China's economy grew by 6.9% in the first quarter of 2017, according to official figures.
The growth rate, which compares expansion with the same three months in the previous year, was slightly higher than many economists had forecast. State-led infrastructure spending and demand for new property helped drive the world's second-largest economy. Last month China cut its growth target for this year to 6.5% from 6.7% in 2016.
Another set of data also suggests a rise in domestic consumption. February retail sales jumped 10.9% from the previous year. Analysis: Karishma Vaswani, Asia Business CorrespondentWhile we should always remain sceptical of the Chinese government's GDP data, these figures suggest that growth is stabilising. However, they also demonstrate that Beijing is relying on the same old tricks to drive its economy. Government spending on infrastructure, a booming property market and taking on debt were all things China's leadership has pledged to move away from in the transition towards a new, modern, open economy. Yet all three factors are still evident in this data, suggesting that the "old" model of growth that relies so much on the state is alive and well. Debt is a particular concern. China's total and private debt is now worth more than 250% of GDP and looks set to grow. Analysts are divided about just how equipped China is to handle that much debt, but even the government has said the situation is not ideal and must be addressed. The question is just how much political appetite there will be to accept a less-than-glamorous growth rate in a year when President Xi Jinping has arguably his most important party congress coming up. Property slowdown?China is a key driver of the global economy and its performance is closely watched by investors around the world. Its 2016 growth was its slowest in in 26 years. Hidenobu Tokuda of the Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo said China should be trying to slow its growth rate in the long term, though "uncertainties remain high" about how that slowdown would happen. Meanwhile Brian Jackson of IHS Global Insight predicted both industrial output and the property sector would slow. Credit: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39618553
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The footage taken inside the airliner shows a man being violently pulled out of his seat and dragged down the aisle as passengers prepared to take off from Chicago to Louisville on Sunday evening.
The airline in question - United - has tweeted an apology for what happened and says it is investigating. One 50-second clip of the incident on Twitter was re-tweeted 16,000 times since it was posted that day. Jayse D Anspach, who posted the footage, tweeted: "#United overbooked and wanted four of us to volunteer to give up our seats for personnel that needed to be at work the next day." "No one volunteered, so United decided to choose for us. They chose an Asian doctor and his wife." "The doctor needed to work at the hospital the next day, so he refused to volunteer," Mr Anspach added. "Ten minutes later, the doctor runs back into the plane with a bloody face, clings to a post in the back, chanting, "I need to go home." United Airlines incident: What went wrong? One of the three security officers involved has been "placed on leave", the Chicago Department of Aviation said, and his actions were "obviously not condoned by the Department". The department also said it would carry out a review into the incident, which it said was "not in accordance with our standard operating procedure". Another passenger Audra D. Bridges, posted a video of the incident on Facebook that has been viewed over 400,000 times. She wrote: "Please share this video. We are on this flight. United airlines overbooked the flight." "They randomly selected people to kick off so their standby crew could have a seat. "This man is a doctor and has to be at the hospital in the morning," she added. "He did not want to get off. We are all shaky and so disgusted." Thousands of Facebook comments have been posted about what happened. One person wrote: "This is infuriating" Another posted: "OMG So sad to see someone being treated like this. I wont fly United ever again." But another felt the video raised some unanswered questions. "There has to be more to this story," he said. "Usually when a flight is overbooked they offer free flight vouchers to those willing to change flights or go on standby and a couple of people will jump at those as their travel plans may be flexible." "I feel like this specific incident HAS to be deeper than what we are seeing in this video," he added. In a statement United airlines told the BBC: "Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked." "After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate," the airline added. The chief executive of United, Oscar Munoz, has since made a statement on Twitter: "This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologise for having to re-accommodate these customers." "Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. "We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve the situation," he added. Credit: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39554421 Tesla's market value has overtaken that of Ford after shares in the electric car maker added more than 7%.
At the close of trading Tesla had a market value of $49bn (£38bn), compared with Ford's value of $46bn. Tesla's shares rose on Monday after the company announced record vehicle deliveries in the first three months of the year. The firm delivered more than 25,000 cars in the first quarter, up 70% on the same quarter last year. While Tesla's sales are growing fast they are still a fraction of Ford's, which sold almost 6.7 million vehicles in 2016. Tesla delivered 76,000 electric cars last year. "Magic dust" However, investors are excited about the growth potential of Tesla. This year it plans to start selling a cheaper car in the US, the Model 3, which it hopes will have mass market appeal. "Five years ago no one knew what a Tesla was. Now people want a Tesla. It has usurped BMW as an aspirational car," said Ben Kallo, energy technology analyst at Robert W Baird. Mr Kallo said that the charisma, or what he described as the "magic dust" surrounding Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk, allows it to attract talented staff as well as investors. "Tesla has more going on in those four walls than we know about," he said. Meanwhile, Tesla has made a huge investment in battery production, building a $5bn factory in Nevada that when fully developed will be the biggest building in the world. Mr Musk, hopes that by operating at that kind of scale his company can innovate faster and cut the cost of batteries by 30%. As well as supplying batteries for cars, the plant makes batteries for homes and businesses. In what was seen as a vote on confidence in the firm, last month China's Tencent spent $1.78bn on buying a 5% stake in Tesla. Credit: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39485200 President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders targeting the US trade deficit, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit.
One order includes a study looking at causes of the deficit by examining unpaid duties and foreign trade abuses. The second will initiate a review of the American trade deficit and rules Mr Trump says harm US workers. Administration officials said Beijing was not the focus, but China is the largest source of the US trade deficit.
"We are going to get these bad trade deals straightened out," he told reporters during the signing. "These actions are designed to let the world know that this is a president taking another step to fulfil his campaign promise," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday night, previewing the executive orders. Mr Trump spent a large part of his presidential campaign railing against the US trade deficit and foreign trade deals. Mr Ross will lead a comprehensive review accounting for the sources of the $502.3bn trade deficit and report back to the White House after 90 days. The study will look at whether cheating, trade deals, lax enforcement and World Trade Organization rules play a role in the deficit, according to Mr Ross. The orders also will focus on stricter enforcement of the US anti-dumping laws and countervailing duties, or the penalties imposed on foreign governments who violate trade rules, as well as pirated and counterfeited intellectual property owned by US companies. The pair of orders come one week before Mr Trump meets the Chinese president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Director of the White House National Trade Council Peter Navarro told reporters that the orders had nothing to do with Mr Xi's visit. But China is the source of America's highest trade deficit, at $347bn a year. "Nothing we're saying tonight is about China. Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties," Mr Navarro said. Mr Trump tweeted on Thursday night that his first meeting with Mr Xi would "be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits...and job losses". "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," he added. The half trillion-dollar deficit slightly increased from 2015, according to the Commerce Department. The trade gap reached a record level since 2012 last year, though the imbalance remains below its previous high in 2006. Credit: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39458365 |
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