Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 27 January 2021

Wed Jan 27 11:47:27 CAT 2021

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Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 27 January 2021

ü  China opens door to Ant Group's stock market debut

ü  Goldman Sachs boss gets $10m pay cut for 1MDB scandal

ü  Joe Biden: The team he hopes can fix the US economy

ü  MPs accuse HSBC of aiding China's Hong Kong crackdown

ü  Brexit: Amazon prepares to stop selling some products to NI

ü  Xbox sales boom as virus maintains grip on economy

ü  Covid vaccine hopes lift IMF's global growth forecast

ü  Asian shares step back, Microsoft's brisk earnings boost tech optimism

ü  U.S. says $35 billion more in pandemic loans approved, trying to fix program snags

ü  Walmart plans to fill online orders with help from robots at some U.S. stores

ü  Microsoft earnings rise as pandemic boosts cloud computing, Xbox sales

ü  Nissan says new models in key markets to be electrified by early 2030s

ü  ByteDance says cutting India workforce, unsure of comeback: memo

ü  Kenya: Somalia Lifts Ban on Miraa Imports From Kenya

ü  Liberian Economy Front and Centre of Weah's State of the Nation Speech

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China opens door to Ant Group's stock market debut

China’s central bank governor has signalled that the door remains open for Ant Group’s stock market debut.

Ant, backed by billionaire founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Jack Ma, was set to list its shares in November.

Regulators suspended the listing and the People’s Bank of China later ordered a major shake-up at Alibaba.

Questions also grew about Mr Ma’s whereabouts, after he missed a television engagement earlier this month.

Last week, he made his first appearance since regulators cracked down on his business empire, speaking to a group of teachers via video-conferencing software as part of a charity event.

Bank governor Gang Yi has suggested that Ant Group's share market listing could be reconsidered under the right circumstances.

Chinese tech giant Ant Group was set to sell shares worth about $34.4bn (£26.5bn) before it was abruptly halted. The listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong would have been the biggest stock market debut to date.

“I’d say that you just follow the standard of legal instruction, you will have the result,” Yi said on Tuesday, speaking at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.

‘Complicated issue’

Mr Yi described the decision to stop the listing of Ant Group as a “complicated issue”.

Ant Group is China’s biggest payments provider, with more than 730 million monthly users on its digital payments service Alipay.

The company also has a consumer lending division, which takes fees from banks to match borrowers with lending services.

Mr Ma raised the ire of Chinese government officials at a financial technology conference in October, when he likened China’s state-dominated banking sector to “pawn shops” and lamented their lack of innovation.

Some saw the government’s crackdown on Mr Ma’s business empire as a vengeful communist party lashing out at the outspoken businessman.

But the government has been grappling with new technologies and their possible implications for the stability of China’s financial system, and reforming the sector is a long-standing policy goal.

Financial technology companies have opened up China’s financial system, and have given more options to smaller borrowers, but the changes have created some possible risks, Mr Yi said.

“That benefit is obvious, but at the same time we can see also some risks to consumer information and protection and also some monopoly potential and also some misuse of the monopoly power,” he added.

Shifting rich list

While the Ant Group has come under intense regulatory scrutiny, its tech rival Tencent has surged on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The company neared a trillion dollar valuation earlier this week, helping Tencent’s founder Pony Ma become China's second wealthiest man.

Tencent has a very profitable gaming business, and it is also one of Ant’s competitors in the payments business.

Pony Ma leapfrogged both Jack Ma and Colin Huang, the founder of Alibaba’s e-commerce rival Pinduoduo.--BBC

Goldman Sachs boss gets $10m pay cut for 1MDB scandal

Goldman Sachs' chief executive David Solomon will get a $10m (£7.3m) pay cut for the bank's involvement in the 1MDB corruption scandal.

1MDB was an investment fund set up by the Malaysian government that lost billions due to fraudulent activity.

The global web of fraud and corruption led to a 12-year jail term for Malaysia's ex-prime minister Najib Razak which he is appealing.

Goldman Sachs called its involvement in the scandal an "institutional failure".

Goldman Sachs helped raise $6.5bn for 1MDB by selling bonds to investors, the proceeds of which were largely stolen.

Prosecutors alleged that senior Goldman executives ignored warning signs of fraud in their dealings with 1MDB and Jho Low, an adviser to the fund. Two Goldman bankers have been criminally charged in the scandal.

Mr Solomon's pay would have been $10m higher but for the actions its board of directors took in response to the 1MDB saga, Goldman Sachs said on Tuesday.

While disclosing his salary had dropped to $17.5m for 2020, the bank stressed that Mr Solomon was unaware of the corruption.

He was not "involved in or aware of the firm's participation in any illicit activity at the time... the board views the 1MDB matter as an institutional failure, inconsistent with the high expectations it has for the firm".

Mr Solomon's package consists of $2m in cash base pay, a $4.65m cash bonus, and $10.85m in stock-based compensation.

Bumper year

In October, Goldman agreed to pay nearly $3bn to government officials in four countries to end an investigation into work it performed for 1MDB. The bank collected $600m for arranging the bond sales in 2012 and 2013.

It has spent years being investigated by regulators across the globe including those in the US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.In total, Goldman's dealings with 1MDB cost the bank more than $5bn.

Despite the costs and fines from the fallout from the 1MDB scandal, 2020 was a bumper year for Goldman's businesses with annual revenue of $44.6bn, its highest since 2009.

The US-based bank got a huge boost from the recovery in global stock markets from the depths of the coronavirus recession.

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In 2018 Malaysian police raided the home of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, as part of their investigation in his involvement with 1MDB.--BBC

Joe Biden: The team he hopes can fix the US economy

President Joe Biden has vowed to heal America's economy from the pandemic with a large dose of economic stimulus - including immediate relief and investments in green jobs, infrastructure and more.

He's called on a team of Ivy League trained economists and lawyers, well-versed in the ways of Washington, to turn his vision into reality.

Many worked under former President Barack Obama on the response to the 2007-8 financial crisis, a hit from which it took the US a decade to emerge.

The task facing them now is even more dire, with more than 10 million Americans out of work and a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more people than World War II.

The 74-year-old economist, who trained at Brown and Yale universities and taught at the University of California's Berkeley campus, is the first woman to lead the Treasury Department in its 231-year-old history - and the only person to have previously headed up the Council of Economic Advisors and America's central bank.

The daughter of a Brooklyn doctor, she is credited with helping steer the US economy out of the last recession while pushing the central bank to focus on issues like inequality.

But former president Donald Trump declined to renew her tenure at the Federal Reserve - in part, because he reportedly feared that at just five feet tall, she was too short for the job.

Now she will assume a role overseeing everything from taxation and financial regulation to sanctions, acting as a key authority as Mr Biden calls for more government spending.

In a letter to the Senate urging her swift confirmation, all 14 of America's former living treasury secretaries said it was "hard to imagine a better prepared nominee to meet this great moment of need".

A slightly different tribute came from singer Dessa, who crafted a verse in the style of the Hamilton musical, rapping  "Here comes Yellen with that inside voice. Nevermind the mild manner, policies make noise."

"She's five foot nothin', but hand to God, she can pop a collar, she can rock a power bob."

Aged just 42, Brian Deese will be the youngest person ever to serve as head of the National Economic Council, charged with marshalling and coordinating the government's economic policies.

Mr Deese made his name working on the rescue of the auto industry amid the 2007-8 financial crisis. His responsibilities later expanded to include financial regulation, budget issues and climate change - an area central to Mr Biden's strategy for reviving the US economy.

Some on the left see Mr Deese - who took a post as director of sustainable investing at financial giant Blackrock after leaving government - as too friendly to Wall Street and too worried about running up the deficit.

But he's also got high-profile defenders.

After Mr Deese was announced, Obama advisor David Axelrod called Mr Deese's work responding to the 2008 recession "heroic", while Mr Obama in 2016, discussing his work on the Paris greenhouse gas agreement, told Rolling Stone that he "may have helped save the planet and he's just doing it while he's got two babies at home, and could not be a better person".

Neera Tanden will be faced with the tricky task of turning policy priorities into reality via the federal budget.

Currently the head of the liberal Washington thinktank the Center for American Progress, the 50-year-old would be the first woman of colour and first south Asian American to lead the office of management and budget.

In announcing her nomination, Mr Biden said Ms Tanden's childhood raised by a single mother reliant on public assistance programmes would give her key insight for a role overseeing the federal government's spending might.

The Yale-trained lawyer also worked on health care reform under Mr Obama and was a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton.

Republicans have greeted her as a staunch partisan, and said her "combative and insulting" comments on Twitter and elsewhere - many of which have been deleted in recent weeks - would likely generate opposition among their members.

But emails leaked by Wikileaks from 2016 suggest Ms Tanden doesn't limit her blunt commentary to conservatives.

In one exchange, she wrote of then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who once threw her a wedding shower: "No one knows better [than] me that her instincts can be terrible."

Princeton economist Cecilia Rouse, Mr Biden's pick to chair the Council of Economic Advisors, made her name working on issues of inequality and its intersection with race, gender, education and other issues.

Her most famous paper showed that blind auditions increased female hires at orchestras. Other work has examined school spending and the effect of scholarships on university students.

But the dean of Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs, whose father was also an academic, hasn't stayed cloistered in the Ivory Tower.

The 57-year-old did stints in government under former president Bill Clinton and worked on issues such as long-term unemployment as an economic advisor to former president Obama.

She would be the first African American to lead the council in its history.

Katherine Tai will become America's top trade negotiator, leading an office that she previously served as attorney working on US complaints about Chinese trade.

She left the office in 2014, but remained involved in trade issues as an aide to congressional Democrats as it emerged as a key player in Donald Trump's trade wars.

Ms Tai won praise for helping to negotiate labour rights provisions that were added to Mr Trump's updated trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico. In her new role, her focus will likely return to China, where her parents were born and where she taught English for two years in the 1990s.

In confronting the economic heavyweight, the Mandarin-speaker has said the Trump administration's strategy relied too much on "defensive" measures, like tariffs.

"The offense has got to be about what are we going to do to make ourselves and our workers and our industries and our allies faster, nimbler ... and ultimately be able to defend this open Democratic way of life," she said at an event in August.

"It is about more than just economics and economic values. It is also about our political and our broader values."--BBC

MPs accuse HSBC of aiding China's Hong Kong crackdown

MPs have accused banking giant HSBC of "aiding and abetting" China's crackdown in Hong Kong.

Chief executive Noel Quinn, appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee, was told the bank was turning a blind eye to the situation.

HSBC has historic links to Hong Kong, where pro-democracy campaigners have taken to the streets.

Mr Quinn mounted a robust defence of the bank, saying: "I can't cherry-pick which laws to follow."

HSBC faced accusations of acting in a political manner and being too close to the Chinese authorities after it emerged last year that the bank had frozen accounts belonging to pro-democracy politician Ted Hui and members of his family.

There has also been criticism over HSBC's actions last summer, when it was one of a number of institutions which appeared to welcome the introduction of a new security law in Hong Kong.

On Tuesday Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell said HSBC showed "double-standards, hypocrisy and appeasement" in acceding to China's sweeping security crackdown in the former British colony.

He claimed the bank was operating a "hear no evil, see no evil" approach to Hong Kong's problems, while Labour's Chris Bryant accused HSBC of "aiding and abetting one of the biggest crackdowns on democracy in the world".

But Mr Quinn categorically denied the bank had acted on political grounds, and said the company would only freeze accounts when it had received a formal request from law enforcement officials.

If the bank received such a request, he said, it had no option but to comply, or it would be committing a criminal offence.

"I have to obey the law... If we commit a criminal offence that puts us and millions of deposits at risk," Mr Quinn told the committee.

During sometimes testy exchanges with MP's, Mr Quinn said he accepted that the current environment in Hong Kong was "challenging".

Asked if he was prepared to take his company away from Hong Kong if the situation continued to deteriorate, he said "the answer is no".

The company, founded in Hong Kong but headquartered in Britain, had been in the region for 155 years, Mr Quinn said, and was "100% committed" to remaining there.

Pressed on the political affiliations of its staff in Hong Kong, he insisted that he would not "go around asking all my employees in China 'are you a Communist party member'".

Questioned about HSBC's support for the security law, Mr Quinn said the bank had simply pointed out that it wanted the security situation in the region to be stabilised after 18 months of decline.

Matters had reached a point, he said, which were detrimental to the economy and to the population of Hong Kong. Stability was needed to repair communities and the economy.

But Mr Quinn insisted he was trying to do its best by its customers, and to stay out of politics.

It would do more harm to Hong Kong communities, he claimed, if HSBC chose to walk away from the region, he added.--BBC

Brexit: Amazon prepares to stop selling some products to NI

Interior of Amazon warehouse in Hemel Hempstead

Amazon is preparing to remove some products for sale to NI customers as a result of the Irish Sea border.

It could lead to some goods like food supplements and some over-the-counter medicines being unavailable.

It would take effect when the "grace period" for GB-NI parcels expires.

Amazon said "we are planning and preparing for 1 April so we can continue to serve our customers in NI who count on Amazon with the broadest possible selection of products".

At the beginning of the year Amazon halted beer, wine and spirits sales due to concerns that it would have to pay excise duty twice on shipments to Northern Ireland.

It is understood that Amazon is being guided by EU's Prohibitions and Restrictions for Customs list, otherwise known as "the P&R list."

This is a list of products which are either banned from the EU or which must undergo specific processes or checks to enter.

That includes exotic items like seal pups and nuclear waste but also covers some everyday products like some food products and animal medicines.

Northern Ireland has remained part of the EU's single market for goods while the rest of the UK has left.

That means that goods entering NI from Great Britain are subject to EU rules.

No new checks or controls have been imposed on parcels since 1 January due to a grace period which is due to expire on 1 April.

Earlier this month Amazon told its marketplace sellers that parcels going from GB to Northern Ireland will also need a customs declaration from April.

Some retailers are already using customs processes to ship goods from GB to NI.

When the government announced the three month grace period in December it said the move recognised "the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, the impacts of any disruption to parcel movements in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and specific challenges for operators moving express consignments."

It added that when it came to the long term arrangements: "Our priority is to have a pragmatic approach that allows us to comply with the [Northern Ireland] Protocol without causing undue disruption to businesses and citizens.

"HMRC is engaging with operators to finalise arrangements."

A UK government spokesperson said: "These goods will not be taxed twice, and we will issue new guidance clarifying the position to ensure any remaining issues are addressed."--BBC

Xbox sales boom as virus maintains grip on economy

Microsoft has reported booming demand for its Xbox gaming consoles as the pandemic continues to lift the fortunes of the American tech giant.

Its Azure cloud computing services also got a boost due to a surge in working and learning from home.

The gains helped push the firm's overall revenue up 17% to a record $43.1bn (£31.4bn).

But its growth came as the virus continues to weigh on other industries.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said the firm is benefiting from a long-term shift in behaviour.

"What we have witnessed over the past year is the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry," he said.

Xbox sales jumped 40% in the three months to 31 December while Azure services soared 50%.

The pandemic has prompted many firms to switch to remote working, while keeping many entertainment options outside of the home off-limits.

Microsoft has seized on the changes, focusing energy on updating its remote work software options.

The firm also released two new Xbox consoles in November, helping to boost the performance of its personal computing unit.

Microsoft's gaming business topped $5bn in quarterly sales for the first time ever due to gaming subscriptions and sales as well as new consoles.

The firm said profits in the quarter rose 33% compared with last year to $15.5bn.

Its shares - which climbed roughly 40% last year - were up another 4% in after-hours trade,

"These were blow out numbers that will be another feather in the cap for the tech sector as the cloud growth party is just getting started," said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Starbucks US business suffers

But the gains enjoyed by tech firms like Microsoft stand in contrast to the ongoing struggles seen in other industries such as hospitality, retail and travel.

Coffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday said its sales in the last three months of 2020 fell roughly 5% compared to 2019, driven by a drop in business in the US where concerns about Covid-19 have prompted authorities to urge people to stay at home.

In China, where the virus is under more control, sales rose 5%, the company said.

The firm said it expected business to return to growth in the next few months, including in the critical US market.

But profits in the quarter dropped 30% to $622.2m compared with last year, sending the firm's shares lower in after-hours trade.--BBC

Covid vaccine hopes lift IMF's global growth forecast

Hopes of a "vaccine-powered" pick-up in activity later this year have led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to upgrade its forecast for global economic growth in 2021.

The IMF's new global forecast is for growth of 5.5% this year and 4.2% in 2022.

For the UK, the growth forecast for this year has been lowered to 4.5%.

However, the IMF now thinks the UK's contraction last year was not as deep as it had previously estimated.

That said, the estimated 10% contraction in the UK was still, according to these IMF figures, the largest of the G7 group of leading rich economies.

The global upgrade reflects - in addition to vaccine developments - government spending measures announced towards the end of last year, especially in the United States and Japan.

Both are given significant upgrades in the new forecast.

Those two economies are predicted to get back to pre-pandemic - that is at the end of 2019 - levels of activity later this year.

By contrast, the IMF says activity in Britain and the euro area is likely to remain below pre-pandemic levels into 2022.

"The wide divergence reflects to an important extent differences across countries in behavioural and public health responses to infections, flexibility and adaptability of economic activity to low mobility, pre-existing trends, and structural rigidities entering the crisis," the IMF said.

The IMF also expects diverging performance among developing countries. China's containment of the virus and public investment have helped produce a strong recovery. China managed to avoid an economic contraction last year, though its growth rate was sharply down from previous years.

Gita Gopinath

image captionIMF chief economist Gita Gopinath says the gap between rich and poorer nations is likely to widen.

There is also a large upward revision to this year's forecast for India. That reflects a stronger than expected bounce back after lockdown measures were eased.

But it will be harder for developing economies that rely on tourism or selling oil. Demand for both has been hit very hard by the pandemic and is likely to return to normal slowly.

Rich countries are for the most part expected to recover more quickly than developing nations. That reflects their quicker access to vaccines and the fact they have been able to provide what the IMF's chief economist Gita Gopinath calls more expansive support.

"With advanced economies generally expected to recover faster, progress made towards convergence over the last decade is at risk of reversing," Ms Gopinath says.

In spite of the good news on vaccine developments, the report notes lingering concerns - the surge in infections in late 2020 in some countries (including the UK), renewed lockdowns and logistical issues with the distribution of vaccines.

The report says aggressive policies from governments and central banks have helped prevent worse outcomes. It says these measures should remain until vaccines support the start of a return to normal.--BBC

Asian shares step back, Microsoft's brisk earnings boost tech optimism

TOKYO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian equities slipped on Wednesday as investors looked to the Federal Reserve’s guidance on its monetary policy while futures for U.S. tech shares jumped after strong earnings from Microsoft.

European stocks are expected to slip a tad, with EuroStoxx 50 futures down 0.3% and FTSE futures shedding 0.4%.

MSCI’s gauge of Asian ex-Japan shares slipped 0.2%, dragged lower by profit-taking in resource shares as some investors have grown wary of stretched valuations.

“The global economy appears to be losing momentum a bit and there is no clear sign yet that COVID-19 infections are slowing even after vaccinations have started in some places. I expect shares to get stuck in a range for a while,” said Hisashi Iwama, senior portfolio manager at Asset Management One.

But the tech sector remained a bright spot after Microsoft’s earnings lifted Nasdaq futures 0.5% while Japan’s Nikkei also rose 0.3%.

Microsoft shares rose 3.7% in extended trading after its Azure cloud computing services grew 50%, boosting optimism for other U.S. tech giants, including Apple and Facebook, which announce quarterly results later in the day.

“Microsoft’s earnings were superb, even compared with strong market expectations,” said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

“Those tech firm shares have been in a bit of the doldrums since August but they are likely to lead the market again, given their solid outlook,” he said.

At their peak in August, the combined market capitalisation of the top five biggest U.S. tech companies, which also include Amazon and Alphabet, reached 24.6% of the U.S. blue chip S&P500 index. It stood at 22.7%, still well above 15% two years ago.

S&P500 futures were mostly flat, capped by caution ahead of the Fed’s policy meeting as well as profit-taking on cyclical shares after stellar gains this month.

The S&P500 is now trading at 22.7 times its expected earnings, near its September peak of 23.1 times, which was its most inflated level since the dotcom bubble in 2000.

A surge in shares of video games company Gamestop driven by retail investors also raised some concerns that a rally propelled by loads of stimulus money from governments and central banks has become extreme.

Still, analysts expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to stick to its dovish tone to help speed the economic recovery when it concludes its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday.

U.S. stimulus talks are also in focus with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying Democrats will move forward on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan without Republican support if necessary.

Benchmark 10-year notes were yielding 1.035%, having hit a three-week low of 1.028% on Tuesday on rising speculation Biden may have to scale back and possibly delay his ambitious stimulus plan.

The U.S. dollar was little moved as investors awaited the Fed’s decision for clues on whether they should buy riskier currencies.

The dollar index flirted with this week’s low at 90.204, while the euro held firm at $1.2161.

Sterling rose to as high as $1.3753, a level last seen in May 2018 while the Japanese yen changed hands at 103.70 per dollar.

The Australian dollar slipped 0.1% to $0.7739, showing muted response to stronger-than-expected local inflation data.

Oil prices were supported by economic optimism, with U.S. crude futures trading up 0.6% at $52.95 per barrel.

The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for global growth in 2021, as widely expected, and many investors expect the global economic recovery from the pandemic-driven downturn to continue.

U.S. says $35 billion more in pandemic loans approved, trying to fix program snags

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) on Tuesday said it had approved 400,000 more pandemic relief loans worth $35 billion and was trying to fix issues operational snags with the program raised by lenders.

The SBA launched the third round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) this month, but significant changes to its rules, process and technology platform, has caused problems that were slowing approvals, a bank group said on Tuesday.

Companies looking to apply for a second PPP loan were encountering technical hurdles the American Bankers Association said, while lenders are also receiving a “high number of incorrect error messages” when they submit loan applications.

Reuters reported this month that government officials had pressured large lenders earlier to go live with the latest round of the program despite many unresolved issues.

The SBA said on Tuesday that a review of first-time loans found anomalies – “mostly data mismatches and eligibility concerns” – in approximately 4.7% of the lender-submitted data.

“These concerns will require follow-up between the lender and the borrower so that borrowers can access a second round of loans,” the SBA said, adding it would provide guidance to help lenders work through the problems they’re encountering.

Under the PPP, companies receive loans from banks and fintech companies that will be repaid by the government if the money is spent on eligible expenses. Some $525 billion worth of PPP loans were made last year via 5.1 million loans.

Congress expanded the program with another $284 billion last month. It also changed the rules on who was eligible, what the money could be spent, as well as changing the process for submitting and approving loans.

Walmart plans to fill online orders with help from robots at some U.S. stores

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Walmart Inc will add small robot-staffed warehouses to dozens of its stores to help fill orders for pickup and delivery, the company said on Wednesday, as Americans shift their spending online amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The robots will work behind the scenes, picking frozen and refrigerated foods as well as smaller general merchandise items from inside the warehouses, or local fulfillment centers, that will carry “thousands of frequently purchased items.”

Store staff, meanwhile, will go to the sales floor to fetch fresh produce, meat, seafood and larger general merchandise items like large-screen TVs, then returning to the centers to finish assembling orders, the company said.

The world’s largest retailer, which operates nearly 5,000 stores nationwide, did not say how many stores will have the new centers but said it was “planning dozens of locations, with many more to come.”

Contactless services like curbside pickup and home delivery have boomed as virus wary shoppers have opted to stay home and make purchases online.

The trend has fueled record digital sales at major retailers such as Target Corp and Best Buy, and Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart has been no exception.

In Q1, at the start of the pandemic, pick-up and delivery services at Walmart surged 300%, while the number of new customers jumped four-fold, the company said.

“We don’t see the use of these services changing in the future -- we expect that we’ll continue to serve more and more customers who have come to rely on pickup and delivery,” Tom Ward, SVP of Customer Product for Walmart U.S, told reporters on a conference call.

Walmart began testing similar automated technology in late 2019 at a store in Salem, New Hampshire and found that orders can be filled in “just a few minutes,” Ward said.

The new move comes as Walmart’s chief executive for U.S. e-commerce operations in the United States, Marc Lore, is due to step down at the end of the month.

Under Lore’s watch, the big-box retailer launched same-day delivery and store pick-up services, as well as an Amazon Prime rivaling membership program dubbed “Walmart Plus” to take on the e-commerce giant in its own game.

Microsoft earnings rise as pandemic boosts cloud computing, Xbox sales

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp on Tuesday reported its Azure cloud computing services grew 50%, the second quarter of acceleration in a business that had begun to slow as the global pandemic benefited the software maker’s investment on working and learning from home.

The company’s shares rose 5% in extended trading after gaining about 41% in 2020 as COVID-19 shifted computing to areas where the software maker has bet big. It also saw a surprise recovery in sales on the LinkedIn professional social network and navigated a chip shortage that had threaten to hold back its Xbox business.

The shift to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated enterprises’ switch to cloud-based computing, benefiting Microsoft and rivals such as Amazon.com Inc’s cloud unit and Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud.

On a conference call with investors, Microsoft executives said they expect a midpoint of $14.83 billion in revenue from the company’s “Intelligent Cloud” segment for the fiscal third quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations of $14.12 billion, according to Refinitiv data. For the company’s productivity segment and its personal computing segment, sales are expected to have a respective midpoint of $13.48 billion and $12.50 billion, compared with estimates of $12.90 billion and $11.60 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Microsoft said GamePass, the company’s $10 monthly gaming subscription, has 18 million users, up from 15 million disclosed in September. The Xbox Live online gaming service has more than 100 million monthly active users. Microsoft did not give an update on the 115 million Teams daily users it disclosed in October but did say that the mobile version is used by 60 million daily users.

Microsoft said revenue in its “Intelligent Cloud” segment rose 23% to $14.6 billion, with 50% growth in Azure. Analysts had expected a 41.4% growth in Azure, according to consensus data from Visible Alpha. The previous quarter Azure grew 48%.

“This was really driven by continued customer demand, with stronger-than-expected consumption as customers have increased their focus on digital transformation,” Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood told Reuters in an interview.

Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said that last year, “economic weakness and delays in implementation had masked the extent to which Azure was benefiting from the accelerated shift to the cloud caused by the pandemic. But with these results that benefit is now plain to see.”

LinkedIn revenue growth, which dipped as the pandemic shut down businesses, reached 23%, near its pre-pandemic rate of 24% a year earlier. Hood said advertisements on LinkedIn drove the increase.

“We continue to see advertising market recovery,” she said.

Microsoft bundles several sets of software and services such as Office and Azure into a “commercial cloud” metric that investors watch closely to gauge the company’s progress in selling to large businesses.

Commercial cloud gross margins - a measure of the profitability of its sales to large businesses - were 71% in the quarter, compared with 67% a year earlier.

Revenue from its personal computing division, which includes Windows software and Xbox gaming consoles, rose 14% to $15.1 billion, driven by strong Xbox content and services growth, beating analysts’ estimates of $13.5 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Microsoft in November released two new Xbox consoles, its most visible non-work and non-school brand, but the hardware proved difficult to find as a global semiconductor shortage contributed to tight stocks as many retailers. Xbox hardware sales were up 86% despite the shortages, and Hood said growth is likely to continue, with older models also contributing to sales.

“Demand still outpaces supply, and we do expect that to continue,” Hood said. “The team did a nice job of getting consoles, both of this newest generation as well as continuing to sell the older generation, which provides a great value for gamers.”

Microsoft’s gaming business topped $5 billion in quarterly sales for the first time ever and was propelled by gaming subscriptions and sales as well as new consoles. Microsoft said Xbox content and services revenue grew 40% in the quarter.

The software giant’s overall revenue rose to $43.08 billion in the second quarter ended Dec. 31, from $36.91 billion a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates of $40.18 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Nissan says new models in key markets to be electrified by early 2030s

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co said on Wednesday all its “new vehicle offerings” in key markets would be electrified by the early 2030s, as part of the Japanese automaker’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The company, which plans to cover markets in Japan, China, the United States and Europe, said it will pursue battery innovations, including as solid-state batteries, for electric vehicles (EVs) and further develop its e-POWER hybrid technology to achieve greater energy efficiency.

“We’re determined to help create a carbon-neutral society and accelerate the global effort against climate change,” said Nissan Chief Executive Officer Makoto Uchida.

Nissan’s plans come as global automakers are pivoting from diesel vehicles to electric and hybrid models, while Japan aims to eliminate sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by the mid-2030s, shifting to EVs including hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.

The country laid out a “green growth strategy” last year that includes a goal to replace new gasoline-powered vehicles with EVs by mid-2030s to help achieve 2050 carbon-neutral goal.

Japan, where renewable energy accounted for 18% in the country’s power mix in the year ended March 2020, is in the process to review its energy policy.

ByteDance says cutting India workforce, unsure of comeback: memo

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - China’s ByteDance is cutting the size of its India team and is unsure when it will make a comeback, the company told employees in an internal memo on Wednesday, months after its popular TikTok video app was banned.

The move came after India decided to retain its ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps following responses from the companies on issues such as compliance and privacy.

The ban dates from last year when political tension between the neighbours rose over their disputed border.

“We initially hoped that this situation would be short-lived...we find that has not been the case,” ByteDance wrote in the memo to staff in India, seen by Reuters.

“We simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while our apps remain un-operational...we don’t know when we will make a comeback in India”

In a statement, Tiktok said it was disappointing that despite its efforts it had not received a clear direction on how and when its apps could be re-instated.

“It is deeply regretful that after supporting our 2,000-plus employees in India for more than half a year, we have no choice but to scale back the size of our workforce,” it said, but gave no further specifics.

At the time of last year’s ban, the Indian government described the apps as “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India”. The move followed a skirmish with Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border site that killed 20 Indian troops.

TikTok had committed to spend $1 billion in the region. Before the ban it had become one of the fastest-growing social media apps in India, once its largest market in terms of users.

Kenya: Somalia Lifts Ban on Miraa Imports From Kenya

Somalia's federal government has officially lifted the ban on importation of miraa (khat) from Kenya but imposed certain conditions for the commodity to be admitted on its territory.

Somalia's Finance Minister, Dr Abdirahman Dualeh Beileh, told a press conference in his office on Monday evening that traders will now be allowed to import miraa, but indicated that businesses must follow proper commercial procedures.

"Traders must import khat into the country by legal means," Dr Beileh said.

"I hereby declare that that nobody is barred from importing khat and [it] can be brought through any entry point if proper regulations are followed," he added.

Khat is the common name for miraa in Somalia and the Middle East.

Miraa is a brain stimulant, widely chewed in Somalia as a pastime.

"The stuff can be imported from any source and by any means, be by plane, donkey and even personally carried," the minister said.

Obtain licenses

Dr Beileh advised miraa merchants to obtain the correct licenses from the government allowing importing the goods , provided the appropriate duties are paid.

Somalia had stopped the importation of miraa when international flights were suspended due to the fear of spread of Covid-19 last year.

But, when international air travels resumed, importation of miraa from Kenya was still restricted, with only that from Ethiopia, a slightly different variety, being allowed in.

The spat between Kenya and Somalia over the miraa issue dates back to 2016 when then Meru governor Peter Munya, now Kenya's Agriculture Cabinet Secretary, caused a stir by visiting the breakaway Somaliland, offering to have it recognised if the country allowed miraa from Kenya on its markets.

Somalia responded by accusing Mr Munya of "attempting to break up our country".

Immigration pacts

The ban had, however, been lifted following discussions at diplomatic level, which also included certain gradual immigration pacts. Their implementation, has however, been hampered by a border spat between the two countries which saw Somalia sever ties with Kenya.

Mohamed Ad'eed, a business management expert in Mogadishu, told Nation that commerce should be encouraged by all means in the Eastern Africa region.

"Khat, which is grown in neighbouring countries like Kenya and Ethiopia and imported into Somalia, is a symbol of inter-regional trade and should be widened to other products and sectors," remarked Mr Ad'eed.-Nation.

Liberian Economy Front and Centre of Weah's State of the Nation Speech

Monrovia — Liberian President George Weah proposed several economic policies and legislative reforms during his 4th State of the Nation Address in Monrovia on Monday, in an effort to address the country's worsening economic situation.

"The policy of my government was significantly focused on protecting the purchasing power of our low-income population by aggressively fighting inflation, which reduced from about 30 percent in 2019 to about 12 percent in December 2020," he said.

Weah, citing a challenging year for the Liberian economy, attributed the decline to Covid-19 lockdowns, restrictions on international travel, disruptions in supply chains and international trade among others.

The president pointed to a contraction of the economy in 2020 by three percent in terms of growth, greater than previously estimated by the government.

Currency conundrum

Weah said that country's banknote shortage has not been resolved, but he is appealing to the legislature for solutions.

Liberian monetary authorities have printed about 20 billion Liberian dollars over the past four years, but he said more than 90 percent of the cash is held outside the banks.

"The liquidity pressure on the Liberian dollar was aggravated by increasing demand for the local currency," said Weah.

Amid distrust in the banking sector, Weah is seeking legislative approval to print a new set of banknotes.

"I respectfully call upon you, Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen, to act swiftly to resolve the situation before the next season of high demand for cash," he said, adding that he wants Liberians to use mobile money for transactions in order to reduce demands for hard currency.

Alarming debt portfolio

Liberia's total stock of public debt at the end of 2020 amounts to US$1.5 billion, with domestic debt of US$643 million and external debt hitting US$940 million.

"This increase in domestic debt stock is mainly because of the restructuring and consolidation of the government's debt to the Central Bank of Liberia," he said.

"It includes US$170 million that was contracted by the previous administration but never included in official debt statistics," Weah added, taking a swipe at former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's administration.

Liberia: George #Weah's property empire fuels distrust over asset declaration #LongReadhttps://t.co/zALtGU69CI - RFI English (@RFI_En) January 23, 2021

The Liberian leader described agriculture as a vehicle for economic revival as he called on potential investors to finance development in the sector.

"Everyone must go back to the soil, in order to utilise agriculture as a vital tool for the revitalisation of the economy," he told lawmakers on Monday, extolling the virtues of Liberian land, labour and climate.

He projects economic growth of 3.2 percent, reiterating forecasts by the International Monetary Fund published in December.

Pro-poor, more in debt

Weah swept to power in 2017, promising to narrow the gap between the poor and the rich through his government's Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).

The pledge became the most singular slogan of a president who rose from the slums of Monrovia to the presidency.

Ep 14 Africa Calling podcast: Midterm review for Liberia's President George Weah

However, as the 54-year-old marked the half time of his six-year tenure during his State of the Nation address on 22 January, a number of those underprivileged people who championed his landslide victory are not happy over worsening economic hardship.

Additionally, opposition leaders are angry that Weah made no mention of job creation in his address.

Under the Pro-Poor agenda, the government promised to create one million jobs over a period of five years.

"Instead of a job creation strategy as promised in the PADP, the government has actually implemented a job destruction strategy through his administration's poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency," said Alexander Cummings, head of Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), a coalition of opposition parties, who spoke to RFI after Weah's speech.

Criticism

CPP supporters Cooper Paasewe and Magnus Nian think the president's economic policies are not realistic, and will not impact the lives of the poor who brought Weah to the presidency.

"I wouldn't encourage the printing of new currency until the president and his officials can clearly tell us how the first Liberian$16 billion and the recently printed Liberian $4billion was distributed to the commercial banks," said Paasewe.

Fellow supporter Nian had anticipated that the president would have outlined measures taken to encourage investors as a means of narrowing the unemployment rate, and was disappointed that he did not address this directly.

"All the government can do is to introduce a stronger monetary policy like reducing the waiting times at banks, improving interest rates for depositors among others to control the money in the economy," he said.

But Weah loyalists Eben Reeves and Jimmy Wahlo believe the policies outlined are necessary to revive the economy with support from all Liberians.

"The president's speech is very honest. Stressing the need to revamp the agriculture sector to ensure economic growth is cardinal if we can invest in the sector," said Reeves.

Hope for turning point

They believe that with a boom in road connectivity, along with the agriculture sector, the economy will once again grow.

Opposition CPP head Cummings does not understand Weah's justification of the increase of more than US$300 million in debt in just one year.

"When international partners are sponsoring all road construction, our entire Covid-19 response was paid for by the international community; so, what was the money borrowed for?" he said.

The opposition leader admits that Weah cannot be held liable for creating all the problems facing the nation but insists he has reportedly contributed to creating some of the issues.

"The truth is that the road ahead to 2023 will be long and difficult, but I can assure you of the commitment of the CPP to remain engaged on behalf of the Liberian people. Together, we will get through the difficulties," Cummings concluded.

Liberians now hope that the implementation of the economic policies outlined by the president will be the turning point for economic growth in the country.-RFI website.

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