GLOBAL NEWS-
China aims to attract more foreign investment in its bonds and stocks as the country further opens up its capital markets, the foreign exchange regulator said on Thursday.There is significant room for foreign investors to buy Chinese bonds and stocks given their holdings of such instruments accounted for just 2-3 percent of the total, Wang Chunying, spokeswoman for the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said in a news conference.“China will become an important destination of diversified asset allocation for global investors in the future, under the policy of further opening up and facilitation,” Wang said.Overseas institutions bought a net $9.5 billion in Chinese bonds and a net $19.4 billion in listed Chinese stocks in the first quarter of 2019, she said.Wang also said China will improve channels for opening up its interbank bond market and develop the panda bond market.
Planes, tractors, food and handbags featured on a list of U.S. imports worth $20 billion that the European Union said on Wednesday it could hit with tariffs in a transatlantic aircraft subsidy dispute.The 28-nation bloc said this week it was ready to open negotiations with the United States to cut industrial duties, but has now detailed plans that could lead to a new tit-for-tat trade conflict between the two global powers.Transatlantic tensions were enflamed again on Wednesday when Washington said it would end a ban against U.S. citizens filing lawsuits against foreign companies operating in Cuba, with EU firms seen among the targets.The two sides have been battling for almost 15 years at the World Trade Organization over subsidies given to U.S. planemaker Boeing and its European rival Airbus.Washington last week issued a seven-page list of EU products to target for tariffs, from large aircraft to dairy products and wine, to counteract $11 billion of harm it says EU subsidies for Airbus have caused.
U.S. national security adviser John Bolton announced a series of new sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela on Wednesday as the Trump administration sought to boost pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the countries that support him.Bolton, in a speech to an association of veterans of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, said the United States was adding five names linked to Cuba’s military and intelligence services to its sanctions blacklist, including the military-owned airline Aerogaviota.Bolton said Washington planned new limits on remittances to Cuba and changes to end the use of transactions that allow Havana to circumvent sanctions and obtain access to hard currency. He also announced new sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank to prohibit its access to U.S. dollars.The major policy shift, announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, could draw hundreds of thousands of legal claims worth tens of billion of dollars. It is intended to intensify pressure on Havana at a time Washington is demanding an end to Cuban support for Venezuela’s Maduro.
Lebanon’s draft budget for 2019 projects a deficit of less than 9 percent of GDP compared to 11.2 percent in 2018 and includes “wide reductions” in spending based on the need for “exceptional austerity measures”, the finance minister said on Wednesday.The budget, seen as a critical test of the heavily indebted state’s determination to reform, is based on an economic growth forecast of 1.5 percent in 2019, which could rise to around 2 percent as the economy picks up, Ali Hassan Khalil told.Lebanon has one of the heaviest public debt burdens in the world at some 150 percent of GDP. State finances are strained by a bloated public sector, high debt servicing costs and hefty subsidies spent on the power sector.Serious steps toward reform could unlock $11 billion in financing pledged at a donor conference last year to help Lebanon build infrastructure to boost its economic growth.Efforts to move forward with those reforms were slowed by protracted negotiations to form a new coalition after an election last May. A unity government was finally created in late January.Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has said the reforms will be “painful” and warned that Lebanon faces “catastrophe” if they are not implemented.
Asian shares were subdued on Thursday after a negative performance on Wall Street, with caution ahead of business surveys in Europe and Japan, and the Good Friday and Easter holidays keeping investors on the sidelines.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.08 percent, trading just below its highest since late July 2018 brushed on Wednesday.Australian shares advanced a quarter of a percent while Japan’s Nikkei was a shade lower.“We’re in this kind of hiatus in the global economy,” said Chris Weston, head of research at foreign exchange brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne.“People are starting to believe that we’re going to see better times in the second quarter and probably into the third quarter as well, and that perhaps the first quarter has been that trough.”
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso will travel to the United States on April 25 to meet Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the sidelines of a summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump, a source said on Thursday.Aso and Mnuchin may discuss provisions against currency manipulation that the United States hopes to include in a trade agreement with Japan, said the source, who has direct knowledge of the matter.Currencies are a sensitive subject for Japan because it has been criticised for keeping the yen weak with monetary easing.Tokyo has long argued that its monetary policy is aimed at generating inflation and not intended to gain an advantage in trade by weakening the yen, but there are lingering concerns this could become a flashpoint in trade talks with the United States.Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi held two days of discussions with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer earlier this week toward an agreement the U.S. side hopes will lower its trade deficit.The meeting between Motegi and Lighthizer came after Trump and Abe agreed last September to start trade talks in an arrangement that protects Japanese automakers from further tariffs while negotiations are under way.
Gold fell to its lowest since end-December on Thursday as indications that the global economy might not be as pain-stricken as previously feared prompted investors to take risks ahead of a slew of economic data.Spot gold fell 0.1 percent to $1,271.97 per ounce by 0345 GMT, having fallen to $1,270.99 earlier in the session, its lowest since Dec. 27.The metal has so far lost about 1.4 percent in the holiday-shortened week, and is on track for a fourth straight weekly decline. Most markets are closed for Good Friday on April 19.U.S. gold futures lost 0.2 percent to $1,274.50 an ounce.
Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday, supported by ongoing OPEC-led supply cuts and a surprise fall in U.S. crude inventories, although gains were capped by strong U.S. production.Brent crude futures were at $71.71 a barrel at 0500 GMT, up 9 cents, or 0.1 percent, from their last close and not far off Wednesday’s five-month high of $72.27 a barrel.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.81 per barrel, up 5 cents, or 0.1 percent.U.S. crude inventories fell by 1.4 million barrels in the week to April 12, compared with analyst expectations for an increase of 1.7 million barrels, Department of Energy (DoE) showed on Wednesday.