1 Record trade surplus for Germany (BBC) Germany's
trade surplus hit an all-time high last year as the country continued to export
significantly more than it imported. German exports climbed 1.2% to 1.2
trillion euros in 2016, while imports rose 0.6% to 954.6bn euros. This left a
surplus of 252.9bn euros, up from 244.3bn euros in 2015.
It comes days after Donald Trump's top trade advisor
accused Germany of exploiting the euro to boost exports. Peter Navarro alleged
the euro was a German currency in disguise, and this gave Germany an unfair
advantage over the US and other nations. A low currency makes goods cheaper to
sell abroad.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the claims,
however, stressing it always been her country's policy that the European
Central Bank should pursue an independent monetary policy. The German Finance
Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that the euro was in fact too weak for
Germany.
2 More tourists in Dubai than New York, Rome (Gulf
News) Dubai attracted more than 14 million visitors in one year, making the
city one of the most visited destinations in the world, according to data
released by Euromonitor International.
The market research firm, which ranks cities
according to international visitor arrivals, named Dubai as the seventh most
popular city for travellers, with total guests reaching 14.2 million in 2015,
up by 7.6 per cent from a year earlier.
Dubai is the only city from the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) region to feature in the top 10 or 20 rankings and is
outperforming other tourist hotspots like New York, Rome and Miami. Hong Kong
remained the top city destination in the world for the seventh consecutive
year, with 26.7 million international visitors as measured in 2015.
Bangkok overtook London as the world’s second most
visited city, with 10 per cent jump in international arrivals. London moved
down to the third spot in the global ranking but remained the top European city
destination.
Euromonitor said that the travel industry continued
to face some challenges, including terrorist attacks, geopolitical conflicts
and economic uncertainty, but the ten best performing cities remained
resilient.
3 Instagram generation and food waste (Rebecca
Smithers in The Guardian) A generation gap in attitudes towards cooking and
eating is helping to fuel the UK’s food waste mountain, research reveals,
driven by time-poor millennials who do not understand the value of the food on
their plate.
In contrast to savvy older consumers familiar with
post-war rationing, those aged 18 to 34 are preoccupied by the visual
presentation of food to photograph and share on social media while failing to
plan meals, buying too much and then throwing it away.
The UK churns out 15m tonnes of food waste a year –
of which 7m tonnes come from households. The estimated retail value of this is
a staggering £7.5bn, and the government’s waste advisory body, Wrap, calculates
that a typical family wastes £700 of food a year.
A national supermarket study of the food waste
patterns of 5,050 UK consumers reveals nearly two-fifths of those aged over 65
say they never waste food, compared with just 17% of those under 35. The
research by Sainsbury’s found more than half (55%) of 18- to 34-year-olds had a
“live to eat” attitude to food – more about pleasure than necessity but with
higher shopping bills and more waste.
Older generations were more likely to “eat to live”
with lower grocery bills and reduced waste. Millennials – those born in or
after the mid-1980s – were also the most likely to try unusual recipes to
create Instagram-friendly dishes, involving exotic ingredients that are harder
to reuse.
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