Tag: trade (Page 5 of 6)

Jaguar Land Rover to Build Electric Cars at UK Plant

July 16, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

LONDON (Reuters) – Jaguar Land Rover (TAMO.NS) is making a multi-million pound investment to build electric vehicles in Britain, in a major boost for the UK government and a sector hit by the slump in diesel sales and Brexit uncertainty.

Britain’s biggest car company, which built 30 percent of the UK’s 1.5 million cars last year, will make a range of electrified vehicles at its Castle Bromwich plant in central England, beginning with its luxury sedan, the XJ.

“The future of mobility is electric and, as a visionary British company, we are committed to making our next generation of zero-emission vehicles in the UK,” Chief Executive Ralf Speth said on Friday.

The announcement gives a boost to Britain’s automotive sector hit this year by Honda and Ford’s (F.N) plans to close factories.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has highlighted the dangers of a no-deal Brexit and the need to maintain frictionless trade with the European Union, echoing warnings from the industry that just-in-time production could be hit by customs delays and additional bureaucracy.

But it has signed a deal with workers at the Castle Bromwich factory to go from a five-day to a four-day working week with the same amount of hours which should allow the plant to operate more efficiently.

Three of JLR’s four European car plants are in Britain, giving it limited capacity elsewhere on the continent.

The other, in Slovakia, only opened last year and is still being ramped up with other models allocated there.

“We are making this investment because the ongoing Brexit uncertainty has left us with no choice, we had to act, for our employees and our business,” JLR said.

“We are committed to the UK as our home and will fight to stay here but we need the right deal.”

Both candidates to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, have both said they are prepared to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal, although it is not their preferred option.

Brexiteers have argued that the EU’s biggest economy Germany, which exports hundreds of thousands of cars to Britain ever year, would do its utmost to protect that trade

Friday’s announcement comes after a turbulent few months for Jaguar which announced around 4,500 job cuts earlier in January and posted a 3.66 billion pound ($4.5 billion) loss in 2018/19.

The carmaker is undergoing a turnaround designed to offer an electrified option to all of its new models from 2020 as it seeks to move away from its reliance on diesel vehicles which are being increasingly shunned by buyers.

Jaguar also called on the government to bring giga-scale battery production to the country so that Britain is not left behind in the rush to produce low and zero-emissions vehicles and technology.

Britain’s business minister Greg Clark said the government was doing all it can to meet that goal.

“We are determined to realize that ambition,” he said.

($1 = 0.7952 pounds)

Reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Michael Holden and Jane Merriman

FILE PHOTO – A car hangs on the wall of Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich manufacturing facility in Birmingham, Britain, November 17, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Air China Plans to Buy 20 Airbus A350-900 Aircraft

July 11, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

The Airbus logo is pictured at Airbus headquarters in Blagnac near Toulouse, France.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Air China, China’s flagship carrier, will buy 20 A350-900 jets from Airbus SE worth $6.54 billion based on list prices, the carrier said on Thursday.

Air China, which has 10 of the fuel-efficient widebody aircraft in its fleet already, said the deliveries were scheduled from 2020 to 2022.

It was not immediately clear if the order would bolster the Airbus order book or if it had previously been attributed to an unidentified customer. Airbus did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

A fresh order would help Airbus narrow a deficit in widebody orders against Boeing as trade tensions persist between the United States and China.

Boeing won a positive total of 61 widebody orders in the first half this year against Airbus’ negative tally of 35 jets, meaning the European company had more cancellations than orders for twin aisle aircraft in the period.

Air China said it has the right to swap 5 out of 20 jets for the larger A350-1000.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Se Young Lee and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

China’s Huge Airbus Order Padded by Old & Incomplete Deals

April 2, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

Exclusive: China’s huge Airbus order padded by old or incomplete deals – source

PARIS (Reuters) – A landmark order from China for 300 Airbus jets signed during a state visit last week was bolstered by repeat announcements of dozens of existing deals and advance approval for deals that have yet to be struck, two people familiar with the matter said.

Echoing an umbrella order for 300 Boeing jets awarded during a visit to Beijing by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017, the headline figure for the new “framework order” for European jets was partly driven by political considerations, the people said.

The Airbus deal would have been worth some $35 billion at list prices but the amount of new business is lower, they added. Duplicate announcements included a deal for 10 A350 aircraft to an unnamed buyer, which represents a repeat announcement of an order for 10 jets by Sichuan Airlines at an air show last year.

The disclosure takes some of the shine off an announcement widely regarded as the economic highlight of a trip to Europe by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Nonetheless the deal marked a return to the aircraft market by China’s state buying agency after a pause of over a year during global trade tensions.

The overall figure of 300 was introduced late in the process and after Xi’s visit was underway, although plane orders typically take months to negotiate, one of the people said.

Airbus declined to comment on detailed orders but left open the possibility that the large total contained gaps.

The agreement “creates the approval framework for aircraft ordered by Chinese airlines, be it existing orders or future orders,” a spokesman said.

TRADE TIES

Airbus shares fell 0.7 percent on Tuesday, extending earlier losses after Reuters reported gaps in the China deal. Airbus’ stock had risen almost two percent after China’s mega-order, signed in Paris on March 25 in front of Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Industry sources say major planemakers play by similar rules when selling to China, where they face a two-tier system of negotiations with airlines within a framework of state-backed umbrella deals that may be influenced by geopolitics.

But the headline figures for new orders during high-profile diplomatic visits, which for several years hovered around 150 aircraft for both Airbus and Boeing, have increased as trade ties between Washington and China go through highs and lows.

In November 2017, months before a trade war erupted with the imposition of tariffs, China announced an order for 300 Boeing jets during a visit to Beijing by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Analysts expressed doubts at the time over how much of that was new business, and said part of the announcement represented renewed government support for deals already on Boeing’s books.

“The most recent Airbus and Boeing deals followed a similar pattern,” said a China aircraft industry specialist.

Boeing is now seen as next in line to secure a 200-300-plane order as part of a possible economic truce being negotiated to end the trade war, but the recent grounding of one of its jets has cast uncertainty over the timing of the deal.

Boeing and Airbus compete fiercely to serve the needs of the world’s fastest-growing airplane market, while bracing for future competition from China’s own aerospace industry.

Analysts say Beijing tends over time to balance U.S. and European purchases, though recent years have seen the rise of a growing number of independent Chinese leasing companies and an increase in autonomous decision-making by several airlines.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Richard Lough)

Airbus Shares Take Off After Bumper Beijing Order

March 26, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

FILE PHOTO: The Airbus logo is pictured at Airbus headquarters in Blagnac near Toulouse, France, March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

PARIS (Reuters) – Airbus shares rose on Tuesday after the European planemaker won a deal worth tens of billions of dollars to sell 300 aircraft to China.

Airbus was up 2.7 percent by 1208 GMT, with the stock having risen nearly 40 percent so far in 2019.

French officials said the deal was worth some 30 billion euros (25.6 billion pounds) at catalogue prices. Planemakers usually grant significant discounts.

The Chinese order was announced late on Monday, coinciding with a visit to Europe by Chinese President Xi Jinping and matching a China record held by U.S. rival Boeing.

Investment bank Citigroup kept its “buy” rating on Airbus.

“We do not have details of the delivery schedule of this order, but China has been taking about 20-25 percent of Airbus production per year and given the A320 family is sold out at announced production rates out to 2024/25, we believe this increases the probability of Airbus moving to a production rate of 70 per month,” wrote Citigroup.

That positive view was echoed by Morgan Stanley, which kept an “overweight” rating on Airbus shares.

“Clearly finalisation of this order is a positive for Airbus, and continues to underpin strong order book coverage and rising production rates in narrowbody,” Morgan Stanley said.

The larger-than-expected order, which matches an order for 300 Boeing planes when U.S. Donald Trump visited Beijing in 2017, follows a year-long vacuum of purchases in which China failed to place significant orders amid global trade tensions.

It also comes as the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX has left uncertainty over Boeing’s immediate hopes for a major jet order as the result of any warming of U.S.-China trade ties.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Jane Merriman)

Boeing Jets Could Be Part of Broad U.S.-China Trade Deal

March 7, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Purchases of U.S.-made Boeing Co aircraft by China could be part of a sweeping deal currently being negotiated to end the months-long trade war between Washington and Beijing, Boeing’s top executive said on Thursday.

A tit-for-tat trade war between the world’s two largest economic powers has slowed the global economy. It has also opened up new risks for Boeing, which calls itself America’s biggest exporter, in the world’s fastest growing aviation market. Boeing sells roughly a third of its top-selling U.S.-made 737 jetliners to customers in China.

Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg told an aviation summit in Washington that he sensed U.S.-China trade talks were progressing “in a good way.”

“They are dealing with some of the tough framework issues around intellectual property and things like that,” Muilenburg said. “I do think they are making progress. And at the same time, I think there’s an economic opportunity here for airplanes to be part of the ultimate deal and help further close the trade deficit gap.”

Governments typically use jet deals to achieve broader diplomatic objectives. In talks with Beijing, U.S. officials have demanded more details on China’s pledge to make big purchases of American goods, as well as to push for ways to hold China to any commitments on changes to industrial policies.

U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that China shrink its widening trade surplus with the United States. On Wednesday, the U.S. reported the goods trade deficit with China rose 11.6 percent to an all-time high of $419.2 billion in 2018.

China is poised to overtake the United States as the world’s largest aviation market in the next decade and is gobbling up planes made by both Boeing and European rival Airbus SE, while also investing in homegrown aircraft businesses.

Boeing forecasts Chinese demand for 7,700 new airplanes over the next 20 years valued at $1.2 trillion.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Tom Brown)

NOTE: Planesintheair.com forcast that 12 to 16 Boeing 747-8F freighters will be included in any new US-China trade deal!

Boeing Reportedly Near $3.5 Billion 737 MAX Deal with ANA

January 28, 2019 / WIL BALDWIN

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing Co is close to a deal worth $3.5 billion (2.66 billion pounds) at list prices to sell 30 Boeing 737 MAX jetliners to ANA Holdings, two people familiar with the matter said.

The deal is the first sale in Japan for the newest version of Boeing’s best-selling 737 family and marks a reversal for Europe’s Airbus, five years after the same airline became the first Japanese carrier to pick the competing A320neo.

It also coincides with negotiations between Washington and Tokyo over a potential trade pact, with Japan facing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to cut its trade surplus with the United States.

Boeing declined to comment. ANA could not immediately be reached for comment. A deal announcement could come as early as Tuesday, subject to the airline’s final approval, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo have amassed thousands of orders due to significant fuel savings offered by a new generation of engines.

But the world’s largest plane makers continue to wage fierce market battles, while Boeing has been chipping away at Airbus’s recent lead in the market for such medium-haul airplanes.

Trump and other top U.S. administration officials have criticized Japan over trade, asserting that Tokyo treats the United States unfairly by shipping millions of cars to North America while blocking imports of U.S. autos and farm products.

Japan says its markets for manufactured goods are open, although it does protect politically sensitive farm products.

In September, Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to start trade talks in an arrangement that appeared, temporarily at least, to protect Japanese automakers from further tariffs on their exports, which make up about two-thirds of Japan’s $69 billion trade surplus with the United States.

Japan has insisted the new Trade Agreement on Goods would not be a wide-ranging free trade agreement, but U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said last year he was aiming for a full free-trade deal requiring approval by Congress.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and by Reuters bureaus; Editing by GV De Clercq and David Evans)

Dezeen’s top 10 skyscrapers of 2018

December 13, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

In keeping with todays architecture theme, reporter India Block picks 10 of the year’s best skyscrapers for our review of 2018, from one sporting a 100-metre-high waterfall to the northernmost tower block in the world.

Towering 170 metres over Milan, the Generali Tower expresses Zaha Hadid Architects’ signature curves in a helical twist that runs through the tower.

No two floors are aligned inside the 44-storey skyscraper, hence the nickname “the twisted one”. Now the city’s third-tallest building, it stands together with Arata Isozaki’s 202-metre high Allianz Tower and the incomplete 175-metre tall PwC tower by Studio Libeskind on Milan’s former expo site.

Click the link below for the full story!

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/11/top-10-skyscrapers-2018/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Dezeen&utm_content=Daily%20Dezeen+CID_3d991e789379574a3e1c77cfd48c90eb&utm_source=Dezeen%20Mail&utm_term=Dezeens%20top%2010%20skyscrapers%20of%202018

Tencent Headquarters, Shenzhen, China by NBBJ

Wall Street Set To Jump On Temporary Trade Detente

December 3, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures jumped around 2 percent on Monday, setting Wall Street up to add to last week’s strong gains, after the United States and China declared a temporary trade truce.

Strong gains in Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and other technology stocks pushed Nasdaq futures NQc1 up more than 2 percent, while S&P 500 e-minis ESc1 touched a near 1-month high. Gains in Dow futures set the blue-chip index up for a near 450-point gain at the open.

Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day trade ceasefire during the G20 summit in Argentina on Saturday and U.S. President Donald Trump said China has agreed to “reduce and remove” tariffs below the 40 percent level that the country is currently charging on U.S.-made vehicles.

However, the White House also said that the existing 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods would be lifted to 25 percent if no deal was reached within 90 days.

The trade optimism spilt over to shares of Apple, which gained 3.3 percent in premarket trading.

Trump had said last week that the next round of tariffs could also be placed on the company’s iPhones, as part of the $267 billion list of goods not yet hit by tariffs.

Trade-sensitive Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), Boeing Co (BA.N) gained over 4.5 percent each, while U.S. carmakers General Motors Co (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) rose between 3 percent and 4 percent.

Shares of energy companies also rose as crude prices surged, helping lift Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) up by 2.1 percent and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) by 2.4 percent. [O/R]

“Most of us were hoping that we would come out of these discussions with no new tariffs and a pause, which is ultimately what we got,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.

Image from RT.com

Boeing, Airbus Fret Over China Trade War

November 6, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

ZHUHAI, China (Reuters) – The world’s two largest planemakers signaled on Tuesday that they were keen to see an end to a bruising trade war between Washington and Beijing, as China opened its largest airshow with a display that showcased its aviation ambitions.

Boeing (BA.N) and Airbus (AIR.PA) made their comments on the opening day of the biennial Airshow China, being held in the coastal city of Zhuhai from Nov. 6-11, that is traditionally an event for Beijing to parade its growing aviation prowess.

China has become a key hunting ground for deals for foreign aviation firms thanks to surging travel demand, but the outlook has been complicated by Beijing’s desire to grow its own champions in industries ranging from aviation to semiconductors to robots.

Its ties with the United States have in particular been strained. President Donald Trump criticizes China for what he sees as intellectual property theft, entry barriers to U.S. business and a gaping trade deficit, while Beijing calls the complaints unreasonable. The two sides have resorted to tit-for-tat tariffs on goods worth billions of dollars.

While U.S.-made aircraft, among America’s biggest exports to China, have so far escaped Beijing’s tariffs, analysts said they were still waiting to see what the trade war would spell for U.S. companies such as Boeing.

George Xu, the top China executive at Boeing’s biggest rival Airbus (AIR.PA), said at a news conference that the European planemaker did not expect a sales windfall from the tensions.

“I am Chinese and we don’t like this kind of trade war,” he said. “Nobody will be the winner in this kind of trade war.”

Airbus had hoped to close a deal for 184 aircraft during a trip to China by French President Emmanuel Macron in January, but negotiations appear to have stalled, industry sources say.

In carefully worded comments, Boeing’s senior vice-president of Northeast Asia sales, Rick Anderson, said China was a rapidly growing aviation market and that he believed Washington and Beijing understood that.

“We continue to engage with leaders of United States and China, and continue to urge productive conversation to resolve the trade discrepancies,” he said.

“We are optimistic for a quick solution.”

AMBITIONS ON DISPLAY

China and United States have in recent days stoked optimism that a breakthrough might be made, after Trump spoke by phone with President Xi Jinping last week.

The two countries have also announced that they will hold a delayed top-level security dialogue on Friday.

Still, Beijing has shown little sign of taming its ambitions to catch up with rivals like the United States, France and Germany in high-end technology.

Projects being showcased in Zhuhai included a full-scale mock-up of a widebody CR929 jet being jointly developed by Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) in hopes of eventually competing with Boeing’s 787 and Airbus’ A350 jets.

The global market for widebody jets is estimated to be worth $2.5 trillion over the next two decades, according to Boeing, with the fleet size more than doubling to 9,180 jets.

Widebodies account for around 20 percent of projected global jet deliveries over that period but almost 40 percent by value.

Hundreds of spectators and industry executives at the airshow were also treated to a roaring flight demonstration that involved three of China’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters, which debuted at the show two years ago with a 60-second flypast.

China put the J-20 into service last year that experts say is a part of Beijing’s plan to narrow a military technology gap with the United States and its F-35 stealth fighter.

Sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries were also on display.

“If you tie those together with the J-20, the message is about Anti-Area Access Denial. It is not just about protecting the motherland but pushing the Americans away,” said aerospace analyst Sash Tusa of UK-based Agency Partners.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh, Stella Qiu and Tim Hepher; Writing by Brenda Goh; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Boeing Increases Chinese New Plane Forecast By 6.2%

September 12, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese airlines will buy 7,690 new planes worth $1.2 trillion over the next two decades to keep pace with booming consumer and business demand for air travel, Boeing Co said on Tuesday, raising a previous forecast.

The U.S. planemaker’s latest estimate for the period to 2037 is 6.2 percent higher than its previous prediction of 7,240 planes until 2036 made last year.

“The growth in China can be attributed to the country’s growing middle class, which has more than tripled in the last 10 years and is expected to double again in the next 10,” said Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ vice president of marketing, in a statement.

Boeing and its European rival Airbus have been jostling to increase market share in China, the world’s fastest growing aviation market, with both opening assembly plants in the country.

The company has so far been mostly spared in an ongoing trade war between the United States and China. Large airplanes have been left out of China’s retaliatory tariff lists although U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports into the United States.

Boeing also predicted that China will account for 18 percent of the world’s commercial airplane fleet by 2037, up from 15 percent currently, and forecast that the country will need over $1.5 trillion in commercial services to support its fleet.

Three quarters of the 7,690 plane orders over the next 20 years will likely be for single-aisle aircraft while China’s widebody fleet will require 1,620 new planes, tripling the country’s current widebody fleet size, it added.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Brenda Goh; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Image from www.boeing.com

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