Covid-19 Economic Impact

According to the Kyodo news agency, Toshihiro Nikai, the secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic party, said in a television interview on Thursday that cancelling this year's Olympic Games could be an option if Covid-19 infections continue to rise.

It is the first time that a senior government figure has admitted on the record that the Tokyo competition might not go ahead should the pandemic situation in Japan intensify.

The European Commission on Tuesday stated the French government is allowed to contribute €4 billion to help keep Air France afloat.

In February, Ryanair lost a legal fight in the EU General Court against state aid being granted to Air France and Sweden's SAS through national schemes. Ryanair is still seeking to contest the German government's bailout of Lufthansa, as well as similar schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

The U.S. economy added approx. 916,000 jobs in March, with the unemployment rate dropping to 6 percent compared to 6.2% in February, the Labor Department reported Friday. The March job increase was the best since August 2020.

Santander has announced it will close 111 UK branches as the company will shift its focus to mobile and online banking amid increasing numbers of customers visiting bank branches. The decision affects around 840 employees, but Santander promised to offer them different jobs within its company.

FedEx shares have more than doubled in price since the pandemic forced government officials to shutter businesses and issue stay-at-home orders. The revenue for the quarter ended Feb. 28 grew 23% to $21.5 billion, boosted by a half-billion holiday package deliveries and COVID-19 vaccines shipments.

Average daily package volume for FedEx Ground, which counts Walmart among its top e-commerce shipping partners, jumped 25% to 13.2 million during the quarter.

The results came even as severe winter weather in February disrupted service at important facilities in Memphis, Indianapolis and North Texas and reduced quarterly operating income by about $350 million.

Walt Disney's two theme parks in California will reopen on April 30 to a limited number of guests. The company announced on Wednesday, over a year after they closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The resort includes the original Disneyland and the adjacent California Adventure theme parks.

Visitors aged 2 and up will need to wear masks, except when eating, drinking or swimming, and following other safety measures, including temperature checks before entering and social distancing on rides and throughout the parks.

Bars and restaurants in parts of Germany have gotten a warning from the authorities: anyone who has closed their business for one year without interruption is threatened with the expiry of their restaurant licence. This mainly affects pubs, bars and clubs, many of which have had to close not only since the recent lockdown, but consistently since March 2019.

The city administration of Bad Waldsee stated: "We certainly didn't want to annoy the innkeepers with this information letter, on the contrary, we see the letter as support to prevent the deletion period from taking effect. In order to make this notification as informal as possible, we have deliberately offered a non-bureaucratic phone call or email as feedback in the letter,"

The goverment of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, announced that football matches and competitions are suspended from March 15th until, initially, March 30th. Clubs and the local football federation are considering to host their games in the neighbouring state of Rio de Janeiro.

With the growing increase in the number of new inpatients, the state has 87.6% occupation of intensive care beds dedicated to the disease, while in Greater São Paulo this rate is 86.7%.

The US Senate has voted, 50 to 49, to approve the $1.9 trillion relief bill on Saturday, and will now head to the House of Representatives. The Democratic-held House aims to pass the bill on Tuesday and send it to President Joe Biden for his signature before a March 14 deadline to renew unemployment aid programs.

Republicans senators opposed another major spending plan, contending the state of the economy does not warrant it.

For the first time since 1979, the German Bundesbank does not distribute profits. This was reported by Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann at the central bank's annual press conference on Wednesday.

The monetary crisis measures in the Corona pandemic have had a significant impact on the Bundesbank's balance sheet, the institution reported. In light of the associated risks, the bank is increasing its risk provisioning, it said

"The increased risk provisioning is the main reason why the Bundesbank is reporting a balanced annual result for 2020 and is not distributing a profit for the first time since 1979," Weidmann said at the presentation of the annual financial statements. In the previous year, the profit distribution had amounted to 5.9 billion euros.

Forbidden to cross the border that separates the Brazilian city of Assis Brasil from Iñapari, Peru due to the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of Haitian migrants on February 16th, headed to the neighbouring country where the group was suppressed by riot police as soon as they entered Peru.

"Affected by the Brazilian economic crisis, they are seeking to return to their country or go to another country in the region," said journalist Nacho Lemus. He explained that migrants from the Caribbean country warned that there is no chance of survival in Brazilian asylums during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the mayor's office of Assis told reporters that the governor of Acre, Gladson Cameli, contacted the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to "manage a humanitarian nature request through diplomatic channels" that authorizes the entry of the migrants into Peruvian territory.

The UK economy fell by 9.9% over the course of 2020, the biggest slump on record, and the economy is projected to fall even further during the first quarter of 2021 due to the national lockdown and disruption to the EU-UK trade deal.

The Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery Swatch Group has reported a net loss of 53 million Swiss francs for 2020, the company's first annual loss since 1983.

"For 2021, the Group sees a good chance that sales in local currencies will approach those of 2019, with significantly improved margins," the company said, adding that the group anticipated "a strong catch-up in consumption worldwide for watches and jewelry in 2021, as has already been observed in mainland China after normalization of the health situation."

The Cannes Film Festival has confirmed a new set of dates for this year’s event, which has again been postponed due to the pandemic. The initial dates, which were May 11-22, didn’t seem feasible so the festival will run between July 6 and July 17.

The decision was taken following a board meeting on Tuesday.

Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, announced that the 2020 Carnaval would not be held in July on Thursday, as it seems the immunisation campaign against Covid-19 will be delayed in the city.

"This celebration requires a great deal of preparation on the part of public bodies and of samba associations and institutions. Something impossible to do at that moment. Thus, I would like to inform you that we will not have Carnaval in the middle of the year in 2021", said Paes.

When it deliberated on the postponement to July, the Independent League of Samba Schools (Liesa) made the parades conditional on the immunisation campaign against Covid-19.

The Dutch airline KLM will suspend all its intercontinental flights and some European routes from Friday now that the Netherlands requires a rapid coronavirus test before entry.

New requirements mandated by the government require passengers to obtain a negative Covid-19 rapid test result no later than four hours prior to departure to the Netherlands. In addition, passengers must also have a negative result from a PCR test conducted within 72 hours from their flight's departure to be let into the country.

United Airlines Holdings Inc. late Wednesday posted its fourth straight quarter of losses, saying it expects its capacity to be down at least 51% in the current quarter. The company swung to a net loss of $1.9 billion during the last quarter of 2020, with operating revenue of $3.41 billion, compared with $10.9 billion a year ago.

United stock has lost about 50% in the past 12 months, contrasting with gains around 16% for the S&P 500 index.

Due to new lockdowns in Ireland, the United Kingdom and some other EU countries, the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair is drastically cutting its flight offerings starting January 21, the company announced Thursday.

From January 21, Ryanair plans to operate "few, if any" flights to and from British and Irish airports. This will apply until the severe travel restrictions are lifted.

There was little activity in the skies over Germany in the Corona year 2020: Up to and including 27 December, the German Air Navigation Services (DFS) monitored just under 1.47 million aircraft movements. This was 56 percent less than the 3.33 million flights recorded in the same period last year.

In the Christmas week, aircraft movements including overflights were only 38.4 per cent of the previous year's figure.

International air traffic had plummeted dramatically in March after more and more countries closed their borders to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The last time controllers recorded fewer commercial and military flights was in 1989, then for West German airspace alone. The previous record year is 2018, with 3.35 million movements.

According to the BCC, Britain and France will decide on a plan to resume freight traffic after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on measures to reopen the French border. The measures will apply from Wednesday, the BBC said, citing French Europe Minister Clément Beaune.