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09.04.26 - 15:54
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US Consumer Spending Muted as Inflation Persists (Bloomberg)
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US consumer spending barely rose in February and the so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index increased 0.4% from January and 3% from the prior year. Recurring jobless claims fell to a nearly two-year low and Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increased at a 0.5% annualized rate in the fourth quarter. Michael McKee reports on Bloomberg Television. (Source: Bloomberg)...
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09.04.26 - 12:12
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It shouldn′t take a war for Britain to wake up to the need for food security | Tim Lang (The Guardian)
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Everyone has a part to play in reducing our reliance on imported foods, but ministers must provide incentivesTim Lang is professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George's, University of LondonThe British state has form on food security. It ignores it until there's a crisis – and then it's forced to do rapidly what could have been done better, if only food had been taken more seriously in the first place. We're revisiting this truth today as the food system's oil dependency is revealed by the US-Israel war on Iran. Oil transports the food from farm to fork. It's turned into the fertilisers that have allowed food production to rise since the second world war. It takes us to the shops (unless we walk or cycle).This dependency was also revealed when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and when oil hit $100 a barrel in 2008, and in the 1970s oil shock. When the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, called the big food retailers in last week...
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09.04.26 - 10:24
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′I′ve not had proper food for days′: migrant workers leave India′s cities as Iran war fuel crisis deepens (The Guardian)
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Gas shortages and rising food prices mean many who came to the capital for work cannot afford to eat. Going home is now their only optionAt 9am on a Saturday, 35-year-old Raju Prasad rushes through Anand Vihar railway station in Delhi, a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. Beside him, his wife clutches their youngest daughter with one arm and a white plastic bucket with the other. Their three other children trail behind – one dragging a trolley bag, the others holding on to whatever little they can manage. With Prasad's brother, the family of seven is leaving for Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.They had moved to India's capital nine months ago. The couple worked as ragpickers and were paid about 500 rupees a day (about £4), working long 10-hour shifts. But any dreams of building a more secure future in Delhi and sending their children to school have been lost, as rising food costs and the impact of the Middle East crisis on fuel availability and prices have meant the past few weeks have been a fight for basi...
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09.04.26 - 08:06
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Operator of Yiwu market, former mecca of global consumer goods trade, eyes Hong Kong IPO (SCMP)
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Zhejiang China Commodities City Group, operator of the marketplace that was once the epicentre of global consumer goods trading, is planning an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong to support overseas expansion, as the wave of mainland firms looking to raise funds in the city continues.
The state-owned company, which runs the Yiwu international trade market in east China's Zhejiang province, said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Wednesday that a share sale in Hong Kong would......
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08.04.26 - 12:21
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These Consumer Goods Could Be First To Vanish As "Supply Shock" Disrupts Asian Factories (ZeroHedge)
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These Consumer Goods Could Be First To Vanish As "Supply Shock" Disrupts Asian Factories
Goldman analysts warned that the petrochemical supply shock sweeping across Asia is now morphing into a full-blown COGS shock, hitting a range of industries with factories across the region. The immediate consequence is that manufacturers - from sofa makers to apparel producers - are being forced to dial back production and, in some cases, idle plants altogether as soaring petrochemical-linked input costs drive up the price of plastics and other key materials.
In the note "Petrochemical Supply Shock Begins Idling Asian Factories", we laid out earlier on Tuesday how the shock is unfolding.
Now, we focus on industries where the COGS shock is already forcing "surging input costs," which are reducing manufacturing lines or idling plants and leading to possible shortages.
"With key raw materials and inputs such as PTA, Caprolactam, polyester, and polyamide up on average 29%, ...
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