Today’s top stories
Morgan Stanley’s boss warns investment banking may not recover until next year after reporting a 19 per cent drop in first-quarter profits amid a broader trading slowdown.
UK inflation is stuck in double digits. The rate measured by the consumer price index fell in March, but only from 10.4 per cent to 10.1 per cent. Although petrol prices dropped over the period, food and leisure sector costs rose sharply.
Credit Suisse has filed a High Court claim against SoftBank in a $440mn dispute. The legal action marks an escalation in the Swiss bank’s efforts to recover funds linked to the collapse of Greensill Capital.
For up-to-the-minute news updates, visit our live blog
Good evening.
The world has a new top dog. India is officially set to overtake China as the most populous country.
According to the UN Population Fund’s World Population Dashboard, released today, India’s population is to surpass 1.428bn by mid 2023, just overtaking China’s more than 1.425bn.
Although it is a significant moment for the planet, neither of the countries involved were keen to mark the moment, a reflection of the political sensitivity of the population issue in China and India.
“I want to tell you that population dividends don’t only depend on quantity but also on quality,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in Beijing today in remarks quoted by news agencies. “Our population dividend has not disappeared, our dividend is forming and the impetus for development is strong.” India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson had no immediate comment.
China’s birth rate has been in long-term decline in part because of the successful implementation of the one-child policy in 1980. Its population fell in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.
India’s population might still be growing but the rate of increase has been declining since it peaked at 2.4 per cent in the 1980s. The population in 31 of its 36 states is now either at replacement rate or in decline, meaning that growth is being driven by high fertility in just five states, a UN official told the FT. Experts believe India’s population will peak sometime around the middle of this century.
You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.
India increasingly has China in its sights as it aims to profit from the reorientation of supply chains away from China after the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic and rise in geopolitical friction between Washington and Beijing over the war in Ukraine.
The country last year surpassed the UK to become the world’s fifth-largest economy.
However, India lags behind China in everything from the size of its economy to foreign direct investment, its own investment in infrastructure and military spending. It also struggles to create new jobs for the millions of young people entering the workforce each year.
As if to underline the point, China yesterday reported that its economy rebounded more than expected after its Covid-related reopening, growing 4.5 per cent year on year in the first quarter. This was still short of the government’s full-year target of 5 per cent, although economists expect China’s expansion to gather pace as the year progresses.
In India, global businesses are seeking to capitalise on the evolution of a record-breaking consumer market. Yesterday Tim Cook opened the first Indian branch of the Apple Store in Mumbai, hoping that his computer company’s sleek devices will prove more appealing to tech-loving Indians in its battle with Samsung for the luxury end of the smartphone market.
At the same time, western companies are under pressure to cut their links with China due to the growing hostility between Washington and Beijing. However, this is not a simple matter. Apple, for one, finds itself unable to break its ties with China, as the FT’s Patrick McGee explains in this episode of the Behind the Money podcast.
While the world focuses on demographic changes in Asia, the UN chose today to warn about a global “population anxiety”. Climate change, mass displacement and the pandemic are among the causes of a widespread fear of both overpopulation and underpopulation, according to the UN. The danger is that governments adopt ineffective and harmful fertility policies that damage human rights and gender equality, the global body warns.
Need to know: UK and Europe economy
Central London house prices declined almost 5 per cent in the 12 months to March, the largest annual fall in three-and-a-half years. Property prices in prime areas of the capital dropped to £1,261 per square foot last month, down from £1,326 a year earlier. The decline was blamed on the UK’s poor economic outlook and fears of a further decline in the housing market, which stopped wealthy buyers from committing to deals.
The EU is storing record levels of natural gas after a milder than anticipated winter, bolstering hopes that the bloc can wean itself off imports from Russia. The bloc’s storage totalled 55.7 per cent of capacity at the start of the month, according to the industry body Gas Infrastructure Europe — the highest level for early April since at least 2011.
Corporate insolvencies in England and Wales rose 16 per cent in March compared with the same month last year, as businesses struggled with higher costs and a weakening economy.
Today’s Big Read highlights how the rush to safer assets by British pension funds has left the UK listing moribund and driven companies seeking to list overseas. In the first in a series on the crisis in European equities, Harriet Agnew and Katie Martin explain Britain’s “capitalism without capital”.
Need to know: Global economy
Ukraine will plead for urgent shipments of surface-to-air missiles at a meeting of its western allies this week, fearful that an acute shortage could allow Russia to launch widespread bombing attacks.
North Korea has claimed success in building its first spy satellite. Pyongyang says the space hardware will strengthen the country’s ability to conduct a pre-emptive strike and monitor US and South Korean activity.
Need to know: Business
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox has agreed to pay $787.5mn to settle a landmark defamation case in which it was accused by voting machine maker Dominion of broadcasting false accusations of election fraud in the wake of Donald Trump’s failure to retain the US presidency in 2020. The settlement is almost half of the $1.6bn in damages sought by Dominion.
Payouts from a string of natural catastrophes tripled losses at US insurer Travelers in the last quarter. Hail storms and strong winds from natural catastrophes across the US helped drive a first-quarter loss of $535mn, up from $160mn a year earlier. Global insurers and reinsurers are expecting to take $15bn of such losses in the first quarter, according to a report from insurer Aon last week that highlighted Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand and the powerful earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria.
Bank of America announced plans to cut as many as 4,000 positions before the end of June, blaming a cooling US jobs market. Chief executive Brian Moynihan revealed the plans during the bank’s earnings call after it reported first-quarter profits that beat expectations. He stressed that the cuts should not be viewed as a sign that it was bracing for a slowdown in its business.
America’s dollar stores are getting a makeover for the age of inflation. The rising cost of living is driving middle-class Americans to seek bargains on food and other groceries at these no-frills discount outlets and the biggest stores are attempting to capitalise on the new-found demand by adjusting their branding. Dollar General and Dollar Tree have announced plans to remodel almost twice as many stores as they will open this year.
You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.
Glencore has said it is willing to better its $23bn bid for Teck Resources if the Canadian miner agrees to enter discussions on a deal, raising the stakes ahead of a shareholder vote next week. The approach for Teck, which Glencore launched this month, is the latest evidence of a flurry of dealmaking as mining industry players pivot into the metals required for the green energy transition, such as copper and nickel.
In other green technology news, carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is to spend £15bn over five years to build a suite of seven electronic models in an effort to catch up with larger rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the race to low-carbon vehicle production.
The World of Work
The issue of toxic workplaces is back on the agenda amid the fallout from sexual misconduct and harassment allegations at the UK’s leading business lobby organisation, the CBI — ironically a body that is meant to set standards for the country’s companies to follow. The Working It podcast asks what it takes to repair an organisation after a scandal breaks?
The word “migrant” is often twinned with negative words, such as “crisis” and “overcrowding”. But there is another reason for the rise in global people movements, Sarah O’Connor writes: the global competition for skilled people caused by local labour shortages and demographic pressures caused by ageing populations. A big question is whether governments can maintain public support for attracting people from abroad to help societies when there is a growing tide of anger about irregular immigration.
The UK needs to set higher standards for low-paid jobs in addition to further increases in the minimum wage to match the protections extended to workers by international peers, according to an influential think-tank. Britain has one of the highest levels of minimum wage but some of the least generous systems for childcare support, sick pay and other factors that sustain a working life, the Resolution Foundation noted in a report out today.
Some good news
It is not just India that is breaking population records. Yorkshire Wildlife Park is doing so after celebrating the surprise arrival of rare giant otter triplets. Hailing primarily from the Amazon basin in South America, giant otters were listed as an endangered species in 1999. This latest litter increases the number of giant otters in YWP’s care to nine, the most of any zoo or wildlife park worldwide.
Source: Economy - ft.com
