Apple upgrade programme seen driving demand for new iPhones

Apple Inc has just made buying a new iPhone every year more affordable — a move that analysts said will drive demand from now on, starting with the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Apple announced a program on Wednesday that will allow users to finance unlocked versions of the new iPhones through monthly instalments starting at USD 32, regardless of carrier. Until now, customers could only lease subsidised phones on two-year contracts requiring an up-front payment. “We think this programme should act as a tailwind for iPhone sales, since they serve to shorten the replacement cycle,” Susquehanna analysts wrote in a note on Thursday. The deal for iPhone owners, which will initially apply to the United States and 11 other key markets.

New US prosecution policy is recipe for corporate conflict: lawyers

Company executives may be quicker to hire lawyers and less likely to cooperate with investigations because of a renewed push by US prosecutors to put individuals in prison instead of only levying big fines on corporations that break the law, lawyers with expertise in white-collar crime cases said. The Department of Justice, after years of criticism from lawmakers and the general public that people responsible for the 2008-09 financial crisis had not been held accountable, on Wednesday advised prosecutors to take a tougher stand against high-level executives and other employees for wrongdoing under their watch. In future investigations, corporations will be required to give up all potential evidence against officers and other employees if the business itself hopes to get leniency for cooperating with authorities.

WORLD

GE seeks sale of asset management arm amid industrial push

General Electric Co said on Thursday it would seek to sell its asset management arm to an investment management firm, as the US conglomerate further sharpens its focus on industrial products. GE Asset Management had USD 115 billion in assets under management as of June 30, according to GE, and manages retirement plans for the vast majority of GE’s 136,000 US employees as well as assets for outside institutional investors including third-party retirement plans. The plan to unload the asset management arm comes after GE announced in April it would seek to sell some USD 200 billion of its GE Capital assets.

Oil weakens as Saudi sees no need for oil summit to defend prices

Crude oil prices dipped on Friday and were poised for a weekly fall after news that top oil exporter Saudi Arabia sees no need for a producer summit to defend prices, partly offsetting a strong rally in the previous session. The front-month October contract for Brent, the global oil benchmark, shed 5 cents to  USD 48.84 a barrel after it settled up USD 1.31, or 2.8 per cent, on Thursday at USD 48.89 a barrel. The US crude October contract also lost 14 cents to USD 45.78 a barrel after it settled up USD 1.77, or four per cent, at USD 45.92 a barrel. Saudi believes a summit of oil producing countries’ heads of states would fail to produce concrete action toward defending oil prices, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

AUSTRALIA

Australia’s falling exchange rate, flexible labour force and record low interest rates are all helping to support the economy, a top Australian central banker said on Wednesday, but the country will have to get used to less growth from China. In comments that appeared in line with the central bank’s wait-and-see stance on monetary policy, Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Deputy Governor Philip Lowe also downplayed recent data that highlighted sharply slower growth. Figures last week showed the economy grew just 0.2 percent in the second quarter, taking the annual growth rate down to 2.0 percent, well below the long-term average of 3.0-3.25 percent. “The data for the June quarter suggest that the economy is continuing to grow at a similar rate to that of the past few years,” Lowe told a lunch in Melbourne.

Australian shares moved in and out of negative territory on Friday as investors, weary from global market volatility, were cautious ahead of next week’s US Federal Reserve meeting. At the latest level, the market was up about 1.4 per cent for the week. The previous week brought a 4.2 per cent drop, the biggest since June. The index was down 5.6 per cent year-to-date and trading around mid-2013

levels. “The wild swings are nauseating and I think everyone is just trying to get to next week’s US Fed decision in one piece,” said Chris Conway, head of research at Australian Stock Report. “Traders and investors must be feeling a bit tired at the moment, due to all the volatility we have seen of late.”

BANGLADESH

Bangladesh exported goods worth USD 2.76 billion in August, a 28 per cent rise from a year earlier, driven by an increase in garment shipments, government data showed on Tuesday. Exports fell 12 per cent, to USD 2.6 billion, in July from a year ago. For the first two months of the 2015-16 financial years, exports rose 4.7 per cent to nearly USD 5.4 billion from the previous year, the Export Promotion

Bureau said. Readymade garments, comprising knitwear and woven items, fetched USD 4.5 billion in July-August, compared with USD 4.2 billion in the same period a year ago. Exports in the fiscal year ending in June rose 3.35 per cent to USD 31.2 billion from a year earlier, but that was the slowest growth since 2002 and pivotal garment sales, while higher, missed their target.

Tea prices in Bangladesh rose at the weekly auction on Tuesday, snapping a seven-week run of falls, due to strong demand from local buyers for quality leaf. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average 185.81 taka per kg at the 18th auction of the current marketing season, slightly up from 185.62 taka at the previous week’s sale, an executive with National Brokers said. There was robust demand for quality tea while volume dropped from last week when the offering was the largest of the current season, the executive said. About 2.17 million kg were offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong, of which 10 percent was unsold. In the previous auction, about 12 per cent of the 2.19 million kg offered went unsold.

CHINA

China’s manufacturers slashed prices at the fastest rate in six years in August as commodity prices fell and demand cooled, signaling stubborn deflation risks in the economy and adding to expectations for further stimulus measures.The producer price index (PPI) fell 5.9 per cent in August from the same period last year, its 42nd consecutive month of decline and the biggest drop since the depths of the global financial crisis in late 2009, data showed on Thursday. The market had expected a decline of 5.5 per cent after a drop of 5.4 per cent in July.” The change in PPI is very worrying. It could affect corporate profitability, which in turn could affect consumption and the economy,” said Li Huiyong, economist at Shenyin & Wanguo Securities.” We must step up policy support.” Economists believe China’s surprise currency devaluation of nearly two per cent in mid-August will have little impact on inflation in the near term, in comparison with the effect of sharply lower commodity prices.

China will launch a nation-wide investigation over the suspected illegal cultivation of genetically-modified (GMO) crops, the agriculture ministry has posted on its website. The investigation follows a report by an official financial newspaper this week that GMO soybeans have been found in the country’s top growing area for the oilseed. China is the world’s top buyer of GMO soybeans, but Beijing has not given the go-ahead for domestic cultivation of GMO crops, although it has spent billions on research. However, some farmers in the northeast province of Heilongjiang are growing GMO soy crops illegally to seek higher yields, the China Business Journal reported this week. The report identified an area near the city of Suihua where GMO crops are allegedly being grown, but did not give any further details. The local Heilongjiang agricultural commission has said on its website that it would also investigate whether GMO crops are being grown in the province.

EUROPE

International creditors expect the first review of Greek reforms under the latest bailout to start in October, bringing changes to a memorandum of understanding signed with Athens and paving the way for debt rescheduling talks, Euro Zone officials said. Euro Zone finance ministers will discuss preparations for Greek reforms envisaged by the third bailout, worth 86 billion euros, at an informal meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday. No implementation review is possible before Greece’s Sept. 20 parliamentary elections.” There are elections in Greece. We have to wait for the results,” Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told Reuters in an interview.” The next step is a review in October. After the review we will have to discuss the restructuring of the debt, because there is consensus that debt is too high.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the euro zone economy was in better shape than a year ago and said reform efforts by countries like Spain and Ireland had paid off.” If we look at the Euro Zone as a whole, we can say that there is an economic recovery, the situation is better than a year ago,” Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.” In particular, the euro countries that carried out deep reforms, Spain and Ireland, are growing more than average. Spain is growing as fast as it did before the crisis. We can only say that the reform path was worth it,” she added.

INDIA

Indian refiners have been told to prepare to deposit USD 700 million with United Commercial Bank in readiness for it to pass on the first instalment of oil payments owed to Iran, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, ahead of the expected lifting of sanctions against Tehran. After the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six major world powers struck on July 14, sanctions could begin to be removed later this year if U.N. inspectors confirm Tehran is complying with its provisions. The refiners — Essar Oil, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL.NS) and HPCL Mittal Energy — together owe a total of more than USD 6.6 billion. The USD 700 million part-payment will be split in line of the proportion owed by each.

Brazil’s credit downgrade and the possibility India will export some four million tonnes of sugar could keep the global sugar industry mired in excess supplies, threatening a fragile recovery expected to begin in 2015/16, industry experts said. The possibility that millers in top grower and producer Brazil will continue to pump out large supplies of the sweetener at low prices may grow if the real continues its slide after Standard & Poor’s cut Brazil’s sovereign credit to “junk” status, analysts and traders said at an industry conference on Thursday.That could keep sugar prices pinned at already low levels, especially if Brazil’s real continues its slide to four per US dollar, said Jonathan Kingsman, a long-time sugar industry consultant. “It’s going to be very tough for other producers,” he said. The real has fallen to a 13-year low of 3.9 per US dollar.

JAPAN

Nippon Life Insurance Co said on Friday it has agreed to buy smaller rival Mitsui Life Insurance Co, in what would mark the first major realignment in Japan’s life insurance market in 11 years. Nippon Life, Japan’s largest private-sector life insurer with about USD 513 billion in assets, said it expects the deal to close by the end of March. Mitsui Life is a mid-sized player with USD 61 billion in assets. Both companies are closely held.The deal marks a rare shake-up in Japan’s life insurance market, where the last major deal was a 2004 merger between rivals to create Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance.

Japanese business sentiment turned positive in July-September and companies stuck to upbeat spending plans, a government survey showed, offering some relief for policymakers worried about a hit from slowing Chinese growth and ensuing market turmoil. The poll, the first comprehensive business confidence survey for the current quarter, followed a recent run of gloomy data, including a survey showing the service sector’s mood worsening in August. “Big manufacturers appear a bit cautious about the outlook, probably due to uncertainty over China. But it’s not as if they are all gloomy since US demand remains strong,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute. “Capital expenditure plans remain fairly strong, so I don’t think we need to be too pessimistic about the economy,” he said. An index gauging sentiment at large manufacturers stood at plus 11.0 in July-September, rebounding from minus 6.0 in the previous quarter, a joint survey by the Finance Ministry and a research arm of the Cabinet Office showed on Friday.

MALAYSIA

Hong Kong police are investigating bank deposits a complainant said were linked to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, police said on Friday, as a probe into a troubled Malaysian state investment fund widens. The investigation comes as another blow to Najib, who chairs the advisory board of 1Malaysia Development Berhad , after Swiss authorities froze millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts linked to the firm on suspicion of corruption and money laundering. Malaysian investigators are also looking into the fund, which has raked up over USD 11 billion in debt that has weighed on the country’s economy.Najib has denied taking any money from 1MDB or any other entity for personal gain. The Malaysian government dismissed the latest allegations about bank deposits as politically motivated. Hong Kong police confirmed that they were probing a matter a complainant had linked to Najib.

Scomi Group Bhd, Malaysian oilfield services firm, is projecting a USD two billion oil and gas tender book for 2015, The Sun reported on Wednesday, citing chief operating officer of transport Kanesan Veluppillai.The tenders submitted are for 20 projects in the Middle East, Turkmenistan, Thailand, India, Myanmar and Indonesia. “We anticipate results in the next two to three quarters,” he was quoted as saying at a press conference after Scomi’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.

PAKISTAN

According to The Express Tribune, raising fears of a slowdown in the economy, already under some duress, latest figures reveal that the trade deficit has contracted 8.4 per cent with exports and imports shrinking in the July-August period of the ongoing fiscal year. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, receipts from exports stood at USD 3.43 billion in July-August, one-tenth or USD 393 million less than the receipts in the comparative period of the previous year. Imports also contracted by 9.2 per cent and dropped to USD 7.2 billion, USD 797 million lower than the payments made in same period of the previous fiscal year, said the national data-collection agency.Resultantly, the trade deficit in the first two months of the new fiscal year shrank 8.4 per cent to USD 3.8 billion. It was USD 344 million less than the previous fiscal year. Exports have been falling because of a decline in

production, an overvalued rupee, loss of competitiveness and overall slowdown in the global economy, said Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, dean of the School of Social Sciences & Humanities department at Nust. He said the imports were shrinking because of deflationary trends, which suggest that the domestic economy was also slowing down.

Local car sales in the first two months July-August of 2015-16 stood at 36,388 units, up 89  on per cent a year-on-year (YoY) basis, according to the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) on Thursday. The volumetric surge was mainly on the back of the taxi scheme launched by the Punjab

government along with an overall improving economic situation in the country, a Topline Securities note said on Thursday. In addition, the low-base effect in the case of Toyota Corolla as well as a cut in interest rates that resulted in enhanced car financing during the period also led to higher sales in July-August, according to a Global Securities analyst. The tractor segment posted a decline of 36 per cent YoY to 3,649 units, Topline Securities noted, because farmers waited for the implementation and execution of the announced subsidy schemes by Sindh and Punjab governments.

RUSSIA

Russia has started to build a huge military base housing ammunition depots and barracks for several thousand soldiers near the Ukrainian border, a project that suggests the Kremlin is digging in for a prolonged stand-off with Kiev. The base, when completed, will even have its own swimming pool, skating rink and barber shop, according to public documents. This week workmen were erecting a fence in a cornfield outside the village of Soloti to mark out the perimeter, and told a Reuters reporter to leave, accusing him of being an Ukrainian spy.In almost the same spot there was a flurry of military activity in April last year that coincided with intense fighting across the Ukrainian frontier that lies about 25 km (15 miles) away. A squadron of Mi-24 attack helicopters was seen there at the time, as well as army tents and trucks.

NATO has accused Russia of using makeshift bases for sending soldiers and hardware into Ukraine to support pro-Russian separatists fighting Kiev. It’s a central tenet of liberal thinking and liberal politics that facing one’s own country’s history is an activity necessary to the mental health of the people. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the chronicler of Soviet oppression, said on his return to his native soil in 1994 after 20 years in exile that “national reconciliation is a great thing and much needed, but there cannot be national reconciliation without spiritual cleansing.” Solzhenitsyn was an uncertain liberal: but in this he agrees with a paid-up member of the liberal intelligentsia, Ian Buruma. In his Wages of Guilt, he contrasted the German assumption of responsibility for Nazi atrocities with the stuttering response of the Japanese to their war guilt, writing that “when society has become sufficiently open and free to look back, from the point of view neither of the victim nor of the criminal, but of the critic, only then will the ghosts be laid to rest.”

THAILAND

Thailand’s finance ministry said it expects disbursement of the investment budget for the fiscal year ending September 2015 to fall short of target.”It is about 60 per cent now. We may end the current fiscal year in the region of 70 percent as this is already a final month,” Deputy Finance Minister Wisut

Srisuphan told reporters.The total budget for 2015 is 2.575 trillion baht ( USD 71.3 billion), with the portion for investment around 451 billion baht (USD 12.49 billion), ministry data showed. The ministry last week eased rules on budget approvals for small scale government projects to boost disbursements in the next fiscal year, Wisut said. Thailand’s military government has said speedy government spending will help drive growth but disbursement of funds has been slow and big infrastructure projects have stalled.

According to The Bangkok Post British retail giant Tesco is likely to keep its operation in Thailand despite selling its largest foreign asset in South Korea to improve its poor balance sheet. One of the many reasons Tesco is not expected to sell its Thai operation, Tesco Lotus, it that it is among the top three retail operators in Thailand and the most recognised retail brand along with 7-Eleven and Central, an industry source said. Tesco’s sale this week of South Korean operation Homeplus was the first large divestment by its boss Dave Lewis, who wants to slash debt and recover from an accounting scandal and the loss of market share. “I don’t think the Thai operation will be sold, as it is healthy and profitable with a lot of market potential and expansion,” the source said. Tesco Lotus said in a statement that it was confident in Thailand’s growth opportunities and continued to expand its retail operations here. It has recently opened new hypermarkets and Tesco Express stores nationwide.

USA

Los Angeles street vendors who sell food, trinkets, toys and other small items in parks and along sidewalks rallied outside City Hall on Thursday to demand a process for making their work legal.About 40 vendors called for direct meetings with Mayor Eric Garcetti about legalizing street vending — a major source of income for some 50,000 people, many of them unauthorised immigrants in a city that has increasingly sought to show support for migrants.The protesters also expressed frustration with Garcetti for signing an ordinance that bans unlicensed vending in city parks. “It feels like a slap in the face. I feel like he’s betrayed us,” said Mariposa Gonzalez, 30, whose family has sold fruit from a cart for two generations.

Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Friday officials from Japan and the United States are having “very severe” auto trade talks but aim to narrow the gap between the two sides”We are making utmost efforts to create a path toward a solution,” Amari told a news conference.Negotiators from the two nations started bilateral talks over auto issues in Washington on Wednesday, while Japan also plans to hold talks with Canada and Mexico.Amari also said the schedule for the next round of talks among ministers from a 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact cannot be fixed unless there is the prospect for an agreement.