Aurelia Butler

Northern Irish farmers are at risk of being unable to sell their produce in the UK and overseas unless London and Brussels reach a post-Brexit deal on the supply of veterinary medicines to the region, a House of Lords committee has warned.Since Brexit, Northern Ireland remains inside the EU’s single market for goods, as well as the UK single market, creating regulatory complexities when EU and UK rules clash.Lord Michael Jay, chair of the cross-party Windsor framework subcommittee, said in a letter to Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker on Tuesday that a third of animal medicines used in the region — including vaccinations against botulism and salmonella — could become unavailable.“Concerns were also voiced [in hearings] about the impact on the food supply chain; Northern Ireland supplies the UK alone with enough meat and dairy to feed 10mn people,” the committee said in a statement.Veterinary medicines are one of a number of issues as diverse as metal-based dental fillings and permitted levels of arsenic in baby food that highlight the problems of having different regulatory regimes in the EU and UK.Unlike human medicines, animal pharmaceuticals were left out of last year’s updated Brexit trade deal, known as the Windsor framework. A “standstill” arrangement is in place until the end of 2025, after which EU rules on veterinary medicines would apply if there is no agreement in place. Looming elections in both the EU and UK have added pressure to sign a deal before there is a change of leadership, Jay said.“It could be devastating if [the negotiation] goes wrong,” he said. “These are highly complicated issues so there’s not very much time.”He said the ideal solution was “something which is much nearer to present arrangements than to try to switch to something completely new”.The opposition Labour party, which polls suggest is on track to win power in the UK, has committed to signing a new veterinary agreement with Brussels to improve post-Brexit trading arrangements with the EU. But Jay said: “I don’t think you can just do nothing about Northern Ireland” until then. In his 23-page letter, referring to evidence presented to the committee, Jay warned that the loss of veterinary medicines could have an impact on public health in Northern Ireland and across the island. Northern Ireland is only a small market, making regulatory changes expensive to implement, but a lack of deal could put meat and dairy processing in the Republic of Ireland or sales in Britain at risk, the committee heard.It warned that full application of EU rules could also affect pets and prevent horses from going to competitions, including the Olympics, and breeding bulls being taken to Britain.Complying with EU rules would mean changing registered addresses and implementing further quality checks on drugs arriving from Britain.Deirdre McIvor, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Pork and Bacon Forum, also warned that the region could lose access to China.“Chinese authorities are exceptionally particular and were there any suggestion that Northern Ireland no longer had access to necessary veterinary medicines, China could very well de-list our sites and cease to trade with us, with devastating consequences,” she told the committee.Video: We need to talk about Brexit | FT Film More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is a is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceWhile China and its trade partners continue to clash bitterly over manufacturing overcapacity and global trade, much of the discussion seems to be occurring at cross purposes. Excess Chinese capacity in targeted industrial sectors is one area of contention. Excess Chinese savings driven by the suppression of domestic demand is another issue. These two points of contention are very different but analysts and policymakers on either side seem to confuse the two.In the former case, Beijing has targeted certain industries such as electric vehicles and solar panels that it believes to be strategically important, and has implemented policies that are designed to give Chinese producers in these sectors a long-term comparative advantage. There is nothing especially Chinese about this strategy. Most large economies also employ policies to support or protect favoured sectors.As these policies work at the expense of foreign manufacturers, they often generate a great deal of outrage, but much of this reaction is self-serving. Comparative advantage, which is what drives the benefits of trade, implies that some countries are able to produce certain goods more efficiently than others. The purpose of trade, after all, is to concentrate production in those countries that have a comparative production advantage.But comparative advantage is only realised in the exchange of goods, and not in their production. This is where the problem of excess Chinese savings emerges. China’s structurally-high domestic saving rate is the result of a decades-long development strategy in which income is effectively transferred from households to subsidise the supply side of the economy — the production of goods and services. As a result of these transfers, growth in household income has long lagged behind productivity growth, leaving Chinese households unable to consume much of what they produce.Some of these subsidies are explicit but most are in the form of implicit and hidden transfers. These include directed credit, an undervalued currency, labour restrictions, weak social safety nets, and overinvestment in transportation infrastructure. These various policies automatically force up Chinese savings. By effectively exporting excess savings through the subsidy of the production of goods and services, China is able to externalise the resulting demand deficiency.The fact that China dominates certain manufacturing sectors is perfectly consistent with free trade and comparative advantage. It is excess savings that creates a problem for the global economy — and it should be noted that many countries besides China engage in similar behaviour, including Germany and Japan. The problem is that these excess savings represent the suppression of domestic wages, and thus domestic demand, to achieve global competitiveness.These are classic beggar-thy-neighbour trade policies in which unemployment — the consequence of deficient domestic demand — is exported by running trade surpluses. These surpluses must be absorbed by trade partners, usually in the form either of higher unemployment, higher fiscal deficits or higher household debt.This is why the policy implications of the two points of contention are very different. The problem of excess savings can make the problem of excess capacity much worse. Trade-deficit countries seek to protect their economies from the excess saving of demand-deficient countries. This can be in the form of restrictions on trade or on capital inflows. Beijing will no doubt continue to protect and support industries it deems to be strategically important, as will the US, the EU, and the rest of the world. This will lead inevitably to clashes, rising protectionism and widespread overcapacity in some sectors. In a well-functioning global trading system, countries produce goods in which they have a comparative production advantage, and then exchange them for goods in which they don’t. Thus the global economy is better off, even if individual sectors suffer. When the purpose of exports, however, is to externalise the problem of weak domestic demand, the global economy can only be worse off, as John Maynard Keynes noted at Bretton Woods. The world must resolve the issue of excess savings and unbalanced trade, even as individual countries clash separately over excess capacity and comparative advantage. More

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Paramount Global replaced CEO Bob Bakish with atrio of executives, the company announced on Monday in the middle of talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media about a possible merger.The owner of the Paramount+ streaming service, the Paramount Pictures movie studio and cable networks including MTV, BET and Showtime announced the change just ahead of reporting better-than-expected earnings for the quarter ended in March. Paramount’s shares were up nearly 1% at $12.36 in after-hours trading. A new Office of the CEO will be led by CBS President and CEO George Cheeks, Paramount Pictures studio chief Brian Robbins, and Chris McCarthy, head of Showtime, MTV and other networks, the company said.Paramount is in exclusive talks with Skydance and is working to build its streaming business as it faces tough competition from Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) as viewership of cable TV declines. “We’re finalizing a long-term strategic plan to best position this storied company to reach new and greater heights in a rapidly changing world,” McCarthy said on the company’s quarterly earnings call.Analysts said the executive shakeup appeared ill-timed.The new arrangement “looks like a car crash with clear divisions among key stakeholders,” PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said in a written note.”Why replace the CEO with three executives at a time when leadership is paramount (no pun intended) to the future success of the company?” Pescatore said.Bakish had led the company since the 2019 merger with CBS to form ViacomCBS (NASDAQ:PARA), later branded as Paramount Global. He took the helm of Viacom in 2016.McCarthy said the three new leaders had “worked together collaboratively for years and have known each other for decades.” “It’s a true partnership,” he said.For the quarter ended in March, Paramount reported adjusted earnings per share of 62 cents, well ahead of the 36 cents consensus of analysts.Revenue came in shy of expectations at $7.69 billion. Wall Street had forecast $7.73 billion, according to LSEG data.Advertising revenue rose 14%, boosted by the CBS broadcast of the Super Bowl in February. The company’s streaming unit reported gains. Paramount+ added 3.7 million subscribers for a total of 71 million, beating analyst expectations. As Paramount navigates the industrywide shift to streaming, it has been in discussions with Skydance about a deal. The possible combination has upset some shareholders who say it would benefit controlling shareholder Shari Redstone at their expense. They have urged Paramount to consider other suitors including Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO).The Redstone family and Skydance, which has backed Paramount films such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” recently offered concessions to try to make the Skydance bid more attractive, Bloomberg reported on Sunday. On the conference call after the release of Monday’s earnings, Paramount Global executives did not take questions from analysts as is the custom. The call, which lasted only 8 minutes and 34 seconds, ended with the theme song from the Paramount movie franchise “Mission: Impossible.” More

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