Aurelia Butler

Properties with a floor area of more than 120 square metres (1,292 square feet) are excluded from housing purchase restrictions, according to a notice from the southern city government.The move means that people can buy as many apartments of that size as they want, whether they already own one or not, said Wang Xiaoqiang, analyst at Zhuge Real Estate Data Research Centre.”Guangzhou is the first tier-one city to significantly relax its purchase restriction policy ……which will help accelerate a reduction of housing inventory and promote activity of the property market,” said Wang.China is battling a deep housing crisis, with many debt-laden developers unable to complete projects, dampening the confidence of would-be buyers and severely weakening one of the economy’s biggest growth drivers.A large supply of homes has added to pressure on the market in Guangzhou. Guangzhou’s housing de-stocking cycle is 18.5 months, higher than Shanghai’s 10 months, according to a report in December from China Real Estate Information Corp.New home prices also fell year-on-year for a 12th consecutive month in December, official data showed.The city plans to provide 10,000 units of affordable housing and 100,000 low-cost rental housing, and to give rental subsidies to 18,000 households, according to the notice.Chinese policymakers have rolled out support measures in recent months to prop up a crisis-hit sector, such as easier access to cash for developers, cuts in home mortgage rates and relaxed rules on buying homes.However, the market has shown little sign of stabilising, with sales staying weak and yet more developer defaults.The housing regulator said on Friday that cities are given full autonomy in real estate regulation and control, and they can adjust their property policies based on local conditions. More

BEIJING (Reuters) -Profits at China’s industrial firms fell 2.3% in 2023, their second straight yearly decline, due to sluggish demand at home and abroad, adding pressure on economic growth amid a deep property slump and deflationary risks.The drop followed a 4.4% profit fall in the first 11 months from the same period a year earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Saturday.Last year’s profits decline was chiefly due to sharply lower factory-gate prices, driven by over-capacity in some industries, said economist Nie Wen at Hwabao Trust in Shanghai.Industrial profits will likely rise by between 5% and 6% this year, as a slight improvement in demand and historic lows in inventories in China, Europe, the United States and Japan will lead to a rebound in industrial prices, Nie said.There were some signs of improvement at the end of the year. For December alone, industrial profits rose 16.8% from a year earlier, down from a 29.5% jump in November and extending gains for a fifth month.Profits fell 4% in 2022 due to strict COVID-19 curbs.Profits in railway, ship and aerospace transport equipment rose 22.0% in 2023, supported by growth in shipbuilding orders, NBS said in a statement. Profits of the automobile industry increased 5.9% due to record-high automobile production.China’s economy expanded by 5.2% in 2023, but its post-pandemic recovery has been shaky, with a protracted housing downturn, mounting deflationary risks and slowing global growth casting clouds over the outlook for this year.China’s central bank announced on Wednesday that it was making a 50-basis point cut to bank reserves, the biggest in two years, sending a strong signal of support for a fragile economy and the country’s plunging stock markets.Still, analysts say more stimulus is needed this year to get economic activity on more solid footing.Nie said China’s GDP target for this year will likely remain at 5%.”Chinese authorities will implement existing policies as soon as possible,” said Nie. “Markets expect another 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in special treasury bonds will be issued.”Industrial profit numbers cover firms with annual revenues of at least 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) from their main operations.($1 = 7.1632 Chinese yuan renminbi) More

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s new government withdrew major spending reforms from a sweeping “omnibus” bill in Congress to facilitate its approval, the economy minister said on Friday, while stressing President Javier Milei’s pledge to eliminate the budget deficit. Economy Minister Luis Caputo announced the decision to scrap controversial provisions from the legislation, including pension and tax reform, implying that the libertarian Milei will seek tougher spending cuts elsewhere.Milei’s office described his commitment to a balanced budget as “unbreakable” in a statement after Caputo’s remarks and argued that the removal of the bill’s so-called fiscal chapter should guarantee its passage with lawmakers.”The priority is for the law to pass,” wrote analyst Salvador Vitelli in a post on X.The announcement from Milei’s economy chief marks a major concession as the government hopes to salvage the bill’s prospects in Congress, where allies from other parties will be needed to enact the legislation.The proposal had already faced stiff opposition, and the president’s Libertad Avanza party only holds a small number of seats.Milei, who took office last month, won a resounding election victory on a promise to rein in triple-digit inflation by dramatically downsizing the role of the government, including the privatization of state-owned firms and sharp cuts to a range of subsidies.He has since pared back some of those promises – such as the privatization of state oil firm YPF – from the bill’s text.At a press conference, Caputo noted that inflation – which now stands at over 200% annually – has “slowed strongly” in the past two weeks, after a surge when the government pushed an early devaluation of the local peso currency last month. He also said that his ministry would take control of the country’s infrastructure portfolio, confirming earlier media reports that the government had moved to abolish the infrastructure ministry. More

Some 185,000 tourists from Russia traveled to Havana and Cuba’s dazzling white-sand beaches in 2023 and “we hope that the number will rise to 250,000 people this year,” Cuban ambassador Julio Antonio Garmendía said in a report by Russia’s Interfax news agency.That would represent a 35% jump in tourists from Russia in 2024, a desperately needed shot in the arm for a key Cuban industry that has struggled to revive following the COVID-19 pandemic. Stiffened U.S. sanctions under former U.S. President Donald Trump also complicate travel by U.S. citizens to the island.The Cuban diplomat in Moscow said new flights to the island from the Russian capital – a 13-hour direct flight – had helped boost visitor numbers last year and would do the same in 2024. Russia, a long-time political ally of Cuba, has also introduced its MIR credit card for use on the island, facilitating transactions for citizens who visit Cuba’s cities and resorts.Communist-run Cuba, knee-capped by a near-unprecedented economic crisis and widespread shortages, is counting on increased foreign currency generated by tourists this year to help import food, fuel and medicine to the island.Cuban officials have said 2.4 million tourists arrived on the island in 2023, around 1.1 million visitors less than the 3.5 million it had budgeted. This year, tourism officials predict the number of visitors to rise to a more modest 3.2 million even as the country confronts an ongoing economic crisis. According to the national statistics agency ONEI, the main sources of tourists to the island in 2023 were Canada (936,436 visitors), Cubans residing in other countries (358,481), Russia (184,819), the United States (159,032), Spain (89,285) and Germany (69,475). More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX is facing a negligence lawsuit brought by the wife of a worker whose skull was fractured during a 2022 rocket engine malfunction.     The Jan. 18, 2022, engine malfunction involving Francisco Cabada was among the worker injuries detailed in a Reuters investigation of SpaceX late last year. Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye injuries and one death. His wife, Ydy Cabada, filed the lawsuit in a state court in Los Angeles, California, last week on behalf of her husband, who remains in a coma more than two years later. The lawsuit has not been previously reported.SpaceX did not respond to questions about the lawsuit.Ydy Cabada’s lawyer, Michael Rand, declined to comment. Cabada was injured when part of a Raptor V2 engine broke away during pressure testing at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California. The part, a fuel-controller assembly cover, careened into the SpaceX technician’s head, fracturing his skull.Former SpaceX employees familiar with the accident told Reuters the incident illustrated systemic problems at SpaceX.The sources told Reuters that senior managers at the Hawthorne site were repeatedly warned about the dangers of rushing the engine’s development, along with inadequate training of staff and testing of components. The part that failed and struck the worker had a flaw that was discovered, but not fixed, before the testing, employees said.SpaceX had no comment about the Reuters investigation of the worker injuries, and had no response to detailed questions about the Cabada case. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which has paid SpaceX $11.8 billion to date as a private space contractor, did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. SpaceX’s Raptor engines power Starship, the company’s next-generation rocket designed to send satellites and humans into space. NASA plans to use the rocket to land humans on the moon sometime this decade. More