1 After 8 months China factory output jumps (Straits
Times) China's official factory gauge showed improving conditions for the first
time in eight months, suggesting the government's fiscal and monetary stimulus
is kicking in.
The manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to
50.2 in March, compared with a median estimate of 49.4 in a Bloomberg News
survey of economists. The measure matches its highest level since November
2014.
Top officials at the National People's Congress last
month unveiled a record fiscal deficit and pledged to accelerate restructuring
of bloated state-owned industries to meet their 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent
expansion target for this year. Monetary authorities have flagged more room to
act if growth falters.
Home prices in some of China's biggest cities are
surging, spurring policies to curb loose lending even as authorities seek to
support overall demand. To underpin economic growth targets, China's top
planning agency is doling out new fiscal stimulus, further raising the amount
of money available to local governments this year under a special
infrastructure bond program.
2 Hunt begins for a Tata steel buyer (Anushka
Asthana & Graham Ruddick in The Guardian) A source within Tata confirmed
that the UK government was leading the efforts to find interested parties, but
revealed that one option under consideration was a sale of “different
portfolios”, which would mean breaking the company up.
However, sources inside Tata Steel said the company,
which is losing £1m a day on its UK operations, had failed to find a buyer over
the past 18 months. Tata Steel has appointed PwC to advise it on the
restructuring of its UK business, but even though the company is willing to
release its assets for “nothing”, investors could be put off by potential
liabilities. The company – essentially the former British Steel and the UK
assets of Corus – may also need a pension fund top-up of £2bn.
After hosting an emergency summit at No 10 following
his return from holiday, prime minister David Cameron said the situation was
“of deep concern”, but added: “I don’t believe nationalisation is the right
answer. What we want to do is secure a long-term future for steel plants in the
UK.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, had said he was
shocked by the idea of ministers taking nationalisation off the table, while
the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, urged ministers to consider a temporary
return to public ownership and suggested that they should “get a grip”.
The government said its intervention helped ensure
that Tata announced a sales process for Port Talbot, rather than immediate
closure. But ministers have been widely attacked for failing to take more
action.
Ministers stand accused of having “rolled the red
carpet out” to China – with Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, who represents the
constituency containing Port Talbot, arguing that Britain’s industrial strategy
was being drawn up in Beijing.
3 Obese outnumber underweight (BBC) There are now
more adults in the world classified as obese than underweight, a major study
has suggested. The research, led by scientists from Imperial College London and
published in The Lancet, compared body mass index (BMI) among almost 20 million
adult men and women from 1975 to 2014.
It found obesity in men has tripled and more than
doubled in women. Lead author Prof Majid Ezzat said it was an "epidemic of
severe obesity" and urged governments to act. The study, which pooled data
from adults in 186 countries, found that the number of obese people worldwide
had risen from 105 million in 1975 to 641 million in 2014.
Meanwhile the number of underweight people had risen
from 330 million to 462 million over the same period. Global obesity rates
among men went up from 3.2% in 1975 to 10.8%, while among women they rose from
6.4 % in 1975 to 14.9%.This equates to 266 million obese men and 375 million
obese women in the world in 2014, the study said.
The research also predicted that the probability of
reaching the World Health Organization's global obesity target - which aims for
no rise in obesity above 2010 levels by 2025 - would be "close to
zero". The clinical definition of obese is a BMI - a measurement that
relates weight and height - of 30 kilograms per metre squared (kg/m2).
More obese men and women now live in China and the
USA than in any other country. Women in the UK have the third highest BMI in
Europe and the 10th highest for men. Almost a fifth of the world's obese adults
- 118 million - live in only six high-income English-speaking countries -
Australia, Canada, Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, UK, and the US.
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