…

BANGKOK — Shares in Europe and Asia tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumping 5.8% as investors panicked over signs of weakness in the U.S. economy.

Bracing for a highly anticipated employment report coming on Friday, the future for the S&P 500 was down 1.3%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 0.9%.

The declines followed a retreat on Wall Street after weak manufacturing data raised worries the Federal Reserve may have waited too long to cut interest rates, raising risks of a recession. After the U.S. central bank held steady at a meeting this week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a cut could come in September.

“The short-lived satisfaction of Fed Chief Powell communicating decent odds of a September rate cut has turned sour as investors are now panicking that the central bank isn’t trimming soon enough,” José Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers, said in a report.

A nearly 19% decline in Intel’s shares in aftermarket trading deepened the gloom. The chipmaker said it was cutting 15% of its massive workforce — about 15,000 jobs — to better compete with more successful rivals like Nvidia and AMD.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX shed 1.5% to 17,806.65, while the CAC 40 slipped 1% to 7,298.81. In London, the FTSE 100 fell 0.6% to 8,233.49.

Japan’s market retreated to where it was trading in January before it surged to an all-time high last month of over 42,000. The Nikkei 225 lost 2,216.63 points Friday to 35,909.70, with banks’, technology-related and manufacturers’ shares hit by heavy selling.

The Nikkei has lost 6.2% in the past three months.

Japanese shares were pummeled after the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, to 0.25% from 0.1%. That pushed the value of the Japanese yen higher against the U.S. dollar, potentially hurting overseas earnings of major manufacturers and deflating a boom in tourism.

The dollar fell to 148.77 yen early Friday from 149.37 yen late Thursday. It had recently traded above 160 yen. The euro rose to $1.0820 from $1.0789.

Elsewhere in Asia on Friday, Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 2.1% to 16,945.51, while the Shanghai Composite index saw a more modest loss, of 0.9% to 2,905.34.

Chinese shares have extended losses this week as investors registered disappointment with the government’s latest efforts to spur growth through various piecemeal measures, instead of hoped-for infusions of broader stimulus.

The Kospi in Seoul dropped 3.7% to 2,676.19 and Taiwan’s Taiex sank 4.4%. Both markets tend to be hit hard by weakness in technology shares.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics dropped 4.2% while another maker of computer chips and other components, SK Hynix, dropped 10.4%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chip maker, lost 5.9%.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s S&P/ASX gave up 2.1% to 7,943.20 and the Sensex in India was down 1.1%. Bangkok’s SET fell 0.7%.

It has been a nerve wracking week for markets even as central banks in Japan, the United States and England acted much as had been expected. Japan raised its benchmark, the Fed stood pat, and the Bank of England lowered its key rate by 0.25%, to 5%, its first cut in more than four years.

Commodity prices have also had a rough ride, with oil prices surging after the killings of leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah that fueled fears conflict in the Middle East might escalate into a wider war. But prices fell back Thursday and were only marginally higher early Friday.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil gained 12 cents to $76.43 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 12 cents at $79.64 per barrel.

The price of gold, a traditional refuge for investors in uncertain times, has surged to over $2,500 an ounce.

Meanwhile, other commodities sank on concerns that weakness in the U.S. and other major economies will hurt demand. The price of nickel dropped 2.4%, aluminum dropped 1% and copper traded in New York dropped 2.3%.

Worry is mounting that the Fed has kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for too long in its zeal to stifle inflation by making it more costly to borrow. A rate cut could take months to a year to filter through the economy.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 sank 1.4% after a report from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing activity is still shrinking. The Dow fell 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite dropped 2.3%. The small stocks in the Russell 2000 index dropped 3%.

Other reports Thursday showed the number of U.S. workers applying for jobless benefits hit its highest level in about a year and that productivity for U.S. workers improved in the spring. The data are likely to relieve pressure on inflation and give the Fed more leeway to cut rates.

Employment growth does appear to be slowing more than expected, Philip Marey, senior U.S. strategist for Rabobank, said in a commentary.

“This suggests that the Fed’s strategy to bring better balance between labor demand and supply through restrictive interest rates is working, but of course the risk is that employment growth is brought to a halt and the economy slides into a recession.”
…

…

…

BANGKOK — China’s powerful Politburo has endorsed the ruling Communist Party’s long-term strategy for growing the economy by encouraging more consumer spending and weeding out unproductive companies to promote “survival of the fittest.”

A statement issued after the meeting of the 24 highest leaders of the party warned that coming months would be tough, perhaps alluding to mounting global uncertainties ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

“There are still many risks and hidden dangers in key areas,” it said, adding that the tasks for reform and stability in the second half of the year were “very heavy.”

The Politburo promised unspecified measures to restore confidence in financial markets and boost government spending, echoing priorities laid out by a wider meeting of senior party members earlier in July. After that gathering, China’s central bank reduced several key interest rates and the government doubled subsidies for electric vehicles bought to replace older cars as part of the effort to spur growth.

The Politburo’s calls to look after low- and middle-income groups reflect pledges to build a stronger social safety net to enable families to spend more instead of socking money away to provide for health care, education and elder care. But it provided no specifics on how it will do that.

“This sounds promising on paper. But the lack of any specifics means it is unclear what it will entail in practice,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a commentary.

The party’s plans for how to improve China’s fiscal policies at a time of burgeoning local government debt were “short on new ideas,” he said.

Instead, the emphasis is on moving faster to implement policies such as the government’s campaign to convince families to trade in old cars and appliances and redecorate their homes that includes tax incentives and subsidies for purchases that align with improved efficiency and reducing use of polluting fossil fuels.

China’s economy grew at a 4.7% annual rate in the last quarter after expanding 5.3% in the first three months of the year. Some economists say the official data overstate the rate of growth, masking long-term weaknesses that require broad reforms to rebalance the economy away from a heavy reliance on construction and export manufacturing.

Under leader Xi Jinping, China has prioritized developing industries using advanced technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, a strategy that has made the country a leader in some areas but also led to oversupplies that are now squeezing some manufacturers, such as makers of solar panels.

The Politburo’s statement vowed support for “gazelle enterprises and unicorn enterprises,” referring to new, fast-growing companies and high-tech start-ups. It warned against “vicious competition” but also said China should improve mechanisms to ensure “survival of the fittest” and eliminate “backward and inefficient production capacity.”

The party has promised to help resolve a crisis in the property sector, in part by encouraging purchases of apartments to provide affordable housing and to adapt monetary policy to help spur spending and investment.

But the document issued Tuesday also highlighted longstanding concerns. The countryside and farmers need more support to “ensure that the rural population does not return to poverty on a large scale,” it said.

It also condemned what analysts have said is widespread resistance to fresh initiatives, saying that “formalism and bureaucracy are stubborn diseases and must be corrected” and warning that economic disputes should not be resolved by “administrative and criminal means.”

Chinese markets have not shown much enthusiasm for the policies outlined in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng index sank 1.4%, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.4%. The Hang Seng has fallen 4.3% in the past three months while Shanghai’s index is down 7.3%.
…

Auckland, New Zealand — Job losses and wage cuts from China’s economic downturn are hitting key industries, according to the South China Morning Post, and analysts say the situation could lead to political difficulties for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Rights groups say the situation has triggered a sharp increase in protests and strikes around the country – not enough to threaten the rule of the CCP or President Xi Jinping, but enough that an analyst sees a “hidden danger” for Chinese authorities unless they can rejuvenate the economy.

Mr. Wang, in his early 40s, lives in Bao’an District, Shenzhen, in southern China. He was formerly employed at a well-known business travel platform but was laid off earlier this year. He prefers not to disclose his full name or the company’s name due to the matter’s sensitivity.

Wang tells VOA, “In the area of business travel software, our company is at the forefront of China in terms of R&D and sales, and it is also one of the top 500 private enterprises in China.  But now many companies have run out of money, our sales have plummeted, and the layoffs finally fell on our group of old employees.”

He compares China’s economic slowdown to a high-speed train suddenly hitting the brakes, and everyone on the train hitting the ground, even those better-off, like himself.

China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate has been dropping since hitting 10.6% in 2010, well before the COVID pandemic, which cut growth to 2.2% in 2020, according to the World Bank.

The global lender says growth bounced back to 8.4% in 2021 but then fell to 3% in 2022 before a moderate recovery to 5.2% in 2023.  The World Bank expects China’s growth rate to drop back below 5% this year.

Several Chinese workers VOA talked with said they were unprepared for the economy to slow so quickly.

Two large IT companies laid off Mr. Liu in Guangzhou in the past two years, and his life has turned gloomy.  He also prefers not to disclose his full name due to the matter’s sensitivity. Still struggling to find a job, Liu has a second child, and his wife was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

“When I was laid off for the first time, I got decent severance pay because I had worked there for a long time,” says Liu. “Later, when I came to a large company, I was laid off again, and I felt that I was quite unlucky.  Fortunately, we don’t have too much debt.”

According to South Morning China Post’s (SCMP) July analysis of the annual reports of 23 top Chinese companies, 14 of them carried out large layoffs in 2023, with technology and real estate companies among the worst hit amid a glut of empty buildings.

The online newspaper reports that one company, Poly Real Estate, laid off 16.3% of its workforce in the past year, or 11,000 people; Greenland Holdings, a Shanghai-based real estate company, also saw a 14.5% drop in the number of its employees.

The SCMP reports online retail giant Alibaba cut 12.8% of its workforce, or about 20,000 jobs, in the 2023 fiscal year, while technology conglomerate Tencent’s headcount fell 2.8% in 2023 to about 3,000, and in the first quarter of 2024, the company laid off another 630 people.

In addition, Chinese internet tech firms ByteDance, JD.com, Kuaishou, Didi Chuxing, Bilibili and Weibo have all conducted layoffs this year.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is painting a rosier picture this month, calling employment and the national economy “generally stable” and citing “steady progress.”  In June, it showed only a 0.2% drop in urban jobs compared with the same period last year.

The NBS also claimed China’s lowest youth unemployment rate this year, 13.2%, after it removed students from the calculation.  The new methodology was introduced after China hit a record high 21.3% youth unemployment in June 2023, prompting authorities to suspend publication of the statistic.

Chen Yingxuan, a policy analyst at the Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security Studies who specializes in Chinese unemployment, tells VOA that Beijing’s job worries have shifted from fresh graduates and the working class to middle class and senior managers.

She says many have faced salary cuts or layoffs to reduce costs and increase efficiency as China struggles with a weak housing market, sluggish consumption, high government debt, foreign investment withdrawals, and trade barriers.

Even people with relatively stable incomes, such as workers at state-owned enterprises, are feeling the pinch.

Ms. Zhang, who works for a state-owned commercial bank in Guangzhou and prefers not to disclose her full name due to the matter’s sensitivity, says many bank employees are seeing paychecks shrink.

“State owned banks such as China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China, or joint-stock banks, are now cutting salaries, let alone urban commercial banks in many places,” she tells VOA.  “Salary cuts already started last year, and it seems to be worse this year.” 

She projects the cuts will be 20% to 30% by the end of the year.

In July, China’s 31 provincial-level administrative regions issued regulations calling for party and government organs to “live a tight life,” focusing on budget cuts and reductions in public spending.

Analysts say further job and wage cuts could lead to intensified protests and strikes, leading to greater instability.

Rights group China Labor Bulletin (CLB) in 2023 counted 1,794 strike incidents in China, more than double the number in 2022.

In the past six months alone, the group documented about 1,200 incidents in protest of the wage cuts, unpaid wages, unforeseen layoffs, and unfair compensation, a more than 50% increase from the same period in 2023.

CLB estimates “only 5% to 10% of all collective actions of workers have been recorded,” suggesting many more protests are taking place.

But Chen of the Taiwan Institute of National Defense and Security Studies says the wage cuts and unemployment have not yet been severe enough to spark large-scale protests that threaten the power of the ruling party or President Xi.

“Although there has been an increase in protests, they are still relatively sporadic. There are no large-scale incidents, and local governments can easily quell them,” she says.  “So, for the legitimacy of the CCP and Xi’s third term, it is more of a hidden danger than an imminent crisis.”

While protests in China are usually by working class people, Wang notes the economic pain is spreading to other, more influential groups.

“Whether for blue-collar, white-collar, or even gold-collar workers, the economic losses are now very large,” says Wang.  “The worse the economy and the more emergencies there are, the more the CCP will suppress it with high pressure. It’s a vicious circle, where people suffer more, and stability is more costly.”

Meanwhile, analysts say Chinese authorities are struggling to come up with a plan to reverse the unemployment and wage cutting trend.

The communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, released on July 18, mentioned employment only once, saying “it is necessary to improve the income distribution system and the employment priority policy.”
…

MADRID — The global cruise industry expects to carry 10% more passengers by 2028 than the 31.7 million who took cruise holidays in 2023, when the sector surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but sees some routes exposed to protests over overtourism.

Long criticized for its impact on the environment and coastal communities, the industry has ordered 57 more cruise ships in addition to some 300 now in operation to meet the projected demand, said the European director of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), Marie-Caroline Laurent.

At the same time, companies are working to adapt the ships so they can switch to electricity from highly polluting marine fuel when they are moored at ports and to be ready to comply with EU maritime environment regulations by 2030.

But as travel continues to grow, cruise operators face a growing debate about excessive tourist numbers in crowded European port cities such as Spain’s Barcelona, the scene of protests this month in which a small group sprayed tourists with water pistols.

Cruise ship passengers represent just 4% of all tourists visiting Barcelona, CLIA representatives said.

Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, which is the biggest cruise ship port in Europe, told Reuters his administration would seek a new deal with the port to reduce the number of one-day cruise calls.

CLIA’s Laurent said violent protests could have an impact on the itineraries in the future.

“There will be some consideration of adapting the itineraries if for some reason we feel that all passengers will not be well-treated,” she said.

Instead, the industry could offer more cruise holidays in Asia, in northern Europe and the Caribbean in the coming years, as well as different ports in the Mediterranean.

The World Travel & Tourism Council expects Spain’s tourism revenues to reach nearly 100 billion euros this year, 11% above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, the cruise industry forecasts a 5% increase in visitors in Spain during 2024, below the 13% increase in summer visitor arrivals projected by Spanish authorities.
…

Washington — The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter at a strong 2.8% annual pace, with consumers and businesses helping drive growth despite the pressure of continually high interest rates.

Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — picked up in the April-June quarter after growing at a 1.4% pace in the January-March period. Economists had expected a weaker 1.9% annual pace of growth.

The GDP report also showed that inflation continues to ease, though still remaining above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The central bank’s favored inflation gauge rose at a 2.6% annual rate last quarter, down from 3.4% in the first quarter of the year.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core PCE inflation increased at a 2.9% pace. That was down from 3.7% from January through March.

The latest figures should reinforce confidence that the U.S. economy is on the verge of achieving a rare “soft landing,” whereby high interest rates, engineered by the Fed, tame inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.

Helping to boost last quarter’s expansion was consumer spending, the heart of the U.S. economy. It rose at a 2.3% annual rate in the April-June quarter, up from a 1.5% pace in the January-March period. Spending on goods, such as cars and appliances, increased at a 2.5% rate after falling at a 2.3% pace in the first three months of the year.

Business investment was up last quarter, led by a 11.6% annual increase in equipment investment. Growth also picked up because businesses increased their inventories. On the other hand, a surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, shaved about 0.9 percentage point from the April-June growth.

Despite last quarter’s uptick, the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, has cooled in the face of the highest borrowing rates in decades. From mid-2022 through 2023, annualized GDP growth had topped 2% for six straight quarters. In last year’s final two quarters, GDP expanded by robust rates of 4.9% and 3.4%.

Fed officials have made clear that with inflation edging toward their 2% target level, they’re prepared to start cutting interest rates soon, something they’re widely expected to do in September.

“This is a perfect report for the Fed,” Olu Sonola, head of economic research at Fitch Ratings, said of Thursday’s GDP numbers. “Growth during the first half of the year is not too hot, inflation continues to cool, and the elusive soft-landing scenario looks within reach.”

The state of the economy has seized Americans’ attention as the presidential campaign has intensified. Though inflation has slowed sharply, to 3% from 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.

This year’s economic slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans resulting from the Fed’s aggressive series of interest rate hikes.

The Fed’s rate hikes — 11 of them in 2022 and 2023 — were a response to the flare-up in inflation that began in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on. Prices spiked across the country and the world.

Economists had long predicted that the higher borrowing costs would tip the United States into recession. Yet the economy kept chugging along. Consumers, whose spending accounts for roughly 70% of GDP, kept buying things, emboldened by a strong job market and savings they had built up during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The slowdown at the start of this year was caused largely by two factors, each of which can vary sharply from quarter to quarter: A surge in imports and a drop in business inventories. Neither trend revealed much about the economy’s underlying health.
…

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As state treasurer, Vivek Malek pushed Missouri’s main retirement system to pull its investments from Chinese companies, making Missouri among the first nationally to do so. Now Malek is touting the Chinese divestment as he seeks reelection in an August 6 Republican primary against challengers who also are denouncing financial connections to China.

The Missouri treasurer’s race highlights a new facet of opposition to China, which has been cast as a top threat to the U.S. by many candidates seeking election this year. Indiana and Florida also have restricted their public pension funds from investing in certain Chinese companies. Similar legislation targeting public investments in foreign adversaries was vetoed in Arizona and proposed in Illinois and Oklahoma.

China ranks as the world’s second-largest economy behind the U.S.

Between 2018 and 2022, U.S. public pension and university endowments invested about $146 billion in China, according to an analysis by Future Union, a nonprofit pro-democracy group led by venture capitalist Andrew King. The report said more than four-fifths of U.S. states have at least one public pension fund investing in China and Hong Kong.

“Frankly, there should be shame — more shame than there is — for continuing to have those investments at this point in time,” said King, who asserts that China has used intellectual property from U.S. companies to make similar products that undercut market prices.

“You’re talking a considerable amount of money that frankly is competing against the U.S. technology and innovation ecosystem,” King said.

But some investment officials and economists have raised concerns that the emerging patchwork of state divestment policies could weaken investment returns for retirees.

“Most of these policies are unwise and would make U.S. citizens poorer,” said Ben Powell, an economics professor who is executive director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University.

The National Association of State Retirement Administrators opposes state-mandated divestments, saying such orders should come only from the federal government against specific companies based on U.S. security or humanitarian interests.

The U.S. Treasury Department recently proposed a rule prohibiting American investors from funding artificial intelligence systems in China that could have military uses, such as weapons targeting. In May, President Joe Biden blocked a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, calling it a “national security risk.”

Yet this isn’t the first time that states have blacklisted particular investments. Numerous states, cities and universities divested from South Africa because of apartheid before the U.S. Congress eventually took action. Some states also have divested from tobacco companies because of health concerns.

Most recently, some states announced a divestment from Russia because of its war against Ukraine. But that has been difficult to carry out for some public pension fund administrators.

The quest to halt investments in Chinese companies comes as a growing number of states also have targeted Chinese ownership of U.S. land. Two dozen states now have laws restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land, according to the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas. Some laws apply more broadly, such as one facing a legal challenge in Florida that bars Chinese citizens from buying property within 16 kilometers of military installations and critical infrastructure.

State pension divestment policies are “part of a broader march toward more confrontation between China and the United States,” said Clark Packard, a research fellow for trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. But “it makes it more challenging for the federal government to manage the overall relationship if we’ve got to deal with a scattershot policy at the state level.”

Indiana last year became the first to enact a law requiring the state’s public pension system to gradually divest from certain Chinese companies. As of March 31, 2023, the system had about $1.2 billion invested in Chinese entities with $486 million subject to the divestment requirement. A year later, its investment exposure in China had fallen to $314 million with just $700,000 still subject to divestment, the Indiana Public Retirement System said.

Missouri State Treasurer Malek tried last November to get fellow trustees of the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System to divest from Chinese companies. After defeat, he tried again in December and won approval for a plan requiring divestment over a 12-month period. Officials at the retirement system did not respond to repeated questions from The Associated Press about the status of that divestment.

In recent weeks, Malek has highlighted the Chinese divestment in campaign ads, asserting that fentanyl from China “is drugging our kids” and vowing: “As long as I’m treasurer, they won’t get money from us. Not one penny.”

Two of Malek’s main challengers in the Republican primary — state Rep. Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig — also support divestment from China.

Koenig said China is becoming less stable and “a more risky place to have money invested.”

“In China, the line between public and private is much more blurry than it is in America,” Smith said. “So I don’t think we can fully know that if we are investing in Chinese companies that we are not also aiding an enemy of the United States.” 

A law signed earlier this year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis requires a state board overseeing the retirement system to develop a plan by September 1 to divest from companies owned by China. The oversight board had announced in March 2022 that it would stop making new Chinese investments. As of May, it still had about $277 million invested in Chinese-owned entities, including banks, energy firms and alcohol companies, according to an analysis by Florida legislative staff.

Florida law already prohibits investment in certain companies tied to Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, or those engaged in an economic boycott against Israel.

In April, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have required divestment from companies in countries determined by the federal government to be foreign adversaries. That list includes China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

Hobbs said in a letter to lawmakers that the measure “would be detrimental to the economic growth Arizona is experiencing as well as the State’s investment portfolio.” 
…

New Delhi — The government in India will spend $24 billion on boosting employment opportunities for young people, as job creation emerges as the biggest challenge confronting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his third term. 

The government also announced financial support for development projects in two states ruled by its regional allies.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party failed to win a clear majority in recent elections and has formed a coalition government. Although the country’s economy is growing briskly, high unemployment and distress in its vast rural areas were cited as the key reasons for the party’s loss of support.

Presenting the annual budget in parliament on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will “facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities” for more than 40 million young people over the next five years.

She said the government will provide paid internships in the country’s 500 top companies to improve opportunities for job seekers.

India posted 8.2% growth last year, the fastest among major economies in the world. But critics say only some have benefitted from the boom, while millions struggle to earn a livelihood.

The government’s announcement that it will raise spending on loans for small and medium-sized businesses to boost job creation was welcomed by several economists. Opposition parties have long criticized the Modi government for giving billions of dollars in subsidies to big business and not extending enough assistance to smaller ones.

“The support to smaller businesses is critical because these are the enterprises which create jobs. Big corporations on the other hand use capital intensive technologies, which don’t result in any significant employment generation,” economist Santosh Mehrotra told VOA. “The government appears to have taken serious note of the jobless crisis we face for the first time in 10 years since it has been in power.”

He said providing internships could be a crucial step in tackling the unemployment problem. Mehrotra said it remains to be seen how the proposals are implemented.

Economists say jobs have failed to grow because India’s manufacturing sector is relatively small, accounting for only 17% of gross domestic product.

According to official figures, the unemployment rate is close to 6%, but an economic research group, the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, estimates that it is about 9%. The biggest challenge confronts young graduates, among whom the unemployment rate is about 29%. In the world’s youngest country, an estimated 10 million people enter the workforce every year.

A World Bank report released in April, “Jobs for Resilience,” said that while growth in South Asian countries like India is strong, the region is not creating enough jobs to keep pace with its rapidly increasing working-age population. According to the report, the employment ratio for South Asia was 59%, compared to 70% in other emerging market and developing economy regions.

India’s economy will continue expanding at a brisk pace, according to government estimates, which have pegged growth this year at 6.5% to 7% – lower than that posted last year but still high among major economies.

“The global economy, while performing better than expected, is still in the grip of policy uncertainties,” she said. “In this context, India’s economic growth continues to be the shining exception and will remain so in the years ahead,” Finance Minister Sitharaman said.

Modi said the budget will lead India toward “better growth and a bright future.”

With an eye on keeping its coalition allies on board, the government also announced financial assistance for two states — Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. The two regional parties that govern these states have pledged support to Modi and are crucial for his BJP to stay in power. 
…

Johannesburg — Some members of the U.S. Congress have called for South Africa to be excluded from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a U.S. program that grants duty-free access to the enormous U.S. market for many South African exports. South Africa presses to remain eligible for the trade program and its evolving relationship with the U.S.

Sonwabile Ndamase remembers when U.S. President Bill Clinton came to Soweto in 1998. Ndamase, a fashion designer who created the iconic “Madiba” shirts worn by then-South African President Nelson Mandela, got a last-minute request from Mandela’s office.

“[T]hey wanted to give something as a gesture and as a gift to President Bill Clinton and then they called me. They said, listen, you need to do something — the president, Bill Clinton, would be coming in. So I had to go to the house of late President Nelson Mandela and deliver the shirt,” he said.

That was during a period of good relations between the U.S. and Africa as a whole and the U.S. and South Africa in particular. In 2000, Clinton initiated the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, allowing duty-free access to the U.S. market for most agricultural and manufactured products from eligible African countries.

But times have changed. As U.S. lawmakers consider whether to extend AGOA past its September 2025 expiration date, there are calls in Washington to exclude South Africa due to its geopolitical stance on key issues, such as its refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

Political analyst Daryl Glaser from the University of Witwatersrand said tension has existed between the United States and South Africa’s longtime ruling African National Congress party since 2000.

“Yeah, there has always been a tension at the heart of ANC foreign policy between, on the one hand, a kind of human rights focus and a desire to appear to the West a human rights and democracy champion, and on the other side what you might call anti-imperialism or anti-Western imperialism, in particular combined with a kind of loyalty to the countries that supported South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle,” he said.

Those countries include Soviet-era Russia.

Despite the tension, South Africa has sent a delegation to Washington to advocate for its continued participation in AGOA.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2020, South Africa has become America’s largest trading partner in Africa, with over $20 billion in two-way trade volume.

Economist Dawie Roodt said South Africa cannot afford to lose AGOA, given the country’s high unemployment rate and slow economic growth.

He thinks a new coalition government, the result of inconclusive May elections, will help the country’s cause.

“I think what is important, what happened in South Africa in the last couple of weeks, South Africa now has a national government of unity and that’s the message that we need to send. Basically, it’s a coalition between the ANC and the DA, a political party slightly to the right. We’ve got a government now that is not a left-leaning government — it’s a government that is forming a coalition with a more business-friendly alliance partner,” he said.

If its status in AGOA is revoked, South Africa can still trade with the United States, but it won’t receive the preferential rates enjoyed by other African nations.
…

Baghdad — Iraq said Sunday a new power line will bring electricity from Turkey to its northern provinces as authorities aim to diversify the country’s energy sources to ease chronic power outages. 

The 115-kilometer (71-mile) line connects to the Kisik power station west of Mosul and will provide 300 megawatts from Turkey to Iraq’s northern provinces of Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Kirkuk, according to a statement by the prime minister’s office. 

Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani said the new line was a “strategic” step to link Iraq with its neighboring countries.  

“The line started operating today,” Ahmed Moussa, spokesperson for the electricity ministry, told AFP. 

Decades of war have left Iraq’s infrastructure in a pitiful state, with power cuts worsening the blistering summer when temperatures often reach 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). 

Many households have just a few hours of electricity per day, and those who can afford it use private generators to keep fridges and air conditioners running. 

Despite its vast oil reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs, especially from neighboring Iran, which regularly cuts supplies. 

Sudani has repeatedly stressed the need for Iraq to diversify energy sources to ease the chronic outages. 

To reduce its dependence on Iranian gas, Baghdad has been exploring several possibilities including imports from Gulf countries. 

The Iraqi government aims “to complete the connection with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) electric grid by the end of this year,” Sudani said Sunday. 

“This will enable Iraq to integrate into the regional energy system,” allowing it to diversify its energy sources, he added. 

In March, a 340-kilometer (210-mile) power line started operating to bring electricity from Jordan to Al-Rutbah in Iraq’s southwest. 
…

Madrid — Barcelona will raise the tourist tax for cruise passengers visiting the city for less than 12 hours, the mayor said in an interview published on Sunday.

Jaume Collboni said the current tourist tax for stopover cruise passengers was 7 euros ($7.61) per day. He did not say by how much the tax would be increased.

“We are going to propose.. substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers,” he told El Pais newspaper.

“In the case of stopover cruise passengers (less than 12 hours) there is intensive use of public space without any benefit for the city and a feeling of occupation and saturation. We want to have tourism that is respectful of the destination.”

He said tourists, not local tax payers, should pay for local projects like air-conditioning schools.

The proposal will have to be agreed with the Catalan regional government, Collboni said.

In recent weeks, anti-tourism activists have staged protests in popular holiday destinations across Spain, such as Palma de Mallorca, Malaga and the Canary Islands, saying visitors drive up housing costs and lead to residents being unable to afford to live in city centers. 

Another protest is planned in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the largest Balearic Island on Sunday evening.

Collboni announced last month that the city will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make the city liveable for residents.  
…

Yaounde, Cameroon — Participants in Africa-Indian Ocean Aviation Week this week in Libreville, Gabon, say they’ve produced a plan to make continentwide improvements to aviation development and safety.

Some 350 representatives from 180 countries attended AFI Aviation Week, which was organized by the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, with the aim of enhancing air travel safety across Africa and the Indian Ocean in the face of climate change and regional terrorism.

Officials from Gabon, Rwanda and Equatorial Guinea said they have agreed to expand fleets and modernize their airports, while Nigeria said it will repair aging infrastructure.

Many participants said it is time for African states to embrace a plan called the Single African Air Transport Market and liberalize civil aviation across the continent by removing restrictions on traffic rights for African airlines.

ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano was among those who endorsed the idea, saying on Gabon state TV that the continent needs to accelerate the implementation of the market to enhance connectivity.

Sciacchitano expressed his wish for governments and investors to make good use of what he called huge air transport opportunities in Africa to boost trade, create jobs and develop the continent.

The ICAO says that although no attacks on planes have been reported over the past year, terrorism threats in Africa — in countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger — sometimes cause passengers to rethink their schedules and make some travelers reluctant to fly.

Participants at the conference said Africa recorded no fatalities in commercial aviation accidents during 2023.

Navy Captain Loic Ndinga Moudouma, Gabon’s transport minister, said Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea entered an agreement to search and rescue people in distress should an accident or crash occur in parts of the Atlantic Ocean the three states share.

The African Union pointed out that although Africa has a population of close to 1.5 billion people and constitutes about 18% of the world population, Africans account for about 3% of global travel.

The International Air Transport Association reported that despite various challenges, airlines across Africa are expected to earn at least $100 million in profit in 2024, compared with $90 million in 2023.

The conference was the first time Gabon had hosted a major international event since the military coup that ousted longtime leader Ali Ben Bongo last August. Unlike military takeovers in other West African states such as Mali and Niger, the coup on Gabon has been widely accepted.
…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China’s ruling Communist Party concluded a highly anticipated party conclave Thursday, promising to boost economic growth through comprehensive reform while reiterating the importance of maintaining national security.

The Central Committee, in a communique at the end of the four-day, closed-door Third Plenum, laid out reform objectives to be completed by 2029, the 80th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

The party’s top decision-making body also vowed to finish “building a high-standard socialist market economy in all respects” by 2035.

“All of this will lay a solid foundation for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects by the middle of this century,” the communique said.

To achieve these goals, the communique said China must better utilize market mechanisms and double down on efforts to promote “high-quality development,” which includes prioritizing investment in advanced technologies and facilitating growth through technological and scientific innovation.

“We must deepen supply-side structural reform, improve incentive and constraint mechanisms for promoting high-quality development, and strive to create new growth drivers and strengths,” the communique said.

The key political meeting comes as China’s economic growth slowed to 4.7% in this year’s second quarter, prompting banks such as Goldman Sachs to lower their 2024 gross domestic product growth forecast for China from 5.0% to 4.9%.

Meanwhile, China’s property crisis continues as investment in the sector dropped 10.1% in the first six months of this year compared to a year earlier, and consumer confidence remains weak.

To address these challenges, Beijing promised to implement measures to defuse risks in the property sector while improving income distribution, the job market, social security, and the health care system.

“Ensuring and enhancing the people’s well-being in the course of development is one of the major tasks of Chinese modernization,” the communique said.

As local governments across China face mounting debt resulting from the real estate crisis, the communique stressed the need to roll out fiscal and tax reforms and facilitate better integration between cities and the countryside.

“The Party must promote equal exchanges and two-way flows of production factors between the cities and the countryside, so as to narrow the disparities between the two and promote their common prosperity and development,” the statement said.

As foreign investors closely monitor signals coming out of the plenum, the party said it would remain committed to the state policy of “opening to the outside world” and promised to “expand cooperation with other countries.”

“We still steadily expand institutional opening up, deepen the foreign trade structural reform, further reform the management systems for inward and outward investment,” the communique said.

Some analysts say the communique shows that Beijing is focusing on areas critical to China’s national strength, including technology and advanced manufacturing.

“This isn’t Western-style market liberalization; it’s about reinforcing China’s existing strategy,” Lizzi Lee, a fellow on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, said in a written response to VOA.

“The document cements Xi’s governance approach and his brand of reform, which focuses on consolidating power rather than adopting new liberal economic paradigms, endures,” she wrote.

Balancing reform and national security

In addition to laying out the long list of reform goals, the communique also highlighted the need for the party to balance development and security.

“We will strengthen the network for preventing and controlling public security risks so as to safeguard social stability [and] improve public opinion guidance and effectively deal with risks in the ideological domain,” it said.

The document also reiterated that the party’s top leadership, especially Xi Jinping, remains the “fundamental guarantee” for deepening reforms.

“We must uphold Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and uphold the Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership,” the communique said.

Some experts say the communique’s emphasis on upholding public security and following the guidance of party leadership shows Beijing is trying to tighten control over efforts to reform China’s troubled economy.  

“Tightening control is at the heart of [Beijing’s] dilemma because in order for the reforms to work, they need to loosen control,” Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told VOA by phone.

While other specific reforms are expected to be rolled out in other plenum documents in coming days, Lee said she expects consumer spending in China to remain sluggish and that recovery in the property sector remains slow in the short term.

“The prolonged transition period poses significant risks. It could lead to reduced investments and slower economic growth,” she told VOA, adding that the Chinese government will likely use targeted interventions to boost key sectors.

However, some analysts think that Beijing’s state-led economic growth model is unlikely to yield the results the government hopes for.  

“China’s state-led investment, which concentrates resources on areas such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, is going to take years to pay dividends, and meanwhile, the economy will continue to fail to deliver growth and jobs,” Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong, told VOA in a video interview.  

He said unless the government takes concrete steps to reduce its involvement in economic reforms, the country’s economic downturn could grow worse in coming years. 
…

Taipei, Taiwan — China’s ruling party has concluded the Third Plenum of its 20th Central Committee with a communique described as vague and cliché by China watchers, who said it lacks specific measures to address China’s economic difficulties.

Shi He-ling, an associate professor of economics at Monash Business School at Monash University in Caulfield, Australia, said the communiqué was disappointing and that its writers were completely unthinking.

The 5,000-word communiqué, issued on Thursday, touted the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements in “comprehensively deepening reforms” and said the future will be critical for comprehensively advancing “Chinese-style modernization,” building a strong country and rejuvenating the nation.

Shi said that while Chinese President Xi Jinping has set out a new vision of “Chinese-style modernization” to highlight his differences from previous party leaders, the communiqué does not provide any specific definitions that are measurable.

“It does not make macroeconomic adjustments at all but is like a philosophical article, which is basically a cliché,” Shi told VOA.

In addition to “socialist market mechanisms” and “new quality productivity,” the communiqué stressed that national security is an important foundation for the steady and long-term development of Chinese-style modernization; that the modernization of national defense and the armed forces is an important part of it; and that “party leadership” in particular is the “fundamental guarantee” for promoting this policy.

Yeh Yao-yuan, chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, said that under the framework of “Xi Thoughts,” it is difficult for the economic exposition of this communiqué to be new.

Even if the “socialist market economic system” is repeatedly touted, it will not be able to reverse China’s economic decline, he said, adding that Xi’s economic reform is in fact “changing things to their old ways.”

These include forcing the private sector to retreat in order to help the state advance and tightening controls over foreign capital, which will hit the market economy hard.

Ming Chu-cheng,  professor emeritus of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei, offered a similar assessment on Thursday at a seminar in Taiwan.

Xi “is touting the market economy, but what he really pushes is ‘the people retreat and the country advances,’ which is completely opposite to what he says,” Ming said. “I don’t have great hopes for the Third Plenum. Even if you relax the economic restrictions, you will encounter exactly the same problems in another 20 years because politics is choking the economy.”

The communiqué received more than 100 million views on Weibo and made it to the hot search list hours after its release. However, there was hardly any substantive discussion online among Chinese people in the comment areas. Most just reposted and recited some of the communiqué text to express their concerns.

The personnel changes made at the plenum attracted a lot of attention as the CCP officially approved the removal of its former foreign minister, Qin Gang, from its Central Committee.

Qin, who has not been seen in public since last summer, is no longer a member of the Communist Party leadership. He was dismissed as foreign minister in July last year and removed from the post of state councilor three months later.

His resignation from the top body had been accepted. No further details were provided, and the reasons behind Qin’s disappearance remain unclear. He was allegedly investigated for having an extramarital affair, leaking secrets and endangering national security.

The plenum also confirmed the expulsion of former Defense Minister Li Shangfu. Li Yuchao and Sun Jinming of the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force were also removed from the Central Committee.

Many online comments focused on Qin being called “comrade” in the party’s published decision while others were calling Qin’s ousting a “soft landing.”

After the discussion on Qin’s removal became a hot topic, the Weibo accounts of various media outlets seemed to be alerted and comments were concealed.

Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said that Beijing dislikes Chinese people arguing online about the CCP’s high-level personnel because comments might call into question the party’s decisions and judgment, especially as Qin was previously Xi’s close confidant and the foreign minister.

“What happened to Qin has not been particularly public so far,” Chong told VOA, “and too many of these discussions [about Qin] will also distract public attention from the economic reform plan the Third Plenum wants to promote.”

Adrianna Zhang, Yang An, Joyce Huang contributed to this story.
…

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court blocked the implementation of the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan, which would have lowered monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

In a ruling Thursday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion for an administrative stay filed by a group of Republican-led states seeking to invalidate the administration’s entire student loan forgiveness program. The court’s order prohibits the administration from implementing the parts of the SAVE plan that were not already blocked by lower court rulings.

The ruling comes the same day that the Biden administration announced another round of student loan forgiveness, this time totaling $1.2 billion in forgiveness for roughly 35,000 borrowers who are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

The PSLF program, which provides relief for teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public servants who make 120 qualifying monthly payments, was originally passed in 2007. But for years, borrowers ran into strict rules and servicer errors that prevented them from having their debt canceled. The Biden administration adjusted some of the program’s rules and retroactively gave many borrowers credits toward their required payments.

Two separate legal challenges to Biden’s SAVE plan have worked their way through the courts.

In June, federal judges in Kansas and Missouri issued separate rulings that blocked much of the administration’s plan to provide a faster path toward loan cancellation and reduce monthly income-based repayment from 10% to 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. Those injunctions did not affect debt that had already been forgiven.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allowed the department to proceed with the lowered monthly payments. Thursday’s order from the 8th circuit blocks all aspects of the SAVE plan.

The Education Department said it was reviewing the ruling.

“Our Administration will continue to aggressively defend the SAVE Plan — which has been helping over 8 million borrowers access lower monthly payments, including 4.5 million borrowers who have had a zero-dollar payment each month,” the administration said.
…

Nairobi, Kenya — Experts say Africa needs to invest in robust infrastructure if the continent is to have reliable internet after recent outages due to underwater cable failures highlighted the continent’s reliance on single-path connectivity.

Disruptions in March and May caused online banking problems and communication delays. Businesses experienced interruptions in many countries.

In March, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, four submarine cables that deliver the internet to at least 17 countries went offline.

Less than two months later, Eastern and Southern Africa experienced outages after two undersea cables were damaged. In Tanzania, the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam closed for two days due to the disruption.

Ben Gumo, a Kenyan who relies on the internet to sell clothes, shoes and children’s wares, said he lost business during the May disruption.

“Someone … puts stuff in the [online] basket, but because of the outage he cannot complete the sale, so he cancels,” Gumo said, adding that he couldn’t update his website with new products.

According to the telecommunications research company Telegeography, over 100 cable cuts occur globally each year. Experts blame undersea volcanic activity, rock falls, recent rainfall and currents in rivers that are much stronger than when some of the cables were built.

Manmade activities also cause disruptions. According to one report, a ship was attacked in the Red Sea and drifted, its anchor pulling up three underwater cables.

Mike Last works with the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, which operates in 20 African countries and has built 36 data centers. He said recent disruptions prompted government officials and businesspeople to recognize the need for better internet infrastructure.

“What it made people realize is that you have to invest in a reliable network, you have to invest in redundancy,” Last said, meaning that internet service is provided by more than one source. “We’ve seen a real boom in clients coming to us wanting connectivity on the new subsea systems.”

Some countries can stay online when one internet source is cut off, although service is often slow and not stable, because service providers and telecommunication carriers invested in more than one international connection.

According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa’s digital infrastructure coverage, access and quality are far behind those of other regions.

However, Africa is embracing the digital future. According to the Submarine Cable Networks, 37 countries have at least one subsea cable connection, and 20 countries have more than two subsea cables.

Last said cables planned by Google and Meta will improve connectivity.

One of the new cables, he said, has a high capacity. Another new cable — named 2Africa and led by Meta, the parent company of Facebook — is being built all the way around Africa.

“It brings a lot of capacity to Africa, and that will help,” Last said.

Experts warn that disparities in connectivity across Africa are expected, but that the development of infrastructure, government policies and private sector investments can accelerate growth.
…

…

…