SEATTLE: Pressured by a prolonged commercial travel downturn and the hit from the 737 MAX crisis, Boeing on Wednesday announced an additional 7,000 job cuts that will lower headcount by 30,000 positions over two years.

The planemaker, which has been in belt-tightening mode throughout 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus on top of the 737 MAX’s protracted grounding, reported another quarterly loss and said it will shrink headcount down to 130,000 at the end of 2021 from 160,000 in January, a drop of nearly 19 percent in less than two years.

“The global pandemic continued to add pressure to our business this quarter, and we’re aligning to this new reality by closely managing our liquidity and transforming our enterprise to be sharper, more resilient and more sustainable for the long term,” said chief executive Dave Calhoun.

A steep drop in commercial plane travel has prompted airlines to cancel plane orders or defer deliveries, crimping Boeing’s revenues.

On top of that, the company’s finances have been under pressure due to the grounding since March 2019 of the Boeing 737 MAX, which is nearing regulatory approval to resume service after a lengthy oversight process by air travel authorities.

In the third quarter, Boeing reported a loss of $449 million, compared with profits of $1.2
billion in the year-ago period, as revenues fell 29.2 percent to $14.1 billion. The latest quarter of red ink takes Boeing’s losses for all of 2020 to $3.5 billion.

Calhoun has emphasized that while Boeing faces a difficult medium-term environment, it expects airline demand to eventually return, and the company is well-positioned in the defense and space business, which is steadier than commercial travel.

The latest job cuts come after Boeing previously trimmed production of leading planes due
to the downturn in travel. The aviation giant did not announce further reductions on Wednesday. Calhoun, in an interview with CNBC, said the current production rates are “appropriate” in light of expectations.

“I’m confident that the forecast that we are handing out today is a conservative forecast that we can live to,” he said. Calhoun said the latest spikes in the coronavirus likely mean airlines will garner less travel the rest of the year than they previously expected.

But the Boeing CEO expects a shift in sentiment in the latter half of 2020 due to the vaccine, which “by all accounts seems to be way ahead of where we imagined it would be,” Calhoun told CNBC.

By the end of 2020, there will be a “change to psychology with respect to the vaccine,” he said. “And then I’m open that the recovery could come sooner rather than later.”

Calhoun still expects a full recovery in airline demand to pre-coronavirus levels to take around three years, he said on a conference call with analysts. He has taken steps in 2020 to bolster the company’s cash position since the coronavirus devastated the travel market.

Besides two voluntary layoff programs and involuntary job cuts, these have included suspending dividend payments, trimming commercial plane production and announcing a decision to consolidate manufacturing of the 787 Dreamliner plane to one venue from two in a cost-saving move.

The company has also taken steps to raise cash in the face of the difficult market, undertaking a $25 billion bond offering in the spring that averted the need to take advantage of a US government program that had been established for the company.

GENEVA: Nigeria’s former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is proposed to become the new director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a WTO official announced on Wednesday.

WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told a media briefing that a key group of three WTO ambassadors, the so-called “troika,” proposed Okonjo-Iweala as the new head of the Geneva-based organization in a closed-door meeting, assessing that the candidate “had the best chance of attaining the consensus of the membership.”

However, “one delegation could not support the candidacy of Dr. Ngozi and said they would continue to support South Korean minister Yoo. That delegation was the United States of America,” Rockwell said.

The “troika” consists of the chairs of three major WTO committees — the General Council (GC), the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), and the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB).

They put forward a shortlist after every round of consultations with WTO members until the third and final one, which ran from Oct. 19 to Oct. 27.

Since early October, Okonjo-Iweala had been facing off against the other female candidate, South Korea’s Minister for Trade Yoo Myung-hee, in the final round of race to become the new director-general of WTO.

Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy will be put for endorsement at a WTO General Council meeting on Nov. 9. However, trade experts warned that the final decision is still up in the air.

“The very recent news that the United States will back the South Korean candidate is a very interesting development to watch.

So this issue may not have been as settled as we thought,” Simon Evenett, professor of international trade and economic development at the University of St. Gallen, told Xinhua.

“I do not want to over-emphasize the US development, because the US development could just be putting down a bargaining mark, but still, don’t be surprised if we are surprised.”
If selected, Okonjo-Iweala would become the first woman and African to head the global trade watchdog in its 25-year history.

The WTO’s leadership vacuum was created after its former chief Roberto Azevedo stepped down on Aug. 31, a year before the end of his official term. The organization is currently being steered by four deputies.

The stock market tumbled out of the 6,400 territory on Wednesday as cautious investors continued to take in profits.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 0.58 percent or 37.29 points to close at its intraday low of 6,377.79 while the wider All Shares shed 0.26 percent or 9.82 points to finish at 3,808.29.

AAA Equities Head of Research Christopher Mangun attributed the latest decline to an increase in selling pressure, saying “more investors are now securing profits from the recent rally, which is giving investors who have not been able to ride the rally a chance to pick up shares at lower prices.”

The main index last Friday closed at 6,484.06, the highest since its 6,476.24 finish on June 11.

Investors, Mangun added, also realized that the figures are not as bad as expected, as more reports of corporate earnings in the third quarter are released.

“With more mobility and business restrictions lifted by the day, economic activity will continue to pick up,” Mangun said.

Philstocks Financial Inc. research associate Piper Chaucer Tan described Wednesday’s trading as “whipsaw,” saying more investors were cashing in amid the uncertainity on Wall Street, which was fueled by a new surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases in the world’s largest economy.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 slid overnight by 0.8 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively; Nasdaq gained 0.64 percent.

“The market may test the 6,000 level and may take profits, thus we expect selling pressure coming off from the investors,” Tan said.

Most local sectors closed in the red, with property leading decliners at 2.04 percent. Industrial and services were the exceptions, adding 0.49 percent and 0.15 percent, respectively.

Total volume turnover was at 1.75 billion shares, valued at P6.8 billion.

Winners beat losers, 112 to 89, while 46 securities were unchanged.

The World Bank approved on Wednesday a $88.28-million (around P4.2 billion) loan for the Philippine Customs Modernization Project to improve the Bureau of Customs’ (BoC) administration, reduce transaction costs, and enhance the predictability and transparency of the clearance process.

In a statement, the Washington, D.C.-based financial institution said the loan would improve the bureau’s administration by enhancing the streamlining and automation of its procedures and supporting the development of a world-class customs processing system (CPS).

“Improved efficiency at the Bureau of Customs will reduce trade costs and support [the] Philippines’ competitiveness,” Ndiamé Diop, World Bank Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, said in the statement.

“Automation will reduce face-to-face interactions and delays, and increase accountability, all of which strengthens efficiency and improves the business environment,” he added.

With the CPS, important processes, including trade management and registration, cargo inspection, duty payment, and clearance and release, would be integrated into a seamless online system.

The loan would also improve adherence to international standards and conventions for customs processing. This includes an audit trail for transactions, which allows for greater transparency and fewer opportunities for corruption.

According to the World Bank, the Philippines, before the coronavirus pandemic, was one of the most dynamic economies in East Asia and the Pacific, but its growth potential was constrained by inefficiencies in trade facilitation and customs administration.

“For example, a container in the Philippines takes 120 hours to clear customs and associated inspection procedures, much higher than in neighboring Vietnam (56 hours), Thailand (50 hours) or Malaysia (36 hours). This provides a competitive advantage to firms in these countries vis-à-vis their Filipino counterparts,” it said.

The World Bank also said an unfavorable business environment for firms in the Philippines reduced the incentive to engage in exports, thus losing the opportunity to expand markets and create more jobs in the country.

Citing an enterprise survey data, the multilaterial lender said local companies exported only 3.5 percent of their output, compared to 26 percent in Malaysia and Thailand.

It added that 78.7 percent of foreign firms in Vietnam, 84 percent in Malaysia and 93 percent in Thailand directly or indirectly export, compared with 25.5 percent in the Philippines.

“Relatively poor trade facilitation performance at the country’s borders can partly be attributed to outdated infrastructure and business practices,” the World Bank said, noting that the bureau “recently embarked on a reform process to improve its trade procedures, including the digitalization of its paper-based systems, that are not in line with regional and international standards; and the improvement of its critical capabilities, such as risk management, intelligence and postclearance audit, and other transaction processes that were vulnerable to corruption.”

CHARLOTTE: Visa Inc. said Wednesday (Thursday in Manila) that its fiscal fourth quarter profits dropped 29 percent due to fewer dollars crossing on its namesake payment network while the world was in the grips of a pandemic-caused recession.

The San Francisco-based company posted a profit of $2.14 billion, or 97 cents per share, down from a profit of $3.03 billion, or $1.34 a share, in the same period a year earlier.

Visa recognizes revenue from the quarter before, so the payments activity that ended June 30 is reflected in the profits that the company reported Wednesday.

The April 1 to June 30 period was when the US and the rest of the world was being hard hit by the pandemic’s outbreak, so payments and transactions plunged sharply.

During the period, Visa had $2.493 trillion in payments on its network, down 11.9 percent from same period a year earlier. The number of transactions also plunged sharply, down 23.6 percent from the quarter before.

Visa earns a fee off of every transaction that runs on its network, be it credit cards or debit cards. It was particularly impacted by a drop in gasoline sales, since debit cards are the most common form of payment method at gas stations.

Visa did see payments volume increase in the July 1 to Sept. 30 period, as the US and the rest of the world started reopening, but those revenues will not be recognized until the end of the year. Travel expenses remain particularly depressed, the company said.

Mastercard, Visa’s biggest competitor, also reported a decline in profits and revenue due the Covid pandemic. It said cross-border payments were down 36 percent from a year earlier, mostly due to the pandemic bringing travel and other cross-border transactions to a standstill.

Like Visa, Mastercard said it saw modest improvements in payments in the last 90 days, as more governments reopen their economies and people tried to return to normal patterns of spending.

Solid demand helped Puregold Price Club Inc.’s consolidated net profits climb to P5.05 billion inside the 9 months ending September.

In a disclosure on Thursday, the indexed grocery operator said the quantity turned into a 10.Nine-percentage development from the P4.Fifty five billion inside the equal length remaining yr.

It attributed the income increase to the “continuous natural enlargement of the organization’s grocery shops on the back of a sustained sturdy patron demand.”

Puregold’s consolidated internet income rose by using 10.1 percent to P121.14 billion inside the first three quarters from P109.98 billion yr-on-yr. Of the figure, 75 percent is credited to Puregold stores and the rest to the S&R Membership warehouse clubs and S&R New York Style Pizza branches.

Income from operations extended by means of 11.8 percentage to P8.Five billion from P7.6 billion in 2019.
Puregold’s identical-shop sales increase https://atozmarkets.com/brokers/deltamarket/ climbed with the aid of 4.5 percentage in the nine-month length at the same time as that of S&R jumped by using 6.4 percent.

The firm said the SSSG become driven by using robust patron spending and pantry loading earlier than the network quarantine turned into implemented, in conjunction with its endured keep operations amid the coronavirus ailment 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

“We are confident that our organisation will achieve every other document 12 months in phrases of internet income for full-12 months 2020 notwithstanding the challenges added about by Covid-19,” Puregold Chairman Lucio Co was quoted as pronouncing in the disclosure.

The organization presently has 455 shops national: 393 Puregold shops, 20 S&R membership shopping warehouses and forty two S&R New York Style QSRs.

Puregold shares declined by means of 65 centavos or 1.Fifty four percentage to shut at P41.55 apiece on Thursday.
MILAN: Fiat Chrysler on Wednesday (Thursday in manila) reported report third-quarter earnings as manufacturing again to almost pre-pandemic tiers.

The Italian-American automaker, that is finalizing its complete merger with French rival PSA Peugeot, said a internet income in the 3 months ending Sept. 30 of 1.2 billion ($1.4 billion). That compares with a loss of 179 million euros a 12 months in advance.

The carmaker mentioned adjusted earnings before tax and interest in North America of two.5 billion euros.

That offset deepening losses in Europe, Asia and at its Maserati luxury marquee. Latin America, the simplest different location to put up a earnings, saw it slim by -thirds to forty six million euros.

Overall, the carmaker stated international profits before tax and interest have been a record 2.3 billion euros no matter a 6 percent fall in revenues to 26 billion euros.

“It become a extremely good sector for our institution, notwithstanding the lingering effects of COVID-19, leader government officer Mike Manley instructed a conference name. ”We retain to navigate thru this crisis by means of taking decisive motion.”

Global shipments were down three%, due in large part to plant retooling in North American to produce the brand new Jeep Grand Wagoneer in the luxury SUV phase and the discontinuation of the Dodge Grand Caravan traditional minivan.

Fiat Chrysler announced earlier Wednesday that its merger with PSA Peugeot is on course to be finalized through the end of the first zone of 2021, as planned.

To meet regulatory worries, the French carmaker is promoting a small stake in a additives maker to ensure the brand new business enterprise does not keep a controlling proportion.

The new automaker, to be referred to as Stellantis, will be the fourth largest manufacturer within the international, with the capacity to supply 8.7 million vehicles a year.Ultimate 12 months, is aimed toward growing a carmaker with the dimensions to confront the challenges of stricter emissions policies and the transition to new using technology.

Among the capabilities that can be managed by means of the gadget’s predominant panel are the lighting and home equipment for the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms.

Through the house automation app, unit proprietors can switch on the lights, air conditioning, improve or decrease the blinds, and switch on the TV, audio, or any other domestic digital system. It is exactly like the ones futuristic excessive-tech structures that may be seen best inside the films or TV.

“The belongings’s fiber-optic connectivity gives optimal speed capacity and future version, assuring the performance of the house automation machine,” Alphaland said.

Alphaland referred to that unit proprietors can also download the house automation app in their cellular gadgets with a purpose to get right of entry to their unit’s home automation gadget even when they’re far from home.

NorthPine Land Inc. Boasts a 20-12 months report of horizontal improvement, supported via its main shareholders Hong Kong Land, BDO, Metrobank, and San Miguel Properties Inc.
GREEN developments within the Philippine assets region can be enhanced by the usage of revolutionary functions including domestic automation in condominium gadgets, actual estate developer Alphaland Cor-poration said.

Alphaland highlighted in a current record the attributes of its development, The Residences at Alphaland Makati Place, a mission positioned within the one-hectare Makati Place residential and enjoyment complex at 7232 Malugay, Makati, which offers “generation that assures consolation, convenience, safety and inexperienced performance.”

The residential venture utilizes an modern and trendy domestic automation device that permits its residents to remotely manage positive capabilities in their units.

The Aven, Bryn, Kendra, Lindsey, and Quincy version devices range in ground area from 60 rectangular meters to a hundred thirty rectangular meters and are priced at P2.6 million to P5 million.

Situated at Brgy. Calulut, City of San Fernando, and Brgy. Panipuan, Mexico, Pampanga, Montana Views is 6.5 kilometers from downtown San Fernando, and accessible from the NLEX Mexico exit.

The employer highlighted that the community gives an impressive view of Mt. Arayat and a soothing environment similarly to its strategic place. Additional services along with a swimming pool, basketball court docket, and pocket parks will soon be completed to finish the residential improvement.

To support the new venture and provide clean get right of entry to for prospective buyers NLI also these days opened an Information Center located at MacArthur Highway, City of San Fernando.

NLI President Alan Cruz took to the Cabalens via speakme to them inside the Kapampangan dialect when he delivered the new assignment. He expressed the organization’s satisfaction in venturing to trade the Northern landscape thru the new improvement.

“The entire NorthPine force is extraordinarily happy with Montana Views. Much of what this network represents is our powerful preference to play our part inside the robust industry that Pampanga offers. For us, that is to create way of life communities that symbolize best dwelling for the mid-earnings marketplace. We are growing Montana Views with the equal requirements and values that installed our strong historical past,” Cruz stated in his comments.

The NLI leadership group led by using Cruz officially welcomed guests which includes Pampanga government officials to the version park of Montana Views wherein its five version units stand for viewing.