• A plan to deliver internet connections to low-income Caribbean households has been unveiled as part of a private-public partnership between leading telecoms operator C&W Communications and some Caribbean countries.
• Termed JUMP, the initiative aims to help bridge the digital divide and foster greater digital inclusion in a region that still has less than 65% broadband penetration with 27 million users from a total combined population of 44 million, C&W Communications said in a statement.
• In partnership with local governments, the company, which is the operator of Flow, Flow Business, C&W Business and BTC, will provide qualifying households with a subsidised high-speed internet connection, a free laptop computer and relevant training for individuals and families.
• So far, C&W Communications and the governments of Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, St Lucia, and The Bahamas have committed to JUMP and more than 2,700 households have already been connected.
• According to the C&W CEO, Inge Smidts, the aim is to eliminate barriers and to ensure that every individual and family, despite their financial situation, can benefit from the digital world.
• “We believe this investment will change lives, unlock the potential of economies, and truly enable progress. Our core social mission is to connect everyone to the digital world, regardless of their income or where they live, and we are committed to harnessing our resources and capabilities to narrow the digital divide,” she said.

(Source: Trinidad Express Newspaper)

• China on Wednesday pledged to make the private economy "bigger, better and stronger" with a series of policy measures designed to help private businesses and bolster the flagging post-pandemic recovery.
• Weak growth in the world's second-largest economy has created an urgency to revive the private sector, a key growth driver that has been bruised by COVID-19 curbs and a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown that targeted sectors from technology to property.
• China will strive to create a market-oriented first-class business environment, state news agency Xinhua said, quoting guidelines published by the Communist Party and the cabinet. "The private sector is a new force to promote Chinese-style modernisation, an important foundation for high-quality development and a key force to promote China's comprehensive construction of a socialist modern power," Xinhua said.
• The measures include protection for the property rights of private firms and entrepreneurs and steps to ensure fair market competition by breaking down market-entry barriers. They will also create a "traffic light" system to make clear the areas in which private investors are able to invest, as well as encourage some private companies to issue technology innovation bonds.
• Authorities have started to reverse some restrictive policies on tech and property sectors to try to boost the economy, with policymakers holding a series of meetings with companies from sectors ranging from tech to modern logistics to try and increase confidence.
• China is also encouraging private enterprises to increase investment in research and development and participate in investment and construction of new types of infrastructure.

(Source: Reuters)

• Netflix said Wednesday that its quarterly revenue and subscriptions rose, as efforts to curb password sharing took hold. The streaming giant said it added 5.9 million customers during the second quarter amid its broader crackdown on password sharing in the U.S. Netflix said it would roll out its new policy to the rest of its customers on Wednesday.
• The company reported revenue of $8.20 billion, up 3% from $7.97 billion in the prior-year period. Net income of $1.49 billion climbed from $1.44 billion in the previous corresponding quarter. The earnings report comes soon as investors look for more information on the rollout of Netflix’s ad-supported streaming tier and account-sharing crackdown.
• However, Netflix said it was too early to report a breakdown of revenue from the ad-supported tier — which was introduced late last year — as well as the accounts that have come from the new sharing policy.
• Netflix said Wednesday it expects a boost in revenue in the second half of the year as it begins to see the full benefits of paid sharing plus the steady growth in the ad-supported plan.
• Netflix said it now forecasts revenue of $8.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year, for the third quarter. It attributed the expected revenue growth to more average-paid memberships.
• The company also anticipates paid net subscriber additions in the third quarter will be similar to the second quarter. Meanwhile, Netflix expects revenue growth in the fourth quarter to “accelerate more substantially” as the efforts to curb password sharing gain steam and as advertising revenue grows.

(Source: CNBC)

• For June 2023, the All-Jamaica Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 1.0% when compared to the previous month. The point-to-point inflation rate for the month was 6.3%, indicating that inflation has accelerated slightly over the last month.
• This upward movement was influenced by an increase of 1.3% in the index for the heaviest-weighted division, ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’. Additionally, the inflation rate for June was also influenced by the divisions, ‘Restaurant and Accommodation Services’ up by 4.2% and ‘Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance’ increasing by 6.4%. The inflation rate was, however, tempered by a decline of 0.8% in the index for the ‘Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ division due to the reduction in the rates for electricity, water and sewage.
• The point-to-point inflation rate (June 2022 – June 2023) was 6.3%. This was influenced mainly by the point-to-point inflation rate for the divisions: ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ (10.3%), ‘Restaurants and Accommodation Services’ (12.8%) and ‘Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance’ (11.4%). For the fiscal year-to-date the inflation rate was 1.6%.
• The chief contributor to the rise in the point-to-point index for the division ‘Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages’ was the class ‘Vegetables, tubers, plantains, cooking bananas and pulses’, which increased by 23.4%. A 12.9% rise in the index for the group ‘Food and Beverage Serving Services’ was the primary factor that influenced the increase in the index for the division ‘Restaurants and Accommodation Services. Additionally, the ‘Furnishings, Household Equipment and Routine Household Maintenance’ was impacted by a 14.0% increase in the index for the group ‘Goods and Services for Routine Household Maintenance’.
• The overall point-to-point inflation rate was tempered by the fall in the index for the ‘Transport’ division, a result of lower cost for fuels, with the index for the class ‘Fuel & lubricants for personal transport equipment’ decreasing by 13.0%.
• On June 29, 2023, the BOJ held its monetary policy meeting, where it was deemed appropriate to maintain the policy rate at 7.0% and watch the pass-through effects on deposit and loan rates. Point-to-Point inflation is projected to continue to fall and enter the BOJ’s target range of 4.0% to 6.0% by the December quarter. The next policy decision will be on the 19^th of August; it is expected that BOJ will maintain its policy rate at 7.0%. 

(Source: STATIN)

• VM Financial Group has raised $11 billion in a preference share offer. VM Financial Group, the newly established financial holding company for VM Group Limited, put up the offer through a restricted placement, made available to accredited investors only. The shares, first offered in April, were listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange on Friday.
• Of that sum raised, $6.8 billion came from converted VM Building Society Deferred Shares, while $4.2 billion in new funds are listed as Class A, B and C shares. Class A was offered at a 10% dividend rate, Class B at 11.21% variable, and Class C at 12.5% fixed to float.
• Fixed-to-float securities pay a defined return for a given period; however, the payout may change based on specific criteria.
• VM Group’s President and CEO Courtney Campbell has explained that the funds will be used to strengthen the capitalization of the Group's operating subsidiaries and support growth plans. Mr. Campbell also noted that the Group is exploring regional partnership opportunities, as well as avenues to expand its payments business. 

(Source: RJR News)

• The European Union (EU) pledged more investment for Latin America and the Caribbean at a summit on Monday as part of a revamp of its international relationships prompted by Russia's war on Ukraine and the growing wariness of China.
• As over 50 leaders from the three regions gathered in Brussels for the two-day EU-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a business forum that Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe needed each other more than ever.
• The EU is looking to forge new energy partnerships after severing ties with Russia, which was the bloc's biggest gas supplier before the Ukraine invasion in February last year.
• It also wants to reduce its reliance on China and build new alliances to secure minerals critical for electric vehicles and the broader transition to a low-carbon economy, a supply chain China dominates.
• "The world we live in is more competitive and conflictual than ever before. Still reeling from the heavy toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is taking a hard impact from the Russian aggression against Ukraine," she said. "And this happens against the backdrop of China's growing assertiveness abroad," she added.
• She said the EU was planning 45 billion euros of investment in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of its Global Gateway scheme, widely seen as a rival to China's Belt and Road programme of infrastructure investments.
• While the EU has acknowledged that its Latin American partners have sometimes been overlooked as China's role in the region has risen, it is now eager to re-engage.
• This renewed engagement and investment from the EU could bring significant economic opportunities to the region, potentially boosting growth, creating jobs, and fostering sustainable development. It could also help to diversify the region's international relationships and reduce its reliance on any single partner.

(Source: Reuters)

• The European Union (EU) envoy in Guyana has been facilitating talks for possible pharmaceutical production in Guyana.
• This is according to the European Union Ambassador to Guyana Rene Van Nes, during an interview with reporters on Thursday, July 13. He said that this initiative is about seeing if Guyana, together with Barbados and Rwanda could play a role in pharmaceutical production.
• Van Nes related that this is an interesting South-South operation. The EU, he said, assisted Rwanda to set up its own production facility for pharmaceuticals, which started with ‘COVID’ and the realisation that there was in Africa no production facility for ‘COVID’ vaccines.
• Further to this, the ambassador said that a relationship was made between the President of Rwanda, the Prime Minister of Barbados and Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali.
• He said that these leaders have begun talks on how to replicate this type of facility in Barbados and Guyana. Van Nes said: “That is a very fascinating process, so we actually have people coming up and down. We have experts that already came to Guyana to look at the possibilities; of course, this is not the EU that is going to invest. What we want is to bring European companies to Guyana and Barbados to create here, production facilities in the pharmaceutical sector.”
• This, he added, means that Guyana would have to look at its regulatory framework, investment environment, and scientific ecosystem to facilitate same. The ambassador related that the EU hopes that together with the government and experts, they would be able to create such an environment that would encourage the European private sector to invest in this sector.

(Source: Guyana Chronicle)

• China's economy grew at a frail pace in the second quarter as demand weakened at home and abroad, with the post-COVID momentum faltering rapidly and raising pressure on policymakers to deliver more stimulus to shore up activity.
• Chinese authorities face a daunting task in trying to keep the economic recovery on track and putting a lid on unemployment, as any aggressive stimulus could fuel debt risks and structural distortions.
• The gross domestic product grew just 0.8% in April-June from the previous quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday, versus analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 0.5% increase and compared with a 2.2% expansion in the first quarter.
• On a year-on-year basis, GDP expanded 6.3% in the second quarter, accelerating from 4.5% in the first three months of the year, but the rate was well below the forecast for growth of 7.3%. The annual pace was the quickest since the second quarter of 2021, although it was heavily skewed by economic pains caused by stringent COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and other major cities last year.
• "The data suggests that China's post-COVID boom is clearly over," said Carol Kong, an economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "The higher-frequency indicators are up from May's numbers, but still paint a picture of a bleak and faltering recovery and at the same time youth unemployment is hitting record highs." The latest data raises the risk of China missing its modest 5% growth target for 2023, some economists say.
• More timely June data, which was released alongside the GDP numbers, showed China's retail sales grew 3.1%, slowing sharply from a 12.7% jump in May. Analysts had expected growth of 3.2%. Industrial output growth unexpectedly quickened to 4.4% last month from 3.5% seen in May, but demand remains lukewarm.

(Source: Reuters)

• The jump in interest rates has wiped more than 2 trillion pounds off household wealth in Britain over the last year due to the fall in house prices and the value of bonds which has hit pensions, a report published on Monday showed.
• However, the Resolution Foundation think-tank said younger people could benefit from the partial reversal of the decades-long climb in the value of household wealth.
• The Bank of England has raised borrowing costs 13 times in a row since December 2021, taking its base rate from 0.1% to 5%, and it is expected to keep on raising rates to bring down the highest inflation among Group of Seven nations.
• "The current surge could be a blip, or herald a new era for the UK. Either way, policy-makers should focus more on whether and how to insulate households from wild swings in their fortunes from these forces well beyond their control."
• The Resolution Foundation said 2.1 trillion pounds ($2.75 trillion) had been lost in terms of household wealth over the last year after an unprecedented surge in recent decades which took wealth to 17.5 trillion pounds in 2021.
• The fall represented the biggest drop in wealth as a share of gross domestic product - from 840% to 650% by early 2023 - since World War Two.
• If interest rates stay high, the continued erosion of household wealth would end a 40-year asset boom that has aggravated generational inequality caused by rising house prices which helped older people but left out younger people, it said.
• Younger people could also benefit from higher pension savings rates, the foundation said.

(Source: Reuters)

• JMMB says it is set to deploy more than a billion dollars in private equity investments.  Kareem Tomlinson, General Manager of JMMB Securities, said the entity is looking to tap into several areas. 
• The company would have launched its private equity investment company, Vertex SME Holding which is managed by JMMB Securities Limited where JMMB is also the anchor investor in Vertex. The company had raised $1.5 billion and of that amount, has deployed just about half of that. Mr. Tomlinson noted that the company has invested in two completed deals, including a quick-service restaurant operator in Guyana that is looking to expand into the wider Caribbean.
• He further highlighted that the second deal will be announced shortly, and is an investment in a major car rental company. Currently, the company has a strong pipeline that consists of 20-plus deals and will be deploying the remainder of that $1.5 billion in short order.
• Tracey-Ann Creary, who is the corporate development manager in charge of Real Estate at JMMB said that the company is also expanding its real estate business. As it relates to this business line, the focus will be mostly on commercial and warehousing projects. They plan to also establish the business line using its existing bank. Currently, there are three commercial office spaces in the design phase that the public will hear about shortly. Additionally, about 100,000 square feet of office space will be rolled out over the next two to three years.
• This forms part of the company’s strategic objective to capitalize on the opportunities in the real estate market to expand its income stream and bring value to its shareholders. The company intends to plan, design, develop, and construct properties and later bring them to market for sale, lease, or sale-leaseback as it doubles down on real estate in response to the market demands and trends. 

(Source: RJR)