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Russia’s economic recovery reaches pre-pandemic level with higher-than-expected growth of 4.6%

July 29, 2021 by Leave a Comment

According to the ministry, in June the country’s GDP reached the pre-pandemic level corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2019, growing by 8.5% in annual terms. In the second quarter of 2021, GDP growth amounted to 10.1% compared to the same period in 2020 and 1.5% growth compared to the second quarter of 2019.

Also on rt.com Russian economy recovering faster than expected from pandemic – IMF

The country’s GDP is mostly driven by non-energy sectors, including the agriculture, manufacturing, and construction industries. Domestic demand remained the main driver of the economy in 2021, the ministry stated. It also revealed that the average incomes of the population at the end of the second quarter this year were close to the level of the same quarter of 2019.

The ministry noted that, from April 2021, the annual dynamics of the main macroeconomic indicators were influenced by the low base of the corresponding months of 2020, when Covid-19 quarantine restrictions were at their peak. With this in mind, the ministry is basing calculations of the annual dynamics of economic recovery on the fourth quarter of 2019, which was unaffected by the pandemic.

Also on rt.com Russia less reliant on oil gas as economic recovery in other sectors fuels country’s rapid return to growth, new report reveals

Last month, the ministry raised its outlook for Russia’s total GDP in 2021 to 3.8%, instead of the previously expected 2.9%. The forecast GDP growth will be the fastest that Russia’s economy has seen since 2012, as the average annual growth in 2014-2019 was less than 0.5%, with a dramatic 3% decline in 2020.

But the actual size of the Russian economy is likely far bigger than official statistics indicate. The numbers don’t take into account the country’s considerable black and gray economies. Many businesses in the country continue to pay workers, as well as buy goods and supplies, in cash. One Swedish-backed study estimated the off-the-books share of the Russian economy at a whopping 45% in 2018. This number would make Russia Europe’s largest real economy, in terms of purchasing parity.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530543-russia-economy-growth-surge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Chinese stocks gain on reports Beijing will continue to allow US listings

July 29, 2021 by Leave a Comment

According to media sources, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai said Beijing would continue to allow domestic companies to register IPOs on the US stock market if they meet listing requirements. The official made the comment late Wednesday at an online meeting with representatives of the likes of Goldman Sachs and UBS, as well as some of China’s investment banks, the media reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Also on rt.com China’s crackdown on firms trading in US could kill $2 TRILLION listings market

Xinghai reportedly warned that the existing legal structure that covers access to Chinese assets by international investors would have to be reformed if national security concerns arise. The CSRC has not made an official public statement and has not responded to media requests for comment.

The Hang Seng stock market in Hong Kong surged 3% on Thursday, while the Shanghai Composite Index rebounded 1.5% after three days of losses. Chinese social media giant Tencent’s stock jumped 7.2% in Hong Kong, while search giant Baidu gained 5.4%. Shares in China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba also traded higher, gaining 4.8%.

The rally comes after several days of heavy losses on the Chinese markets over fears of stricter regulation. Beijing has recently stepped up its screening of Chinese tech companies and firms listed on the US market. The Chinese State Council, the country’s most senior executive body, said in a recent statement that all businesses with a million or more users would have to gain approval from the country’s cybersecurity regulator if they wanted to list overseas. Prior to that, Beijing also announced plans to amend the rules of the overseas listing system for Chinese firms, as well as to enforce controls on cross-border data flows and security.

Also on rt.com China’s crackdown on Didi following its Wall St IPO shows that billionaires don’t run the show in Beijing – unlike in Washington

Furthermore, last week, Beijing issued a new policy requiring Chinese after-school tutoring companies to become non-profits, which effectively bans them from raising money through the stock market or having foreign investors. Following the news, the stocks of major Chinese education organizations dropped sharply, both in Hong Kong and in the US, further increasing fears that Beijing is set on blocking foreign capital flows into Chinese assets. According to CNBC sources, however, the new regulation is aimed at lifting parents’ financial burden rather than blocking foreign investment.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530528-china-ipo-us-market/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

India may join China in bid to lower oil prices

July 29, 2021 by Leave a Comment

India is reportedly considering selling half of its SPR to attract private participation in expanding its strategic storage capacity, government sources told Reuters last week.

The sale of crude from reserves could also be a move from one of the importers most sensitive to price hikes to reduce the price of crude for its refiners, Reuters columnist Clyde Russell says. India’s SPR currently holds around 36.5 million barrels of crude oil. 

Also on rt.com India’s oil imports slide to nine-month low amid renewed lockdowns

India has been the most vocal critic of the OPEC+ production reduction pact this year, saying that it does not support “artificial cuts to keep the price going up.” On several occasions, India’s top officials have criticized OPEC+ for keeping the market tight and prices high and have expressed concern that the higher crude and fuel prices in India would slow down the economic and oil demand recovery.

India’s move to commercialize half of its SPR is primarily aimed at raising financing for additional SPR storage, but it could also ensure cheaper oil from storage to Indian refiners, according to Reuters’ Russell.

Last week, reports emerged that the world’s top oil importer, China, is looking to tap its crude reserves.

Also on rt.com China buys less Saudi crude as it slams the brakes on oil imports

China has started to release more than 20 million barrels of crude oil from its strategic reserve in a move seen as seeking to curb the recent oil price rally, Energy Intelligence reported last week, quoting trading sources. The reported release from the strategic petroleum reserve is also aimed at putting inflation under control.

Various market and trade sources told Energy Intelligence that China was about to release the equivalent of between 22 million barrels and over 29 million barrels, or between 3 million and 4 million tons.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530529-india-china-oil-reserves-prices/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

What’s in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Public buses, subways and trains would receive $39 billion in new funding, which would be used to repair aging infrastructure and modernize and expand transit service across the country.

While the amount of new funding for public transit was scaled back from a June proposal, which included $49 billion, the Biden administration said it would be the largest federal investment in public transit in history.

Yet the funds might not be enough to fully modernize the country’s public transit system. According to a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, there is a $176 billion backlog for transit investments.

The deal would inject $66 billion in rail to address Amtrak’s maintenance backlog, along with upgrading the high-traffic Northeast corridor from Washington to Boston (a route frequented by East Coast lawmakers). It would also expand rail service outside the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.

Mr. Biden frequently points to his connection to Amtrak, which began in the 1970s, when he would travel home from Washington to Delaware every night to care for his two sons while serving in the Senate. The new funding would be the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak was created 50 years ago, according to the administration, and would come as the agency tries to significantly expand its service nationwide by 2035.

The package would invest $55 billion in clean drinking water, which would be enough to replace all of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines. While Congress banned lead water pipes three decades ago, more than 10 million older ones remain, resulting in unsafe lead levels in cities and towns across the country.

To address the effects of climate change, the deal would invest $7.5 billion in building out the nation’s network of electric vehicle charging stations, which could help entice more drivers to switch to such cars by getting rid of so-called charger deserts. The package would also expand America’s fleet of electric school buses by investing $2.5 billion in zero-emission buses.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/business/economy/infrastructure-deal-takeaways.html

Filed Under: Economy News

Federal Reserve Keeps Rates Unchanged but Cites ‘Progress’ Toward Goals

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Fed officials are trying to strike a balance, ensuring they are prepared to slow stimulus measures as the economy strengthens while avoiding an abrupt pullback. The latter could undermine the Fed’s credibility and potentially roil markets, causing lending to dry up and slowing the recovery when millions of prepandemic jobs are still missing and risks to the economy persist.

“They don’t want to cause a sharp and fast increase in interest rates — that would be detrimental,” said Roberto Perli, head of global policy research at Cornerstone Macro. “The labor market is still not where it should be.”

Lingering threats to the outlook have been underscored by rising coronavirus cases in the United States and around the world tied to the Delta variant.

Mr. Powell acknowledged risks from the variant, but he suggested that any economic pullback it drove might not be as severe as last year’s. Still, he said, “it might weigh on the return to the labor market,” noting that the Fed will be monitoring that “carefully.”

But the Fed chair conveyed a generally optimistic tone about the economy on Wednesday.

While he pointed out that the labor market had a lot of room left to heal, he also suggested that workers were lingering on the sidelines because they were afraid of the virus, had caregiving duties or were receiving generous unemployment insurance benefits. Those factors should fade as life returns to normal.

The United States is on a path to a strong labor market, and “it shouldn’t take too long, in macroeconomic time, to get there,” Mr. Powell said.

He discussed at length another reality of the reopening era: rising prices. As economic growth roars back, with strong consumer spending supported by repeated government stimulus checks, inflation is surging. That is partly the result of data quirks, but also because demand for washing machines, electronics, cars and housing is outstripping what producers can supply.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/business/economy/fomc-fed-meeting-rates-taper.html

Filed Under: Economy News

Gawker: The Return

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

In her editor’s note on Wednesday, Ms. Finnegan wrote that when approached to lead the site last year, she had said, “Absolutely no way in hell.”

A second approach in January won her over. Ms. Finnegan hired a team of 12, mostly women, including four contributing writers.

“I suppose my selling points as a potential editor in chief of Gawker were that I had previously worked at Gawker and Bustle and was unemployed,” Ms. Finnegan wrote. “I was also willing to do it, which not many people can say.”

The new Gawker website opened with coverage of celebrities (“Do Justin and Hailey Bieber Hate Each Other?”), the universe (“Space: The Lamest Frontier”) and Gawker itself (“Here’s What Some People Think About Gawker Coming Back”).

Mr. Goldberg, the site’s owner, submitted himself to an email interview in a new series, “How Much Money Do You Have?” While not answering the question directly, he did have some thoughts on how Gawker’s comeback could affect his fortune.

“If there is one website that could get me sued into oblivion, then it is almost certainly Gawker,” Mr. Goldberg said. “Let’s face it — do we think that Bustle or Nylon Magazine is going to pick a petty and ill-conceived fight with a deca-billionaire? Probably not.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/business/media/gawker-return.html

Filed Under: Media Business

Inflation Is New Battle Line as Republicans and Biden Spar Over Spending

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

Some of the proposals would distribute money directly and quickly to American consumers and workers — by raising wages for home health care workers, for example, and continuing an expanded tax credit that effectively functions as a monthly stipend to all but the highest-earning parents. But they would also raise taxes on high earners, and much of the spending would create programs that would take time to find their way into the economy, like paid leave, universal prekindergarten and free community college.

Some conservative economists worry that the relatively small slice of immediate payments would risk further heating an already hot economy, driving up prices. The direct payments in the proposals “would exacerbate pre-existing inflationary pressures, put additional pressure on the Fed to withdrawal monetary policy support earlier than it had planned, and put at risk the longevity of the recovery,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Other economists in and outside the administration say those effects would be swamped by the potential of the spending programs like paid leave to reduce inflationary pressure.

“The economics of these investments strongly belies the Republican critique because these are investments that will yield faster productivity growth, greater labor supply, the expansion of the economy’s supply side — which very clearly dampens inflationary pressures, not exacerbates them,” Jared Bernstein, a member of Mr. Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview.

Administration officials pivoted their sales pitch on the president’s agenda last week to emphasize the potential for his plans to reduce prices.

Mr. Biden’s agenda is “about lowering costs for families across the board,” Mike Donilon, a senior adviser at the White House, told reporters. He said officials believed they were in “a strong position” against Republican attacks on inflation, in part by citing Mr. Zandi’s recent analysis. The president also referred to that analysis last week during a forum in Ohio on CNN, saying it had found that his proposals would “reduce inflation.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/business/economy/inflation-republicans-biden-spending.html

Filed Under: Economy News

Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline may start pumping gas to Europe this year, says Austrian energy major OMV

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

“I would like to keep my fingers crossed for the Nord Stream 2 construction work [to] be completed at the end of August. So, we believe that the gas may be flowing this year. There is a good chance of this happening,” the Austrian company’s CEO Rainer Seele said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Also on rt.com By acknowledging America can’t stop the pipeline, Biden’s Nord Stream 2 deal seals the end of the Washington-centric world order

Seele welcomed the recent deal on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline reached between Germany and the United States, which has been opposed to the project.

“Of course, I welcome the agreement between the US and Germany because it paves the way to the final completion and commissioning of the pipeline,” Seele stated. He emphasized that OMV sees the project as a means to provide Europe with safe access to natural gas, which in his view plays a major role in the continent’s energy transition.

The Nord Stream 2 project consists of two pipelines designed to carry some 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Siberian gas fields in Russia across the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. The project has seen numerous roadblocks, with the US government threatening the companies and states involved in the construction with sanctions. Work on Nord Stream 2 even had to be suspended in December 2019 after one of its contractors, Swiss Allseas, abandoned pipe-laying operations amid pressure from Washington. In December 2020, however, construction resumed.

Also on rt.com Russian state gas giant declines to buy extra transit capacity in Ukraine’s Soviet-era network as Nord Stream 2 nears completion

A new deal regarding the pipeline was reached between Washington and Berlin last week, with the US offering to drop the sanctions and cease its interference in the final stages of Nord Stream 2’s set up. In exchange, it asked Germany to invest in Ukraine and help Kiev maintain its supposed ‘right’ to transit fees for Russian gas.

European states currently get most Russian gas via a Soviet-era pipeline going through Ukraine’s territory. Kiev fears that once Nord Stream 2 is ready, Russia could turn off the tap on its supplies, depriving Ukraine of billions of dollars in income from transit fees. 

Russia has repeatedly said these speculations are unfounded, but experts still predict a decrease in revenue for Kiev in the longer term, as Moscow pays hefty sums for the right to deliver its gas through Ukraine.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530430-nord-stream-2-pipeline-launch/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Bitcoin bounces back as top crypto exchange Binance limits withdrawals & leverage

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency was trading at around $39,870 at 10:00am GMT, regaining momentum after Tuesday’s losses. Number-two crypto ethereum was also trading around 4% higher.

Also on rt.com Crypto rally deflates after Amazon denies report it will accept bitcoin as payment

This comes after the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, announced it would lower daily withdrawals for new users from the current 2 BTC to 0.06 BTC.

“To support the ongoing security of all Binance users, new withdrawal limits will be established for those who have completed only Basic Account Verification. This change is effective immediately for new account registrations and will be made effective for existing users in phases starting from [August 4] and completed by [August 23],” Binance said on its Twitter account.

Also on rt.com Will the digital dollar make bitcoin obsolete? RT’s Boom Bust has the answer

The exchange is also set to put a 20x cap on leverage levels for futures accounts within the first 60 days of their opening, five times less than the current limit, explaining the curb with risks that futures trading poses. The same steps were taken by US-based FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Bitcoin’s price has been swinging back and forth throughout the past week, briefly reaching $40,000 over the weekend – its peak in more than a month of losses – amid rumors that e-commerce giant Amazon was planning to accept cryptocurrencies as payment. Bitcoin lost some of those gains when Amazon denied the reports on Tuesday, but the crypto has since recovered.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530446-bitcoin-bullish-binance-news/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Russian economy recovering faster than expected from pandemic – IMF

July 28, 2021 by Leave a Comment

The country’s economy is forecast to grow 4.4% in 2021, the IMF said in its report on global economic development prospects, raising the estimate by 0.6% compared to its previous report in April.

Also on rt.com Russia raises GDP growth outlook as economy recovers faster than expected

“In the case of Russia, we have seen faster recovery. So the first-quarter GDP growth has come in stronger than we were expecting and because of that, it has led to an upgrade,” IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said at a briefing on Tuesday. She noted, however, that the figures may change, as the progression of the Covid-19 spread is hard to predict.

“There are still challenges ahead, the pandemic is not over, we have seen cases going back up, vaccination rates are progressing but still the coverage is incomplete. So, there is much more that needs to be done on that front,” Gopinath said.

Another IMF official points out that the economic recovery in Russia is happening earlier than anticipated.

“As already mentioned, we are seeing signs of that strength, and it’s not just the manufacturing sector but also the reopening of the economy and the strength of the service sector,” the head of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, Petya Koeva Brooks, said.

Also on rt.com SP maintains Russia’s stable economic outlook despite sanctions and pandemic

Earlier this month, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade also raised its forecast for the growth of the country’s economy in 2021, despite new administrative restrictions on business activity due to the third wave of the pandemic. However, the ministry’s expectations are lower than those of the IMF, with GDP forecast to reach 3.8%.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/530439-russia-economy-recovery-imf/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business
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