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AMMAN — Certificates of origin issued by the Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) for goods’ exporting purposes during the first half of 2022 were valued at JD424 million, compared to JD310 million for the same period in 2021, the Jordan news Agency, Petra, reported on Sunday.

The certificates of origin issued during the first half of 2022 were 14,908 in number, compared to 15,632 for the same period in 2021. The 2022 certificates of origin were destined to several countries.

A total of 3,419 went to Saudi Arabic, followed by 1,971 to the UAE, 659 to Iraq, 454 to Egypt and 85 to India, according to Petra. The Amman Chamber of Commerce issues certificates of origin for local agricultural and animal produce as well as industrial products, foreign goods that are being reexported, and foreign goods purchased from the local market, under certain conditions.

FREETOWN — Sierra Leone on Friday introduced a new family of banknotes, stripping three zeros off the leone, in a bid to restore confidence in the inflation-hit national currency.

The Bank of Sierra Leone announced the move last August, stressing the public's purchasing power would not be affected by the change.

"We have removed three zeros from our banknotes but the money yesterday is the same value as today," President Julius Maada Bio said at ceremonies at the central bank where the new bills were unveiled.

A note of 10 new leones is the equivalent of a note of 10,000 old leones, which changes hands for around 75 US cents.

Year-on-year inflation in the West African state was 24.87 per cent in May, according to the national statistics agency.

Rising prices had driven the printing of banknotes, resulting in a mountain of paper money that is costly to sustain.

Shoppers need huge quantities of banknotes for the simplest transactions, and unscrupulous bank tellers sometimes pilfer notes from sealed bundles of bills.

"We are removing the 'zeros of shame' to get the currency properly aligned," Morlai Bangura, a central bank director, said earlier in the week.

He said the bank had begun distributing the new paper notes to commercial banks last week.

On Friday, customers braving the rain queued at commercial banks to swap their old banknotes for new ones.

"The changing of our currency is necessary — we were used to carrying bags to the bank to withdraw our money, but not anymore," Alice Frazer, 70, said after exchanging her notes at the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, a state-owned bank in central Freetown.

The new banknotes have a similar design to the old ones but are smaller in size.

"Our current currency is too big to fit into a wallet and we spend too much money printing oversized banknotes," Kelfala Murana Kallon, the central bank governor, told reporters last August as he announced the move.

The central bank declined to comment on the cost of the operation.

Sierra Leone's eight million people live in one of the poorest nations in the world, ranking 182 out of 189 countries in the UN's Human Development Index.

Its economy, heavily dependent on minerals, was devastated by a civil war that ran from 1991-2002 and left about 120,000 dead.

Efforts at rebuilding were set back by an Ebola epidemic in 2014-2016, a fall in world commodity prices and the coronavirus epidemic — all of which have disrupted trade and investment and hit exports.

Sierra Leoneans will be able to use both the old and new notes during a transition period until September 30. 

From October 1, the old currency will cease to be legal tender.

The public will be able to swap the old currency for the new one until November 15, Kallon said in a statement.

SEOUL — Samsung Electronics became the first chipmaker in the world to mass produce advanced 3 nanometre (nm) microchips, the company said on Thursday, as it seeks to catch up with Taiwan's TSMC.

The new chips will be smaller, more powerful and efficient, and will be used in high-performance computing applications before being put into gadgets such as mobile phones.

"Compared to 5nm process, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45 per cent, improve performance by 23 per cent and reduce area by 16 per cent," Samsung said in a statement.

The South Korean conglomerate last month announced a five-year plan to invest 450 trillion won ($356 billion), saying it would "bring forward the mass production of chips based on the 3-nanometer process".

The vast majority of the world's most advanced microchips are made by just two companies — Samsung and Taiwan's TSMC — both of which are running at full capacity to alleviate a global shortage.

Samsung is the market leader in memory chips but it has been scrambling to catch up with TSMC in the advanced foundry business.

TSMC dominates more than half of the global foundry market, with clients including Apple and Qualcomm, while Samsung trails with around 16 per cent market share, according to TrendForce.

TSMC plans to begin volume production of 3nm technology in the second half of this year, and entered the development stage of 2nm technology last year, according to the company's 2021 annual report.

HANOI — Vietnam's economy expanded in the second quarter at its fastest pace in 11 years thanks to a big rebound in exports and the lifting of punishing Covid-19 restrictions, authorities said on Wednesday. 

Growth in the communist nation and manufacturing powerhouse had stuttered at around three per cent for two consecutive years as the pandemic shut down most of the world and authorities imposed strict lockdowns.

But on Wednesday the General Statistics Office said gross domestic product grew 7.72 per cent on-year in April-June, its best performance since 2011.

Turnover from exports rose 21 per cent to $96.80 billion in the period, the GSO added. Economic growth for the first half of the year was 6.42 percent, the GSO said, inching back towards the seven per cent enjoyed before the pandemic in 2019.Earlier this month the World Bank said Vietnam's economic recovery "remains strong" despite uncertainties caused by the war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China and inflation.

It urged authorities to be "vigilant" about inflation risks associated with rising fuel and import prices, warning they could dampen the recovery of domestic demand.

Vietnam's consumer price index rose 2.96 per cent in the second quarter, the GSO said.

"Living costs are much higher due to the higher oil price," said Nguyen Thi Huyen, an office worker in Hanoi.

"It's bad that I have had to spend up to 10 per cent more money for my family without any change in income. If this situation continues, life will be very difficult for us."

Vietnam reopened to the world in mid-March after almost two years of closure. 

Authorities in the one-party communist nation are aiming for year-end GDP growth of up to 6.5 per cent.

WASHINGTON — Washington announced steps on Tuesday to implement the new sanctions on Russia as agreed by G-7 leaders, targeting Moscow's defense industry, raising tariffs and banning gold imports from the country.

The latest moves "strike at the heart of Russia's ability to develop and deploy weapons and technology used for Vladimir Putin's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine", the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

The sanctions target Rostec, Russia's largest defense conglomerate, and other firms critical to the defense industry, as well as military units and officers implicated in human rights abuses in Ukraine, Treasury said.

"We once again reaffirm our commitment to working alongside our partners and allies to impose additional severe sanctions in response to Russia's war against Ukraine," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

"Broad multilateral commitments and actions by G-7 members this week further cut off the Russian Federation's access to technology that is critical to their military," she said, which will "degrade Putin's capabilities and further impede his war against Ukraine".

The moves blacklist 70 entities and 29 individuals, which freezes any US-held assets and prohibits them from doing business with or conducting financial transactions with US institutions.

United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) is on the list as Washington aims to "weaken Russia's ability to continue its aerial assault on Ukraine", the statement said.

In addition, the United States is seeking to crack down on Russians trying to skirt existing sanctions by "covertly" acquiring US, Japanese and European defense components.

Also as part of the G7-agreed sanctions, the United States banned imports of gold from Russia, the country's biggest non-energy export, Treasury said. But the move excludes gold already held outside of Russia.

The suite of US actions included visa restrictions on more than 500 military officers and individuals, including Halyna Danylchenko, "the illegitimate Russia-installed 'mayor' of Melitopol" in southeastern Ukraine, and Rostec board members, the State Department said.

The department designated a company from Uzbekistan that provides electronic components to Russia, which "underscores the risks of doing business with sanctioned Russian entities or individuals," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement.

Washington also is increasing tariffs on more than 570 groups of Russian products worth approximately $2.3 billion.

"These measures are carefully calibrated to impose costs on Russia, while minimising costs to US consumers," Blinken said.

AMMAN — Aqaba Container Terminal (ACT) has climbed in ranking among global container ports to achieve a position of 35 out of 370 ports listed for 2021 — a jump of six places compared to its ranking in the previous year, according to an ACT statement released on Monday .

ACT is now "the most efficient port in the Levant", by a considerable margin, and it comes as a direct result of the large investments made to enhance operational performance at the Aqaba terminal in recent years, said the statement.

The results were published in a recent report entitled, "The Container Port Performance Index 2021" or the (CPPI), which was compiled by the World Bank Group together with S&P Global Market Intelligence. 

The CPPI rates the performance of shipping ports by comparing the amount of time container ships spent in port to complete workloads over the course of 2021.

ACT is Jordan’s only container port and essential to the Kingdom’s supply chain. It is a regional transit hub which holds a strategic location, linking more than 45 million consumers in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia to the world.

As the ranking proves, it is outperforming competing ports in the Mediterranean on efficiency, becoming the preferred gateway to the Levant for major shipping lines, which can make considerable savings by calling at Aqaba to avoid  heavily congested routes. According to the ACT statement.

 As a result, the port has seen in-transit volumes, that are destined for other regional markets, grow consistently.

Moreover, ACT is a major partner in Jordan’s infrastructure development plans, with a particular emphasis on connections to neighbouring markets, to help ensure that it remains efficient and sustainable going forward.

The port’s results also show that investments at the container terminal itself are paying off. 

Since 2006, when it was established as a joint venture between Aqaba Development Corporation and APM Terminals, a company of the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group, more than $320 million have been invested to upgrade its facilities and technology, which includes bringing specialised machinery and digitising tasks to make them faster, safer, and more accurate.

The statistics used by CPPI 2021 are based on measurements of total port time and compared with ports in their region as well as global ports of similar call sizes. This was made possible by data collected through the Automatic Identification System, which is used to track and monitor ships as the navigate the globe. 

Recent supply chain issues have led to shortages and price increase of certain products, and is also putting stress on ports, disrupting schedules, and increasing delays on ships when docked.

The reason why CPPI is based on dwell times is that when ships fall behind schedule there is a risk for congestion which has a snowballing effect on subsequent arrivals. When ships arrive at ports outside of their agreed timeslot, the effects can be felt beyond the port as disruption to supply chains and damage the national economy. In order to address this risk, ACT has successfully implemented measures that prioritise ships which arrive within their designated berthing windows, thereby maintaining the efficiency and reliability of the port’s operations.

In fact, it has reduced both truck waiting times and vessel port stays, with delivery of cargo decreasing to just a week, according to the statement.

ADDIS ABABA — The World Bank on Friday agreed to provide $715 million in grants and loans to Ethiopia, which has been ravaged by drought and a devastating conflict, the country's government said.

Several international partners have suspended aid since the outbreak of conflict between the federal government and rebels in the Tigray region in November 2020, which has become a humanitarian crisis.

In a statement the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance announced the signing of a "financing agreement" with the World Bank.

It includes "$600 million [$200 million in form of grant and $400 million in form of credit], for the implementation of Food Systems Resilience programme".

These funds "will be used to finance the improvement of the resilience of food systems and food insecurity preparedness", the ministry said.

The agreement is then set to provide grant funding of $115 million for a Horn of Africa pastoral economies project.

This will "enable the region to adapt to the impacts of climate change, commercialise livestock production in pastoralist communities and ensure inclusion of the marginalised and vulnerable groups such as women in the sector," the ministry said.

Some observers noted a link between the funding and the Ethiopian government's recent announcement of a "humanitarian truce", which had been called for by Washington.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on June 19 that a committee was studying possible peace negotiations with the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

In April, the World Bank gave Ethiopia a $300 million grant to help communities affected by the conflict.