Business

BRUSSELS — Financial leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies sit down this week to discuss the main risks to global economic growth, and how to clamp down the secretive ownership of companies that allows for tax avoidance and money laundering.

The venue will be a working dinner in Washington on October 6 for G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors before the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund.

In a paper prepared for participants, China, which holds the rotating presidency of the G-20 this year, notes that global financial markets have recovered from the fallout of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, but that uncertainties remained.

“Financial volatility picked up recently, partly reflecting market sentiment for the recent release of monetary policy stance by the central banks of key advanced economies,” said the note, seen by Reuters.

“Downside risks remain heightened. Changing expectations regarding the pace of US monetary policy normalisation could have significant repercussions for capital flows and financial market volatilities,” it said.

“The uncertainties from the progress of Brexit would also add to instability risks, while concerns about bank profitability amid extraordinarily low/negative interest rates still persist,” it said.

Following up on a long-standing drive to curb tax avoidance and money laundering as well as terrorist financing, the ministers will discuss a stronger push to share information on who owns companies, in what is known as “beneficial ownership”.

Anonymous companies, also called phantom firms or shell companies, are entities that are used to disguise the identity of their true owner, who ultimately controls or profits from the company. Such owners are also known as the “beneficial owners”.

The ministers will discuss proposals on sharing “beneficial ownership” information prepared for the meeting by the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental policy-making body set up to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

“These proposals include the possibility of making the ‘availability’ of beneficial ownership information a key focus area,” the Chinese presidency note said, also mentioning the possibility of improving the “quality” of such information.

European delegations to the G-20 meeting will push for establishing registers of beneficial ownership that would at least be shared by public authorities, if not made fully public.

European officials said the push for more transparency in company ownership information has been made more politically attractive to G-20 members by the so-called Panama and Bahama papers —millions of leaked legal documents illustrating how wealthy individuals and public officials are able to keep personal financial information private.

BIRMINGHAM, England — Agreeing Britain's post-Brexit membership terms with the World Trade Organisation will not be simple but should be done in a way that causes minimal disruption to global trade, trade minister Liam Fox said on Sunday.

Fox, a leading Brexit campaigner ahead of the June 23 referendum, said Britain did not need to re-apply to join the international trade body when it leaves the European Union as it was already "a full and founding member".

But as Britain is currently a member of the WTO through the EU, it will need to agree new membership terms, or schedules of tariffs, following Brexit and those terms will have to be agreed by all other WTO members.

"What we do need to have are the schedules, which are effectively our license to trade. That's what we are discussing at the present time," Fox said in an interview with The Huffington Post on the sidelines of the Conservative Party's annual conference in Birmingham, central England.

"We will want to see a position on WTO schedules adopted in a way that causes minimal disruption. That is not an entirely simple process, and we would never pretend that it is, but neither is it an insoluble riddle."

Before the referendum, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said renegotiating Britain's relationship with the rest of the WTO could take years or decades.

The chief executive of Nissan earlier this week said the Japanese automaker could scrap a potential new investment in Britain's biggest car plant if the country did not pledge compensation for any tax barriers resulting from Brexit.

Asked about threats to withdraw investment, Fox said Britain's strong legal base offered companies certainty.

"Investment is a balance of risks when you come to look at it, and I think that the UK remains the number one destination for safe investment," he said.

Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday Britain will trigger the formal divorce procedure by the end of March, but Fox said the government would not rush the process.

"What we want is the best exit for the United Kingdom, not the quickest, and what we need to concentrate on is the quality of the relationship we will have afterwards," he said when asked if Britain would have left the EU by 2020.

Fox said levels of protectionism globally were on the rise. While declining to comment specifically on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has been accused of promoting isolationist policies, he said the US election debate was lacking in arguments for free trade.

"There is a temptation for politicians to pander to the short-term view that protectionism will be the answer but it never really is," he said. "The debate in the United States at the moment in particular, you are getting much less of a free trade flavour than I have ever known in any election."

AMMAN — In cooperation with USAID, the Jordan Investment Commission (JIC) is working to draw the private sector to implement the investment-promotion strategy for the next three years, JIC chief Thabet Elwir said on Sunday. 

The strategy seeks to draw and promote local and foreign investment projects, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

As part of its goals, the strategy also seeks to create a database for domestic and foreign investors in order to be able to reach and contact them, in cooperation with the Kingdom’s embassies abroad, and then acquaint them with the investment opportunities available in the country, Elwir told the news agency.  

USAID will float a tender that will determine the company which will be tasked with implementing it in the coming three years, he said.

The sum of JD3.3 million has been allocated for this purpose and future investment promotion plans are scheduled to focus on new markets of several countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Japan.

During the first quarter of 2016, foreign direct investments channeled into the country rose by 3 per cent or by JD120 million, in comparison with the figure recorded during the first quarter of 2015, Petra indicated. 

Net foreign investment rose to JD345 million in this year’s first quarter from JD225 million in the first quarter of last year.

BEIJING — China's yuan joins the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) basket of reserve currencies on Saturday in a milestone for the government's campaign for recognition as a global economic power.

It is the first time that a currency has been added to sit alongside the US dollar, the euro, the yen and the British pound in the IMF's special drawing rights (SDR) basket, which determines the currencies countries receive as part of IMF loans.

The IMF is adding the yuan, also known as the renminbi, or "people's money", on the same day that the Communist Party celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The IMF announced last year that it would add the yuan to the basket, so actual inclusion is not expected to impact financial markets. But it puts Beijing's often opaque economic and foreign exchange policy in the international spotlight as central banks add yuan assets to their official reserves.

Critics argue that the yuan does not fully meet IMF reserve currency criteria of being freely usable, or widely used to settle trade or widely traded in financial markets. US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said he will formally label China a currency manipulator if he wins November's election.

China stunned investors by devaluing the currency last year and the yuan has since weakened to near six-year lows, adding to worries about already feeble global growth.

Some China watchers also fear that Beijing's commitment to further market opening and financial sector reforms will fade after its diplomatic success, despite repeated reassurances from Beijing it will continue with the process.

US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Thursday the yuan was "quite a ways" from true global reserve currency status. While recognising "enormous" change in China in the last 10 years that had made the currency more open, Lew said the government still had work to do.

"Being part of the SDR basket at the IMF is quite a ways away from being a global reserve currency," he said.

Capital Economics said inclusion of the currency in the IMF's SDR basket will have minimal impact on foreign demand for yuan assets, so "offers little support" for the currency.

"If anything, the risk is that official intervention to keep the renminbi stable ahead of its inclusion will subsequently be paired back, allowing for renewed deprecation," it said in a research note.

AMMAN — Ernst & Young Jordan (EY) has launched its 2016 business entrepreneur award, targeting entrepreneurs who established companies that adopt creative concepts within the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year category. EY started accepting candidacy applications on September 29 and will continue through October 14, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Interested candidates can apply for free by sending an e-mail to eoy.jordan@jo.ey.com. Candidates must have brought a new innovative idea to the market; be owners/founders of a business that enjoys stable financing and they must be directly responsible for their company’s daily operations and success.

Also, they should have a significant equity shareholding in their enterprise and run a firm that has been in operation for over two years, employing a minimum of 10 employees.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia, feeling the economic pinch from low oil prices, agreed to a surprise OPEC production cut, but the country remains determined to exert leadership over the world market, analysts say.

Over the past two years, the largest producer in the repeatedly turned down calls to cut output in an increasingly competitive global market.

But Riyadh agreed at an informal meeting in Algiers on Wednesday to an OPEC production curb of several hundred thousand barrels per day (bpd) to boost weak crude prices.

It had previously refused to cut output at a time when Iran, its regional rival, ramps up production after the lifting of international sanctions.

But the collapse in Saudi Arabia's main revenue source already created a record budget deficit last year, leading to unprecedented subsidy cuts and curbs on government spending.

Under the Algiers deal, OPEC output will fall to 32.5-33 million bpd from 33.47 million bpd in August, and Iran will be exempted from the cuts.

Iran hopes to return its output to a pre-sanctions level of around 4 million bpd.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have no diplomatic relations and are at odds over a series of regional issues, including the wars in Yemen and Syria.

"No doubt, Saudi Arabia is feeling the economic pain from low oil revenues. This is compounded by the war in Yemen and regional tensions," Kuwaiti oil analyst Kamel Al Harami told AFP.

"But by facilitating the deal, Saudi Arabia has scored an important political point. It has shown that it is still in control of OPEC. It has reasserted its leadership," he said.

In doing so, "it has made some concessions" to Iran and other OPEC members, Harami said.

Saudi Arabia has long been the only producer with spare capacity, allowing it to raise or lower production to influence the market under its traditional policy.

But since 2014 it abandoned that approach to focus on protecting market share and drive out less-competitive players, including US shale oil producers.

That policy, and internal OPEC squabbles, raised questions about the relevance of the cartel which produces about 40 per cent of global output.

"Many OPEC members are suffering economically from low prices. Their economies are stagnating or going backwards and they face budgetary issues," said Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at forex broker AxiTrader.

"So it appears the fiscal imperative seems to have trumped OPEC's internal politics."

'Tipping point' 

London-based Capital Economics said a possible explanation for the deal was "that Saudi Arabia felt that any form of agreement, however flimsy, was needed to shore up OPEC's credibility".

Saudi policymakers may also be "increasingly concerned by the impact of fiscal austerity on the economy", it said.

Global oil prices fell from more than $100 a barrel in June 2014 to near 13-year lows of less than $30 in early 2016.

"Saudi Arabia have perhaps reassessed their dumping oil strategy to put US shale out of business as the pressure on their budgets has clearly reached a tipping point as well," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda trading group.

He sees a "major shift" by Saudi Arabia in allowing Iran to increase output.

Other analysts were more cautious.

"As things stand, the deal doesn't seem to amount to much," Capital Economics said, expecting Riyadh to "rely on further fiscal consolidation, rather than an outright shift in oil policy".

An oil industry source told AFP it is too early to say there has been a change in Saudi policy but that internal economic factors could be "a strong driving force" for a potential change.

There is "no major shift," in Saudi oil strategy, Spencer Welch, senior consultant at ISH Energy said.

"They have said for a while they would be willing to do a deal if others were also involved. It appears others have agreed," Welch told AFP.

A former Saudi oil official said the new deal does not greatly change Saudi output even if the kingdom reduced production by 500,000 bpd.

"That will only take Saudi production back to January levels," Mohammad Al Sabban, former senior adviser to the Saudi oil minister, said on BBC television late Wednesday.

Saudi-Iranian tensions at that time stymied attempts at a meeting by OPEC and non-OPEC producer Russia to reach an output freeze.

COPENHAGEN — Denmark's government said on Thursday it had paid some $900,000 for access to Panama Papers documents to help it identify hundreds of suspected Danish tax cheats.

Tax havens were cast into a global spotlight in April after the details of the offshore financial arrangements of hundreds of thousands of clients, including several world leaders, were leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca by an anonymous whistleblower.

Denmark's move was part of growing global efforts to stamp out tax evasion and came after the Nordic country estimated that in the past three years alone it had lost 12.3 billion Danish crowns ($1.85 billion) to tax fraud.

"The next step is to dig deeper and find the people and investigate their taxation situation. This will bring us closer to whether there is reason to press charges...," Jim Sorensen, Denmark's tax authority (SKAT) chief, said in a statement.

Sorensen told Reuters the payment was made to an anonymous source in exchange for access to a wider range of Panama Papers touching on Danish citizens than those that were leaked.

Some 500-600 Danish citizens were being targeted, the tax ministry said in an earlier statement.

In a bid to recoup money paid out in the form of fraudulent tax refunds to Danes abroad, Danish authorities have already carried out raids in Britain and elsewhere.

ALGIERS — Algerian Energy Minister Noureddine Boutarfa on Wednesday pressed demands for action on an oil supply glut and higher investment to stabilise the market as an informal OPEC meeting in Algiers began.

“We must act on supply to re-stabilise the market” which has been hit by a massive surplus that has dragged prices down to record lows in the past two years, Boutarfa told a news conference following an International Energy Forum meeting.

“This energy market needs regulating a little. The law of supply and demand is not being applied rationally,” Boutarfa added just prior to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting.

“Today, we cannot go on in an erratic fashion because if we do, we cannot prepare for the future,” he ventured, voicing concern at a falloff in investment in the sector owing to the long slump in prices.

According to the International Energy Agency, last year saw a 25 per cent fall in investment in oil and gas exploration and production and the agency says the decline is continuing apace.

“Investing at less than $50 [a barrel] is not possible,” said Boutarfa.

“Will this situation not end up creating one even more complex in the years ahead? This is why it’s in all countries’ interest to reach a compromise.”

“It’s clear that from a theoretical point of view everyone supports the general interest. Then there comes the point where you fall back on special interests and things get a bit more complicated.”

The informal OPEC meeting was due to discuss a potential production freeze of around a million barrels a day to bring markets and prices back towards equilibrium.

But amid record output, there is discord among the 14-nation cartel whose share of global crude supply is around 40 per cent.

Progress is hampered notably by disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the latter back on stream as a producer after the recent lifting of a range of energy-related sanctions.

AMMAN — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is launching a new initiative to increase access to trade finance and advisory services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). 

The initiative, known as Trade Ready, will expand the outreach of the EBRD’s pioneering Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP) and Advice for Small Businesses (ASB), helping SMEs involved in importing and exporting activities to get the finance and know-how they need to strengthen their ability to trade and to grow.

Trade Ready aims to unleash the potential of SMEs for international trade,  according to an ERBD statement. 

It offers trade finance training for local banks as well as advisory services for companies alongside policy dialogue to engage in improvements in the regulatory environment. While banks can expect to win new clients with the introduction of trade finance products, businesses will benefit from better access to finance and the chance to expand to international markets.

The initiative was presented to the public today at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum 2016 in Geneva which was held under the theme “Inclusive Trade”. The Forum is the largest annual outreach event of the WTO and it usually attracts more than 2,000 guests.

Rudolf Putz, EBRD head of the Trade Facilitation Programme, said: “We are very happy to present this new initiative as it will allow local banks to reach small businesses that have the potential to benefit from international trade. Private SMEs represent the core of the economies in most countries where the EBRD invests and supporting the trade activities of these firms is an important element for securing their sustainable growth. The potential is huge, but often the know-how is missing, and this is exactly the issue Trade Ready will address.”

“We know that small businesses need access to both finance and the right advice to develop and grow. With Trade Ready, the EBRD will support small businesses through a wide range of services to make them more competitive abroad and at home, whether it is having enough information to make the best choice in their trade finance options or working with a consultant or adviser to adapt their product for a particular market.

“To achieve inclusive trade, we need to address the fact that smaller businesses are often overlooked,” said Charlotte Ruhe, EBRD director of advice for small businesses.

The initiative will provide SMEs with advice in a wide range of areas as well as offering training on trade finance instruments and networking opportunities to help engage in export and import activities. Trade Ready will also work with local banks to help them tailor trade finance products to the needs of small businesses and market them effectively. By engaging with smaller firms in trade finance, banks can expand the range of financial products they offer and diversify their portfolio. 

More details are available online.

 Established in 1999, the programme has enabled more than 18,500 transactions worth over 12.8 billion euro in 28 countries where the EBRD invests. 

The EBRD helps small and medium-sized businesses to access external advice in 26 countries from Morocco to Mongolia, applying donor funding from the European Union and a wide range of bilateral and multilateral donors. More than 16,000 SMEs have been supported to date, employing over 250 million euro of donor support that has been combined with contributions from the clients themselves.

AMMAN — In cooperation with the Italian Piemonte Agency for Investments, Export and Tourism and other European institutions, the Jordan Chamber of Industry (JCI), on Tuesday acquainted businessmen with the Euro-Mediterranean (Euromed) business promotion campaign in Jordan.

The campaign promotes Jordanian-Euromed partnerships and businesses to strengthen Euromed economic relations and increase the commercial exchange, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

JCI President Adnan Abul Ragheb highlighted the EU’s recent agreement to simplify the rules of origins for Jordanian products as an important deal to increase the Kingdom’s exports to Europe, stressing the importance of the campaign.

The Barcelona Process or Euromed Partnership was launched in 1995 to strengthen European relations with the countries in the Mashriq and Maghreb regions.