UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks to supporters on a visit to meet newly elected Conservative party MP for Sedgefield, Paul Howell at Sedgefield Cricket Club on December 14, 2019 in County Durham, England. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson set a hard deadline for trade talks to conclude by the end of this year. “The one thing we’ve learnt from Boris Johnson is that he can talk tough but when he needs to compromise, he compromises,” Niblett said. Niblett said that the U.K. had

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei attends a session at the Congress center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 21, 2020. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)Washington may step up its campaign against Huawei, but the impact on business will be minimal, the Chinese telecom giant’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, said on Tuesday. Huawei has been the target of U.S. concern over its links to the Chinese government. Washington maintains

President Donald Trump is scheduled to make a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday morning. The five-day gathering in Davos is used by business leaders and politicians to meet and discuss some of the most pressing issues worldwide. Investors will be watching for Trump’s comments on trade with Europe and any update on the progress of the second phase of the trade agreement with China. On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump discussed a French digital

President Donald Trump delivers a speech during a special address on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020. “America’s newfound prosperity is undeniable, unprecedented and unmatched anywhere in the world,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, hours before his impeachment trial was set to begin in earnest back home. “Only when governments put their own citizens first will people be fully invested in their nation

Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), speaks during the Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture event at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., July 22, 2019. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) kept monetary policy steady and nudged up its economic growth forecasts on Tuesday, as the government’s stimulus package and receding pessimism over the global outlook took some pressure off the central bank to top up stimulus. The central bank also upgraded its growth estimate f

The logo of Swiss banking giant UBS engraved on the wall is seen on its headquarters on May 8, 2019 in Zurich. UBS cut profitability targets on Tuesday as Switzerland’s largest bank grapples with ultra-low interest rates and increased competition for wealthy clients. The bank said it would now target a 12-15% return on core capital (RoCET1) and a reported 75-78% cost/income ratio through 2022 after missing both ambitions in 2019. Its RoCET1 last year was 12.4% while its reported cost/income rati

British oil major BP said on Tuesday its finance chief Brian Gilvary will be retiring after eight years in the role, with the announcement coming just two weeks before Bernard Looney takes over as chief executive officer. Murray Auchincloss, who is currently chief financial officer of BP’s upstream division, will become BP’s chief financial officer on July 1, the company said. Gilvary, who oversaw BP’s recovery following the 2010 deadly Gulf of Mexico spill which has cost the company more than $

European stock markets tumbled on Tuesday morning, at the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, as concerns over a new strain of pneumonia in China hit risk assets. Market focus on Tuesday will likely be on the opening of the annual WEF event in Davos, where politicians and business leaders will be gathered. High-profile attendees this year include U.S. President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and climate activist Greta Thunberg. The event itself has been

Ride-hailing giant Uber said Tuesday it sold its food delivery business in India to its competitor Zomato in an all-stock transaction. The sale gives Uber a 9.99% stake in the Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery start-up. Uber Eats is set to discontinue operations starting Tuesday, and it will direct restaurants, delivery partners and users to the Zomato app. Uber will continue competing in the Indian ride-hailing market against start-up Ola. Previously, Uber ceded ground in China and

A security guard show the way to a man outside of the Davos Congress Centre under snow ahead of the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, in Davos, eastern Switzerland. Once branded the playground for the elite epitomized by the stereotypical Champagne swashing “Davos Man,” this year the gathering ostensibly seems to be morphing into one epitomized by a “Davos Everyone.” Beyond large influential corporations, central banks are also looking at incorporating climate change into

U.S. government debt prices were sharply higher Tuesday morning after an outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus linked to pneumonia in China sent investors fleeing risk assets. At around 2:15 a.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, was lower at around 1.7917%, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also down at 2.2464%. TreasurysThe outbreak of a new coronavirus in Wuhan, China has killed four people with confirmed cases exceeding 200

Iraq doesn’t want to be caught in a “tug of war” between the U.S. and Iran, according to the chief executive officer of a UAE-based oil and gas company. “It’s perhaps a bit late, but (Iraq is) trying to avoid becoming — long term — a battleground between the two sides,” Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday. Tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated earlier this month after a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad killed Iran’s top military commander Qasem S

DAVOS, Switzerland — Between 6,000 and 8,000 people, including world leaders, staff, security and the media are fed every day from the Davos kitchen during the World Economic Forum (WEF). Well, they are not eating in a Michelin star restaurant — there is no caviar or foie gras — the man feeding the Davos elite told CNBC Monday. “Everybody thinks we are serving caviar, we have never served one gram of caviar,” said Christophe Guiraud, food and beverage manager at the annual meeting, of the twelve

For decades, political and economic policies have been built on the promise of helping people do better than the generations before them. But still today, in 2020, the opportunities we get in life remain largely dictated by the socio-economic circumstances we’re born into. That’s the finding of a new report from the World Economic Forum, which says that most countries are failing to stamp out historical inequalities that prevent people from realizing their full potential. Social mobility refers

Travel-related stocks in Asia fell on Tuesday amid growing fears surrounding an outbreak of a mysterious virus in China that has killed four people so far. Hong Kong-listed shares of China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines dropped 6.7% and 6.51%, respectively, and Cathay Pacific plummeted 4.07%. Outside China, cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Japan and South Korea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. SARS killed 800 people — most of them from China

Facebook is set to hire another 1,000 people in the U.K by the end of 2020. London, where Facebook has over 3,000 employees, is home to the company’s largest software engineering hub outside the U.S. A key focus of the growth plans will be boosting the tech giant’s efforts to tackle toxic content. The company is set to employ more people in its team devoted to building tools to identify and remove harmful content across its Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. The availability

U.S. stock index futures were lower on Tuesday as concerns over a new strain of pneumonia in China spooked risk investment worldwide. ET, Dow futures dropped 96 points, indicating an implied negative open of more than 125 points. Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were also lower. Late on Monday, Chinese authorities confirmed that the virus is contagious. Experts called back the economic fallout from the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis in 2003, and the news sent investors f

Those forecasts were detailed in an update to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report, which is widely read by both public and private sectors globally. Here are five charts that show the fund’s latest assessments of the world economy. Global recoveryThe IMF has forecast the global economy to rebound to 3.3% this year from an estimated 2.9% last year. China’s upgradeChina’s growth forecast for 2020 was revised higher by 0.2 percentage points to 6.0%, according to the IMF. These are the IMF’s gro

The outbreak of a new coronavirus stemming from Wuhan, China has killed four people with confirmed cases totaling more than 200 ahead of the massive Lunar New Year holiday during which hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel. As of Monday evening, the number of confirmed cases in China stood at 218 — with 198 in Wuhan — and four known deaths. SARS, a severe epidemic which emerged in China in 2002, killed nearly 800 people worldwide. “I remember the SARS outbreak very, very clearly

People walk around the city with their umbrellas for the first time in months on January 17, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. More than 80% of Australian business executives believe climate change will damage their companies, a paper published on Tuesday showed, the highest percentage recorded out of business leaders in 19 countries surveyed. With the crisis illustrating the threat of a changing climate, a Deloitte survey of global business leaders showed 81% of Australian executives believe climate c