Coronavirus scare forces cancellation of Mobile World Congress in Spain

Current Affairs
Coordinators of the world's greatest versatile innovation reasonable are reassessing over stresses over the viral episode from China. GSMA said Wednesday that the current year's release of Mobile World Congress will never again be held as arranged in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb 24-27.
John Hoffman, CEO of GSMA, said "worldwide concern in regards to the coronavirus episode, travel concern and different conditions, make it unthinkable for the GSMA to hold the occasion." The choice comes after many tech organizations and remote transporters dropped out, with the most recent cancelations by Nokia, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and Britain's BT on Wednesday. Other huge names that have just dropped out incorporate Ericsson, Nokia, Sony, Amazon, Intel and LG. The organizations refered to worries for the security of staff and guests.
Coordinators had looked to hold out against developing strain to drop Mobile World Congress, a yearly tech party that had been required to draw in excess of 100,000 guests from around 200 nations, including 5,000 to 6,000 from China.
The GSMA, the remote exchange body that arranges the reasonable, had said it was observing the infection circumstance intently, incorporating meeting normally with worldwide and Spanish wellbeing specialists and its accomplices to guarantee the prosperity of participants.

Nokia said Wednesday it had chosen to pull back from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain "after a full appraisal of the dangers identified with a quick moving circumstance." The organization said "the wellbeing and prosperity of workers was an essential center" and that dropping its association was a "judicious choice." Phone organization Vodafone said it was dropping out "after cautious thought" while Britain's BT said dropping was "the most mindful choice."...READ MORE

How Jack Ma's $290 billion loan machine is changing Chinese banking

International News

Jack Ma’s online bank is leading a quiet revolution in the way China lends to small businesses, taking aim at a credit bottleneck that has held back Asia’s largest economy for decades.
Using real-time payments data and a risk-management system that analyzes more than 3,000 variables, Ma’s four-year-old MYbank has lent 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion) to nearly 16 million small companies. Borrowers apply with a few taps on a smartphone and receive cash almost instantly if they’re approved. The whole process takes three minutes and involves zero human bankers. The default rate so far: about 1%.
The financial-technology boom that turned China into the world’s biggest market for electronic payments is now changing how banks interact with companies that drive most of the nation’s economic growth. As MYbank and its peers crunch reams of new data from payment systems, social media and other sources, they’re growing more comfortable with smaller borrowers that they previously shunned in favor of state-owned giants.
For China’s $13 trillion economy, which expanded at its weakest pace since at least 1992 last quarter, the implications could be profound. Non-state firms -- mostly small businesses -- account for about 60% of growth, employ 80% of workers, and have been disproportionately squeezed by a more than two-year government crackdown on shadow lenders.
“Small and medium enterprises are really the boiler room of the economy,” said Keith Pogson, a senior partner in charge of banking and capital markets at Ernst & Young LLP in Hong Kong. “It used to be a segment that banks thought was too difficult and too risky. But now they run their model and work out what the risks are so they feel more comfortable.”

 China is quickly becoming a world leader in the use of big data and artificial-intelligence technology to make loans...Read More

US diplomat to visit India next week to strengthen bilateral defence ties

International News
A senior American diplomat will visit India next week for talks on strengthening bilateral defense ties, including maritime security, and supporting New Delhi's role as a "Major Defense Partner", the State Department has said.
Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Clarke Cooper will travels to Singapore, India and Sri Lanka from May 29 to June 7.
In New Delhi, after attending the Shangri-La Dialogue from May 31 to June 2, Cooper will hold talks on defense cooperation and peacekeeping, two key areas of the rapidly growing US-India partnership as envisioned in the Trump administration's Indo-Pacific Strategy.
"US-India bilateral defense trade has risen from virtually zero in 2008 to USD 15 billion today. Talks will focus on supporting India's role as a Major Defense Partner, expanding our security cooperation, and furthering opportunities for American industry," the State Department said on Wednesday.
In Sri Lanka, Cooper will meet with government officials and think tank experts to discuss security, peacekeeping, clearance of landmines and unexploded ordnance, counterterrorism and other areas of mutual interest.
In Singapore, Cooper will join Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea L Thompson on a delegation of senior US officials led by Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M Shanahan for the Shangri-La Dialogue, a forum for exchanges among defense and security policy professionals from across the Indo-Pacific region.

Cooper will also meet with senior civilian and military officials from countries around the globe to discuss US partnerships in regional security, maritime security and defense trade efforts that contribute to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

How emerging markets will eventually be a victim of US-China trade war

International News

US measures to confront China on trade are shifting from tariffs to imposing restrictions on the activities of Chinese firms, which will have adverse consequences not only for the yuan but emerging markets overall.
With China accounting for 40% of the gross domestic product in developing economies, investors should expect the yuan’s recent weakness to accelerate as Chinese savers seek to hedge their risk by switching to dollar-denominated investments. Despite efforts by the central bank to stem the fall, the currency is likely to depreciate beyond the closely watched threshold of 7 per dollar at which the currency last traded in April 2007. This would have adverse implications for both China’s debt as well as the economy’s rate of growth.
Negative Trends
It's taking more yuan to buy $1, and China's stocks are sufferingWith total dollar-denominated debt of Chinese companies rising in recent years, also expect defaults to surge in response to a weakening yuan. Particularly affected would be companies in the property sector, which owe debt denominated in dollars but cater to Chinese tenants and buyers who pay in yuan. Defaults tend to have a domino effect because lenders to property developers, in turn, would be unable to service obligations to savers from which they get their funds.
Chinese local-currency obligations accounted for 6% of the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index as of April, and the share will increase in coming months. When the phase-in is completed, Chinese debt will form the fourth-largest component in the index after the dollar, euro and yen, according to Bloomberg. Expect trade tensions and the fallout on other emerging-market debt to push the index lower in coming months.Missing Out,Concern about rising defaults its causing China's bond market to show losses

On the equity front, China was included in various MSCI indexes last year. The share of China in the MSCI Emerging Market Index is forecast to more than triple from less than 1% at initiation to about 3.3% by the end of 2019. Passive investors using such indexes for exposure to emerging markets will find that other developing economies cannot make up for losses they incur in Chinese equities.

China purchases could undercut Donald Trump's larger trade goal

International News

At the heart of President Trump’s negotiations with China is a troubling contradiction: The United States wants to use the trade talks to encourage the country to adopt a more market-oriented economy. But a key element of a prospective deal may end up reinforcing the economic power of the Chinese state.

Negotiators are still working out deal terms, but any agreement seems certain to involve China’s promise to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods. For Mr. Trump, this is an essential element that will help reduce the United States’ record trade deficit with China and bolster farmers and other constituencies hurt by his trade war.

But those purchases will be ordered by the Chinese state, and most will be carried out by state-controlled Chinese businesses, further cementing Beijing’s role in managing its economy and potentially making United States industries even more beholden to the Chinese.

“It seems like those types of really simplistic purchasing commitment type of arrangements would actually reinforce state ownership rather than discourage it,” said Rufus Yerxa, the head of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents the United States’ largest exporters.

After months of talks, the two sides are inching closer to an agreement. Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s top trade negotiator, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, discussed the remaining sticking points with their Chinese counterparts on Thursday evening and Friday in Beijing. Mr. Mnuchin, in a tweet on Friday, said the talks had been “constructive.”


 Both sides are trying to iron out an agreement by this week, to coincide with a visit to Washington by Liu He, the Chinese special envoy charged with negotiating the deal...Read More

Mark Zuckerberg's call to regulate Facebook, explained

International News

Facebook has faced months of scrutiny for a litany of ills, from spreading misinformation to not properly protecting its users’ data to allowing foreign meddling in elections.
Many at the Silicon Valley company now expect lawmakers and regulators to act to contain it — so the social network is trying to set its own terms for what any regulations should look like.
That helps explain why Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Saturday laying out a case for how he believes his company should be treated.

In his post, Mr. Zuckerberg discussed four policy areas — harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability — which he said the government should focus attention on.
Here’s an annotated analysis of Mr. Zuckerberg’s post and what he is seeking to do with each area.

Harmful content

First, harmful content. Facebook gives everyone a way to use their voice, and that creates real benefits — from sharing experiences to growing movements. As part of this, we have a responsibility to keep people safe on our services. That means deciding what counts as terrorist propaganda, hate speech and more. We continually review our policies with experts, but at our scale we'll always make mistakes and decisions that people disagree with.


 So-called harmful content across Facebook is an enormous category, spanning abuse and bullying to the recent live-streamed shootings at two mosques in New Zealand...Read More