Aurelia Butler

A South Korean manufacturer plans to spend $2.5bn to expand solar power equipment production in the US state of Georgia, a sign that billions of dollars of green subsidies passed by Democrats are sparking new clean energy investment.The move by Hanwha Q Cells to build more solar panels and components in the southern state will mark the largest foreign direct investment in US solar manufacturing, according to fDi Markets. It comes as lawmakers attempt to rebuild the American industrial base and make supply chains less reliant on imports from China.The $369bn climate, healthcare and tax law signed by President Joe Biden last year included significant tax breaks for clean energy such as solar. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, said a goal of the incentives was to “end America’s dependence on Chinese products” when it came to “strategic solar technology”.“This geostrategic economic competition will continue. I’m not declaring victory on that front, but I am declaring victory in bringing massive investment to my state and expanding American manufacturing capacity,” he said.The US last year made solar modules with capacity totalling 8.9 gigawatts, about half of demand from power companies and far below China’s production capacity of 600GW, according to Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy. US clampdowns on solar panel and cell imports from China have slowed connections of solar power to the electric grid, muting the impact of the climate law formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, said Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. The groups estimated the pace of new US solar installation slowed by 23 per cent year on year in 2022 due to trade barriers and supply constraints. Hanwha Q Cells plans to expand solar component manufacturing capacity at its plant in the city of Dalton, Georgia, and to build a new plant in Cartersville, closer to Atlanta, bringing its production capacity in the US to 8.4GW by 2024.Unlike most investments in US solar that are concentrated in modules, Hanwha Q Cells’s announcement encompasses broader segments of the supply chain, including wafers, cells and ingots.Georgia has been a leading US investment destination for South Korean companies. The state last year attracted $11.5bn in projects from South Korea, including a $5.5bn electric vehicle plant from Hyundai, according to data to November from fDi Markets.The move also follows the Biden administration’s curbs on imports of solar energy components using polysilicon from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about slave labour.Heavy US government support for clean energy investment has triggered alarm among some of Washington’s staunchest allies in Europe and Asia, who fear it will siphon projects and jobs from their own economies.But John Podesta, senior White House adviser on clean energy, dismissed those worries. “I would say that the overall net effect of US investment is good for the world,” he said. “It’s not just good for the United States. It’s going to create a virtuous cycle of innovation, of lowering costs of making these global goods more affordable, as the entire world moves from an energy system that is built on fossil fuels to one built on clean energy.”Analysts still do not expect an independent US solar supply chain to develop in the near future. “The announcements that have been made are not at the same speed right now as the demand we are expecting,” said Sylvia Leyva Martinez, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie.Biden welcomed the investment on Wednesday, saying it would “create thousands of good-paying jobs in Georgia, many of which won’t require a four-year degree”.“It will bring back our supply chains so we aren’t reliant on other countries, lower the cost of clean energy and help us combat the climate crisis,” he added.Additional reporting by Christian Davies in Seoul More

Morning, and we start with jobs cuts at Goldman Sachs. Many employees will learn their fates today as the Wall Street bank begins cutting more than 3,000 positions. The redundancies are part of the biggest cost-cutting programme at the bank since the financial crisis and will also see investment banker bonuses slashed by at least 40 per cent. Ericka Leslie, the bank’s chief administrative officer, has emerged as a central figure in the spending review under the direction of Goldman president John Waldron, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.One of the more sensitive areas Leslie is probing is Goldman’s spending on two Gulfstream jets, the people said. The lender bought the aircraft in 2019 under the direction of chief executive David Solomon, reversing a longstanding policy to rent private planes from NetJets.Solomon is under pressure to reduce costs after net profit slid 44 per cent in the first nine months of 2022. Goldman, which reports annual results next week, is struggling to meet a crucial profitability target set by Solomon in 2020 and raised last year.Earnings season preview: America’s biggest banks are set to report another quarter of bumper profits after profiting from the Federal Reserve’s series of interest rate rises. But the outlook is less certain.Five more stories in the news1. FTX boss invested in fund that backed his exchange Sam Bankman-Fried invested $20mn in Paradigm, a venture capital fund that also took a stake in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange group. The arrangement, which highlights the close links between the fallen billionaire and some of his backers, is not inherently wrong but was labelled “weird” by one law professor. FTX bankruptcy proceedings: A bipartisan group of US senators said Sullivan & Cromwell should not be entrusted to scrutinise FTX because of the law firm’s past work for the cryptocurrency exchange.2. North American leaders set aside tensions to focus on chips and migration Leaders from the US, Mexico and Canada sought to set aside simmering tensions over drugs, trade and energy to focus on boosting investment in producing semiconductors and quelling a migration crisis that has caused political headaches for Joe Biden. They agreed to organise the first trilateral semiconductor forum and work on installing electric vehicle chargers along international borders.3. Bernard Arnault promotes daughter in LVMH reshuffle LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault has promoted his daughter Delphine to run fashion brand Dior as part of a reshuffle at the world’s largest luxury group. Pietro Beccari, who has run Dior since 2018, was named the new chief executive of LVMH’s flagship brand Louis Vuitton.4. Ukrainian troops to travel to US for Patriot missile training The Pentagon will begin teaching Ukrainian troops to use Patriot missile systems in the US from next week. It will mark one of the few occasions that Kyiv’s forces have been trained on American soil since Russia’s full-scale invasion began last year. 5. Australia’s Cardinal George Pell dies at 81 The former head of the Vatican’s finances, who was jailed for child sexual abuse before being acquitted on appeal, has died at the age of 81 in Rome. Pell was Australia’s most senior figure in the Catholic Church and one of Pope Francis’s closest advisers.

Cardinal George Pell served 13 months in prison for child sexual abuse charges before his conviction was overturned on appeal in 2020 © Daniel Munoz/Reuters

The day ahead Markets outlook European stocks edged higher but Wall Street futures were lower, as investors looked ahead to the release of December’s US inflation data later this week. The blue-chip S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq both closed higher yesterday, helped by rises for healthcare and cyclical stocks.Economic data Brazil‘s retail sales are expected to have fallen 0.3 per cent in November, compared with a 0.4 per cent rise in October, while Mexico‘s national statistics agency is expected to report industrial output probably slipped 0.1 per cent in November, compared with a 0.4 per cent gain in October.Sunak to sign defence pact with Kishida The UK prime minister hosts his Japanese counterpart in London. They are expected to sign an agreement that will allow them to deploy forces in each other’s countries. Kishida is travelling to G7 capitals for talks with leaders ahead of a planned summit in Hiroshima in May. What else we’re reading How Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro said yesterday he was preparing to return home from the US in the next few weeks after coming under fire for the violence unleashed by thousands of his supporters on Sunday. The FT has created a timeline of how the rioters planned and executed their failed insurrection.The threat of a lost decade in development The shocks of the past three years have hit all countries, but they have hit emerging and developing countries particularly hard. As a result the convergence of average incomes between rich and poor nations has stalled. Why does this matter? It is creating a debt crisis on a scale not seen since the 1980s in Latin America, argues Martin Wolf. Virgin Orbit scrambles to explain failed satellite launch The US-based company has appointed a team to investigate Monday’s failed satellite launch from England’s south western county of Cornwall. Virgin Orbit said yesterday it was still “too early” to set a date for another attempt after the UK’s hopes of making history as the first country to put a commercial satellite into space from western Europe were dashed.

Fed will not become a ‘climate policymaker’, says Jay Powell The chair of the Federal Reserve yesterday mounted a full-throated defence of the US central bank’s independence from political influence. He said the Fed must stick to its “statutory goals” and “resist the temptation to broaden our scope”. The central bank has been criticised by some Republican lawmakers for pledging to consider climate-related financial risks.Germany leads on regulating Big Tech While EU regulators work out how to implement their landmark Digital Markets Act, Berlin is already opening high-profile probes into the world’s largest tech companies. German regulators say their new antitrust law is years ahead of the EU’s in clamping down on so-called gatekeepers such as Meta, Google and Amazon, and could capture more illegal conduct.Church of England sets aside £100mn to address ‘shameful past’ of slave trade A report by forensic accountants and historians published yesterday found the church’s financial arm had received funds linked to enslavement potentially worth more than £1bn in today’s money. Take a break from the news FT Globetrotter got a first look at the new seafood restaurant Hav & Mar from Marcus Samuelsson. The Swedish-Ethiopian restaurateur aims to set an example in the industry by hiring Bipoc (black, indigenous and people of colour) staff and sourcing ingredients from Bipoc producers, while revolutionising kitchen culture and focusing on sustainability.

Video: First look at celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s new NYC restaurant | FT Globetrotter More

The output of the manufacturing sector is estimated to have risen 3.1% last year, accounting for 28% of China’s gross domestic product, according to the MIIT statement following a meeting held on Wednesday.After stringent COVID lockdowns and curbs disrupted production lines and supply chains last year, the ministry pledged stable growth of the industrial economy in 2023.Key industries such as autos and consumer goods would be stabilised, said the MIIT, as the government tries to spur consumption in a bid to drive an economic recovery. China would improve autonomy and controllability of key industrial chains and speed up development of major technical equipment and the large passenger aircraft industry, said the statement. The country would also accelerate industrial upgrading – through the automation of production lines and the adoption of greener manufacturing processes. It would also target improving the global competitiveness of manufacturers in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, “internet of things” technologies and alternative energy vehicles. More

After raising interest rates by 2.5 percentage points in five months, they had reached a level where they neither fuel inflation nor restrict it, said Villeroy, who is also the head of the French central bank.”In 2023, new interest rate hikes will very likely be needed in the coming months at a pragmatic pace in order to bring inflation towards 2%,” Villeroy told the French Senate’s finance committee. More

(Reuters) – Nearly 16 million Americans have so far signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace, a 13% jump from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday. Enrollment for 2023 healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is open between Nov. 1 and Jan. 15. More

Ghana’s government, in a bid to mitigate an ongoing economic crisis, has negotiated a staff-level agreement for a $3 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).The deal will only be approved by the IMF board if Ghana undergoes comprehensive debt restructuring, the fund has said.In early December, the finance ministry launched a plan to exchange local bonds for longer-dated maturities. But after the deal met stiff opposition, the government said it would exempt pension funds from the restructuring programme. Late on Dec. 24 it extended the deadline for the exchange to Jan. 16 from Dec. 30, having previously extended it from Dec. 19. It also announced a change to the debt exchange, with eight additional instruments to be created.”Were the participation to the domestic debt exchange too low, the perennity of the Government’s efforts to resolve the current crisis and the expected international financial support would be jeopardized,” the finance ministry of the west African nation said in a Q&A document.It added this would put “further strains on the Government’s capacity to honour its commitments and repay its debt.”Ghana’s public debt was 467.4 billion cedis ($46.7 billion) in September 2022, of which 42% was domestic debt, according to the most recent central bank figures.Ghana on Tuesday requested a restructuring of its bilateral debt through the Common Framework platform set up by the Group of 20 major economies, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.($1 = 10.0000 Ghanian cedi) More

European stocks edged higher and Wall Street futures slipped on Wednesday, as investors looked ahead to the release of December’s US inflation data later this week.The regional Stoxx Europe 600 added 0.4 per cent, Germany’s Dax gained 0.3 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5 per cent to its highest level since August 2018. Contracts tracking Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 fell 0.1 per cent and those tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 shed 0.2 per cent ahead of the New York open.Equity markets on either side of the Atlantic have inched higher so far this year on the back of signs that inflation has peaked, and despite warnings from the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank that interest rates have further to climb.Figures out on Thursday are expected to show US consumer price growth continued to slow in December. Inflation also appears to have peaked in Europe, with price growth slowing in France, Germany and Spain.Central bank officials insist it would be premature to pause their monetary tightening campaigns just yet, however. Projections published in December show most Fed officials anticipate the fed funds rate peaking at between 5 per cent and 5.25 per cent, up from its current level between 4.25 per cent and 4.5 per cent. ECB president Christine Lagarde said in December that markets should expect rates to rise “at a 50-basis-point pace for a period of time”.The size of future interest rate increases — as well as the depth of the recessions expected in Europe and the US later this year — now dominates debate. “A friendly December [consumer prices index] print sets up for a 25 basis point hike and that could very well prove to be the end for this cycle,” said Steven Blitz, chief US economist at TS Lombard. “Beyond the near term, mild recession or no recession, inflation will be settling closer to 3 per cent than 2 per cent, owing to the structural imbalance in the labour market.”Jobs growth in the world’s biggest economy slowed for a fifth consecutive month in December, while wage growth declined to 4.6 per cent and the unemployment rate fell to a historic low. Fed officials have made it clear that inflation continuing to cool depends to a large extent on unemployment rising later this year, even as the economy grapples with worker shortages in service sectors such as hospitality and travel.US government bonds have rallied so far this year on expectations of slowing interest rate increases and continued to do so on Wednesday. The yield on the two-year Treasury note, a measure of where investors expect interest rates to move in the short term, fell 0.03 percentage points to 4.22 per cent. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.5 per cent, taking its gains since the start of November to 45 per cent. China’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks fell 0.2 per cent. More