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By Martin ABBUGAO SINGAPORE, Feb 23, 2024 (AFP) – Boeing and Airbus struck deals to sell billions of dollars’ worth of planes at this week’s airshow in Singapore, but supply chain disruptions mean they may struggle to deliver them on time, analysts said. Plane makers are already behind in their current orders due to parts shortages and lack of skilled labour, as the travel sector recovers from the havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. From […]
FRANKFURT, Germany, Feb 21, 2024 (AFP) – Tesla said Wednesday it will have to rethink expansion plans for its German factory, the electric carmaker’s only European plant, after local residents opposed them in a vote. The vote, which was not legally binding, related to a project to expand the Gruenheide site, south of Berlin, by 170 hectares (420 acres), from a current size of 300 hectares. The US company hopes to increase production at the […]
By Aminu ABUBAKAR KANO, Nigeria, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) Desperate Nigerians have been protesting against soaring food prices as an economic crisis forces people to skip meals and eat poor-grade rice used as fish food. To feed their children, women in northern Nigeria have even resorted to digging up anthills in search of grain stored by the insects, according to videos shown on social media. Since coming to office last year President Bola Ahmed Tinubu […]
LONDON, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Britain sank into recession at the end of last year on high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before this year’s election. Gross domestic product shrank 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 after contracting 0.1 percent in the prior three months, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement. That places the economy in recession, which is defined […]
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Once forecast to become the world’s biggest economy, Japan slipped below Germany last year to fourth place, official data showed Thursday, although India is projected to leapfrog both later this decade. Despite growing 1.9 percent, Japan’s nominal 2023 gross domestic product in dollar terms was $4.2 trillion, government data showed, compared with $4.5 trillion for Germany, according to figures released there last month. The change in […]
BUENOS AIRES, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Argentina’s monthly inflation slowed slightly in January, but the prices of key goods and services rose 254 percent year-on-year, the statistics agency said Wednesday. President Javier Milei had warned that the country’s battle with inflation was far from over when he took office in December, riding a wave of fury over decades of economic mismanagement, and stood by his policies Wednesday. “If one takes the number alone, isolated, […]
SINGAPORE, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Singapore’s economy grew less than expected last year, the government said Thursday as it warned geopolitical risks would continue to cause headwinds this year. The city-state’s economic performance is often seen as a barometer of the global environment because of its reliance on international trade. The 1.1 percent expansion last year, released by the trade ministry, was short of the 1.2 percent announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong […]
BEIJING, Feb 8, 2024 (AFP) – Chinese consumer prices fell in January at their quickest rate in more than 14 years, data showed Thursday, as the country’s leaders struggle to revive buying sentiment in the world’s second-biggest economy. The reading will likely add to calls for officials to do more to breathe life into the economy, with central bank interest rate cuts and measures to boost lending having little impact so far. The 0.8 percent […]
By Beiyi SEOW WASHINGTON, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – The US labor market smashed expectations last month in a surprise hiring pick-up, government data showed Friday, with a resilient jobs market likely good news for President Joe Biden in election year. The world’s biggest economy added 353,000 jobs in January, after December’s figure was significantly revised upwards to 333,000, said the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent for a third […]
MOSCOW, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Russia has created more than half a million new jobs in its defence sector to meet soaring demand on the battlefield, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The Kremlin has thrown massive resources at its full-scale assault on Ukraine, with the defence sector accounting for much of the sanction-hit economy’s growth. “In the last year and a half alone, 520,000 new jobs have been created in defence,” Putin told […]
WASHINGTON, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday approved a fresh $4.7 billion for Argentina, praising the new administration of President Javier Milei as he enacts “bold” cost-cutting to bring the country’s ailing economy back on track. The new disbursement — which brings to around $40.6 billion the amount sent to Argentina as part of a $44 billion aid program — is intended “to support the new authorities’ strong policy efforts […]
SEOUL, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for “leveling up” the living standards of rural areas, saying a failure to provide necessities, including food, was a “serious political issue”, state media said Thursday. Nuclear-armed North Korea has a fragile economy and its government has long been criticised for prioritising the military and its banned weapons programmes over adequately providing for its people. The North has periodically been hit by […]
