sun
Page: 5

The Mobius II first generation SUV by Kenyan car maker Mobius Motors is seen in the company’s show room in Nairobi, Kenya March 6, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
April 12, 2019
By Joe Bavier, Emma Rumney and Duncan Miriri
JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI (Reuters) – At the edge of Nairobi’s Ngong Forest, thousands of used cars glitter in the hot sun on a dusty field, waiting for buyers.
Imported from Japan or the Middle East, they offer an affordable route to vehicle ownership in Kenya and have dominated the market for decades.
That is an obstacle big carmakers must overcome if they are to crack Africa, a market promising rapid growth as trade tensions threaten sales elsewhere. African consumers also still need conventional engines just as demand in more traditional markets is curbed by restrictions on carbon emissions.
Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota, Nissan and others have joined forces to lobby governments for steps that would reduce the imports that have made sub-Saharan Africa notoriously difficult terrain and allow local production to flourish.
“The question on Africa isn’t, ‘Is it a market of the future?’” Mike Whitfield, Nissan’s top executive for Africa, told Reuters. “It’s a case of when.”
Four years after forming the Association of African Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM) their efforts are starting to bear fruit. Carmakers that set up local assembly plants could get tax holidays of up to 10 years and duty exemptions in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, according to government plans seen by Reuters.
Thomas Schaefer, who heads Volkswagen’s Africa business, said there is a potential market in sub-Saharan Africa for 3 to 4 million new cars, up from just 420,000 in 2017.
But that will require addressing the well-entrenched interests of second-hand car dealers, smugglers and lowering the price of new cars.
“It will largely depend on how successful the African governments are in limiting the amounts of second-hand imports and how price-competitive new vehicles can be with their tariffs,” said Craig Parker, Africa research director at Frost & Sullivan, a U.S.-based market research firm.
MULTIPLYING EFFECTS
Africa’s population and household incomes are rising rapidly. But its 1 billion inhabitants account for only 1 percent of the world’s new passenger car sales, industry data shows. South Africans bought over 85 percent of those vehicles.
The AAAM identified Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana as potential manufacturing hubs and helped draft legislation setting up standards and incentives.
Details of governments’ plans provided to Reuters demonstrate that African nations are keen to secure a spot as a beachhead for the industry.
Nigeria and Ghana are preparing to offer automakers tax holidays of up to 10 years and duty-free imports of parts and components used in local assembly. Nigeria also plans to double the levy on new, fully-built imported vehicles to 70 percent to boost demand for locally produced cars, though the policy’s approval has been delayed.
In Kenya, automakers will pay no import or excise duties and get a 50-percent corporate tax break.
For African nations facing massive demographic pressures, such concessions make sense if they create jobs, said Jelani Aliyu, of Nigeria’s National Automotive Design and Development Council.
“The multiplying effects are exponential,” said Aliyu, who foresees supporting industries developing around the plants.
Legislative and fiscal frameworks are being finalised, but companies are already investing millions of dollars in new plants.
VW and Nissan have set up operations in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana or have pledged to do so. Honda and Peugeot have launched assembly plants in Nigeria, and Peugeot has done the same in Kenya.
Carmakers sorely need the business. Their South African divisions, which typically direct operations elsewhere on the continent, face stagnating domestic sales and scant growth prospects in their main export market, Europe. A chaotic Brexit or U.S. tariff hikes could further dampen sales.
Toyota South Africa’s chief executive Andrew Kirby said the strategy is: “Focus on Africa because Africa is going to grow significantly.”
A pivot to Africa could also help insulate automakers from the immediate effects of the electric vehicle revolution. The continent is ill-placed to join it at the moment due to the higher prices of EVs and unreliable power grids.
Just 66 electric cars were sold last year in South Africa – the continent’s most developed economy.
“Africa will most likely remain as the last bastion of internal combustion engines,” Parker said.
DISTORTED MARKET
Nevertheless, industry officials say the biggest hurdle to developing the market for new cars is dumping from countries such as Japan, where strict vehicle inspections force cars out of circulation after just a few years.
They say this distorts the market by allowing dealers to buy the cars at scrap prices and export them to Africa.
They blame the cheap imports for killing off assembly sectors in a number of African countries including Nigeria, which built around 150,000 cars per year until the 1980s.
Political will is needed to change that, and without it there is little point in considering a country for local production, according to VW’s Schaefer.
“The markets … are literally not functioning right now due to importation of used vehicles,” he said.
In Kenya, the government plans to wind down imports of cars more than three years old by 2021. Exceptions will be made for passenger vehicles with 1.5 liter or smaller engines.
The policy could see mid-range imported models double in price, according to the 300-member Kenya Auto Bazaar Association (KABA). The lobby group has taken out ads in local newspapers denouncing the policy and is demanding a meeting with Kenya’s president.
Mark Oburu, KABA’s vice-chairman, said the move would hit an industry that delivers 85 percent of Kenyan car purchases.
“The middle class will not be able to own a vehicle of their choice,” he said.
In the Nairobi bazaar, Grace was shopping for her eldest son’s first car. She said she could not afford to buy a new one.
“If they don’t rescind that decision, we will be on boda bodas (motor-bikes).”
Both Ghana and Nigeria have also pledged to tackle the issue. Nigeria hiked taxes on imported used cars in 2014, but smuggling has undermined that effort to boost demand for local production, according to manufacturers and government officials.
Used cars are also among the leading imports in many African countries, and governments will have to wean themselves off the associated tax revenues.
There are other stumbling blocks: access to financing is limited, and countries that don’t host assembly plants must also be persuaded to limit used imports and reduce tariffs on African-made vehicles. That will be hard to do if the only outcome they see is higher sticker prices.
“The purpose is not to take the most lucrative slice of the industry,” said Ghana’s minister of trade and industry, Alan Kyerematen, suggesting that neighbors could produce components for his country’s assembly plants.
Auto executives acknowledge the challenges but point to a famous precedent. When VW and GM entered China in the 1980s and 90s, vehicle ownership rates were lower than in many African markets. Today, those two companies alone sell over 3.5 million vehicles annually in China.
“Everybody was laughing, saying China doesn’t need cars, they only need bicycles,” Schaefer said.
(Joe Bavier and Emma Rumney reported in Johannesburg and Duncan Miriri in Nairobi; Additional reporting by Clement Uwiringiyimana in Kigali and Chijioke Ohuocha in Lagos; Editing by Alexandra Zavis and Anna Willard)
Source: OANN

A Honda Li Nian EV concept car is displayed during a media preview of the Auto China 2018 motor show in Beijing, China April 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 12, 2019
WUHAN, China (Reuters) – Honda’s sales in China are likely to catch up with its sales in the United States within two to three years and the firm would like them to eventually overtake U.S. sales, the company’s chief executive said on Friday.
Takahiro Hachigo made the comments to a small group of reporters after the official opening of a new plant in Wuhan.
Hachigo said that the catch-up could happen “soon”, later clarifying to Reuters that he was referring to a two-to-three-year time period.
“We would like China sales to overtake the U.S.,” he said, adding that the company did not expect U.S. sales to increase significantly.
Honda’s manufacturing capacity in China could be expanded if necessary, he added.
Honda last year sold roughly 1.7 million vehicles in the United States and 1.4 million in China.
(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu in Wuhan; writing by Yilei Sun in Shanghai; editing by Richard Pullin)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: The sun sets behind an oil pump outside Saint-Fiacre, near Paris, France March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
April 12, 2019
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices were firm on Friday, supported by ongoing supply cuts led by producer club OPEC and by U.S. sanctions on petroleum exporters Iran and Venezuela.
International Brent crude oil futures were at $71.01 per barrel at 0042 GMT, up 18 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.78 per barrel, up 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their previous settlement.
“We see Brent and WTI prices averaging $75 per barrel and $67 per barrel respectively through the rest of this year, but risk is asymmetrically skewed to the upside,” RBC Capital Markets said in a note.
“Geopolitically infused rallies could shoot prices toward or even past the $80 per barrel mark for intermittent periods this summer,” the Canadian bank said.
Oil markets have been pushed up by more than a third this year by supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), U.S. sanctions on oil exporters Iran and Venezuela, and escalating fighting in Libya.
Production in Venezuela has been plunging as the U.S. sanctions add to a deep economic and political crisis, while the U.S. government is expected to tighten oil sanctions against Iran in May.
“Electrical outages added a further hurdle to Venezuelan production, which fell by 290,000 barrels per day in March to 732,000 barrels per day. Iranian production was stable at 2.7 million barrels per day, (but) could take a further hit if the U.S. cuts import waivers in May,” said Jefferies bank on Friday.
OPEC and its allies will meet in June to decide whether to continue withholding supply, and while OPEC’s de-facto leader, Saudi Arabia, is seen to be keen to continue cutting, sources with the group said it may raise output from July if disruptions elsewhere continue.
On the demand side, most of the world’s growth in fuel consumption is coming from Asia.
“China and India comprise nearly 55 percent of global demand growth. Throw in the rest of emerging Asia and the figure balloons to 80 percent,” said RBC Capital Markets.
“While macro fears of an economic hard landing may be overblown, the concentration risk of global oil demand remains under appreciated,” it added.
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Joseph Radford)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: A building of the Geely Auto Research Institute is seen in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, China August 4, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
April 11, 2019
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Geely, China’s highest profile car maker with investments in Volvo and Daimler, launched a premium all-electric car brand “Geometry” on Thursday as it pushes ahead with its plans to boost production of new energy vehicles.
The move comes as automakers race to develop vehicles powered by means other than petrol to meet an expected rise in demand as the world’s top car market enforces official production quotas designed to reduce smog.
Geometry will take overseas orders but will mainly focus on the Chinese market and will launch more than 10 pure electric models in multiple segments by 2025, Geely said in a statement on Thursday.
The company added it had already received more than 26,000 orders globally for its first model, the Geometry A. The longer-range version of the model has an ability to travel up to 500 kilometers (310.69 miles) on a single charge, Geely said.
Geely launched Geometry at an event in Singapore and said the city-state would eventually become a target market.
“The launch of Geometry and its first product advances Geely’s strategic goal of becoming one of world top 10 automotive groups,” An Conghui, president of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said in the statement.
Geely set up a new joint venture with Germany’s Daimler just last month to build the next generation of Smart electric cars in China. Smart is Daimler’s small-car brand.
Geely is also developing new energy commercial vehicles like pickup trucks at another unit, Yuan Cheng Auto.
China has been a keen supporter of new energy vehicles (NEV) including pure battery electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid technologies, and started implementing NEV sales quota requirements for automakers.
According to a Reuters report, global automakers are planning a $300 billion surge in spending on electric vehicle technology over the next five to 10 years, with nearly half of the money targeted at China.
Geely posted sales growth of 20 percent in 2018. However, it is forecasting largely steady sales this year as the country’s giant auto market struggles with slowing economic growth and more cautious consumers. Last year, the overall market contracted for the first time since the 1990s.
The Chinese carmaker bought Volvo Cars in 2010 from Ford Motor Co in what was China’s biggest acquisition of a foreign car maker at the time.
(Reporting by Yilei Sun and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Source: OANN

Shanti Ramchand, a candidate for the next parliamentary election from Nasdem (National Democratic) party, takes a selfie with her supporters during her campaign trail at a hutment area south of Jakarta, Indonesia, March 14, 2019. Picture taken March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
April 11, 2019
By Tom Allard and Jessica Damiana
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Shanti Ramchand learned quickly what was expected when she began campaigning in Jakarta for Indonesia’s national parliament – distribute envelopes of cash at a small campaign event, and gift a motorcycle or an airconditioning unit to the community leader.
Ramchand, an aspiring politician from the National Democrat Party, part of President Joko Widodo’s coalition, is trying a novel approach to getting elected. She is not only eschewing the cash and gifts that are traditionally given out on the campaign trail, but making it the centerpiece of her pitch to voters.
Indonesia – the world’s third-largest democracy – has some of the worst money politics in Southeast Asia, according to researchers. Handouts of cash and gifts, anti-graft advocates and politicians say, lead to rampant corruption in its national legislature as successful candidates recoup their election expenses, and more, once elected.
Envelopes, usually stuffed with cash ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 rupiah ($1.42 to $7.08), are commonly doled out to voters. These are small amounts, but the overall cost can be huge over a six month campaign.
Earlier this month, Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) seized six storage chests in a concealed basement owned by Bowo Sidik Pangarso, a parliamentarian seeking re-election from the Golkar Party, another party in Widodo’s ruling coalition. The chests contained 400,000 envelopes each believed to contain 20,000 rupiah – a total of 8 billion rupiah or over $566,000.
Bowo, who has been detained but not formally charged, told reporters last week after leaving an interview with the anti-corruption body that the envelopes were for the national parliament election, not the presidential election, both due on April 17.
While illegal, politicians and analysts say it is relatively rare to see prosecutions for election-time bribery.
Two politicians from the National Mandate Party, part of the opposition coalition headed by former general Prabowo Subianto, were sentenced to three months in prison in December for distributing coupons for the Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca to voters. They will not be disqualified from running for office again.
In 2017, the then speaker of the national parliament Setya Novanto was arrested for orchestrating a scheme to plunder $173 million from a government contract for a national electronic identity card.
The KPK alleged most of the money was to be funneled to up to 60 lawmakers. Novanto was sentenced to 15 years in prison, underscoring why Indonesia’s national parliament rates as among the most corrupt institutions in the country in surveys.
“KLEPTOCRACY”
In a south Jakarta neighborhood, Ramchand is working the courtyard crowd, engaging in some questions and answers as she tries to convince constituents to vote for her.
“We don’t choose the envelope, right?,” she says, receiving scattered approval from the crowd of about 40 congregating in a shady courtyard to ward off the mid-afternoon sun.
“That’s right. Check the background of the candidate. Ask them about their programs. Your voice can’t be bought.”
In an interview, Ramchand said at three out of ten planned appearances, community leaders would demand gratuities to allow her to talk to the voters in her South Jakarta electorate.
“Sometimes people bluntly ask for money. Others ask for air conditioning units or a motorbike,” she told Reuters.
Ramchand, a policy consultant to corporations and governments who has lived overseas for most of the past decade, showed Reuters WhatsApp messages sent to her by village chiefs and officials from religious organizations demanding money to let her speak at gatherings.
Reuters could not independently verify the messages.
Ramchand said she has also declined to pay the usual political “dowry” required by political parties to endorse candidates.
The going rate for a serious run for one of 560 seats in the national legislature is about 10 billion rupiah, or $708,000, according to the former deputy chief of the KPK, Busyro Muqoddas.
“We live in a kleptocracy, not a democracy,” said Busyro.
A spokesman for the campaign team of Widodo, Ace Hasan Syadzily, said his own party, Golkar, does not demand a political dowry but conceded “vote buying does happen”. The president was against money politics, he added.
A spokesman for the opposition coalition led by Prabowo, Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak, declined to comment on whether candidates had to pay parties to be endorsed.
“The cost of running for political office is expensive and can potentially be the cause of corruption,” he said. “We are pushing for political parties to be funded by the state and, if they are corrupt, they should be disbanded.”
DAWN ATTACK
Ramchand said she was met with broad scepticism that her campaign strategy could work.
She admits that she has had to cancel many events.
A poll of voters in three Jakarta constituencies by the Charta Politika agency in January found support for cash and other gratuities at 58.2 percent, 47 percent and 42.6 per cent.
Edward Aspinall, a professor at Australian National University who has researched money politics across Southeast Asia, said the practice of cash handouts is deeply entrenched in Indonesia.
“It’s more common in Indonesia than elsewhere in Southeast Asia,” he told Reuters.
He blamed the deterioration on the introduction of the “open list” electoral system in 2009 where voters choose candidates, rather than a party, and it is the candidates who bear most of the costs of the campaigns.
“The incentive is for individual candidates to maximize their personal vote,” he said. “Very often they do this with money. How else can you differentiate yourself from rivals from the same party when you have the same policies?”
Cash-for-votes reaches its peak during the “dawn attack”, the morning of the election when candidates blitz voters.
“It’s high drama at the last minute,” said Aspinall. “Candidates see this is really inefficient and ineffective but the feel if they don’t do it, they won’t stand a chance.”
Ramchand, for her part, says: “I’ll be sleeping in.”
(Additional reporting by Tabita Diela; Editing by Ed Davies and)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: The sun sets behind an oil pump outside Saint-Fiacre, near Paris, France March 28, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo
April 11, 2019
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices fell on Thursday after U.S. crude stockpiles surged to their highest levels in almost 17 months amid record production.
International benchmark Brent futures were at $71.57 per barrel at 0056 GMT, down 16 cents, or 0.2 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $64.36 per barrel, down 25 cents, or 0.4 percent, from their previous settlement.
U.S. crude inventories rose 7 million barrels to 456.6 million barrels in the last week, their highest since November 2017, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
U.S. crude oil production remained at a record 12.2 million barrels per day (bpd), making the United States the world’s biggest oil producer ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia. Graphic: U.S. oil production, storage & drilling levels, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2HWNIqK
Despite this growth in U.S. supply, global oil markets remain tight amid supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), U.S. sanctions on oil exporters Iran and Venezuela, and escalating fighting in Libya.
As a result, Brent and WTI have risen by around 30 and 40 percent respectively since the start of the year.
Venezuela’s oil output sank to a new long-term low last month due to U.S. sanctions and blackouts, with production plunging to 960,000 bpd in March, a drop of almost 500,000 bpd from February.
“Pressure to global supplies continues to mount because of sanctions-linked problems in Iran and Venezuela and rising geopolitical risk in Libya,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading at SPI Asset Management.
Beyond the short-term outlook for oil markets, a lot of attention is on the future of demand amid the rise of alternative fuels for transport.
“We believe global demand has another 10 million barrels bpd of growth, with over half from China,” Bernstein Energy said in a note on Thursday.
Current oil demand stands around 100 million bpd.
Bernstein said it expected oil demand to peak around 2030, but added that “we expect a long plateau rather than a sharp decline” in consumption after that.
“While no industry lasts forever, the age of oil is far from over,” Bernstein said.
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Joseph Radford)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: Mar 5, 2019; Durham, NC, USA; Duke Blue Devils forward R.J. Barrett (5) lays the ball up during the second half against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Blue Devils won 71-70. Mandatory Credit: Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports
April 10, 2019
As expected, Duke freshman star R.J. Barrett officially declared for the 2019 NBA Draft on Wednesday.
“I want to thank God, my family, my coaches and everyone that has helped me reach this decision,” the 6-foot-7 forward posted on Twitter.
Barrett is projected as a top-three pick in the June 20 draft, along with Blue Devils teammate and fellow first-team All-American Zion Williamson.
Barrett averaged 22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists and started all 38 games for Duke (32-6), which reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.
–Kentucky freshman Keldon Johnson is entering the draft and hiring an agent, but he is leaving the door open to decide to return to school by the May 29 deadline.
“My hope is to be a lottery pick,” he said in a statement. “If I am, I plan on pursuing my dreams and staying in the draft, but I want to go through the process first and get the correct information.”
Johnson, a 6-6 guard, was third on the Wildcats in scoring (13.5 points per game) and rebounding (5.9 per game), earning SEC Freshman of the Year of the honors.
–Arizona State guard Luguentz Dort, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, told ESPN he is “all-in” for the NBA draft.
Dort, a burly 6-4 guard, averaged 16.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists for the Sun Devils. He earned second-team All-Pac-12 honors and was on the league’s all-defensive team.
He is ranked No. 27 among ESPN’s list of top draft prospects.
–Ohio State sophomore forward Kaleb Wesson will go through the draft process, coach Chris Holtmann said.
“That process began about a week ago and we’ll see where it leads,” Holtmann said on Cleveland.com. “We’ve begun to gather some information from advisory committee for guys going through this process and that’s been helpful.”
Wesson averaged team highs with 14.6 points and 6.9 rebounds on the 2018-19 season.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: The sun sets behind the financial district of London, Britain, February 13, 2019. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
April 10, 2019
By Huw Jones
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s massive financial services sector won’t get special access to the European Union after Brexit, City of London financial district chief Catherine McGuinness said on Wednesday.
Britain has called for an “enhanced” version of the bloc’s equivalence system of market access for banks, insurers and brokers, that could distinguish it from other non members of the bloc.
“At the moment it looks as if we are going to have to start with third country equivalence and build on it,” McGuinness told Reuters.
The existing system is seen as unpredictable, patchy and prone to politicization and the EU is tightening access conditions in key activities for London like clearing euro contracts. The EU is Britain’s biggest financial services export market, worth 25.9 billion pounds in 2017.
McGuinness said uncertainty over trading relations after Brexit was now the “new normal”.
Nearly 300 financial firms in London have shifted about a trillion pounds in assets to new hubs in the EU to mitigate the uncertainty and avoid disruption to customer ties.
The big financial firms are ready for Brexit and assets won’t return even if Brexit was canceled, she said.
The Bank of England expects 4,000 jobs in banking and insurance will have moved from London to the EU by Brexit Day.
She was “comforted” there has been no huge outflow of jobs so far, but expected more jobs to be lost.
London will remain a major financial center that builds on strengths like innovation and technology, McGuinness said, but in the short term it faced an EU keen to bolster its own financial sector to rely less on London.
Trading in European government bonds and repurchase agreements has already left London for Amsterdam, and the bloc’s regulators are sending signals they want share trading to follow, McGuinness said.
“There are clearly pressures from the EU to try to onshore activities. If they try to onshore too much, fragmentation is in nobody’s interest,” she said.
END OF BEGINNING
There was “deep frustration and resignation” in the financial sector over how a “paralysed” parliament was handling Britain’s departure from the EU, McGuinness said.
Continued extensions to Brexit must not end up “kicking the can” down the road.
“Once we get through this phase, this is only the end of the beginning. Whether we crash out or get transition, we have got to work out the next phase of future relations,” she said.
Brexit was extended from March 29 to this Friday, and Prime Minister Theresa May is asking EU leaders on Wednesday for a further delay to the end of June, though a much longer postponement may be granted.
“To keep extending without getting anywhere would be very damaging,” McGuinness said.
“There needs to be some resolution and it’s not obvious what the resolution should be as we see chaos in parliament.”
Financial and other services make up 80 percent of the UK economy but barely feature in Brexit compromises that focus on a customs deal with Brussels, she said.
“People should look carefully at the implications of whatever compromise they manage to reach. We would be very concerned if they tied our hands in terms of our ability to manage the services sector.”
(Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Source: OANN

FILE PHOTO: A river boat cruises down the River Thames as the sun sets behind the Canary Wharf financial district of London, Britain, December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Simon Dawson/File Photo
April 10, 2019
HONG KONG (Reuters) – The European Union’s markets watchdog should reconsider its ban on trading thousands of shares outside the bloc if there is a no-deal Brexit, a senior French government official said on Wednesday.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) stunned exchanges last month when it said that if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal, 6,200 mostly EU-listed shares, but also 14 UK stocks, could only be traded on platforms inside the bloc.
“The good thing is that ESMA has taken a decision, sometimes you see that in other places it is difficult to have a decision,” said Sebastien Raspiller, head of the financial sector department at France’s finance ministry.
“The bad news is that the decision was not good, so I hope that ESMA would be able to reconsider its position,” Raspiller told the annual meeting of derivatives industry body ISDA in Hong Kong.
(Reporting by Alun John in Hong Kong, writing by Huw Jones in London, Editing by Catherine Evans)
Source: OANN




MAGA One Radio