Aurelia Butler

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese manufacturers’ business confidence fell to a seven-month low in November due to ongoing supply shortages, while sentiment in the services sector hit a three-month high on easing coronavirus curbs, the Reuters Tankan poll showed.The mood among manufacturers deteriorated for the third month in November, but they became more optimistic about the outlook, according to the monthly poll, which tracks the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) closely watched Tankan quarterly survey next due on Dec. 13.The sentiment index among service-sector firms picked up slightly in November, while their three-month outlook also improved, as the government eased coronavirus restrictions from the end of September due to falling COVID-19 cases, the poll found. The poll of 502 big and mid-sized companies conducted between Oct. 26 and Nov. 5, of which 254 responded, showed managers remained worried about supply issues and commodity inflation.”Carmakers’ output cuts due to chip shortage and soaring steel prices kept our revenue and profits below expectations,” said a manager at a machinery company.The Reuters Tankan sentiment index for manufacturers fell to 13 in November from 16 in October – matching its lowest since April – while the service index rose to a three-month high of 1 from minus 1. (For a detailed table of the results, click)While Japan’s economic recovery from the COVID-induced slump has been driven by exports, with consumption hit by coronavirus restrictions, semiconductor shortages and other supply constraints have hurt manufacturers in recent months. Meanwhile, the services sector is being underpinned by a reopening economy.But services companies in the poll said they had not seen a clear boon for their businesses, with demand lost during the prolonged period of COVID-19 curbs yet to return.The government lifted its COVID-19 state of emergency restrictions at the end of September, and has since eased some other curbs which remained in place in October in Tokyo and other big cities.”The economy appeared to have reopened after the lifting of state of emergency,” said a wholesale company manager. “But the recovery in demand is still sluggish.”The BOJ’s latest tankan survey released in October showed an unexpected improvement in big manufacturers’ business mood thanks to solid global demand.However, some BOJ board members flagged ongoing supply chain constraints as a downside risk to the Japanese economy at its October policy meeting, where they decided to keep the ultra-easy monetary policy unchanged.Looking forward, both manufacturers and services companies were more optimistic about their prospects, with the three-month reading among manufacturers rising to 19 from 14 and for services companies to 15 from 14.Manufacturers’ improved outlook was mainly driven by optimism among automakers, who produce Japan’s No. 1 export item, even as the industry has been particularly hard hit by supply shortages.The three-month forward-looking reading among the autos/transport equipment sector rose to +29, from 0 in October.Manufacturers at large, except those in sectors heavily affected by rising commodity prices, were also more upbeat about their business prospects in February 2022.”Although our performance hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels yet, the impact from COVID-19 has bottomed out,” a precision machinery maker manager said. “It’s on a path to recovery.” More

Factory gate prices in China rose at their fastest pace in 26 years in October, as fuel shortages and rising commodity prices bit at supply, official data released on Wednesday showed.The producer price index rose 13.5 per cent compared to October 2020, higher than the 12.4 per cent forecast by analysts polled by Reuters. The jump was the highest since 1995. Last month, the PPI was up 10.7 per cent, the highest level in more than 25 years.Consumer price inflation also quickened, with the CPI 1.5 per cent higher than at the same point a year ago, compared to 0.7 per cent in September.Dong Lijuan, a statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics, said the PPI rise in October resulted from “the combined impact of international imported factors and the tight supply of crucial domestic energy and raw materials”.Producer prices also increased by 2.5 per cent in the month compared to September, the NBS said. Dong noted that the rising cost of oil, which topped $85 dollars a barrel last month, and the price of coal, which reached Rmb2,301 ($360) a tonne, were important factors in the month-on-month increase.Dong also said that raw production material prices had increased 17.9 per cent compared to October last year, while prices in the coal mining and washing industries had risen 103.7 per cent.Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist with Capital Economics, said China’s factory gate inflation was probably close to a peak as the energy crunch eased and coal prices started to fall. “More fundamentally, we expect both domestic and foreign demand to soften over the coming quarters, further reducing the likelihood that temporary supply-side issues lead to a sustained rise in inflation,” he said. More

(Reuters) -Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it plans to remove detailed ad-targeting options that refer to “sensitive” topics, such as ads based on interactions with content around race, health, religious practices, political beliefs or sexual orientation.The company, which recently changed its name to Meta https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebooks-zuckerberg-kicks-off-its-virtual-reality-event-with-metaverse-vision-2021-10-28 and which makes the vast majority of its revenue through digital advertising, has been under intense scrutiny over its ad-targeting abilities and rules in recent years.In a blog post, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gave examples of targeting categories that would no longer be allowed on its platforms, such as “Lung cancer awareness,” “World Diabetes Day”, “LGBT culture”, “Jewish holidays” or political beliefs and social issues. It said the change would take place starting Jan. 19, 2022. The company has been hit with criticisms around its micro-targeting capabilities, including over abuses such as advertisers discriminating against or targeting vulnerable groups. In 2019, it agreed to make changes to its ads platform as part of a settlement over housing discrimination issues.”We’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups,” said Graham (NYSE:GHM) Mudd, the company’s vice president of product marketing for ads, in the post. Its tailored ad abilities are used by wide-ranging advertisers, including political campaigns and social issue groups as well as businesses. “The decision to remove these Detailed Targeting options was not easy and we know this change may negatively impact some businesses and organizations,” Mudd said in the post, adding some advertising partners were concerned they would not be able to use these adds to generate positive social change. Advertisers on Facebook’s platforms can still target audiences by location, use their own customer lists, reach custom audiences who have engaged with their content and send ads to people with similar characteristics to those users.The move marks a key shift for the company’s approach to social and political advertising, though it is not expected to have major financial implications. CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimated in 2019, for example, that politicians’ ads would make up less than 0.5% of Facebook’s 2020 revenue. The issue of political advertising on social media platforms, including whether the content of politicians’ ads should be fact-checked, provoked much debate among the public, lawmakers and companies around the U.S. presidential election. Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) in 2019 banned political ads altogether, but Facebook had previously said it would not limit how political advertisers reached potential voters. Facebook, which now allows users to opt to see fewer ads related to topics like politics and alcohol, said on Tuesday it would early next year give people more controls over the ads they see, including ones about gambling and weight loss. More