Thursday, March 25, 2021 Headlines
Burc Oran
March 25, 2021
  1. The USA Begins to Implement the Law to take Chinese Companies out of the Stock Market
  2. Euro Zone Economy Grows after Six Months
  3. Workers flow from the U.K. to the E.U

The USA Begins to Implement the Law to take Chinese Companies out of the Stock Market

The USA Begins to Implement the Law to take Chinese Companies out of the Stock Market

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that the law excludes Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges if they do not comply with U.S. auditing standards and require them to disclose any governmental affiliations.

In the statement made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it was stated that the Foreign Companies Liability Act, signed by former U.S. President Donald Trump in December 2020 and allowing removing Chinese companies from the U.S. stock markets, has been put into effect. The penalty for non-compliance, as stipulated by the law Congress approved in December, is ejection from the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq for any business that doesn’t allow their audit to be inspected for three years.

The law in question prevents foreign companies from being listed on American stock exchanges if they fail to comply with the U.S. Public Accounting Oversight Authority’s audits for three consecutive years.

It is noted that the law, which is stated to target Chinese companies, may affect companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, Pinduoduo, and PetroChina. Besides, the law requires public companies to disclose whether they are under the control of a foreign government.

In January, NYSE announced that it would remove the companies China Unicom, China Telecom, and China Mobile from the stock market.

Because of national security issues, China has declined to allow the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to examine audits of companies whose securities trade in the United States. U.S. lawmakers argue that such resistance exposes investors to fraud while also expressing dissatisfaction because Chinese companies have been allowed to collect funds in the U.S. without following American rules.

The SEC is now seeking public comments on a process for identifying companies that fail to meet the standards.

The new rules come amid simmering tensions between the United States and China, with bipartisan support for a strict U.S. approach.

Euro Zone Economy Grows after Six Months

Euro Zone Economy Grows after Six Months

Eurozone economic activity made a surprise return to growth for the first time in six months in March, a closely watched survey said Wednesday. With much of Europe suffering the third wave of coronavirus infections and renewed lockdown measures, that may not last through April. The eurozone economy grew after six months of contraction and rose to 57.9 points in March.

Eurozone purchasing managers index (PMI) data announced by IHS Markit increased for the first time after six months due to the increasing demand effect in March.

Eurozone manufacturing PMI rose to 62.4 points in March, the highest level since June 1997. The index was at 57.6 points in February.

On the other hand, PMI covering the services industry increased from 45.7 points in February to 48.8 points which is the peak of 7 months.

A big jump in input costs led services firms to increase their prices for the first time in just over a year. The output prices index climbed to 50.8 from 48.1.

IHS Markit’s flash Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), seen as a good indicator of economic health, bounced above the 50 marks separating growth from contraction to 52.5 in March compared to February’s 48.8, its highest since late 2018.

“March’s rise in the eurozone composite PMI pushed it back above the 50 marks for the first time in six months, but the recent tightening of restrictions in several countries suggests that the improvement will not be sustained,” said Jessica Hinds at Capital Economics.

Chris Williamson, the chief economist at IHS Markit, said the Eurozone economy outperformed expectations in March and pointed out that the service sector is the weak link in the economy despite the slight increase seen.

”Today’s PMI surprised but still confirms our expectations of another contraction in GDP in 1Q. But with many large economies extending and even tightening restrictive measures, the rebound in eurozone economic output will be delayed further. We still target 2Q as the start of the recovery but expect the pace of the GDP rebound to pick up in the second half of the year,” ING bank stated.

Workers Flow from the U.K. to the E.U.

Workers Flow from the U.K. to the E.U.

According to the Linkedin database, the number of people who went to work from the U.K. to the E.U. due to Brexit and coronavirus shocks last year exceeded those who came to work in the U.K.

Linkedin stated that the flow of workers from England gained momentum in the first months of 2021. This situation shows that Britain’s workforce is reshaping, which may affect economic recovery.

“These trends are accelerating,” said Mariano Mamertino, senior economist at LinkedIn. “We see two diverging trends: net-migration losses for the U.K. with the rest of the E.U., and net-migration gains for the U.K. with non-EU countries.”

Britain’s decision to leave the E.U. in 2016 pushed immigration to the heart of the political debate. Prime Minister Boris Johnson won the election in 2019, promising to control the U.K. borders and decisive break from the E.U.

Now, economists question whether the United Kingdom will have enough workers to fill the positions once the Covid-19 laws are eased again, after three lockdowns to contain the coronavirus and tighter immigration restrictions. Some economists calculate that more than 1 million foreign workers may have left the country in 2020. According to government data, the decreasing number of workers is below 180 thousand.

Compared to the same time last year, many industry hiring rates remain significantly down, including in recreation and travel (-43.6%), energy and mining (-15.3%), consumer goods (-15%), entertainment (-14.7%), retail (-12.2%) and manufacturing (-8.7%).

On the other hand, healthcare (+34.1%), public administration (+32.1%), and transportation and logistics (12.6%) all recorded growth. These were industries that have been instrumental to the response to the pandemic.

LinkedIn members mostly went to Germany, France, and Spain, while the highest number of entries to England were from India, Nigeria, and South Africa. The largest migrants from outside the E.U. were software and I.T., sector employees.

The analysis also indicated that more people moved to the U.K. from the U.S. than the other way around over the last year, reversing the previous trend.

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