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Swansea University’s Bay Campus on the outskirts of the Welsh city was expected to attract a wave of new fee-paying students to boost revenue after the government squeezed funding to the sector. These days, it’s more of a millstone after overseas enrollments failed to grow as much as expected, a symbol of the wider financial problems facing universities across the U.K., Bloomberg News reported. It takes 30 minutes by bus from the city center to reach the campus, which looked bleak last Friday with almost empty bike racks and fenced-off construction machinery.
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Business conglomerate Vedanta Group has shown interest in acquiring Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) through an insolvency process, according to sources. Jaypee Group's flagship firm JAL, which is into cement, power, hotels, construction and real estate businesses, has been admitted into the corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, through an order dated June 3, 2024, passed by the National Company Law Tribunal, Allahabad Bench, the Economic Times of India reported.
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India has offered tariff cuts on imports of U.S. farm products like almonds and cranberries as a further concession to the United States, two government sources said, hoping to avert President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs set for next week, Reuters reported. Unlike China, Canada and the European Union, India is actively seeking to appease the Trump administration and is open to cutting tariffs on over half of U.S. imports worth $23 billion, Reuters reported earlier this week. In a series of meeting in New Delhi with Brendan Lynch, the assistant U.S.
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Vietnam could experience a wave of bankruptcies of solar and wind producers if the state utility proceeds with its planned change in pricing for renewable energy, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in a letter to parliament, Bloomberg News reported. The application of a new power purchasing price — which would be implemented retroactively for several years — by Vietnam Electricity, or EVN, puts 173 solar and wind projects at risk of insolvency, according to the March 24 letter the chamber made public Friday.
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European carmakers are trying to work out how much their prices might have to rise in response to looming U.S. import tariffs, industry sources said, fearing any first-movers could risk a backlash from U.S. President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. The United States late on Wednesday announced 25% duties on imports of finished cars and certain components from April 3, dashing hopes for lower rates or exemptions after several short-term policy changes suggested there might be wiggle room.
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Germany's labor market showed new signs of stress as unemployment rose sharply in March, marking the steepest monthly increase since October 2024, DW.com reported. The number of jobless individuals rose by 26,000 in seasonally adjusted terms, bringing the total to 2.92 million, the Federal Labor Office reported on Friday. The figure more than doubled analysts' forecasts of an increase of 10,000. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate climbed to 6.3%, up from 6.2% the previous month — also slightly above market predictions.
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Government plans to increase defense spending in response to an increasingly distant relationship with the U.S. have led European industry leaders to take a brighter view of their prospects, according to a survey released Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Commission’s industrial sentiment indicator rose to minus 10.6 this month from minus 11 in February. However, service providers and retailers grew more gloomy about their prospects, a reflection of subdued consumer demand as households continue to save rather than spend.
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Canada’s economic growth came to a halt after a solid start to the year as tariff threats mounted, Bloomberg News reported. Advance data showed gross domestic product was unchanged in February, Statistics Canada said Friday. That followed a robust 0.4% expansion in January, the strongest monthly pace since April last year and beating the median estimate of economists. Assuming there’s also no growth in March, the industry-based numbers point to annualized 2.1% growth in the first quarter, versus the Bank of Canada’s forecast of 2% and the 1.6% expected by economists in a Bloomberg survey.
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Ghana’s new central bank Governor Johnson Asiama showed his commitment to fighting inflation by unexpectedly raising the benchmark interest rate, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee lifted the policy rate to 28% from 27%, Asiama told reporters at a press briefing in Accra, the capital on Friday. None of the five economists in a Bloomberg survey expected an increase - the first since July 2023. It was Asiama’s first policy decision since replacing Ernest Addison as governor in February. The hike “is meant to re-anchor the disinflation process,” Asiama said.
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Nearly one-fifth of the population of San Pedro, Argentina about 16,000 people, would invest in RainbowEx, piling tens of millions of dollars into the cryptocurrency exchange. Joining RainbowEx was easy, even for crypto newbies. First, they downloaded the app from a website — it never appeared on Apple or Google’s app stores. Then, they visited one of the local private lending institutions called financieras. A clerk there would convert Argentine pesos into Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar.
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