Business

NEW DELHI, May 13 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Palm oil consumption in India is down by 40 per cent as demand from the food service dropped amid the coronavirus pandamic.

As India continues the world’s biggest shutdown, keeping most of its 1.3 billion population indoors, restaurants and hotels are either shut or working at a minimal capacity.

BANGKOK, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Environmentalists have criticised Laos for pressing ahead with plans for another dam on the Mekong River, a waterway already strangled by hydropower schemes.

The flow of the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s longest river, is interrupted by a cascade of dams in China — where it is called the Lancang.

Two downstream dams — the Xayaburi and Don Sahong — have been built in Laos, which wants to construct seven more as it strives to live up to its billing as the “Battery of Asia”.

WELLINGTON, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — New Zealand reported no more COVID-19 cases for two consecutive days on Wednesday, with the total number of confirmed and probable cases remaining at 1,497, as the country is about to relax lockdown restrictions midnight.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told a press conference the death toll remained at 21 in the country, and 1,042 cases have recovered from the virus.

Two people are receiving hospital treatment, but neither is in ICU, Bloomfield said.

RIYADH, May 12 (NNN-SPA) – Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry directed on Monday, the national oil company, Aramco, to further reduce crude oil production for June, by an additional one million barrels per day.

An official from the ministry said, the reduction will be a voluntary amount of one million barrels per day, in addition to the reduction, committed by the kingdom in the latest OPEC+ agreement.

The official said that this brings the total production cut to around 4.8 million barrels per day, from the Apr production level.

LUSAKA/DAR ES SALAAM, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zambia temporarily shut its border with Tanzania to enhance measures against the spread of the new coronavirus, delaying its main copper exports via Dar es Salaam, a minister said.

President Edgar Lungu on Sunday directed the closure after the border town of Nakonde recorded 76 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, the highest number registered by Africa’s No.2 copper producer in a single day.

WASHINGTON, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Republican senators proposed legislation Tuesday that would empower President Donald Trump to slap sanctions on China if Beijing does not give a “full accounting” for the coronavirus outbreak.

“The Chinese Communist Party must be held accountable for the detrimental role they played in this pandemic,” said Senator Jim Inhofe, one of the sponsors of the “COVID-19 Accountability Act.”

“Their outright deception of the origin and spread of the virus cost the world valuable time and lives as it began to spread,” he said in a statement.

12 May 2020; MEMO: Saudi Aramco’s profit fell 25 per cent in the first quarter of the year as a result of a drop in oil prices and a plunge in global demand as a result of the outbreak of the coronavirus, the company reported today.

Panaji, May 12 (PTI) Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday said 95 per cent of industries in the state had resumed operations over the past few days going by electricity consumption figures after easing of coronavirus-induced lockdown restrictions.

Goa has been tagged a green zone as it currently does not have any active COVID-19 cases.

He added that some sectors were facing labour shortage as several migrants stranded in the lockdown had gone back to their native states, and asked such firms to employ locals to overcome the shortfall.

New Delhi, May 12 (PTI) India's industrial production contracted by a record 16.7 per cent in March, on account of poor show by mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors mainly due to the nationwide lockdown, government data showed on Tuesday.

The government had imposed the lockdown to contain COVID-19 from March 25.

The 16.7 per cent fall in factory output is the sharpest since April 2012, based on the new series of IIP data with base year 2011-12.

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown by 2.7 per cent in March, 2019.

Beijing, May 12 (AP) China's auto sales declined again in April but losses narrowed in a sign the industry's biggest global market is recovering from the coronavirus pandemic as Beijing eases anti-disease controls, according to an industry group.

Sales of SUVs, sedans and minivans were down 2.6 per cent from a year earlier at 1.5 million, an improvement over March's 48.4 per cent contraction, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported.