Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 13 February 2025

[Bulls n Bears]

 <https://bullszimbabwe.com/> 

 


 

 <http://www.bullszimbabwe.com> Bullszimbabwe.com         <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw?subject=View%20and%20Comments> Views & Comments        <https://bullszimbabwe.com/category/blogs/bullish-thoughts/> Bullish Thoughts        <http://www.twitter.com/BullsBears2010> Twitter         <https://www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe> Facebook           <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bulls-n-bears-zimbabwe/57/577/72> LinkedIn          <https://chat.whatsapp.com/CF6wllAfScU9Wr6dXxoQnO> WhatsApp         <mailto:bulls at bullszimbabwe.com?subject=Unsubscribe> Unsubscribe

 


 

 


Major International Business Headlines Brief:::  13 February 2025 

 


                                                                                  

 


 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

 


 

 


 

ü  Chinese businesses rush to try DeepSeek AI at ‘unprecedented’ scale

ü  Namibia central bank cuts key rate for fourth meeting in a row

ü  Brazil’s Petrobras seeks African oil assets to boost reserves

ü  China builds space alliances in Africa as Trump cuts foreign aid

ü  Why restaurants have become so important to shopping malls

ü  Elon Musk calls for the U.S. government to delete entire agencies: ‘Remove the roots of the weed’

ü  Apple will integrate Alibaba’s AI into iPhones in China, Chairman Joe Tsai says

ü  British bank Barclays posts 2024 pretax profit hike, launches £1 billion share buyback

ü  Treasury yields fall as investors digest inflation data

ü  Unilever sales just miss expectations; Ben and Jerry’s ice cream unit heads for triple listing

ü  UK economy ekes out 0.1% growth in the fourth quarter, beating expectations

ü  Battery giant CATL files for Hong Kong listing in what could be city’s largest IPO since 2021

ü  This millennial’s startup raised $120 million. He reveals what helped him succeed — and says it’s ‘more crucial’ than hard work

ü  Multi-billion dollar Honda-Nissan merger talks collapse

ü  US inflation unexpectedly increases

ü  Canada leaders take push against tariffs to White House

 


 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

 


 

Chinese businesses rush to try DeepSeek AI at ‘unprecedented’ scale

BEIJING — Chinese businesses are tapping DeepSeek’s newest artificial intelligence model to see how it can improve productivity.

 

The Chinese AI model took the world by storm in recent weeks after showcasing its reasoning process and claims to undercut rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT on cost — despite U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to the advanced semiconductors needed to develop the tech.

 

Eight automakers including BYD, at least nine financial securities companies, three state-owned telecommunications operators and smartphone brand Honor are among the many that have rushed in the last week to integrate with DeepSeek. Cloud computing operators Alibaba, Huawei, Tencent and Baidu have all offered ways for clients to access DeepSeek’s latest model.

 

“This is quite unprecedented,” Wei Sun, principal analyst of artificial intelligence at Counterpoint Research, said in an email Monday. She pointed to the rate of adoption, scale of business integration and breadth of specific industries covered.

 

“When we have all of these, we know it’s making a big social and economic impact,” she said.

 

Optimism over artificial intelligence has spread to Chinese stocks. UBS said Wednesday that AI-related Chinese stocks are up by 15% since the start of the year, outperforming the broader MSCI China Index by 9%.

 

A big factor in the widespread interest is timing. DeepSeek released its latest R1 model on Jan. 20, and news of its low-cost reasoning capabilities prompted a global tech stock sell-off on Jan. 27 — just as millions of urban workers in China were returning to their hometowns to celebrate the eight-day Lunar New Year holiday.

 

 

 

As a result, less developed parts of China gained greater understanding of AI and its impact, a topic previously limited to conversations in China’s largest cities, said Wenhao Zhang, CEO of the Beijing-based consumer marketing consultancy Doodod.

 

“It’s a major education of the market. This will push the entire ecosystem’s development,” he said Tuesday in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

 

Zhang, who studied AI at Tsinghua University, founded Doodod in 2012 to build customer engagement through social media analysis. He said the company — which counts China Merchant’s Bank and Toyota as clients — started looking at DeepSeek’s offerings late last year, and began using it more after the R1 release in late January.

 

DeepSeek, founded in 2023 out of a quantitative hedge fund, had released a basic version of R1 in November, and a V3 model in December. It launched a smartphone chatbot app in January.

 

Open-source local deployment

Another attractive factor for businesses is that DeepSeek’s models are open-source, allowing individuals and companies to download and customize it.

 

DeepSeek also advertised drastically lower prices for applications to use its tech versus that of OpenAI. ChatGPT is not officially available in mainland China and requires users to provide an overseas phone number and payment method from a supported country such as the U.S.

 

 

 

DeepSeek changed the perception that AI models only belong to big companies and have high implementation costs, said James Tong, CEO of Movitech, an enterprise software company which says its clients include Danone and China’s State Grid.

 

He said Movitech started integrating an earlier version of DeepSeek in the fourth quarter of last year, helping boost sales by about 25% from the same period in 2023. The company plans to launch a new DeepSeek-integrated application by the end of March to improve clients’ ability to make decisions, he said.

 

Many recent videos on Chinese social media have showed off how to run a local version of DeepSeek on Apple’s Mac mini.

 

Apple Mac mini online sales in China climbed significantly from November to January, versus the same period the year prior, according to data from consultancy WPIC. The electronics-focused JD.com site recorded unit sales of around 20,200 in January, up from nearly 19,400 in December and around 12,250 in November, the data showed.

 

DeepSeek’s affordability is pressuring more expensive AI models to cut prices, enabling more businesses to adopt the tech, said Chim Lee, senior Asia analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He added that open-source models allow finance, banking and healthcare businesses — which are subject to stringent data protection rules in China — to develop AI applications locally.

 

“It is still very early to point to concrete business applications, but a key takeaway is that DeepSeek will accelerate the commoditization of AI,” Lee said.

 

 

 

Beijing is also increasing support. China’s national supercomputing network announced Tuesday that eligible companies and individuals can obtain three free months of DeepSeek access, along with subsidized computing power.

 

The network is similar to OpenAI’s Trump-backed Stargate project in the U.S. for building AI infrastructure — with the potential for “even faster scaling,” Winston Ma, adjunct professor at NYU School of Law said Wednesday. He is also the author of “The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace.” 

 

Not centered on DeepSeek

The rush to try out DeepSeek doesn’t mean it will be the only AI provider for Chinese companies. Developers in the U.S. and China are regularly releasing new models.

 

Movitech also uses Alibaba’s Qwen AI model, Tong said, noting that the market wants the tech that can lower costs and produce results the most, whether it’s OpenAI or DeepSeek.

 

HangHang AI, which has invested several hundred million yuan to develop AI solutions for companies across 20 industries, uses a range of models, said partner and COO Shu Weibing.

 

Many people first used “Baidu, then realized it wasn’t as good as Kimi, then it wasn’t as good as [ByteDance’s] Doubao, which also cut prices,” Shu said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. “Now it’s DeepSeek.”

 

 

 

It remains to be seen how much generative AI can boost productivity and profits.

 

Shu predicts that small businesses and companies that integrate AI with hardware will benefit more than large, consumer-facing internet platforms, whose AI work so far, he said, has focused more on boosting efficiency rather than creating new consumer services.

 

Despite AI models’ falling prices, “small and medium-sized businesses may still be in a period of wait-and-see” for adopting the tech due to the relatively high cost for a full deployment, including computing power and customization, Mike Fang, senior director analyst at Gartner, said Wednesday in Mandarin translated by CNBC.

 

But the consulting firm predicts that by 2027, the average price to access a generative AI model will be less than 1% of what it costs now — and that by 2029, 60% of Chinese businesses will have incorporated AI into their primary products and services, forming the top drivers of revenue growth.cnbc

 

 

 

 

Namibia central bank cuts key rate for fourth meeting in a row

(Reuters) – Namibia’s central bank cut its main interest rate for the fourth straight monetary policy meeting, saying its projections showed inflation would remain well-contained and there was room to support the economy.

 

The Bank of Namibia reduced its repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.75%, after cutting by the same margin at its previous three policy meetings.

 

Annual inflation in the Southern African country fell to 3.2% in January from 3.4% in December. The central bank said in a statement on Wednesday that inflation was expected to average 4.0% this year.

 

Other reasons it gave for lowering the repo rate included the relatively high level of domestic real interest rates and adequate foreign reserves.

 

The bank forecast 2025 economic growth of 4.0%, higher than last year’s growth of 3.5%, but it said risks to the economic outlook had grown given global trade restrictions.

 

“We need to watch trade wars, … and see what the impact thereof is on the Namibian economy,” said Bank of Namibia Governor Johannes !Gawaxab.

 

Namibia’s economy is closely tied to that of its neighbour South Africa, and its currency is pegged 1:1 to the rand.

 

 

 

!Gawaxab said relations between South Africa and the United States under President Donald Trump would have a profound impact on Namibia.

 

Trump last week signed an executive order cutting U.S. financial assistance to South Africa over its land policy and genocide case against Washington’s ally Israel at the International Court of Justice.

 

South Africa has defended itself, saying the executive order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid”.cnbc

 

 

 

 

Brazil’s Petrobras seeks African oil assets to boost reserves

(Reuters) – Brazil’s Petrobras wants to buy stakes in African oil assets, mainly in Angola, Namibia and South Africa, to boost its reserves as it expects output to fall after 2030, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

 

The Brazilian state energy firm is in talks with companies, including existing partners ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies, to buy a share of their African assets, Sylvia dos Anjos, the company’s director for exploration and production, told Reuters on the sidelines of the India Energy Week conference.

 

“In our portfolio, it makes better sense. It is economical. They are our partners in Brazil so it is easy to go anywhere (with them). So it is natural,” she said.

 

Petrobras hopes to produce 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2025 and has plans to raise that to 3.1 million bpd by 2029, dos Anjos said.

 

The company is comfortable with current oil prices as its projects are “sustainable at a very low price of $45 a barrel”, she added.

 

Global benchmark Brent snapped a three-day streak of gains on Wednesday to hover near $77 a barrel, weighed down by higher U.S. crude stockpiles and concern U.S. trade tariffs will hit the global economy.

 

Last month, Petrobras said that its estimated proven reserves of oil, condensate, and natural gas climbed to 11.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in 2024, up from 10.9 billion boe in 2023.cnbc

 

 

 

 

China builds space alliances in Africa as Trump cuts foreign aid

(Reuters) – On the outskirts of Cairo, a cutting-edge space lab was supposed to be the first in Africa to produce homegrown satellites. Step inside the plant, though, and the made-in-Africa image begins to fade

 

Satellite equipment and parts arrive in crates from Beijing. Chinese scientists scan space-tracking monitors and deliver instructions to Egyptian engineers. A Chinese flag hangs from one wall. The first satellite assembled at the factory, hailed as the first ever made by an African nation, was built mainly in China and launched from a spaceport there in December 2023.

 

The Egyptian satellite lab is the latest advancement in China’s secretive overseas space program. Beijing is building space alliances in Africa to enhance its global surveillance network and advance its bid to become the world’s dominant space power, Reuters has learned. China has publicly announced much of this space assistance to African countries, including its donations of satellites, space monitoring telescopes and ground stations. What it hasn’t discussed openly, and which Reuters is reporting for the first time, is that Beijing has access to data and images collected from this space technology, and that Chinese personnel maintain a long-term presence in facilities it builds in Africa.

 

The satellite plant, which began operating in 2023, is part of a suite of space technology that China has gifted to Egypt over the past two years. Transfers that have been disclosed publicly include a new space monitoring center, which features two of the world’s most powerful telescopes, plus two Earth observation satellites launched in 2023 – the one that was assembled in Egypt, and another manufactured solely in China. In addition, China that year launched a third, Chinese-made satellite for Egypt, one capable of military-grade surveillance, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

 

The satellite facility is the centerpiece of Space City, a complex being constructed about 30 kilometers east of Cairo near a new administrative capital being built by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s government.

 

Sisi has fostered closer ties with China in recent years, including inking infrastructure and energy projects under President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.

 

The Egyptian presidency did not respond to a request for comment.

 

 

 

Egypt, a major recipient of U.S. military aid, is not the only country in Africa being drawn into China’s orbit. Beijing has 23 bilateral space partnerships in Africa, including funding for satellites and ground stations to collect satellite imagery and data, according to the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank. In the past year, Egypt, South Africa and Senegal agreed to collaborate with China on a future moon base, a project that rivals the United States’ own lunar plans.

 

This is just the beginning. In a meeting with dozens of African leaders in Beijing in September, Xi said satellites, as well as lunar and deep-space exploration, would be among the priorities for $50 billion in Chinese loans and investment earmarked for Africa over the next three years. Xi’s administration says publicly it is helping boost African space programs because China wants no country left behind as economies and militaries become increasingly reliant on space technology.

 

Privately, China is getting far more in return for its investment. This includes access to surveillance data collected by satellites and telescopes as well as a permanent presence in facilities it builds, according to six people with direct knowledge of China’s space projects in Africa.

 

As China advances its relationships in Africa with technology incentives, the United States is pulling back. Billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is heading U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government. One of his first targets has been the U.S. Agency for International Development, the aid agency that has spread American soft power around the world since its establishment by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

 

The Pentagon says China’s space projects in Africa and other parts of the developing world are a security risk because Beijing can hoover up sensitive data, enhance its military capabilities and coerce governments if they become locked into China’s communications ecosystem.

 

The Pentagon and Eftimiades did not provide specific evidence that China has used space technology it has donated to Africa for intelligence or military purposes, and Reuters was unable to independently verify these claims.

 

 

 

Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not respond directly to questions about whether China is using equipment in Africa for surveillance. He said the U.S. “is not in a position to smear or defame China” because of America’s own record of spying.

 

“The U.S. is the world’s largest surveillance state,” Liu said.

 

The space infrastructure and equipment that China is installing in Africa have common civilian uses such as transmitting data, monitoring the impact of climate change and helping fly spacecraft. But they also have military applications.

 

Powerful telescopes are used for space situational awareness. They could predict when U.S. military satellites pass overhead and help coordinate the use of anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. During a conflict, for instance if China invaded democratically ruled Taiwan, knocking out an enemy’s satellites could disrupt missile guidance systems and tangle communications between ground, air and naval troops. China and Russia have previously tested ASATs and are continuing to develop more advanced versions, the DIA report said.

 

Access to a broad range of Chinese-built, foreign-owned satellites gives Beijing the ability to better coordinate military operations. These satellites could also give China a clearer picture of U.S. military activities around the world. The Earth observation satellite assembled in Egypt, for instance, has the ability to take high-resolution images of areas where the U.S. and Egypt carry out joint military exercises.

 

China’s overseas ground stations, like one it has built in Ethiopia and another it is planning with Namibia, can be used for coordinating military operations, tracking missile launches and monitoring other countries’ space assets. They also add to a sprawling global network of data collection infrastructure, which includes undersea internet cables and 5G networks.

 

 

 

U.S. allies have pulled back from terrestrial space partnerships with China. In 2020, Sweden declined to renew a contract with China that had allowed Beijing to use satellite ground stations in Sweden and Australia, citing the “geopolitical situation.”

 

Sweden’s state-owned space company declined to comment further on the contract. Australia’s defense department did not respond to a request for comment.

 

To understand China’s space push in Africa, Reuters interviewed more than 30 people with knowledge of Chinese projects on the continent, including diplomats, space engineers, consultants, and military and intelligence officials. Reuters also reviewed over 100 patents and papers published by Chinese government and military bodies leading Beijing’s space program.

 

CHINA’S SPACE WEB

China’s rapid expansion of its space infrastructure on Earth is an example of a broader trend in which Beijing is catching up with the U.S. on everything from satellites to uncrewed moon landings to anti-satellite weapons, Stephen Whiting, commander of the Pentagon’s U.S. Space Command, told Reuters.

 

China has accelerated the launch of low-earth orbit communications satellites over the last two years in an effort to compete with Musk’s Starlink. The mogul’s rocket launch company SpaceX owns Starlink, which provides commercial internet service, but is also building a network of hundreds of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. intelligence agency that manages spy satellites.

 

“We see breathtaking advancements by China in space,” Whiting said, adding that the Pentagon is “paying attention” to Beijing’s partnerships with developing countries.

 

 

 

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state-owned military and space contractor, has announced a goal to make the country the world’s top space power by 2045. Plans include sending astronauts to the moon by 2030, building a moon base and developing nuclear-powered space shuttles.

 

The U.S. still has by far the biggest space program in the world, which is underpinned by SpaceX and a host of other private space companies.

 

China’s space investments overseas also haven’t always gone to plan. For instance, when a Chinese rocket carrying an Indonesian satellite exploded in 2020, it allowed SpaceX to swoop in and entrench itself as the Southeast Asian country’s primary space contractor, Reuters reported.

 

Still, China’s advances in space pose a challenge to Trump. During his first term, Trump created the U.S. Space Force, a new arm of the military that recognized the importance that space will play in future conflicts.

 

Trump’s space team is unlikely to prioritize forging bilateral space relationships in the way Beijing has done in Africa, according to three space policy veterans who advised the former president’s transition team.

 

They predict Trump is more likely to double down on America’s military capacity in space and push ahead with a race to the moon and possibly Mars, bolstered by his friendship with Musk. NASA’s Artemis program, supported by rocket launches by private companies like SpaceX, aims to get astronauts back on the moon by 2028. NASA, in partnership with the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency, also plans to build a space station in the moon’s orbit known as the Lunar Gateway.

 

 

 

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Washington’s efforts at space diplomacy have been unable to counter China’s growing bonds in Africa, which are gaining significance as a new global space race takes off, according to interviews with U.S. and African space officials.

 

Around 90 countries now have space programs of their own, with many smaller nations aligning their national policies around frameworks set out by Washington or Beijing. By helping developing countries build space industries, China is nurturing crucial alliances.

 

The moon has emerged as a test of allegiance. The U.S. has signed up more than 50 countries to the Artemis Accords, a set of rules to influence space exploration and the use of the moon and Mars. China has described the U.S. rule book as a colonial-style land grab, proposing instead to build a collaborative International Lunar Research Station. China has gained the support of a dozen countries for its moon base, including Russia and Egypt.

 

Scott Pace, head of the National Space Council in the first Trump administration, described China as a fundamentally “self-interested actor” whose partnerships aim to cement China as the “center of power” in space.

 

China’s main space agency, the China National Space Administration (CNSA), did not respond to a request for comment. In response to a question from a Reuters reporter at a media briefing in Beijing in October, Yang Xiaoyu, director of the agency’s System Engineering Department, said China has data-sharing agreements with partner countries but “has never, and will never” use images and data to enhance its military surveillance capabilities.

 

 

 

Liu, the Chinese Embassy spokesman, said “African countries and their people have the wisdom and ability to choose partners that align with their own interests.”

 

U.S. MISSTEPS

In many ways, China’s space diplomacy mirrors a strategy the U.S. has been implementing for decades. NASA, the U.S. Space Force and U.S. private companies maintain networks of global ground stations for tracking and communicating with satellites, mostly hosted in U.S. overseas territories or allied countries. These sites are used for monitoring space and downloading data – and for conducting secretive military operations in space.

 

Space Command’s Whiting said the U.S. programs aren’t comparable to China’s.

 

“We publicly talk about where they are, what they do,” Whiting said of U.S. military ground stations. “With China, we don’t see that same level of openness, and that does create doubt as to what’s happening.”

 

Whiting said the U.S. Space Command does not have any space-tracking assets in countries where China is setting up similar capabilities.

 

China’s expanding space presence in Africa stands in sharp relief to America’s absence. NASA last year began construction on a ground station in South Africa – its first on the continent – to communicate with spacecraft in the U.S. moon program. Its partnerships consist mainly of a network of 36 shoebox-sized atmospheric sensors scattered across 14 African countries, according to NASA international agreements reviewed by Reuters. It has also enlisted three African countries – Angola, Nigeria and Rwanda – to the Artemis Accords.

 

 

Some African governments have grown weary of Washington’s security warnings about China and are more interested in which country is going to provide money and space technology, said Temidayo Oniosun, managing director at Space in Africa, a Nigeria-based consultancy.

 

“The U.S. had decades to help Africa develop their space programs, but they never did,” Oniosun said. “These countries are realizing that the U.S. doesn’t exactly have their best interests at heart.”

 

Pace, the former top space official under Trump, said the U.S. should have done more to build relationships in Africa and elsewhere. A big part of the problem is that NASA, the State Department and the U.S. development agencies often don’t coordinate their efforts as closely as Chinese arms of government do, he said.

 

The State Department and NASA did not respond to requests for comment.

 

China’s more coordinated approach was demonstrated in the way it embedded itself inside Egypt’s space program from the start, according to interviews with five people involved in the projects.

 

SPACE CITY

In 2017, CNSA, the Chinese space agency, announced a partnership with Egypt’s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences to build a satellite facility in Cairo. The Chinese deal coincided with Cairo’s creating the Egyptian Space Agency (EgSA) in January 2018 and laying out plans for the construction of a Space City on the outskirts of Cairo.

 

 

Between November 2017 and January 2018, Egyptian technicians and engineers went for training in China at space and military sites, two people with direct knowledge of the collaboration told Reuters.

 

When ground broke on the satellite plant, the Chinese ambassador to Egypt, Liao Liqiang, was on site. Liao, a career diplomat and vocal advocate for more Chinese-led space projects in Africa and the Middle East, would go on to closely oversee the development of the lab, according to the two people.

 

Dozens of construction workers and engineers from CASC, the Chinese space firm, moved into the Space City site. Some have never left.

 

The project was seen as a priority for China’s space agency, and progress on it was fed back to CASC President Zhang Zhongyang, two sources said. CASC develops space tech to support China’s military capabilities, according to a Reuters review of patents. This includes using satellites to coordinate missile strikes.

 

Zhang is a pivotal figure in China’s space and military firmament. His background in missile design has made him a valuable player in efforts by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to build up its space capabilities, according to statements posted on the official website of China’s State Council. Zhang’s role is highlighted by his membership in the military’s Science and Technology Committee, a key part of the PLA’s efforts to upgrade its technology and maintain war readiness. His high status in the Communist Party hierarchy is underscored by his inclusion in one of Xi’s top decision-making bodies, the Central Committee.

 

In July last year, Zhang visited Egypt to inspect the satellite facility, official photos show.

 

 

CASC, Zhang and Liao did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Egypt’s satellite facility does not, however, add up to a full-fledged space program – it relies on China for almost every aspect of the project. Two of the three satellites emanating from the partnership so far were built solely in China, while the third was assembled in Egypt from Chinese components. All three were launched from China.

 

The first, dubbed Horus 1, was put into orbit in February 2023. That Earth observation satellite can help Egypt monitor agriculture productivity, predict natural disasters, and spot criminal activity such as narcotics cultivation, EgSA said at the time.

 

The second, Horus 2, was launched weeks later from the same spaceport in China, CASC announced, without disclosing the customer. Horus 2 is a military-grade surveillance satellite built for Egypt, two sources with knowledge of the satellite said. EgSA did not respond to questions about the purpose of Horus 2.

 

Egypt’s third satellite, MisrSat-2, went aloft in December 2023. It was the first to come out of the Cairo plant.

 

Most of the construction of MisrSat-2 was done by CASC in China; parts were shipped to Cairo, assembled and tested by CASC and Egyptian engineers, then shipped back to China for launch, two people with direct knowledge told Reuters. While the $72 million satellite technically belongs to Egypt, CASC still monitors the data and images it collects, the people said.

 

 

Sherif Sedky, CEO of EgSA, told Reuters that the assembly facility and MisrSat-2 were “donations” from China and nothing was expected in return. Sedky said data from Egypt’s satellites belongs to and is controlled by Cairo.

 

EgSA did not respond to questions about whether China also has access to the satellite data.

 

MisrSat-2 will help Egypt tackle climate change, enhance farming output and improve urban planning, EgSA says.

 

Sedky said Egypt is not picking sides in the space race by partnering with China. Cairo has received more than $80 billion in U.S. military and economic assistance since the late 1970s, according to the State Department website.

 

“We are neutral, we deal with everybody,” Sedky said in an interview in his office in Egypt’s Space City, a gated complex that also hosts a new African Space Agency created by the African Union. “If we get an offer, we take it.”

 

A Reuters journalist saw Chinese engineers buzzing in and out of the Space City complex. Asked about their presence, Sedky said they were there to install equipment and train Egyptian staff. He said these Chinese workers would leave eventually.

 

Egypt’s satellite plant may soon have a new tenant with Chinese connections. In August, USPACE Technology Group, a Hong Kong-listed private space tech firm, said it had signed a strategic partnership with EgSA to develop satellite technology at Egypt’s Space City.

 

USPACE did not respond to requests for comment.

 

TELESCOPES TOO

China and Egypt are also collaborating on a project to monitor satellites in orbit using sophisticated telescopes. That’s a capability military analysts say is crucial as the number of satellites in space multiplies – along with the development of weapons to cripple them.

 

Two optical telescopes were recently erected on the roof of a hilltop research station outside Cairo. Workers from the National Astronomical Observatories of China helped.

 

Makram Ibrahim, professor of space physics at Egypt’s National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, said the collaboration with China was for scientific research.

 

“There could be political motives, and you can do that analysis yourself on how they benefit politically,” Ibrahim told Reuters. “Secondly, they benefit scientifically because the data I get here, we both use it.”

 

Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman, did not comment on China’s specific motives for investing in Egypt’s space program. He said “supporting Africa’s development is a shared responsibility of the international community.”

 

Ethiopia is another recipient of space aid from Beijing. Since 2019, China has launched two Earth observation satellites for the East African country and funded construction of a ground station there. China also funds data collection to help Ethiopia monitor floods and droughts, said the country’s top space official, Abdissa Yilma, the general director of the Ethiopian Space Science and Geospatial Institute.

 

He said his nation is neutral and wouldn’t get drawn into the U.S.-China rivalry. But he said the contest could help supercharge technological development, just as East-West competition did in the Cold War.

 

“It seems that the race has started again,” Yilma said.cnbc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why restaurants have become so important to shopping malls

Foot traffic to suburban shopping malls has returned to pre-pandemic levels and high-end malls are thriving. Yelp found that 17 out of the top 25 brands driving consumers to malls are restaurants, and the dining options for visitors have moved well beyond the traditional food court that would include chains like McDonald's, Chipotle and Panda Express. 

 

 

 

 

Elon Musk calls for the U.S. government to delete entire agencies: ‘Remove the roots of the weed’

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. government needs to “delete entire agencies” in a cost and efficiency drive, tech billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk said Thursday when asked about whether the changes he is implementing as part of the Donald Trump administration will last beyond the current president’s term.

 

“I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind ... It’s kind of like leaving a weed,” Musk said. “If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed — it doesn’t stop weeds from ever going back, but it makes it harder.”

 

Musk, who also founded SpaceX and owns social media platform X, made the comments while speaking via video link to an audience at Dubai’s annual World Government Summit, as part of a conversation hosted by the United Arab Emirates’ Artificial Intelligence Minister Omar Sultan Al Olama.

 

“So we have to really delete entire agencies, many of them,” Musk continued. “And that’s not to say there won’t be an increase over time of bureaucracy in some new administration, but it will be from a much lower baseline. So certainly it’s a step in the right direction.”

 

“Nothing’s forever,” he added, “but I think we can strengthen the foundations of the United States substantially.”

 

Trump appointed the South African-born engineer and tech entrepreneur as a “special government employee” and the head of a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the administration. Musk has been vocal about his aims to improve government efficiency and reduce bureaucracy and regulations, and on Thursday said that such efforts could amount to a $1 trillion reduction in the federal deficit by 2026.

 

Musk has already taken an axe to USAID, the international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government, by essentially furloughing the majority of its staff and freezing its funding, The sudden change is affecting millions of people around the world, particularly in poorer countries.

 

The Trump administration in early February said that USAID would shut down as an independent agency and be moved under the State Department. cnbc

 

 

 

 

Apple will integrate Alibaba’s AI into iPhones in China, Chairman Joe Tsai says

″[Apple]  talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end, they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones,” Tsai said. 

 

The partnership was first reported by tech-focused news organization The Information on Tuesday, triggering a jump in Alibaba and Apple shares. 

 

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba surged on Thursday to hit their highest level since 2022 during the intraday session before paring the gains, last up 2.5%.

 

The announcement could provide clarity on Apple’s AI strategy in China, helping it better tackle growing competition as the iPhone’s market share erodes in the world’s largest smartphone market. 

 

While domestic rivals such as Huawei have touted AI features on their devices since last year, Apple has been quiet about its ‘Apple Intelligence’ push in the market, despite plans to launch in the U.S. this fall.

 

Apple Intelligence is the Cupertino-based company’s plan to bring AI across its devices, featuring an improved version of its voice assistant Siri, as well as features that automatically organize emails and transcribe and summarize audio.

 

Analysts have told CNBC that Apple’s AI rollout in China has likely stalled due to China’s stringent rules on the technology. 

 

Beijing has enacted various regulations on AI in recent years with some of the rules requiring large language models to get approval for commercial use. Generative AI providers are also responsible for taking down “illegal” content.

 

However, Tsai said Thursday that the Alibaba partnership could offer Apple a local partner to help it navigate the regulatory environment and localize its AI.

 

Alibaba is among China’s technology giants that have built their own large language models and voice assistants.-cnbc

 

 

 

 

 

British bank Barclays posts 2024 pretax profit hike, launches £1 billion share buyback

British bank Barclays  on Thursday posted a rise in full-year pre-tax profit that came in just ahead of analyst expectations, while also launching a £1 billion ($1.25 billion) share buyback.

 

Pretax profit rose by 24% to £8.108 billion in 2024, just above an analyst forecast of £8.081 billion, according to LSEG. 

 

Net profit attributable to shareholders also picked up by 24% to £5.316 billion in 2024, but fell short of the £5.449 billion expected by analysts. Fourth-quarter attributable profit came in at £965 million, below the £994 million analyst outlook for the period.

 

The lender’s total income picked up to £6.96 billion in the three months to the end of December, versus £5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, with the core Barclays investment and retail units logging 28% and 46% year-on-year hikes to £2.61 and £2.62 billion, respectively.

 

Since last year, Barclays has been implementing a strategic overhaul to whittle down costs by £2 billion by 2026, lift shareholder returns and stabilize financial returns, sharpening its focus on the profitable consumer and lending operations — and leading to the absorption of the retail banking business of British grocer Tesco’s.

 

Yet Barclays′ traditionally strong banking unit could now stand to benefit from more open market share in the domestic space, as HSBC last month announced it is preparing to exit its M&A and equity capital markets businesses in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. amid a larger restructure of its investment banking operations.

 

The bank has also been recovering from a sweeping three-day tech outage that disrupted payments and transactions at the end of last month, which has since been resolved.

 

More broadly, lenders have been battling lethargy in the U.K. economy and a pullback in IPO activity in the London Stock Exchange. The Bank of England executed its first rate cut of the year last week and signaled further trims in 2025 amid a downgrade in the U.K.‘s economic forecast — with monetary easing typically eating away at bank profits, as it tightens the spread between lenders’ return in loans and their payout on deposits. British and European banks are also struggling to keep pace with counterparts in the U.S., which could benefit from an additional competitive edge if newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump takes a lighter approach to local regulation.

 

In parallel, U.K. Finance Minister Rachel Reeves is prodding Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority toward promoting competitiveness in tandem with consumer protection, with markets eyeing the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy due out in spring.-cnbc

 

 

 

 

 

Treasury yields fall as investors digest inflation data

U.S. Treasury yields pulled back on Thursday as investors digested January’s hotter-than-expected consumer price index report and looked ahead to more inflation insights.

 

At 3:45 a.m. ET the 10-year Treasury

yield was down by more than three basis points to 4.597%. The 2-year Treasury

yield was last at 4.332% after dipping by over three basis points.

 

One basis point equals 0.01%. Yields and prices move in opposite directions.

 

Treasurys

TICKER        COMPANY     YIELD          CHANGE 

US1M

U.S. 1 Month Treasury     4.36   0.028

US3M

U.S. 3 Month Treasury     4.36   0.022

US6M

U.S. 6 Month Treasury     4.387 0.018

US1Y

U.S. 1 Year Treasury       4.31   0.019

US2Y

U.S. 2 Year Treasury       4.332 -0.033

US10Y

U.S. 10 Year Treasury      4.601 -0.033

US30Y

U.S. 30 Year Treasury      4.812 -0.023

 

Treasury yields had jumped on Wednesday after the release of January’s consumer inflation report. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the consumer price index rose 0.5% on a monthly basis in January and 3% from a year earlier. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting increases of 0.3% and 2.9%, respectively.

 

So-called core inflation, which excludes food and energy costs, rose 0.4% for the month and 3.3% on an annual basis. That was also higher than the expected 0.3% monthly rise and the 3.1% year-over-year increase.

 

Wednesday’s data is set to inform expectations on whether there will be more interest rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve. In January, the Fed kept rates unchanged after three reductions in a row.

 

When speaking before the House Committee on Financial Services, central bank chief Jerome Powell on Wednesday suggested that the stronger-than-expected print was a reminder that progress has been made when it comes to bringing inflation closer to its 2% target but that it is “not quite there yet.”

 

More inflation insights will be published on Thursday in form of the producer price index for January, which tracks prices on a wholesale level. The latest weekly initial jobless claims data is also due to be released Thursday.-cnbc

 

 

 

 

 

Unilever sales just miss expectations; Ben and Jerry’s ice cream unit heads for triple listing

Consumer goods giant Unilever  on Thursday posted slightly weaker-than-expected sales growth and pointed to a subdued start to 2025, although it expects this to reverse in the second half of the year.

 

The company also provided an update on the spin-off of its ice cream business, which houses brands including Ben and Jerry’s and Magnum, saying it would be demerged through a triple listing.

 

The maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise posted a 4% rise in fourth-quarter underlying sales, slightly missing the 4.1% rise forecast in a company-compiled estimate.

 

Full-year underlying sales grew 4.2% versus a company-compiled analyst consensus of 4.3%. Underlying operating margins came in at 18.4% versus 18.3% estimated. Both figures were in line with the company’s full-year forecasts.

 

Shares of Unilever fell 6.3% at 08:29 a.m. London time.

 

“Today’s results reflect a year of significant activity as we focused on transforming Unilever into a consistently higher performing business,” CEO Hein Schumacher said in a statement.

 

“Market growth, which slowed throughout 2024, is expected to remain soft in the first half of 2025,” he added.

 

Sharing its 2025 outlook, the British firm said it expected full-year sales growth in line with its multi-year range of 3% to 5%. It also said it anticipated a “modest improvement” in underlying operating margin, which would be realized in the second half of the year.

 

Unilever, which is home to about 400 brands, is looking to sell several food lines with combined sales of around 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion), Schumacher told Dutch financial daily FD in December.

 

Schumacher did not name the specific brands, but Unilever had said in March that it was spinning off its ice cream unit.

 

In an update Thursday, the company said the unit would be separated via a demerger, with listings in Amsterdam, London and New York — the same three exchanges on which Unilever shares are currently traded — and that it was on track to complete by the end of 2025.

 

“The de-merger is on track,” Schumacher told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum, adding that Amsterdam would be the business’ primary listing.

 

Asked whether Unilever was still considering a possible sale of its ice cream unit, Schumacher said the company was “absolutely focused on getting the demerger done in a successful manner. That’s what all our actions are about.”-cnbc

 

 

 

UK economy ekes out 0.1% growth in the fourth quarter, beating expectations

The U.K. economy grew by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, beating expectations, according to a preliminary estimate from the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday.

 

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the country’s GDP to contract by 0.1% over the period.

 

The services and construction sectors contributed to the better-than-expected performance in the economy, up 0.2% and 0.5% respectively, but production fell by 0.8%, the ONS said.

 

The British economy had recorded zero growth in the third quarter and lackluster monthly GDP data since then, with a 0.1% contraction in October and a 0.1% expansion in November. The ONS said on Thursday that growth had picked up in December, with an estimated 0.4% month-on-month expansion thanks to growth in services and production.

 

The British pound was up 0.4% against the dollar after the data release, and flat against the euro.

 

Sluggish growth and a recent drop in inflation prompted the Bank of England last week to make its first interest rate cut of the year, bringing its benchmark rate down to 4.5%.

 

The central bank signaled further rate trims were coming as inflationary pressures wane, but noted that higher global energy costs and regulated price changes are expected to push up headline inflation to 3.7% in the third quarter of 2025, “even as underlying domestic inflationary pressures are expected to wane further.” The BOE expected the inflation rate to fall back to its 2% target by 2027.

 

The central bank also halved the U.K.’s economic growth forecast from 1.5% to 0.75% this year.

 

Poor economic performance will stack additional pressure on U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose fiscal plans, announced last fall, have been criticized for increasing the tax burden on British businesses. Critics say the plans, which increase the amount that employers pay out in National Insurance (NI) contributions — a tax on earnings — as well as a hike to the national minimum wage, could harm investment, jobs and growth.

 

Chancellor Reeves defended the “Autumn Budget,” saying its £40 billion of tax rises were needed to fund public spending and that she is prioritizing economic growth.

 

Responding to the latest growth data Thursday, Reeves said the government was “removing the barriers that get in the way of businesses who want to expand.”

 

2025 growth downgraded

Economists had widely expected the British economy to end the year on a low note and have also downgraded their growth forecasts for 2025.

 

“Higher taxes for businesses, a lingering drag from the previous interest rate hikes and softer overseas demand explain why we have revised down our UK GDP growth forecasts, from 1.3% to 0.5% for 2025 and from 1.6% to 1.5% for 2026,” Paul Dales, chief U.K. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note this week.

 

City of London skyline view looking over the River Thames and Waterloo Bridge at sunset on 10th February 2024 in London, United Kingdom. The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the primary central business district CBD of London. The City of London is widely referred to simply as the City is also colloquially known as the Square Mile. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

City of London skyline view looking over the River Thames and Waterloo Bridge at sunset on 10th February 2024 in London, United Kingdom.

Mike Kemp | In Pictures | Getty Images

Sanjay Raja, senior economist at Deutsche Bank, concurred, saying that near-term downgrades to the U.K.’s 2025 growth outlook were “inevitable.”

 

“Bar any major revisions, the negative carry over effect from [the fourth quarter of 2024] will automatically drag on our 2025 growth forecast of 1.25%. How much of a downgrade could we be looking at? Roughly 0.25 percentage points – at minimum,” he said in a research note this week.

 

“There’s more bad news too. Survey data to start the year have also yet to show any bounce back. Downside risks to our first quarter of 2025 GDP growth forecast (of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter growth) are rising with the latest PMI data pointing to only a modest rebound to start the year. The threat of a trade war looks stronger too,” Raja said.

 

“To be sure, trade uncertainty will remain for some time,” he added.

 

Threat of tariffs

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on goods from the European Union and U.K. but has signaled that Britain, with whom the U.S. has a more balanced trade relationship, could strike a deal to avoid levies.

 

The U.K. is certainly hopeful that it can avoid Trump’s tariff wrath, with Reeves telling CNBC last month that the U.K. is “not part of the problem” when it comes to “persistent” trade deficits that the president wants to tackle.

 

US President Donald Trump inspects an honour guard during a welcome ceremony at Buckingham Palace in central London on June 3, 2019, on the first day of their three-day State Visit to the UK. Britain rolled out the red carpet for US President Donald Trump on June 3 as he arrived in Britain for a state visit already overshadowed by his outspoken remarks on Brexit. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump inspected an honour guard during a welcome ceremony at Buckingham Palace in central London on June 3, 2019, on the first day of their three-day State Visit to the U.K. 

 

 

Last week, the Bank of England stated that any potential U.S. tariffs on Britain “could be inflationary or disinflationary for the U.K. depending on other countries’ trade policies and the relative strength of different transmission channels.”

 

“Most of these channels would act to lower U.K. economic activity. However, some channels are likely to reduce U.K. inflation while others might push up on it,” the central bank said.

 

Lower U.S. demand for U.K. exports would be disinflationary, for example, but supply chain disruptions due to missing components could lead to short-term price spikes, the BOE noted.-cnbc

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battery giant CATL files for Hong Kong listing in what could be city’s largest IPO since 2021

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the largest electric vehicle battery producer in the world, has filed for listing on Hong Kong’s stock exchange, potentially making it the largest initial public offering for the city in five years.

 

The size and timeline of the IPO and timeline were not revealed in the filing. However, Reuters reported that the deal is expected to raise at least $5 billion, citing sources familiar with the matter. That would mark Hong Kong’s largest IPO since Chinese TikTok rival Kuaishou’s

$5.32 billion public offering in early 2021.

 

According to the filing made by the company, the Bank of America

, China International Capital Corporation, China Securities International and JPMorgan Chase

are joint sponsors for the listing.

 

The move to list in Hong Kong is expected to attract global long-term institutional investors, some of whom may be bound by policies that disallow them from buying shares of mainland China-based companies, said William Ma, chief investment officer and founder of GROW Investment Group, a China-based asset management company.

 

CATL is also listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, boasting a market cap of 1.1 trillion yuan ($150.5 billion), according to data from LSEG. The company supplies batteries to big automakers like Tesla and Volkswagen.

 

“The timing is ideal as global investors are starting to find China’s markets trading at attractive valuations,” Ma told CNBC.

 

The listing will also help diversify the sector mix of Hong Kong-listed shares, which largely comprise Chinese internet companies and banks, he added.

 

Hong Kong saw a pickup in listing activities in 2024 after three consecutive years of declines in terms of deal values, according to data from Dealogic. The city’s bourse raised $10.65 billion across 63 deals last year, a jump of more than 80% from the $5.89 billion raised in 2023.

 

In January, the U.S. Department of Defense included CATL and Tencent on its list of “Chinese Military Companies,” which would prevent the department from procuring goods and services from those companies starting June 2026. However, the profit impact of the move is “negligible” because the companies do not derive significant revenues from the DoD, Macquarie’s analysts said in January note.

 

“We are proactively engaging with DoD to address the false designation,” CATL said in its filing. “We cannot guarantee that such attempts will be successful or that the relevant government agencies will not take any further actions.”

 

As of September, CATL operates 13 battery manufacturing bases across the world, according to information from the filing. The battery maker also mentioned it is in preparing its plants in Hungary as well as other projects in Indonesia. Its joint venture with automaker Stellantis to build a 4.1 billion euro ($4.2 billion) lithium iron phosphate battery plant in Spain is also under way. 

 

CATL’s revenue for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 declined over 12% compared to the same period in 2023. However, the company expects its 2024 full-year net profit to increase between 11% to 20% from a year ago, according to a securities filing in January.

 

— CNBC’s Anniek Bao contributed to this report.

 

 

 

This millennial’s startup raised $120 million. He reveals what helped him succeed — and says it’s ‘more crucial’ than hard work

At the age of seven, he fell in love with basketball, but when his family couldn’t afford to buy him his own ball, he came up with the money by himself.

 

“Money was always tight,” Lim told CNBC Make It. “My parents are both hourly workers. My dad’s a driver. My mom’s a cleaner.”

 

“I chose a sport that is free, so I can play any day that I wanted,” said Lim. “I saved up for 60 days not eating lunch, to [have] enough money to buy the ball. Then, I held on to that orange rubber ball and played it for five years, every day, until it was bald.”

 

That attitude has served him well in life. Today, the 39-year-old is the co-founder and CEO of Workstream, a human resources, payroll and hiring platform made for the hourly workforce. The company has raised about $120 million to date.

 

Humble beginnings

Lim was born and raised in Singapore and was the first in his family to attend university. From selling eggs at the local market to driving trucks, Lim says, most of his extended family, including his parents, were — and still are — hourly workers.

 

″[My parents] both only finished fourth grade,” he said. “My dad is up at 5 a.m. every morning, and he gets home by seven, and he works six and a half days per week. He barely stops for lunch.”

 

Lim saw the grit and work ethic that his parents had and applied those characteristics to his own life. In high school, not only was he a top student, but he also led his school’s basketball team, as captain, to win a national competition.

 

“When we won the High School Championship, I was the captain that carried our school flag and ran around the whole school as the school cheered for our victory ... I think that moment changed my life,” he said. “Sports taught me that you need time, patience and a team of people to build something great.”

 

Lim was also selected to play basketball professionally for the Singapore National Youth Team while in high school. It quickly became clear that he had the chops to get into a top university, but his family didn’t have the means to support his education.

 

 

“My mom told me: ‘I cannot pay for your college. You shouldn’t go to college. You should go and work,‘” said Lim. “That nudged me to figure out how to go to college on my own.’”

 

Ultimately, Lim’s entrepreneurial journey was largely born out of a need. He said he started businesses since he was young in order to be able to afford school fees.

 

On top of focusing on his studies and basketball, Lim started his own tutoring business in high school. Within two years, he says, that business brought in about $100,000 in revenue, which was enough to pay for his university education.

 

That tutoring company became just the first of several businesses that Lim began.

 

Similarly, while studying at Singapore Management University, Lim set his sights on a new goal — he wanted to move to the United States to get a master’s degree. To save money, he bootstrapped and started another business — a Thai food restaurant — while still working on completing his degree.

 

After graduating from university in 2010, Lim worked in investment banking for several years before moving to the U.S. for his master’s degree at Harvard University in July 2013.

 

‘I was so hungry’

While at Harvard, Lim zeroed in on establishing his own tech startup.

 

“I was so hungry when I was at Harvard, I felt like I was drinking from a firehose. Typical people take four classes — I was doing seven classes every term,” he said.

 

During his first year at Harvard, Lim cold emailed about 50 startups in the San Francisco Bay Area, hoping to gain some startup experience. That winter break, he flew to California, where he slept on a friend’s couch and worked at an education tech startup for free.

 

Desmond Lim with his Harvard classmates during orientation week.

Desmond Lim with his Harvard classmates during orientation week.Courtesy of Demond Lim

“And the following summer, I again worked for free for WeChat ... before they converted me into a full-time role. So, I was just so hungry to learn about everything, about startups and company building,” said Lim.

 

In 2016, Lim sat in on a friend’s class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business called “Startup Garage.”

 

“It’s the same class that companies like DoorDash and SoFi came out of,” he said. “Our job was to go out to talk to business owners, so we talked to tens, if not hundreds of business owners around Palo Alto, and we heard about pain points.”

 

One business they spoke with was Coupa Cafe, a family-owned coffee shop chain with outlets around Stanford and Palo Alto. It was during this conversation that Lim discovered the idea for Workstream.

 

He found that the company didn’t have the right tools to efficiently manage their hourly workforce. They were using seven different tools, including Google Drive and just writing things down manually with pen and paper, said Lim.

 

“I [thought] this is so much work. There must be something that we can do better for them,” he said. “So I think that was the moment, combined with my experience running my own restaurant, coupled with my parents being both hourly folks.”

 

Desmond Lim with his co-founders, Lei Xu and Max Wang.

Desmond Lim with his co-founders, Lei Xu and Max Wang.Courtesy of Desmond Lim

After completing his graduate program at Harvard, Lim moved to the Bay Area in 2016 and co-founded Workstream in September 2017 with Lei Xu and Max Wang.

 

Three short months later on Jan. 4, 2018, Workstream had its first paying customer — Coupa Cafe paid Lim and his co-founders $100.

 

Building Workstream

The early days of Workstream involved lots of door-knocking.

 

“It was fun ... [I was] selling door to door, with some help from Max and Lei. So we were just three immigrants in the streets of Palo Alto trying to knock on doors and talk to people. It was kind of funny [and] we learned so much,” said Lim.

 

Desmond Lim with Workstream's first investor, Eric Yuan.

Desmond Lim with Workstream’s first investor, Eric Yuan.Courtesy of Desmond Lim

The company’s first investment was a $25,000 check written by Eric Yuan, the founder and CEO of Zoom.

 

“I first reached out to Eric about 9 to 10 years ago the first year that I went out to The Valley ... I think it was a cold email [and] I said ‘Hey, can I meet you for lunch just to learn from you as a fellow immigrant founder?’” said Lim. Yuan said yes, and they proceeded to have a great one hour conversation at lunch.

 

>From there, the two stayed friends for about a decade, and when Lim reached out to get funding for his company, the Zoom founder quickly became Workstream’s first backer.

 

“He didn’t even ask me what I was going to build. I said I was going to build a platform for the hourly space, and he was like: ‘Okay, I believe in you,’” said Lim. “Since then, [Yuan] has actually doubled down in every single round. He has now invested more than seven figures in the company over the past seven years.”

 

Desmond Lim with Workstream team members in 2024.

Desmond Lim with Workstream team members in 2024.Courtesy of Desmond Lim

Today, Workstream is an all-in-one HR and payroll software built for hourly companies.

 

“Our company’s purpose is: ‘deskless deserves better.’ We believe that the hourly economy is very underserved. There’s not enough good software, both built for hourly companies, but also for many of these hourly workers,” Lim told CNBC Make It.

 

“There are many tools out there for payroll, but it’s all built for people who work in tech, who work in office, who [are] desktop first,” said Lim. “So what we have built is a mobile-first, AI-driven software to help [hourly companies] do their payroll, HR onboarding, all in the same place, to help them to save money and time.”

 

Workstream’s customers include brands such as Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts. The company’s backers include Gold House, Peter Thiel and Ken Howery’s Founders Fund, Jay-Z and DoorDash’s Tony Xu.

 

What’s ‘more crucial’ than hard work?

Lim had a strong work ethic early on. He was inspired watching his parents and family members hustle as hourly workers to earn a living, but there is one trait that he says that can be even more important.

 

“Truly try to explore and find out what you really want to do. Sometimes I feel like making the right choice is even more crucial than trying to work very hard,” he said.

 

“I think one thing I did when I was younger was I talked to many people,” said Lim. “I was really curious, and I would write to professors at school, I’d write to founders. I was just having informational chats with people that I looked up to for 20 minutes, for 10 minutes, for lunch.”

 

“I was just very hungry to learn from people, and I think that really helped me shape how I think and who I’ve become today,” he said.-cnbc

 

 

 

Multi-billion dollar Honda-Nissan merger talks collapse

The Japanese car making giants aimed to combine their businesses to compete against Chinese rivals

Honda and Nissan have announced that they are ending talks of a merger, adding that they will continue their partnership on electric vehicles.

 

The Japanese car makers, along with junior partner Mitsubishi, aimed to combine their businesses to fight back against competition from rival firms, especially in China.

 

"Going forward, the three companies will collaborate within the framework of a strategic partnership aimed at the era of intelligence and electrified vehicles," the companies said in a statement on Thursday.

 

Joining forces would have created a new motor industry giant alongside Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford.

 

 

It would also have provided Nissan, which for a while was Japan's second largest car company, with crucial relief following years of slowing sales and turmoil involving its top executives.

 

In November, Nissan suprised shareholders with plans to lay off thousands of workers to tackle a drop in sales in China and the US.

 

The growing electric car market has been increasingly dominated by Chinese manufacturers, such as BYD.

 

This increased competition has left many of the world's leading car makers struggling to compete.

 

In March last year, months before they announced the merger plans, Nissan and Honda had agreed to explore a strategic partnership for electric vehicles.

 

"The talks started because we believe that we must build up capabilities to fight them, including the current emerging forces, by 2030," Honda's chief executive Toshihiro Mibe said, in reference to the Chinese competition. "Otherwise we will be beaten."

 

Meanwhile, the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn has emerged as a possible investor in Nissan.

 

"If cooperation requires it (purchasing Nissan shares), we will consider it," Foxconn chairman Young Liu told reporters on Wednesday.-bbc

 

 

 

US inflation unexpectedly increases

US inflation increased by more than expected last month, as higher egg and energy prices helped to push up the cost of living for Americans.

 

Inflation rose to 3% in January, its highest rate for six months, and above the 2.9% expected by economists.

 

The rise comes weeks after the US central bank decided to hold interest rates, saying there was significant uncertainty about where the economy might be headed.

 

It poses a challenge to US President Donald Trump, who made tackling inflation a centrepiece of his election campaign last year, but has put forward policies, such as higher tariffs on imports, that economists say risk pushing up prices.

 

 

Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, said the latest report could put pressure on Trump to reconsider those plans, which would raise taxes on goods entering the country.

 

"Tariffs can still be used as a bargaining tool to get some concessions from other countries, but the political optics of putting even a little upward pressure on consumer prices via tariffs wouldn't be great for the Trump administration," he wrote.

 

The uptick in prices last month was wide-ranging, affecting car insurance, airfare, medicine and other basics.

 

Grocery prices climbed 0.5% over the month, compared with 0.3% in December, as egg prices surged more than 15% amid shortages caused by outbreak of avian flu.

 

That marked the biggest monthly increase in nearly a decade, the Labor Department said.

 

Prices for clothing, by contrast, declined, while rents and other housing related costs increased 4.4% over the last year, marking the smallest 12-month increase since January 2022.

 

Line chart showing US inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index from January 2010 to January 2025. Between 2010 and early 2021, the annual inflation rate fluctuated between a high of around 4% and a low of just below 0%. It then climbed to a high of around 9% in the year to June 2022 before starting to fall again, reaching 3% in the year to January 2025.

 

Core inflation, which strips out food and energy and is seen by analysts as a better measure of underlying trends, was 0.4% over the month, the fastest pace since March.

 

"This is not a good number," said Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings.

 

"It illustrates how the [Federal Reserve] has not completed the job of getting inflation back down just as new inflation risks - from tariff hikes and a squeeze on labor supply growth - start to emerge."

 

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates sharply starting in 2022, hoping higher borrowing costs would cool the economy and ease pressures that were pushing up prices.

 

It had started cutting rates in September, saying it wanted to avoid any further cooling.

 

But signs of persistent inflation above the bank's 2% target in recent months prompted it to keep interest rates unchanged in January.

 

What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?

Three American goods that could rise in price due to metal tariffs

Has Trump promised too much on US economy?

 

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell told Congress this week that the bank was in little hurry to cut rates further.

 

He noted that it remained unclear how Trump's tariff plans would shape the Fed's policies, since the measures could prompt a slowdown in the economy, alongside a rise in prices.

 

On Wednesday, Trump called on the Fed to lower interest rates to go "hand-in-hand" with tariffs.

 

But some analysts said after the report that they were no longer expecting any rate cuts this year.

 

Wall Street stocks ended the day mostly lower, while interest rates charged on US government debt climbed as investors bet that borrowing costs would remain higher for longer.

 

Meanwhile, Randy Kroszner, a former Federal Reserve Board member questioned whether prices would rise enough for Trump to change course.

 

"When President Trump was in office the previous time, he did raise tariffs on steel and aluminium and there was very little impact on overall prices," Mr Kroszner said in an interview with BBC News.

 

"So it's unclear whether this would be bigger this time. I mean if it does lead to sort of a global trade war, then they'll have a bigger impact. But trade is a relatively small part of the US economy. That's one of the reasons that President Trump has chosen to focus on this."-BBC

 

 

 

 

Canada leaders take push against tariffs to White House

Canada's provincial and territorial leaders say they had a "constructive" meeting at the White House as they sought to make their case against the tariffs the US president has threatened to impose on the country.

 

It is the first time all 13 premiers have visited the US capital together, illustrating how seriously a potential trade war is viewed by Canada.

 

President Donald Trump's threat to impose 25% import taxes on all goods from Canada, and 10% on energy, was paused for 30 days earlier this month after Canada adopted new border measures.

 

On Monday, Trump added another threat, saying he planned to add a 25% tax on all global steel and aluminium imports to the US beginning 12 March.

 

 

On Wednesday afternoon, the premiers secured a last-minute meeting with senior Trump advisers after spending the day sitting down with US lawmakers.

 

"We had a very constructive conversation," Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters as the premiers who attended the meeting left the White House.

 

British Columbia Premier David Eby said White House advisers "urged us to take the president at his word" on Trump's stated reasons for the tariffs, such as border security and ensuring the US is not taken advantage of in trade relationships.

 

"There were some very frank moments across the table," he said.

 

The premiers' overall message is that the two countries are better as economic allies, and that Canada is a secure partner for commodities like energy, metals and critical minerals.

 

More than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US and the two economies are highly integrated.

 

If the steel and aluminium tariffs go ahead it will particularly affect Canada, which supplies the US with more of the products than any other country.

 

If both the metals and blanket tariffs come into force they would stack, essentially doubling the steel and aluminium tariffs on Canada.

 

Also on Wednesday, Canada's Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc met Howard Lutnick, Trump's pick to lead the commerce department, and Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council.

 

He said they discussed how deeply integrated the steel and aluminium sectors are between the two countries.

 

"I'm confident we have their attention," he said.

 

Trump has said the metals tariffs would boost domestic US production.

 

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday said: "This administration believes these tariffs will protect our national security and put American workers first."

 

Three American goods that could rise in price due to metal tariffs

With Trump's tariffs looming - will countries scramble to cut deals?

On the wider 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports, Trump has cited concerns over illegal immigration and the flow of drugs into the US from its neighbours.

 

Canada has vowed swift retaliation to Trump's tariffs though it has said the ultimate goal is to avoid any levies.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed a new fentanyl tsar as part of his country's efforts seeks to address border concerns.

 

Kevin Brosseau, a former member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and intelligence adviser to Trudeau, will take on the role immediately.

 

He is expected to be in Washington DC in the coming days.

 

Speaking at a news conference near the Ontario-New York border, he said he will focus on joint US-Canada efforts to target fentanyl trade.

 

Less than 1% of fentanyl intercepted at the US border comes from Canada, according to figures from Ottawa.

 

"Getting the number to zero is in fact a goal, and should be our goal," Mr Brosseau said.

 

Canada is implementing a $1.3bn (£1bn) border plan that includes nearly 10,000 frontline workers and more resources to halt the flow of fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times stronger than heroin. Much of it was announced before Canada and the US hammered out the tariff pause.

 

There are also new Black Hawk helicopters and drones to monitor the 8,890km (5,525 mile) boundary.

 

 

 

Since returning to the White House last month, Trump has been in one trade standoff with Canada and America's other neighbour, Mexico.

 

He agreed on 4 February to delay for 30 days his threat of 25% tariffs on all goods arriving from both countries.

 

Trump has framed tariffs as a tool for growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

 

Economists, however, have warned that tit-for-tat tariffs could raise prices for a wide range of products, including cars, lumber, steel, food and alcohol.

 

Canada and Mexico are the top US trade partners, along with China.

 

Trump moved forward with a 10% tariff on all goods entering the US from China, which as retaliated with countermeasures against US goods.-BBC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 


 Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

 

Cellphone:         +263 71 944 1674 | +27 79 993 5557 

Email:                <mailto:bulls at bullszimbabwe.com> bulls at bullszimbabwe.com

Website:             <http://www.bullszimbabwe.com> www.bullszimbabwe.com 

Blog:                  <http://www.bullszimbabwe.com/blog> www.bullszimbabwe.com/blog

Twitter (X):        @bullsbears2010

LinkedIn:           Bulls n Bears Zimbabwe

Facebook:           <http://www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe> www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe



 

 

 


 

INVESTORS DIARY 2025

 


Company

Event

Venue

Date & Time

 


 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


Companies under Cautionary

 

 

 


 

 

 

 


CBZH

GetBucks

EcoCash

 


Padenga

Econet

RTG

 


Fidelity

TSL

FMHL

 


 

 

 

 


 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

 


 

 


DISCLAIMER: This report has been prepared by Bulls ‘n Bears, a division of Faith Capital (Pvt) Ltd for general information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or subscribe for any securities. The information contained in this report has been compiled from s believed to be reliable, but no representation or warranty is made or guarantee given as to its accuracy or completeness. All opinions expressed and recommendations made are subject to change without notice. Securities or financial instruments mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors. Securities of emerging and mid-size growth companies typically involve a higher degree of risk and more volatility than the securities of more established companies. Neither Faith Capital nor any other member of Bulls ‘n Bears nor any other person, accepts any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this report or its contents or otherwise arising in connection therewith. Recipients of this report shall be solely responsible for making their own independent investigation into the business, financial condition and future prospects of any companies referred to in this report. Other  Indices quoted herein are for guideline purposes only and d from third parties.

 


 

 


 (c) 2025 Web:  <http://www.bullszimbabwe.com> www.bullszimbabwe.com Email:  <mailto:bulls at bullszimbabwe.com> bulls at bullszimbabwe.com Tel: +27 79 993 5557 | +263 71 944 1674

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 9458 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.png
Type: image/png
Size: 34378 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: oledata.mso
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 65561 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0001.obj>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image007.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29356 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image008.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29248 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image009.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 29361 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20250213/9726c361/attachment-0005.jpg>