Business

22 May 2019; DW: US businesses in China are increasingly worried about the trade conflict between the US and China. They are bearing the brunt of tariffs and non-tariff barriers adopted in recent months, a new survey said.

Three-quarters of US companies in China say they are being hit hard by the ongoing US-China trade dispute, according to a new survey released Wednesday by the American Chamber of Commerce in China and its sister organization in Shanghai.   

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reality has set in during the three weeks since President Donald Trump and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to work together on a $2 trillion package to invest in roads, bridges and broadband.

Republican leaders in Congress have shown little enthusiasm for the price tag, and even less for the idea of raising the federal fuel tax to help pay for upgrading the nation’s infrastructure. Trump himself has suggested that Democrats are somehow setting a trap to get him to go along with a tax increase.

BEIJING (AP) — China is cutting taxes on its fledgling software and integrated circuit industries to spur development in the face of U.S. export controls that threaten to handicap Chinese tech companies.

The Finance Ministry’s announcement Wednesday comes amid tension over Washington’s decision to restrict technology exports to Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei and other companies.

Chinese makers of smartphones and other products rely on U.S. components but Beijing is spending heavily to develop its own suppliers.

Ahmedabad, May 21 (PTI) Anil Ambani's Reliance Group has decided to withdraw the Rs 5,000-crore civil defamation suits filed in an Ahmedabad court against Congress leaders and National Herald newspaper over their statements and an article on the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal.

The suits were being heard in the court of city civil and sessions judge P J Tamakuwala.

"We have intimated the defendants that we are going to withdraw the suits against them," the complainant's lawyer, Rasesh Parikh, told PTI on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-running research projects credited with pivotal discoveries about the harm that pesticides, air pollution and other hazards pose to children are in jeopardy or shutting down because the Environmental Protection Agency will not commit to their continued funding, researchers say.

The projects being targeted make up a more than $300 million, federally funded program that over the past two decades has exposed dangers to fetuses and children. Those findings have often led to increased pressure on the EPA for tighter regulations.

BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela (AP) — Andreina Cordero started the year skipping meals so her three kids could eat. Her husband, a construction worker, was out of a job. And the family’s savings had been devastated by the nation’s hyperinflation, limiting Cordero’s children to a diet of rice, beans, pasta and fried corn patties.

But the family got a break from their daily struggle to feed themselves this spring when a social worker enrolled them in a program run by a Silicon Valley startup that is donating cryptocurrency to hundreds of Venezuelan families.

New Delhi, May 21 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday night held a meeting with top bureaucrats from key ministries, sources said.

There was no official word about the agenda of the meeting, which comes ahead of the Lok Sabha election results on May 23.

Sources said the Prime Minister is believed to have taken feedback on various issues, including about the state of the economy, from the bureaucrats.

21 May 2019; MEMO: Palestinian businessmen, economic and trade institutions and unions have received invitations to participate in the economic workshop organised by the United States in Bahrain next month, Anadolu Agency reported.

The White House announced in a joint statement with Bahrain that Manama will host an economic workshop entitled “Peace to Prosperity on 25 and 26 June.

21 May 2019; AFP: Chinese investment in Australia has fallen to its lowest level in five years, new research shows, sparking calls for the newly re-elected conservative government to improve its rocky relationship with Beijing.

After hitting a peak of Aus$15.8 billion (US$10.4 billion) in 2016, Chinese firms invested Aus$4.8 billion in the country last year, the Australian National University said Monday.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei on Tuesday shrugged off US attempts to block his company's global ambitions, saying the United States underestimates the telecom giant's strength.

Ren spoke to Chinese media days after President Donald Trump issued orders aimed at thwarting Huawei's business in the United States, the latest salvo in a months-long effort to stop the company's charge to the top of the leaderboard in next-generation 5G technology.

"The current practice of US politicians underestimates our strength," Ren said, according to transcripts from state-run media.