати за газ звернулися президент України Петро Порошенко та голова уряду Володимир Гройсман, а члени фракції Радикальної партії на чолі з головою фракції Олегом Ляшком зранку 4 квітня блокували трибуну Верховної Ради.

Національна комісія, що здійснює державне регулювання у сферах енергетики та комунальних послуг (НКРЕКП), наприкінці березня затвердила щомісячну абонплату за газ, яка мала стягуватися з 1 квітня.

Комісія планувала, що українці щомісяця платитимуть певну суму, яка не залежатиме від споживання газу. Абонплата вираховуватиметься залежно від приєднаної потужності (газового лічильника) кожного споживача.

У НКРЕКП стверджували, що «методологія, за якою визначено тарифи, розроблена з урахуванням досвіду країн ЄС та погоджена з усіма зацікавленими органами виконавчої влади».
…

Національна акціонерна компанія «Нафтогаз України» повідомила 10 квітня, що Україна не імпортує природний газ із Росії вже 500 днів. Про це йдеться в повідомленні компанії на офіційній сторінці компанії в соціальній мережі Facebook.

Імпорт газу з Росії за контрактом «Нафтогазу» і «Газпрому» припинений 25 листопада 2015 року. Як стверджують у «Нафтогазі», купівля газу за цим контрактом не відновиться до рішення Арбітражного інституту Торговельної палати Стокгольма (Швеція), що очікується до травня.

Офіційно відмова купувати газ у «Газпрому» аргументувалася неприйнятно високою ціною.

За опалювальний сезон 2016 – 2017 років Україна спожила близько 6,7 мільярда кубометрів газу. Станом на момент завершення відбору в підземних сховищах газу залишилося понад 8 мільярдів кубометрів палива.

На початку квітня 2016 року Президент Петро Порошенко, виступаючи в Японії, назвав відмову України від імпорту газу з Росії доказом енергетичної незалежності України.
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