From India to Brazil, emerging markets can shore up global economy

International News
Emerging-economy central banks from India to Brazil still enjoy the firepower to shore up the global economy as their peers from developed markets take to the sidelines.
While policy makers at the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are seemingly set to keep interest rates on hold, many of their developing nation counterparts have room to cut further. That should help support the world economy amid its weakest expansion in a decade.
“In most cases, emerging markets are now in the comfortable position to be able to cushion an economic downturn with monetary easing,” Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of currency strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in a report this month. “This easing of monetary policy is likely to give a lift to EM economies, and this would also be positive for developed countries.”
Faster Growth
That outlook was underscored this week by Morgan Stanley economists, who predicted emerging markets will grow 4.4% next year, more than three times the 1.3% rate anticipated in the Group of 10 economies.
After 20 of the 32 central banks monitored by the bank eased policy in 2019, its economists forecast 13 will do so in 2020 with the cuts concentrated in emerging markets helping to reduce the global weighted average policy rate to a seven-year low by March. India, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey can all strike if they need to.

With some hints of growth stabilization on signs that the U.S. and China are warming ties on the trade-war front, fund managers see more reasons to park their cash back in emerging markets. The International Monetary Fund also sees them as the primary drivers of the global economy while advanced economies linger in sub-3% territory.....READ MORE

For Wall Street, China's financial markets are bigger than the trade war

International News
Executives from the biggest US financial firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, are meeting with top regulators in Beijing in a sign that the trade war with the US has done little to derail China’s opening of its $43 trillion financial system.
Among those scheduled to attend on Friday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on the city’s Financial Street will be Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China and senior officials from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, according to the meeting’s agenda, which was seen by Bloomberg.
Even as the trade war rages, China has continued to open its financial sector at an unprecedented pace, luring global banks seeking to compete for an estimated $9 billion in annual profits. While the policy has often been cast as addressing U.S. complaints that the Asian nation has been a one-sided beneficiary of trade, domestic motivations are also behind the push, said Michael Pettis, professor of finance at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.
“China is very determined to reform its financial markets and knows that without the major American players, it is very hard to talk about having a truly internationalized market,” he said. “It also makes sense for China to accommodate a very important source of lobbying support, especially as there’s so little in the U.S. right now.”Representatives for JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs declined to comment, while the PBOC and CSRC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside of regular business hours.
Forcing Change

 Chinese regulators can’t ignore the country’s financial-market issues. Corporate bond defaults reached a record high last year and the nation’s banks are seeing their balance sheets swell with ever more bad loans....READ MORE

Won't play 'Game of Thrones', undettered by US trade threats, says China

International News

China's top diplomat hit back at US criticism on Tuesday, saying Beijing had no intention to "play the Game of Thrones on the world stage" and would respect US interests, but it would not be threatened on trade or allow interference in its affairs, including Hong Kong.
In an address on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York, Wang Yi, China's foreign minister and state councilor, urged a move away from confrontation between the two biggest global economies, saying they should cooperate for mutual benefit and for that of rest of the world.
Earlier on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump had a stern message for China and its president, Xi Jinping, in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly.Trump, who launched a trade war with China that's damaging both countries, delivered a stinging rebuke to Beijing's trade practices and said he would not accept a "bad deal" in US-China trade negotiations.
He also warned that the world was watching how Beijing handles mass demonstrations in Hong Kong that have heightened fears of a potential Chinese crackdown.Trump has sought to pressure China to agree to reduce trade barriers through a policy of increasing tariffs on Chinese products. He accused China of the theft of trade secrets "on a grand scale" and said it was taking advantage of World Trade Organization rules that give Beijing beneficial treatment as a "developing economy".

 Wang Yi told an event organized by the US-China Business Council that China hoped for a positive outcome from the next round of trade talks with the United States due to take place in October.But he said negotiations must be based on mutual respect and could not take place under threats...READ MORE

'You prepare for war': How one US firm tried escaping Trump's China tariffs

Current Affairs

When Larry Sloven heard last year that US tariffs threatened his China electronics business, he knew that setting up shop elsewhere would be a slog rather than an adventure.The 70-year-old had spent half his life building supply chains in southern China to produce goods for big-box US retailers. But he had never reshuffled one on short notice, with tariffs hanging over his head.
"It is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in all my 30 years in the business," said Sloven, president of Capstone International HK Ltd, a division of Florida-based Capstone Companies."You've got packaging, assembling, auditing, labour, overheads, components, logistics, transportation," he said. "I went from first gear to fourth gear very quickly."
Sloven, a native of Long Island, New York, cut his teeth in Asia in the 1970s sourcing lighting products from Japan. He then moved to Taiwan and then mainland China, making and sourcing electrical products for AT&T and Duracell, before becoming a buying agent for sporting goods retailer Dick's.
He joined Capstone in 2012 to manage its network of Chinese manufacturers from Hong Kong.Rising labour costs and tighter regulations in China had already led him to consider moving the business elsewhere in Asia. But the trade war forced his hand.
Through dozens of interviews and phone, Whatsapp and email exchanges over a year, Reuters documented Sloven's quest to uproot his supply chain operation, an effort entailing many close calls, bureaucratic headaches - and some good luck.

 Sloven is just one of thousands of entrepreneurs who have been forced by the trade war to upend their business operations in China in the biggest supply chain shift in a generation...Read More

Trump hits China with more tariffs, says Xi moving too slow on trade

International News

US President Donald Trump said he plans to impose a 10 per cent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports from September 1 and could raise tariffs further if China's President Xi Jinping fails to move more quickly to strike a trade deal.
The announcement on Thursday extends Trump's trade tariffs to nearly all China's imports into the United States and marks an abrupt end to a temporary truce in a trade war that has disrupted global supply chains and roiled financial markets.
"I think President Xi ... wants to make a deal, but frankly, he's not going fast enough," Trump said.
Trump made the announcement in a series of Twitter posts after his top trade negotiators briefed him on a lack of progress in US-China talks in Shanghai this week.
Trump later said if trade negotiations fail to progress he could raise tariffs further - even beyond the 25 per cent levy he has already imposed on $250 billion of imports from China.
The news hit US financial markets hard.
Oil prices plummeted 7 per cent, with Brent crude registering the biggest daily percentage drop since February 2016. The benchmark S&P 500, which had been in solidly positive territory on Thursday afternoon, closed down 0.9 per cent. Benchmark US Treasury yields also fell.

 Retail associations predicted a spike in consumer prices. Target Corp tumbled 4.2 per cent, Macy's Inc fell 6 per cent and Nordstrom Inc was down 6.2 per cent.Asked about the impact on financial markets, Trump told reporters: "I'm not concerned about that at all."...Read More

India only Asian economy that's growing its export share amid trade war

International News

The only major Asian economy that’s grown its export share since the start of the tariff wars in 2018 is the one with the fewest trade links to China.
India’s share of world exports rose to 1.71 per cent in the first quarter of 2019 from 1.58 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The share of every other economy among Asia’s 10 biggest exporting nations fell in the same period.
Part of the reason for India’s outperformance is that it’s not as integrated into global manufacturing supply chains as peers, which means exporters are cushioned from rising trade tensions in the region. It’s a sentiment that was flagged by central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das in a recent interview.
“India is not part of the global value chain,” he said. “So, US-China trade tension does not impact India as much as several other economies.”
China is the biggest buyer of goods from South Korea and Japan, whose share of world exports have fallen the most in Asia. For India, China is the third-largest market, after the US and the UAE.
“Our biggest advantage is that our product basket and market basket are both quite diversified,” said Rakesh Mohan Joshi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in Delhi.

 Trade tensions between the US and China have given India an opportunity to ramp up exports to both countries, according to Ajay Sahai, director general and chief executive officer of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations. India’s exports to the US grew at the fastest pace in six years in the year ended March 2018, while exports to China surged 31 per cent, the second highest annual pace of growth in more than a decade, data from India’s Ministry of Commerce show....Read More

Oil price to rise? Millions of barrels of Iran oil piled up in China ports

International News

Tankers are offloading millions of barrels of Iranian oil into storage tanks at Chinese ports, creating a hoard of crude sitting on the doorstep of the world's biggest buyer.
Two and a half months after the White House banned the purchase of Iran's oil, the nation’s crude is continuing to be sent to China where it's being put into what's known as "bonded storage," say people familiar with operations at several Chinese ports. This oil doesn't cross local customs or show up in the nation's import data and is not necessarily in breach of sanctions. And while it remains out of circulation for now, its presence is looming over the market.
The store of oil has the potential to push down global prices if Chinese refiners decide to draw on it, even as Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies curb production amid slowing growth in major economies. It also allows Iran to keep pumping and move its oil nearer to potential buyers.
"Iranian oil shipments have been flowing into Chinese bonded storage for some months now, and continue to do so despite increased scrutiny," said Rachel Yew, an analyst at industry consultant FGE in Singapore. “We can see why the producer would want to do so, as a build-up of supplies near key buyers is clearly beneficial for a seller, especially if sanctions are eased at some point.”
There could be more Iranian oil headed for China's bonded storage tanks, Bloomberg ship-tracking data show. At least ten very-large crude carriers and two smaller tankers owned by the state-run National Iranian Oil Company and its shipping arm are currently sailing toward China or idling off its coast. The vessels have a combined carrying capacity of over 20 million barrels.

 The bulk of Iranian oil in China's bonded tanks is still owned by Tehran and therefore not in breach of sanctions, according to the people. The oil hasn't crossed Chinese customs so it is theoretically in transit...Read More

No easy exit in sight from worst Japan-South Korea spat in decades

International News
Japan and South Korea plan to meet over Tokyo’s move to restrict vital exports to its neighbor, but neither has much political incentive to climb down from their worst dispute in decades.
Decades of mistrust make it difficult for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in to retreat from their budding trade feud. A series of looming deadlines, including a Japanese upper house election on July 21, are only raising the political pressure on both men, who can’t afford to look weak dealing with disagreements rooted in Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
On Wednesday, Moon, who was elected in 2017 on a promise to reconsider his predecessor’s moves to ease historical spats with Japan, warned business leaders in Seoul of a “prolonged” battle. At an election debate last week, Abe accused South Korea of reneging on its promises.
“The leaders on both sides are incompatible with any sort of political rapprochement,” said Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo who specializes in Northeast Asian security issues. “The sense on Moon here is negative and Abe is obviously persona non grata in South Korea.”

 The flare-up stems from a series of South Korean court decisions ordering the seizure of Japanese corporate assets as compensation for Koreans conscripted to work in factories and mines during the colonial era. The issue escalated from a regional diplomatic spat to a global trade worry last week after Abe’s government moved to curb the export of specialty materials vital to South Korea’s technology sector.The restrictions give Japan a mechanism to slow production by chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix, squeeze the South Korean economy and disrupt supply chains dependent on their memory chips and components...Read More

US suspension of trade programme with India 'a done deal', says US official

Economy News

The suspension of a U.S. trade preference program with India is a "done deal," a senior State Department official said on Thursday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his second term.
President Donald Trump announced in March he would end India's access to the decades-old Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade program over what the U.S. said was lack of access to India's market. The program allows emerging countries to export goods to the United States without paying duties.U.S. law requires the administration to wait 60 days after it notifies Congress of the move before it formally ends India's participation in the program. Trump notified Congress of the move in early March.

"There is every reason to believe that GSP suspension will move forward," the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "What is important is that the interest is to resolve trade irritants - to ensure fair and equitable market access," the official added.But the official said the benefits could be restored if India gave U.S. companies fair and equitable access to its markets.
"We need to be looking forward at how we relaunch an ambitious set of discussions between our trade teams in order to address these outstanding irritants," the official said."We believe if India is prepared to address policies, including data localization, e-commerce measures that served to stifle international investment for top-tier companies, that we can continue to make significant progress moving forward," the official added.


India is the world's largest beneficiary of GSP, which dates from the 1970s, and ending its participation would not only be the strongest punitive action against the country since Trump took office, but would also open a new front in the global trade war.Twenty-four U.S. members of Congress sent the administration a letter on May 3 urging it not to terminate India's access to the GSP.(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Trade growth slowdown likely to worsen amid tariff war, says WTO

Current Affairs

Rising trade tensions have prompted the World Trade Organization (WTO) to dim its prospect for trade growth in the second quarter of the 2019 calendar year.

“World trade growth is likely to remain weak into the second quarter of 2019,” the WTO said on Monday, pointing towards falling levels of growth in international air freight, automobile production, sales and trade in agriculture raw materials. “The outlook for trade could worsen if heightened trade tensions are not resolved or if macroeconomic policy fails to adjust to changing circumstances,” it further said.

While the WTO did not mention the US and China in its latest assessment, the escalating trade war between the two largest economies had been blamed by it earlier as a source of destabilisation of growth. The Geneva-based body brings out its quarterly forecast of global trade growth through the World Trade Outlook Indicator (WTOI) index. It shows a sustained slowdown in container port throughput, stemming from slow growth in crucial sectors.

The WTO has maintained that the index is not intended as a short-term forecast, suggesting it provides an indication of trade growth in the near future. The index had correctly forecast continued reduction in trade growth since 2018. Readings greater than 100 suggests growth above medium-term trends, while those below the number indicate the opposite. However, actual trade volumes have closely followed its predictions.


 This was driven by declines in all, but two component indices, electronic components and most importantly, export orders, which managed to rise slightly.graph Indices for export orders (96.6) and electronic components (96.7) appear to have bottomed out, even as both remained firmly below-trend, the WTO said. Elsewhere, the index for container port throughput (101.0) also declined but remained above 100, suggesting growth in line with recent trends.

China-US trade war heats up: 3 reasons why it won't cool down anytime soon

International News

The truce in the US-China trade war is in tatters.
China said on May 13 that it will impose new tariffs on a range of American goods in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s decision to raise duties on $200 billion in Chinese imports.

Although trade talks may continue, for now the trade war that Trump began in January 2018 is back on, which will mean more economic pain for companies and consumers in both the US and China.
As an economist who focuses on international trade, I believe there are three reasons the conflict could continue for a long time.

1. Mastering the fundamentals

All evidence suggests that negotiators have made little headway resolving the fundamental disagreements between China and the US.The most pressing issues involve deep structural features of the Chinese economy that China has little incentive – or in some cases, ability – to change. In short, the US believes that the Chinese government has been both too involved and not involved enough in how its economy functions.

The most important and long-standing issue is that the Chinese economy owes part of its rapid development in recent decades to heavy subsidization of targeted companies and industries. The US wants China to be much more transparent about this support and to reduce subsidies overall.


 At the same time, the Chinese government has not been doing enough when it comes to protecting foreign intellectual property in China. Copyright enforcement is still weak, and US companies are forced to transfer technologies to Chinese counterparts as a condition of doing business in the country.

Change or suffer consequences: Trump dares China with trade tariffs

International News

By threatening to raise taxes on Chinese imports, President Donald Trump is throwing down a challenge to Beijing: Agree to sweeping changes in China's government-dominated economic model or suffer the consequences.
The unexpected ultimatum, delivered via tweets on Sunday and Monday, shook up financial markets that had expected the world's two biggest economies to resolve a year-long standoff over trade, perhaps by the end of the week.
"It's a significant change in the president's tone," said Timothy Keeler, a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown and former chief of staff for the US Trade Representative.
"It certainly increases the possibility that you'll have no deal."
For weeks, Trump administration officials had been suggesting that the US and Chinese negotiators were making steady progress. A Chinese delegation is due to resume talks Wednesday in Washington.
Suddenly on Sunday, Trump said he had lost patience: "The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!" he tweeted.And he said he planned "shortly" to slap 25 per cent tariffs on another $325 billion in Chinese products, covering everything China ships to the United States.

 Michael Pillsbury, director of the Hudson Institute's Center on Chinese Strategy and an adviser to the Trump White House, said the president's tweets suggest frustration that Chinese leaders "are trying to take back concessions they already made."The two countries are engaged in high-stakes commercial combat over China's aggressive push to establish Chinese companies as world leaders in cutting-edge fields such as robotics and electric vehicles.

Trump's tariff threat provokes China to delay next round of trade talks

International News

China is considering delaying a trip by its top trade negotiators to Washington this week, according to people familiar with the matter, after US President Donald Trump threatened the country with steeper tariffs over the pace of trade talks.

Trump on Sunday raised pressure on Beijing to strike a trade deal by announcing he would increase tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports to 25 per cent from 10 per cent on Friday. He also floated the possibility of extending a new 25 per cent duty on another $325 billion in imports that aren’t now covered.

“Risks of a full blown trade war are escalating,” said Chua Hak Bin, a senior economist at Maybank Kim Eng Research Pte. in Singapore. “Trump’s threat may backfire as China will not want to negotiate with a gun pointing at their heads.”

China’s yuan plunged the most in more than three years and its equity markets were roiled as markets unwound bets on a resolution to a trade war that’s weighed on global commerce and forced companies to rethink supply chains. The Aussie dollar fell while the yen climbed.
Lengthy Talks

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He was scheduled to arrive in Washington on Wednesday with a delegation of about 100 people for what had been shaping up to be possibly the final round of negotiations. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin visited Beijing last week for talks they described as productive.


 The US had been targeting May 10 to announce a deal, that would be finalized and signed by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later at an official summit, people familiar with the negotiations said last week.

China's prowess in AI is making US nervous; can it win from tech cold war?

Current Affairs

China’s growing technological prowess in areas such as artificial intelligence is making Washington very nervous. US efforts to fight back, though, could make the problem worse.

In US policy circles, suspicion of China is starting to resemble a new Red Scare. Universities are heightening scrutiny of research proposals from China and, in some cases, restricting collaboration. Chinese scientists’ visas are being delayed for conferences and exchanges. Visas for Chinese graduate students studying topics such as robotics or advanced manufacturing have been shortened to one year from five.

Last week, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston kicked out three senior researchers of Chinese ethnicity after the US National Institutes of Health said they had potentially violated disclosure and confidentiality rules. Workers at various technology companies have been charged with stealing trade secrets in recent months.

More formal rules are coming. After President Donald Trump signed the Export Control Reform Act last year, the US put in place new policies to restrict Chinese investment in American high-tech companies. It also began a process of reexamining export controls on sensitive “emerging and foundational” technologies. That process is nearly complete: The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is holding seminars over the next few months to help companies understand how to comply with the tighter restrictions.


 While the details are still murky, one thing is clear about the new rules: Like the old ones, they’ll apply not just to hardware shipped overseas, or even software and algorithms. They will cover individuals and ideas as well.The disclosure of proprietary information or controlled information to a foreign national, even within the US, triggers the need for an export review process...Read More

Does Xi Jinping trust Trump enough to get on a plane and seal trade deal?

International News

Donald Trump regularly touts the strength of his personal relationship with Xi Jinping, talking about the Chinese leader in the sort of warm terms US presidents normally reserve for longstanding allies.
Yet as the world’s two largest economies inch towards a trade agreement designed to define and reorder their economic relationship for years to come, one question looms large: Does Xi trust Trump enough to get on a plane and seal the deal?

Trump and his aides have for weeks been pushing for Xi to agree to a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club and resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to finalize a deal as soon as this month to end a dispute that has cast a shadow over the global economy. Trump himself has said that it’s only when the two leaders meet that the final details can be ironed out.

Chinese officials, however, have long been wary of putting Xi in a position where he might be embarrassed by an unpredictable Trump or forced into last-minute concessions.

“That is the real conundrum for Xi,’’ said Eswar Prasad, an expert on the Chinese economy at Cornell University who regularly meets with senior officials in Beijing. “The concern about being snookered by Trump at the negotiating table is a real risk for Xi.’’


 China’s worries are flipping the U.S. script on its head. As he claims to be the first American president to stand up to Beijing, his aides have built a possible deal on a foundation of distrust. In their view, a China that has for decades lied and cheated its way to economic success cannot be trusted to live up to any commitments unless a deal has teeth...Read More

Exports likely to be hit as US moves to end major trade benefits to India

Economy News

Ending months of speculation, the Donald Trump administration has decided to cut benefits to Indian exporters under its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) scheme.

"At the direction of President Donald J Trump, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced today that the United States intends to terminate India's and Turkey's designations as beneficiary developing countries under the GSP program because they no longer comply with the statutory eligibility criteria", the United States Trade Representatives office announced late on Monday.

India, having exported goods worth $5.6 billion to the US in 2017-18 under GSP, is the largest beneficiary of the scheme. The GSP is the largest and oldest US trade preference programme designed to promote economic development by allowing duty-free entry for thousands of products, mostly from developing nations.

While Turkey was also been removed from the GSP list on Monday, the USTR came down particularly hard on India. "India has implemented a wide array of trade barriers that create serious negative effects on United States commerce," it said.A long time coming

 Back in November last year, the US President had signed an executive order to end the duty-free status of 50 Indian exports to the US. These included inorganic and organic chemicals, agricultural products like cucumbers and gherkin, and certain types of animal hide. These were part of a global list of 90 items — from a large group of nations including Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Egypt and Ecuador — for which prevailing rates of import tariff were to be be levied when imported into the US.

Trump move to end preferential trade treatment won't hurt India much: Govt

Economy News

India does not plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on US goods after US President Donald Trump said he intends to end India's preferential trade treatment, a top trade official said on Tuesday.
Anup Wadhawan said the withdrawal of the Generalised System of Preferences for Indian products would have limited impact.

The two countries had been working on a trade package to address each other's concerns, he said.Under the GSP program, India exports $5.6 billion worth of goods to the United States duty-free.
Arguing that New Delhi had failed to assure America that it would provide equitable and reasonable access to its markets in numerous sectors, US President Donald Trump on Monday informed the US Congress about his intent to terminate the designation of India and Turkey as a beneficiary developing country under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) programme.

In a letter to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Trump said he was determined that New Delhi had "not assured" the United States that it would "provide equitable and reasonable access" to the markets of India.

"I will continue to assess whether the Government of India is providing equitable and reasonable access to its markets, in accordance with the GSP eligibility criteria," Trump said in his letter, a copy of which was released to the press.


 In a separate letter, Trump also informed the Congress of his intent to terminate the GSP beneficiary designation of Turkey. This was primarily because the economy of Turkey had improved a lot in the last four-and-a-half decades, he said...Read More

Global stocks rise with yuan on optimism for US-China trade deal

International News

Stocks advanced in Europe and Asia while the Yuan strengthened after the US and China were said to be close to a trade deal that may end American tariffs in return for Chinese concessions. S&P 500 futures climbed, while the dollar fluctuated and Treasuries held steady.

Gains in miners and media companies led the Stoxx Europe 600 Index to five-month high. Earlier in Asia, Chinese and Japanese stocks saw the biggest advances, though several markets pared increases as the session progressed. The mooted trade deal would require Beijing to follow through on pledges ranging from better protecting intellectual-property rights to buying a significant amount of American products, two people familiar with the discussions said. The dollar nudged higher even after US President Donald Trump warned against it becoming too strong.

“While we have all these great headlines about what could be achieved under a US-China trade agreement, we’re still a little way away,” said Kerry Craig, JP Morgan’s global market strategist. “There could be a chance for a disappointment. It could be phased in over a number of years. There’s still questions about how and what China will actually buy to try and reduce their deficit.”

Signs of progress between Beijing and Washington are helping revitalize a rally in global equities that showed signs of stalling last week. The market will keep focused on both superpowers for other developments as well: China’s annual National People’s Congress may yield policy clues when it kicks off on Tuesday and investors will get the latest read on the US economy with the monthly jobs report on Friday.


 Elsewhere, the pound rose against the euro, approaching a 21-month high it touched last week, amid optimism UK lawmakers are avoiding a hard Brexit by moving toward supporting Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed deal. West Texas oil climbed above $56 a barrel on signs of slowing US production growth and as OPEC and its allies deepened cutbacks...Read More

China to pass new foreign investment law to meet US' demand, end trade war

International News
China is all set pass a new foreign investment law to provide a level playing field to global investors with legal safeguards on IPR and technology transfer, some of the main demands of US President Donald Trump to end the trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The US and China are locked in a trade war since Trump imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items from China in March last year, a move that sparked fears of a global trade war. In response, China imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on billions of dollars worth of American imports.
China is the world's second largest economy after the US.

The draft foreign investment law will be submitted to the top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), for review on March 8 and put for vote on March 15, Zhang Yesui, spokesman of the NPC said on Monday.

Asked why China is passing the new foreign investment law in a hurry, Zhang said that the interests of China and the United States are deeply interwoven and a confrontational China-US relationship does not benefit anyone.

China has a clear policy towards its relationship with the US, which is based on no-conflict and no-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, he said.


 The adoption of the foreign investment law is an innovation in the legal system on foreign investment and is to replace the existing three laws and serve as the basic law on foreign investment as China continues to open up in the new era, Zhang said...Read More

US-China talks to resolve trade war will resume in Washington today

International News:

A new round of talks between the United States and China to resolve their trade war will take place in Washington, with follow-up sessions at a higher level later in the week, the White House said .
The talks follow a round of negotiations that ended in Beijing last week without a deal but which officials said had generated progress on contentious issues between the world's two largest economies.

The talks are aimed at "achieving needed structural changes in China that affect trade between the United States and China.

The two sides will also discuss China's pledge to purchase a substantial amount of goods and services from the United States," the White House said in a statement.

The higher-level talks will start and be led by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a strong proponent of pressing China to end practices that the United States says include forced technology transfers from US companies and intellectual property theft.

China, which denies that it engages in such practices, confirmed that Vice Premier Liu He will visit Washington on Thursday and Friday for the talks.

The White House said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, economic adviser Larry Kudlow and trade adviser Peter Navarro would also take part in the talks.

 US tariffs on $200 billion in imports from China are set to rise to 25 percent from 10 percent if no deal is reached by March 1...Read More