Business

There is no doubt that companies are making efforts in these areas. Most supermarkets have increased pay for hours worked during the crisis by about 10%. Tesco has committed to ongoing donations of £3m a month to its food collection scheme, and a further £22m in one-off donations to various programmes. But if business rates relief is worth £700m to the company and it can afford to pay a dividend of more than £600m, it can probably afford to do more. … [Read more...] about Business is booming for supermarkets – they don’t need government handouts

The chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Tom Tugendhat, wrote to the chair of Imagination Technologies, Ray Bingham, demanding to know what assurances had been given to his firm when China Reform Holding took over the company in 2017, and whether he was aware of any plans to relocate parts of the business or intellectual property overseas. … [Read more...] about MPs launch inquiry into potential Chinese asset stripping of UK firms

It is expected the new facility will treble the ferry operator’s Tilbury freight capacity to 600,000 shipping containers a year by 2020. Freight is becoming a more important part of P&O’s business, with the company carrying more goods between Zeebrugge in Belgium and Tilbury in 2017 than ever before. … [Read more...] about P&O set to chart course into major new £150m Tilbury terminal

But in their defense, Bank of America and other big banks have been loaning lots of money under the stimulus program. There were technical problems with the SBA loan system. The rules from the SBA and Treasury were unclear and placed a few too many burdens on the lender. Some banks – like Wells Fargo – were subject to federally mandated loan caps as a result of their past reprehensible behavior. Banks do have an obligation to their shareholders and customers – and the economy as a whole – to keep watch on their balance sheets. They are notoriously conservative (except when they’re not, like in the years preceding 2009), and we want them to be that way. … [Read more...] about Shame on big banks for failing to step up at a critical moment: the Covid-19 pandemic

In its outlook, the WTO said it expected a recovery in trade next year but that it was hard to say how vigorous the bounceback would be. The outcome would depend largely on the duration of the outbreak and the effectiveness of policy responses. … [Read more...] about Coronavirus putting world on track for new Great Depression, says WTO