China will find it tough to achieve over 6.5% growth over 2016-2020: state adviser

China will face great difficulty in achieving economic growth above 6.5 per cent over the 2016-2020 period due to slowing global demand and rising labour costs at home, the China Securities Journal quotes a top state adviser as saying. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

JAN 11, 20168:38 AM

[SHANGHAI] China will face great difficulty in achieving economic growth above 6.5 per cent over the 2016-2020 period due to slowing global demand and rising labour costs at home, the China Securities Journal quotes a top state adviser as saying.

Li Wei, president of the State Council's Development Research Centre, made the comments at a conference over the weekend, the newspaper reported on Monday. "In the last 30 years of reforms and opening up, China's gross domestic product has posted annual growth of around 10 per cent. Against this, 6.5 per cent is not high, but it will be very difficult to achieve this pace of growth," he said.

He said the main impeding factors were a likely global economic slowdown, rising labour costs that were eroding China's competitive advantage, and growing environmental concerns which meant that the country could not industrialise arable land at as rapid a pace as before.

President Xi Jinping has said that China must keep annual average growth at no less than 6.5 per cent over the next five years to hit the country's goal of doubling gross domestic product and per capita income by 2020 from 2010.

China is set to release fourth-quarter and full-year GDP data on Jan 19. It is expected to report 2015 growth cooled to around 7 per cent, the slowest in a quarter of a century.

REUTERS

    
 

Britain's Asda to spend further £500m on price cuts

JAN 10, 201610:16 PM

[LONDON] Asda, the British supermarket arm of US retailer Wal-Mart, will spend a further £500 million ($1.04 billion) cutting prices, it said on Sunday, firing 2016's first shot in a price war that has raged for two years.

All of Britain's "big four" supermarket chains - market leader Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons - have been cutting prices in an attempt to turn the tide after losing customers to discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Asda, which had been the first to move, said the £500 million is in addition to its previously announced price cuts. It said in November 2013 that it would spend £1 billion on cuts over five years. "We must take radical action to win back our customers,"Chief Executive Andy Clarke said, pointing to a lack of growth in the market and the rise of the discounters. "We expect that 2016 will be another year of intense pressure at a macroeconomic level in addition to sales remaining under strain from price deflation, a continued competitive background throughout the sector and radically changing customer shopping habits." Asda was the worst performer by sales among Britain's leading supermarkets last year, with management choosing to protect profit margins rather than chase sales.

The company reported like-for-like sales down 4.5 per cent year on year in its third quarter after a record 4.7 per cent decline in the previous three months. It is due to provide an update on fourth-quarter trading on Feb 18.

See who is talking about WAL-MART

Last 30 days:

• 541
• 17
• 63

30 days avg

HOT COMPANIES

Sports Direct Intl +110% messages

• CRH +87%
• GKN +42%
• Relx PLC +42%
• Tesco +36%
• Hammerson +35%
• BT Group +29%
• Sage Group +28%
• Barclays +26%
• Centrica +24%

• CRH +87%
• GKN +42%
• Relx PLC +42%
• Tesco +36%
• Hammerson +35%
• BT Group +29%
• Sage Group +28%
• Barclays +26%
• Centrica +24%

Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons will all report on Christmas trading this week.

REUTERS

    
 

Steel-producing Hebei province sees 2015 growth at 6.8%

JAN 10, 201610:04 PM

[BEIJING] China's biggest steel-producing province, Hebei, expects to achieve economic growth of 6.8 per cent in 2015 from the previous year, state media said on Sunday, as the area grapples with tougher anti-pollution measures and slowing demand.

The province surrounding the capital, Beijing, churns out nearly a quarter of Chinese steel output, but is now taking the brunt of a campaign to cut dependence on heavy and polluting industrial capacity.

Hebei had set an annual GDP target of around 7 per cent as part of its 13th five-year plan - a blueprint for economic and social development between 2016 and 2020, state news agency Xinhua said.

Governor Zhang Qingwei said China's campaign to curb pollution had reduced Hebei's growth rate by about 0.9 percentage points in 2015, Xinhua said.

The province will push forward "green development" and industrial restructuring, it added.

Hebei is home to seven of China's 10 smoggiest cities, official 2014 air quality data show, and officials have long complained it has been asked to sacrifice too much in the "war on pollution".

Last year, the province's top Communist Party official said it was paying "a huge price" for the war on pollution.

Hebei has struggled to find alternative sources of growth and hopes a new plan to integrate its economy with the prosperous nearby cities of Beijing and Tianjin will help cut its reliance on steel and coal.

REUTERS

    
 

Paris attacks ringleader visited UK: report

The Belgian jihadist suspected of planning the November terror attacks in Paris visited Britain last year despite being hunted by police, the Guardian newspaper reported on Sunday. 

PHOTO: REUTERS

JAN 11, 20167:00 AM

[LONDON] The Belgian jihadist suspected of planning the November terror attacks in Paris visited Britain last year despite being hunted by police, the Guardian newspaper reported on Sunday.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud's alleged trip to Britain could add to pressure on the interior ministry, which is struggling to tighten border controls amid high-profile reports of Britons going to Syria to join the Islamic State group.

The newspaper said photos of British landmarks were found on Abaaoud's phone after he was killed in a raid in Paris just days after the November 13 coordinated gun and bomb attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people.

The Guardian cited no sources and the interior ministry declined to comment.

Abaaoud entered Britain through a ferry port in England's southeast, the newspaper said, giving no dates.

The Guardian said he had met several jihadists in London and in Birmingham in central England, but that it was not clear whether the photos on his phone were part of plans for an attack.

He had been the subject of an arrest warrant issued by Belgium, where in July he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria.

The 28-year-old of Moroccan origin had in the past boasted of evading police dragnets in Europe, and taunted European authorities from what was assumed to be an IS base in Syria.

He also bragged about escaping from Europe after Belgian police shot dead two of his fellow jihadists in the eastern town of Verviers as they broke up a cell planning attacks on security personnel last year.

Abaaoud had first popped up on the radar of Belgian security forces after featuring in an IS video released in 2014, laughing as he drove a car which dragged mutilated bodies behind it.

AFP

    
 

France convinced Greece will live up to reform promises

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Sunday he was convinced Greece would live up to its reform commitments and that it was in everyone's interests to discuss how to ease the country's debt burden.

PHOTO: REUTERS

JAN 11, 20167:07 AM

[PARIS] French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Sunday he was convinced Greece would live up to its reform commitments and that it was in everyone's interests to discuss how to ease the country's debt burden.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Paris after meeting with Sapin, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said he was"quite confident" that a first review of Athen's reform efforts could be completed quickly, opening the way for discussions about Greece's debt.

"I was convinced ... that the Greek government is determined to respect its commitments," Mr Sapin told the news conference. "The faster that we can speak about the question of Greece's debt the better it is for everyone," he added.

REUTERS