January 27, 2022: The Nissan auto alliance said on Thursday that it will invest 23 billion euros ($25.7 billion) into electric vehicles over the next five years as the auto industry pours resources into the sector.
Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors said the latest investment followed more than 10 billion euros already spent on its “offensive strategy in electrification” and would lead to 35 new electric models by 2030.
AFP/APP
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May 17, 2022 (MLN): The Pakistani Rupee (PKR) tumbled to another record low of 195, weighed by a depleting foreign exchange reserves and uncertainty over the resumption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
The domestic unit was being quoted at 194.81/195.01 when compared to previous close of 194.18.
Every day is new low. Traders’ sentiments are low due to growing worries as the country is going through an economic crisis on weak macros including higher imports and falling reserves.
Copyright Mettis Link News
May 17, 2022: An “Invest in Pakistan” forum was held in San Jose, Silicon Valley, attended by more than 150 participants including nine Pakistani leading Startups, to highlight Pakistan’s immense potential to grow in IT sector.
Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan, in his welcome address, said that in the past 18 months, tech startups in Pakistan had earned half a billion dollars mainly supported from the United States.
He thanked the audience from Pakistan and across the United States including from the US Government for their participation in the event, particularly appreciating the role of organizers and speakers for their hard work to showcase Pakistan’s immense potential to grow exponentially in the IT & Tech Sector.
Ambassador Khan told the audience that Pakistan offered vast economic opportunities.
With a 220 million consumer market, growing middle class and a young and vibrant population, Pakistan was fast becoming a hub for trade, investment and connectivity in the region, he added.
He said Pakistan was leveraging with the US its geo-economic potential to expand its trade and investment relations in diverse areas and to add new anchors in the relationship.
Briefing the audience on the investment landscape in Pakistan, Ambassador Khan highlighted improvements made by the government in ease of doing business and introduction of unprecedented initiatives to facilitate the investors.
Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the State Department Dilawar Syed, in his remarks, welcomed the initiative, promoting win-win opportunities for entrepreneurs in both countries.
The discussions in the different segments of the summit —The rise of Pakistani startups, Pakistan – the last untapped tech frontier, building startups in Pakistan – An investor perspective and Founders perspective— produced workable recommendations for both the investors and the government going forward.
The event was attended by more than 150 participants including 09 Pakistani leading Startups, including GharPar Technologies Ltd., Merafture.pk, Orbit-ed, Aero Engine Craft Pvt Ltd, O’naps, Qriosity, BizB, Abey Khao, and Cubex Global, US venture capitalists, and IT companies.
The participants expressed keen interest in investment opportunities in Pakistan’s IT & Tech sector.
APP
May 17, 2022: Like millions of people in developing and emerging market countries around the world, shopping for staple foods has turned from a necessity into a luxury for Selcuk Gemici.
The 49-year-old, who works in an auto repair shop in Turkey's largest city Istanbul and lives with his wife and two children in his father's house, says fresh produce is often out of reach with his family living on pasta, bulgur and beans.
"Everything became so expensive, we cannot buy and eat what we want - we only buy what we can afford now," said Gemici. "My children are not properly nourished."
Global food prices have climbed for two years, fuelled by COVID-19 disruptions and weather woes. Supply shocks to grains and oils from Russia's invasion of Ukraine saw them hit an all-time record in February, and again in March.
Inflation rates have soared, with energy price rises adding to the pressure. Turkey or Argentina with annual inflation of 70% and around 60% might be outliers, but readings are into double-digits in countries from Brazil to Hungary. It makes U.S. inflation at 8.3% look modest in comparison.
Rising food prices are a hot topic in the emerging markets, raising the risk of civil unrest with echoes of the Arab spring and putting policymakers in a bind between stepping in with fiscal support to ease the pain on their population or preserve government finances.
Food is the single largest category in inflation baskets - the selection of goods used to calculate the cost of living - in many developing nations, accounting for around half in countries like India or Pakistan and on average for some 40% in low-income countries, International Monetary Fund data shows.
Food producers have become more protective: India on the weekend announced a ban on wheat exports while Indonesia halted exports of palm oil to control soaring prices at home in late April.
And with the war in Ukraine not only disrupting food but also fertilizer supplies, food inflation could be longer-lasting, Marcelo Carvalho, head of global emerging markets research at BNP Paribas told Reuters.
"This is here to stay," said Carvalho. "Food is very salient - when there is a change in food prices, the perception about inflation is magnified - that feeds into inflation expectations that are more easily unanchored."
HOT SPOT
For Um Ibrahim, a 60-year-old widow and street vendor selling headscarves in front of a mosque in the middle-class district of Madinet Nasr in Egypt's capital Cairo, feeding her four children has become much harder.
"All prices rose - clothes, vegetables, poultry, eggs - what am I going do?" she asked, laying out her ware on a cloth.
Egypt, one of the world's biggest wheat importers, has seen inflation soar more than 13% in April and is expected to hike interest rates again at a meeting this week after it devalued the currency by 14% in mid-March.
Emerging-market policymakers, having jacked up interest rates by hundreds of basis points cumulatively since 2020 to curb price pressures and ensure a bond premium to rising U.S. yields for investors, have to perform a balancing act between taming inflation and keeping fragile growth alive at a time of rising global interest rates.
Emerging economies may expand just 4.6% this year, the World Bank forecasts, compared with an earlier 6.3% prediction.
Polina Kurdyavko, head of EM debt at BlueBay Asset Management, says governments have three options: Provide bigger subsidies to consumers or bite the bullet that is to let prices rise and face inflation and social unrest, or do something in between.
"There are no easy solutions," Kurdyavko said.
A raft of countries has introduced measures: Turkey raised the minimum wage by 50% in December to address a currency crash and inflation spike. Chile will up minimum pay this year as well.
South Africa's government is debating whether to increase a social relief grant launched in 2020 and make the scheme permanent.
Economists fear emerging economies are facing a fresh wave of unrest on the back of the latest increases in food prices. North Africa, where food inflation was a contributor to the Arab Spring revolts a decade ago, looked particularly vulnerable, said Beata Javorcic, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
"The irony of this war is that while everybody expected Russia to have a crisis, it is actually North African countries that are closer to having an emergency situation due to high food prices," she said.
But pain is expected to stretch further: Three-quarters of nations expected to be at high-risk or extreme risk of civil unrest by the fourth quarter of 2022 were middle-income countries, risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft said last week.
Appeasing inflation pressures through spending will come at a fiscal cost that could spell trouble further down the line, said BNP's Carvalho.
"In emerging markets, fiscal sins are forgiven but not forgotten," he said. "Over the last couple of years, everybody felt like they have a blank cheque ... in part because rates were so low. Now that interest rates are rising, it gets a bit trickier."
Reuters
May 17, 2022: Malaysian palm oil futures resumed trading on Tuesday after a long weekend and tracked losses in rival edible oils, but the losses were limited by strong exports for the first half of May.
The benchmark palm oil contract FCPOc3 for August delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange slid 64 ringgit, or 1.04%, to 6,075 ringgit ($1,382.88) during early trade.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for May 1-15 rose 20.6% to 569,233 tonnes from 472,181 tonnes shipped during the same week in April, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Sunday.
* The news of India banning exports of wheat on Saturday put some pressure on soyoil futures amid questions of ripple effects the ban could have on India's import demand for vegetable oils.
* Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade BOcv1 were down 0.4%. Dalian's most-active soyoil contract DBYcv1 fell 1%, while its palm oil contract DCPcv1 lost 2.4%.
* Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
* Palm oil may rise to 6,602 ringgit per tonne, as it managed to stabilise around support at 6,290 ringgit, Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao said. TECH/C
MARKET NEWS
* Asian shares edged higher despite data reinforcing investors' fears the global economic recovery may be more fragile than expected, even as inflationary pressures remain high.
Reuters
