Sales of Cuba’s legendary cigars rose 5 percent last year to $445 million, defying stagnation in the global luxury goods market, manufacturer Habanos S.A. said on Monday at the opening of the Caribbean island’s annual cigar festival.

Habanos, which makes brands including Cohiba, Monte Cristo and Romeo y Julieta, said it expects moderate sales growth this year as it continues to tap the Middle East, Asia and other new markets.

“We are quite happy we were able to grow during a year that was in truth quite challenging,” Vice President of Development Javier Terrés told Reuters after holding a news conference hazy with smoke as journalists puffed on complimentary cigars.

Cuba’s monopoly cigar company was kicking off the festival that attracts wealthy tobacco aficionados and retailers from around the world for five days of extravagant parties and tours of plantations and factories.

Habanos dominates the global market for hand-rolled, premium cigars except in the United States due to Washington’s half-century trade embargo against Cuba. The United States is the world’s biggest cigar market.

American enthusiasts have had slightly better access to Cuban cigars since former President Barack Obama two years ago unveiled a Cuba policy aiming to normalize relations.

Last October, the Obama administration removed limits on the amount of cigars American travelers could bring home.

Terrés said this made little difference to overall sales but it would help brand recognition in the United States.

Wholesale shipments there would require the U.S. Congress to lift the embargo, a move that looks uncertain under President Donald Trump, who has threatened to reverse the detente.

Still, better U.S.-Cuban relations have helped stoke a boom in tourism, which in turn has lifted cigar sales in Cuba, according to Habanos. The number of visitors to the island rose 13 percent last year.

“Our sales in Cuba are directly related to tourism, and in effect, sales in Cuba have grown,” Terrés said.

Habanos said its traditional European markets had remained stable last year, while there was growth in emerging markets like the Middle East and Pacific Asia.

Meanwhile, female smokers remain a largely untapped market for Habanos, Terrés said. The company is working on it but has learned that producing smaller, milder versions of its classic cigars is not the answer.

“Actually, women want to smoke big cigars and enjoy them like a man,” he said, adding it was important to draw in women with specific promotional events.
…

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross easily won confirmation as U.S. commerce secretary on Monday, clearing President Donald Trump’s top trade official to start work on renegotiating trade relationships with China and Mexico.

The U.S. Senate voted 72-27 to confirm the 79-year-old corporate turnaround expert’s nomination, with strong support from Democrats.

Ross is set to become an influential voice in Trump’s economic team after helping shape the president’s opposition to multilateral free trade deals such as the now-scrapped Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Ross drew votes from 19 Democrats and one independent, partly because of an endorsement from the United Steelworkers union for his efforts in restructuring bankrupt steel companies in the early 2000s, which saved numerous plants and thousands of jobs.

Ross was criticized by some Democrats as another billionaire in a Trump Cabinet that says it is focused on the working class, and for being a “vulture” investor who has eliminated some jobs.

Reuters reported last month that Ross’s companies had shipped some 2,700 jobs overseas since 2004.

The investor will oversee a sprawling agency with nearly 44,000 employees responsible for combating the dumping of imports below cost into U.S. markets, collecting census and critical economic data, weather forecasting, fisheries management, promoting the United States to foreign investors and regulating the export of sensitive technologies.

While commerce secretaries rarely take the spotlight in Washington, Ross is expected to play an outsize role in pursuing Trump’s campaign pledge to slash U.S. trade deficits and bring manufacturing jobs back to America.

Trump has designated Ross to lead the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, a job that in past administrations would have been left to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

Ross will join other major players on the economic team, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council.

Some experts said Ross could serve as a counterweight to advisers such as Peter Navarro, the University of California-Irvine economics professor who heads Trump’s newly created White House National Trade Council. Navarro has advocated a controversial 45 percent across-the-board tariff on imports from China that Trump threatened during his campaign.

“I expect that Ross will quickly become the administration’s chief trade spokesman, and that Navarro’s influence will be felt indirectly, rather than through public statements or testimony,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

At his confirmation hearing, Ross downplayed chances of a trade war with China, while calling it the “most protectionist” large economy. He vowed to level the playing field for U.S. companies competing with Chinese imports and those trying to do business in China’s highly restricted economy.

Ross, estimated by Forbes to be worth $2.9 billion, built his fortune in the late 1990s and early 2000s by investing in distressed companies in steel, coal, textiles and auto parts, restructuring them and often benefiting from tariff protections put in place by the Commerce Department.
…

The American mining company Freeport-McMoRan has brought the world’s biggest gold mine, in the Indonesian province of West Papua, to a standstill. The corporation is butting heads with the Indonesian government over protectionist mining regulations. And now that Freeport has started to dismiss tens of thousands of workers, the local economy is poised to take a huge hit. In Mimika Regency, the West Papua province containing the Grasberg gold mine, 91 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is attributed to Freeport.

Freeport Indonesia abruptly stopped production on February 10 and laid off 10 percent of its foreign workers. It employs 32,000 people in Indonesia, about 12,000 of whom are full-time employees. The freeze was a reaction to a shakeup in Freeport’s 30-year contract with the Indonesia government, signed in 1991. Indonesia has tried to levy additional obligations from Freeport in an attempt to increase domestic revenue from its natural resources. Freeport retaliated last week by threatening to pursue arbitration and sue the government for damages.

Observers on the ground in Papua and from afar in Jakarta worry the shakeup will decimate the local economy and lead to violence in the historically unstable region. West Papua has long been a troubled territory in Indonesia and its independence movement has long been met with brutal military action.

Activist concerns

“I don’t think the government apprehended the social impact of the Freeport freeze in Mimika,” said Octovianus Danunan, the editor of the Radar Timika, a local newspaper. “Freeport runs two hospitals here, gives hundreds of scholarships to local students, and of course, provides jobs to thousands of Papuans. With these layoffs, people are extremely worried; their lines of credit are vanishing as we speak.”

“These layoffs have eliminated the livelihoods of a lot of people,” said John Gobai, a member of the Papua parliament. “We have heard from indigenous people here in Timika [the site of Freeport facilities] that people are becoming sick from stress. They are falling into an abyss of stress.”

According to an internal Freeport report from 2015, about 36 percent of its full-time employees are native Papuans.

“I suspect that, because they may lose their jobs, many employees will want to stage demonstrations… but then, ironically, they will be laid off because that’s the state policy. I think this whole situation is a human rights violation,” said Gobai.

“Violence is a very big possibility,” said Andreas Harsono, a Human Rights Watch researcher. “Timika is the wild, wild east of West Papua. It’s the location of more than 3,500 security officers stationed along the 90-mile mining road, not to say Papuan guerrillas and hundreds of military deserters, all looking for a slice of the gold and copper mine. Shooting along the road is a regularity rather than an irregularity. I cannot imagine the situation if Freeport goes ahead with dismissing all 30,000 mining workers there.”

Gobai said there have already been some protests on Freeport headquarters and he expects there will be more going forward.

Freeport’s CEO Richard Adkerson told Reuters that the company was committed to staying in Indonesia, not least because about one-third of West Papua’s economy comes from the Grasberg mine.

Freeport’s history in Indonesia

On February 12, Adkerson issued a hard 120-day ultimatum to the Indonesian government to back down on its new demands or else face arbitration from the mining giant.

Freeport’s involvement in Indonesia dates back to the Suharto military dictatorship, which signed over 250,000 acres of West Papuan territory in 1967. Freeport was the first foreign company to sign a contract with the new Indonesian government and, due in part to this history, it is now the single largest employer in all of Indonesia. The company enjoyed a complicated special relationship as a “quasi-state organization for Jakarta,” as Inside Indonesia details, throughout the Suharto era, but the relationship has cooled under subsequent, democratically elected presidents.

The friction that led to this month’s impasse is a 2009 mining law that would require Freeport to build a $2.9 billion smelter (in order to move resource exports higher up in the value chain from just raw materials) and divest the majority of its shares to Indonesian ownership within 10 years. Freeport maintains that, since its current contract runs through 2021, it doesn’t need to act on the regulations yet. But Indonesian officials, led by Mines and Energy Minister Ignasius Jonan, have ramped up pressure for Freeport to convert its contract per the 2009 law to a “Special Business License,” which precipitated today’s standoff.

Situation in flux

Both Indonesia and Freeport are likely to see monetary losses from the clash, but Indonesia seems committed to asserting its terms for collaboration. The global commodities market for ore and other natural resources has also dipped in the last year, with a particular slowdown from China.

The ground situation is likely to be in constant flux over the coming months as the Indonesian government gears up for a fight. On Monday, the government announced it is grooming a state-owned aluminum enterprise to take over the Grasberg mine if it wins arbitration with Freeport.

“What the government really needs to think about is what compensation they can give to layoff victims in the present,” said Gobai. “These people are employees, but they are also citizens.”

 
…

Українські споживачі через значне підвищення температури повітря більш як учетверо скоротили добовий відбір із підземних сховищ газу (ПСГ). Про це свідчать оперативні дані компанії «Укртрансгаз».

Згідно з цими даними, в п’ятницю, 24 лютого, з підземних сховищ було відібрано 21,4 мільйона кубометрів газу. Це більш як учетверо менший обсяг, ніж було, наприклад, 1 лютого, коли за добу споживачі спожили 91,8 мільйона кубометрів.

Станом на початок доби 25 лютого в українських ПСГ було понад 8,4 мільярда кубометрів газу. Від початку року запаси зменшилися майже на 2,6 мільярда кубометрів.

Україна увійшла в 2017 рік із запасами природного газу в своїх підземних сховищах в обсязі 11 мільярдів 993 мільйона кубометрів. Про це свідчить оперативна інформація компанії «Укртрансгаз», яка експлуатує систему магістральних газопроводів і 12 ПСГ.

За більш як два з половиною місяці від початку 13 жовтня опалювального сезону запаси зменшилися на 2 мільярди 739 мільйонів кубометрів, або на 18,6%.

Український гідрометеорологічний центр прогнозує, що опалювальний сезон, з точки зору температурних умов, в Україні триватиме від 160 до 180 днів.

У НАК «Нафтогаз України» вважають сформовані в підземних сховищах запаси газу достатніми для проходження опалювального сезону та заявляють, що мають у своєму розпорядженні технічні можливості для додаткового імпорту на випадок суворої зими. За розрахунками компанії, на кінець опалювального сезону у сховищах залишатиметься 7 – 8 мільярдів кубометрів при допустимому значенні 5 мільярдів кубометрів.
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President Donald Trump’s administration will begin rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations in an “aggressive way” as soon as next week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday — adding that he understood why some Americans wanted to see his agency eliminated.

“I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way. And I think maybe next week you may be hearing about some of those,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

Pruitt added that the EPA’s focus on combating climate change under former President Barack Obama had cost jobs and prevented economic growth, leading many Americans to want to see the EPA eliminated.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt Wants to Restore Role of States

“I think it’s justified,” he said. “I think people across this country look at the EPA much like they look at the IRS [Internal Revenue Service]. I hope to be able to change that.”

Pollution fears

Pruitt was confirmed as EPA head last week. His appointment triggered an uproar among Democratic lawmakers and environmental advocates worried that he will gut the agency and reopen the doors to heavy industrial pollution. He sued the EPA more than a dozen times as his state’s top attorney and has repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change.

But his rise to the head of the EPA has also cheered many Republicans and business interests that expect him to cut back red tape they believe has hampered the economy.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: US Better at Growing Economy

Trump campaigned on a promise to slash regulation to revive the oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries.

Three targets

Pruitt mentioned three rules ushered in by Obama that could meet the chopping block early on: the Waters of the U.S. rule outlining waterways that have federal protections; the Clean Power Plan requiring states to cut carbon emissions; and the U.S. Methane rule limiting emissions from oil and gas installations on federal land.

A Trump official told Reuters late Friday that the president was expected to sign a measure as early as Tuesday aimed at rescinding the Waters of the U.S. rule.

WATCH: EPA Head Pruitt: Republicans Have Nothing to Be Apologetic About Concerning Environment

Pruitt said in his comments to the CPAC summit that the rule had “made puddles and dry creek beds across this country subject to the jurisdiction of Washington, D.C. That’s going to change.” He also suggested longer-term structural changes were in store at the EPA.

“Long term, asking the question on how that agency partners with the states and how that affects the budget and how it affects the structure is something to work on very diligently,” Pruitt said.

Like Trump, he said cutting regulation could be done in a way that does not harm water or air quality.
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Launching a startup is no easy feat. Launching one outside your native country is even harder. But for certain French startups, the French government is there to help. A government-sponsored competition that began last year offers startups marketing and promotional assistance.

The Creative Next Challenge is a series of competitions sponsored by Business France, the nation’s international business development agency. Each competition offers French entrepreneurs working abroad the chance at official endorsement and international exposure.

French startup founders who have set up shop outside of France (prior winners include entrepreneurs in India, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates) become global ambassadors for the “Creative France” marketing campaign. Winners are profiled on the Creative France website and their startups are featured in exclusive advertising campaigns. The free marketing and promotion also extends to public relations events, press reports and press releases.

Raising profiles and cash

The competition aims to raise the profile of French-founded startups and encourage outside investment. In France, the startup scene represents a cultural shift, according to Henri Baissas, executive director of Business France in North America.

“Twenty years ago, for the young generation, the ultimate goal was to be a civil servant and now it’s to be an entrepreneur,” Baissas said.   

At a recent event in New York City, a mix of French startup founders, venture capitalists and media gathered to honor the first U.S. winner of the Creative Next Challenge. Among the contenders were augmented reality advertising startup Augment, personal robot manufacturer Blue Frog Robotics and sports-centric crowdfunding platform, Sponsorise.Me.

To qualify, startups had to have registered their company in the U.S. and have at least one founder of French nationality. The competition also included a social media component, with entrants taking to Twitter and Facebook to make a case for their startup’s inventiveness and ingenuity.

In the end, biotech startup Hemarina claimed the prize. The company, which started in France in 2007, develops hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier products that aid in medical efforts such as organ transplants and wound treatments. Hemarina CEO and president Dr. Franck Zal told VOA a combination of government initiatives had helped his company through the years.

“We have a very good thing we call crédit d’impôt recherche,” noted Zal, referring to the tax credit French businesses receive for research and development initiatives. “We invented it in France and [President] Obama brought this idea [to] America.” The Creative Next victory was significant for the startup’s efforts to build global brand awareness, “Hemarina is well known in Europe, and we want to be more known in U.S.,” Zal added.

Investment booster

Overall, French startups have experienced a significant increase in investments that have allowed them to expand. French tech companies captured $2.88 billion in investments in 2016, up 80 percent from $1.6 billion the prior year, according to a report by Tech.eu, an online publication covering the European tech industry. Among the top five countries, France ranked third in investment volume, trailing only Britain and Israel.

“What you have experienced in Silicon Valley with the third or fourth generation of entrepreneurs, we are at the stage of experiencing in France with the second generation of entrepreneurs, and so the ecosystem is going to grow,” Baissas said.

Station F will add to that growth. Billed as the world’s largest startup campus, the 34,000-square meter tech incubator will soon open in Paris. When it does, it will house over 1,000 startups. Additionally, apartments for 600 entrepreneurs are planned for 2018.

Still, global ambitions mean startup founders will venture beyond their borders. A study commissioned by online payments processor Stripe and market intelligence platform VB Profiles found that 98 percent of the 329 French startups in operation since 2014 have customers outside of France.

The “Creative France” global ad campaign gives entrepreneurs and their businesses a presence outside of France. Baissas stressed the importance of effective marketing, especially for French companies entering the U.S. market, “It’s a big challenge. The U.S. companies are very good at that. It’s really inspirational for us.”
…

Facing pushback from industry and Republicans in Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency delayed Friday a proposal that would require mining companies to show they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution so taxpayers aren’t stuck footing the bill.

Contaminated water from mine sites can flow into rivers and other waterways, harming aquatic life and threatening drinking water supplies. Companies in the past avoided cleanup costs in many cases by declaring bankruptcy.

Newly sworn-in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a longtime critic of the agency during his previous position as Oklahoma attorney general, said the four-month delay would give more opportunity for public comment.

Four-month comment period

The financial assurance rule was proposed during the Obama administration and fiercely opposed by mining industry representatives, who contended it was unnecessary and redundant because of other programs meant to prevent mines from becoming government cleanup liabilities.

“By extending this comment period, we are demonstrating that we are listening to miners, owners and operators all across America and to all parties interested in this important rule,” Pruitt said in a statement.

Environmentalists generally endorsed the proposal as a way to make sure mining companies were held accountable. 

“It appears the new EPA administrator is already favoring industry over public interest with this delay,” said Bonnie Gestring with the advocacy group Earthworks.

The delayed rule was unveiled late last year under a court order that requires it to be finalized by December 2017. The order came after environmental groups sued the government to enforce a long-ignored provision in the 1980 federal Superfund law.

EPA officials said Friday they still intend to meet the court-ordered deadline.

The proposal would apply to hard-rock mining, which includes mines for precious metals, copper, iron, lead and other ores. It would cover thousands of mines and processing facilities in 38 states, requiring their owners to set aside sufficient money to pay for future clean ups.

Cleanup cost taxpayers $1.1 billion 

From 2010 to 2014, the EPA spent $1.1 billion on cleanup work at abandoned hard-rock mining and processing sites across the U.S.

Companies would face a combined $7.1 billion financial obligation under the proposed rule, costing them up to $171 million annually, according to the EPA. The agency said the amount could be covered through third parties such as surety bonds or self-insured corporate guarantees.

Republican U.S. Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming and Dean Heller of Nevada welcomed Friday’s delay. Barrasso has said the benefits of the proposal were dwarfed by its potential costs to industry. Heller criticized the previous administration for having been “too quick to hand down harsh regulations and rules without considering the impact.”

Last year, an EPA cleanup team triggered a 3-million gallon spill of contaminated water from Colorado’s inactive Gold King mine. The accident tainted rivers in three states with heavy metals including arsenic and lead and highlighted the problem posed by tens of thousands of mine sites across the nation.
…

Національний банк України повідомив, що полегшив деякі моменти щодо ліцензування операцій фізичних осіб із розміщення коштів на закордонних рахунках та здійснення інвестицій за межі України.

Відтепер фізичні особи зможуть розміщувати на закордонних рахунках іноземну валюту з джерелом походження за межами України без індивідуальних ліцензій НБУ. Наприклад, без ліцензій НБУ українці зможуть розміщувати на закордонних рахунках кошти, отримані ними за межами України як заробітну плату, стипендії, пенсії, аліменти, дивіденди тощо.

Також фізичні особи зможуть без індивідуальних ліцензій НБУ здійснювати інвестиції за кордоном за рахунок коштів, що перебувають за межами України – наприклад, проводити інвестування із закордонних рахунків, реінвестувати кошти за межами України, проводити торгівлю фінансовими інструментами на іноземних біржах тощо.

Водночас, наголосили в Нацбанку, фізичні особи, як і раніше, повинні мати індивідуальні ліцензії НБУ для здійснення переказу коштів із України з метою інвестування або розміщення їх на закордонних рахунках. Ця вимога декрету Кабінету міністрів України ще від 19 лютого 1993 року № 15-93 «Про систему валютного регулювання і валютного контролю», що спрямована «на запобігання непродуктивному відтокові капіталу з країни», залишається далі незмінною.

Також у Нацбанку звернули увагу, що можливість проведення низки операцій розміщення коштів на закордонних рахунках та здійснення інвестицій за межі України без індивідуальних ліцензій НБУ не звільняє фізичних осіб від зобов’язання декларувати доходи та сплачувати податки з них в Україні відповідно до законодавства, мовиться в повідомленні.

Дотепер згадані в цьому повідомленні операції, нині звільнені від ліцензування, вимагали отримання спеціальних ліцензій-дозволів від НБУ.
…

З часу запровадження надзвичайних заходів в енергетиці теплові електростанції України скоротили споживання вугілля антрацитової групи вдвічі. Про це на сторінці у Facebook повідомив тимчасовий виконувач обов’язків директора НЕК «Укренерго» Всеволод Ковальчук.

«Роблячи попередні розрахунки, ми розраховували на 40% економії. Фактично ми витрачаємо цього палива в два рази менше, ніж витрачали б його без введення надзвичайного стану», – повідомив Ковальчук.

За його словами, антрацитові блоки українських ТЕС, за винятком Луганської, спалюють всього 7-8 тисяч тонн вугілля на добу.

«Це дає нам можливість стверджувати, що ми гарантовано зможемо пройти осінньо-зимовий період до кінця опалювального сезону без обмеження споживачів і без відключень, якщо не відбудуться які-небудь технологічні порушення», – додав Ковальчук.

У січні активісти, серед яких депутати Верховної Ради та люди, що називають себе ветеранами АТО, розпочали блокаду залізниці з метою припинити торгівлю із окупованими районами Донбасу.

15 лютого уряд ухвалив рішення про запровадження надзвичайних заходів в енергетиці на місяць, починаючи з 17 лютого. У Кабміні стверджують, що це рішення ухвалили у зв’язку з блокадою залізниці на Донбасі і, як наслідок, обмеженням поставок вугілля антрацитової групи.

16 лютого президент України Петро Порошенко ввів у дію рішення Ради національної безпеки і оборони «Про невідкладні заходи з нейтралізації загроз енергетичній безпеці України та посилення захисту критичної інфраструктури». Згідно з документом, уряд має затвердити порядок переміщення товарів з і до окупованої території Донбасу, а також створити перелік товарів, заборонених для ‎переміщення.‎ Кабмін також має тимчасово припинити експорт вугілля з України та ухвалити нову ‎Енергетичну стратегію України.‎

Прем’єр-міністр України Володимир Гройсман неодноразово закликав розблокувати лише поставки вугілля з окупованої території Донбасу.

З 24 мільйонів тонн вугілля, які українська енергетика споживає на рік, понад 9 мільйонів – вугілля антрацитової групи, і всі поклади його залишилися на непідконтрольній частині Донбасу.
…

Голова Фонду держмайна України Ігор Білоус повідомив, що відомство завершує прийом заявок щодо відновлення роботи Одеського припортового заводу найближчим часом, інформує сайт ФДМ.

«Ми ставимо за мету запустити завод якомога швидше. І не стільки через необхідність наповнювати державний бюджет, скільки через соціальний фактор і необхідність збереження кадрового потенціалу. Наступного тижня ми розглянемо варіанти, які дадуть можливість в короткі терміни відновити роботу ОПЗ», – заявив Білоус.

Як мовиться на сайті ФДМ, 24 лютого якраз закінчується термін прийому пропозицій про відновлення роботи ПАТ «Одеський припортовий завод».

«Протягом місяця фонд як орган управління корпоративними правами держави в ПАТ ОПЗ збирав пропозиції від потенційних інвесторів і партнерів, зацікавлених у співпраці. Серед варіантів взаємодії були запропоновані передача в оренду майна товариства (як цілісного майнового комплексу, так і окремих об’єктів нерухомого майна), вчинення операцій з давальницькою сировиною, передача майна в управління тощо», – повідомили у Фонді держмайна.

Наприкінці грудня минулого року Одеський припортовий завод вирішив припинити роботу.

У 2016 році після кількох невдалих спроб провести приватизацію ОПЗ прем’єр-міністр Володимир Гройсман висловив своє незадоволення діяльністю Фонду державного майна України і запропонував провести перевірку.

У Фонді держмайна пояснювали, що заяв на участь у конкурсі від потенційних інвесторів не надійшло, хоча зацікавленість до підприємства виявили близько 10 потенційних покупців.

Вперше рішення про приватизацію припортового заводу ухвалили ще 1993 року, а перші торги відбулися 2009-го, проте завод досі перебуває в державній власності.

Одеський припортовий завод є одним із найбільших підприємств хімічної галузі як в Україні, так і в Європі. Кількість працівників перевищує 4 тисячі осіб. Він спеціалізується на виробництві та реалізації хімічної продукції – аміаку та карбаміду, – а також перевантажує на експорт продукцію інших підприємств України та Росії.
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