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SHANGHAI — China's Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. will need more time to become the world's largest smartphone maker, a goal it originally aimed to achieve in the fourth quarter of this year, a senior executive said on Tuesday.

"We would have become the largest in the fourth quarter [of this year] but now we feel that this process may take longer," said Shao Yang, chief strategy officer of Huawei Consumer Business Group, without elaborating on reasons.

Huawei currently sells 500,000 to 600,000 smartphones a day, he said in a speech at the CES Asia technology show in Shanghai.

The comments come after the United States put Huawei on a blacklist last month that barred it from doing business with US companies on security grounds without government approval, prompting some global tech companies to cut ties with the world's largest telecommunication equipment maker.

The company in January said it could become the world's biggest-selling smartphone vendor this year even without the US market. It was the second-biggest vendor in the first quarter, behind South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., according to research and advisory firm Gartner.

Analysts estimate the recent US sanctions could push Huawei's smartphone shipments down as much as a quarter this year and cause its handsets to disappear from overseas markets.

BEIJING — China's exports unexpectedly returned to growth in May despite higher US tariffs, but imports fell in a further sign of weak domestic demand that could prompt Beijing to step up stimulus measures. 

Some analysts suspected Chinese exporters may have rushed out US-bound shipments to avoid new tariffs on $300 billion of goods that US President Donald Trump is threatening to impose in a rapidly escalating trade dispute.

While better than expected, Monday's export data is unlikely to ease fears that a longer and larger US-China trade war may no longer be avoidable, pushing the global economy towards recession.

China's May exports rose 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, blowing past analysts' expectations, customs data showed.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected May shipments from the world's largest exporter to have fallen 3.8 per cent from a year earlier, after a contraction of 2.7 per cent in April.

While China is not as dependent on exports as in the past, they still account for nearly a fifth of its gross domestic product.

Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated sharply last month after the Trump administration accused China of having "reneged" on promises to make structural changes to its economic practices.

Trump on May 10 slapped higher tariffs of up to 25 per cent on $200 billion of Chinese goods and then took steps to levy duties on all remaining $300 billion Chinese imports. Beijing retaliated with tariff hikes on US goods.

Trump has said he expects to hold a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G-20 leaders' summit late this month, but analysts such as Capital Economics believe the chances of a lasting trade deal are receding after both sides toughened up their rhetoric. 

Damage from the trade war along with a broader softening in global demand will make 2019 the worst year for trade since the financial crisis a decade ago, with only 0.2 per cent growth, according to economists at ING. 

Imports weak 

China's imports dropped 8.5 per cent in May, leaving the country with a trade surplus of $41.65 billion for the month.

Analysts had forecast imports would fall 3.8 per cent from a year earlier, reversing an expansion of 4 per cent in April, which some had suspected was related to changes in company purchasing patterns ahead of a cut in the value-added tax.

The faltering imports trend don't augur well for the economy, given it suggests that domestic consumption is not able to take up the slack left by weakness in external demand.

FUKUOKA, Japan — Group of 20 (G-20) finance leaders said on Sunday that trade and geopolitical tensions have “intensified”, raising risks to improving global growth, but they stopped short of calling for a resolution of a deepening US-China trade conflict.

After rocky negotiations that nearly aborted the issuance of a communiqué, finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in southern Japan affirmed language issued in Buenos Aires last December that offered tepid support for a rules-based multilateral trading system. 

“Global growth appears to be stabilising, and is generally projected to pick up moderately later this year and into 2020,” the G-20 finance leaders said in a communiqué issued as the meetings in Fukuoka closed. 

“However, growth remains low and risks remain tilted to the downside. Most importantly, trade and geopolitical tensions have intensified. We will continue to address these risks, and stand ready to take further action,” the communiqué said. 

It also said that G-20 finance leaders had agreed to compile common rules by 2020 to close loopholes used by global tech giants such as Facebook and Google to reduce their corporate taxes. 

The communiqué contained pledges to increase debt transparency on the part of both borrowers and creditors and to make infrastructure development more sustainable, an initiative launched in the wake of complaints that China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure drive was saddling poor countries with debt they can’t repay. 

But the final language excluded a proposed clause to “recognise the pressing need to resolve trade tensions” from a previous draft that was debated on Saturday. 

The deletion, which G-20 sources said came at the insistence of the United States, shows a desire by Washington to avoid encumbrances as it increases tariffs on Chinese goods. The statement also contains no admissions that the deepening US-China trade conflict was hurting global growth. 

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said she “emphasised that the first priority should be to resolve the current trade tensions” while working to modernise international trading rules. 

The IMF warned earlier this week that while growth was still expected to improve this year and next, the US-China tariff war could lop 0.5 per cent from global GDP output in 2020, about the size of G-20 member South Africa’s economy.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday he did not see any impact on US growth from the trade conflict, and that the government would take steps to protect consumers from higher tariffs.

Mnuchin met People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang on Sunday in the first meeting of high-level US officials in a month. In a Tweet, Mnuchin called the meeting “constructive” and “a candid discussion on trade issues”, but offered no other details. 

At the Buenos Aires G-20 summit in December 2018, the United States and China agreed to a five-month trade truce to allow for negotiations to end their intensifying trade war. But those talks hit an impasse last month, prompting both sides to impose higher tariffs on each other’s goods as the conflict nears the end of its first year. 

Trump-Xi summit 

The widening fallout from the US-China trade war has tested the resolve of the group to show a united front as investors worry if policy makers can avert a global recession. 

The bickering over trade language has dashed hopes of Japan, which chairs this year’s G-20 meetings, to keep trade issues low on the list of agendas at the finance leaders’ meeting. 

Mnuchin said US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would meet at a June 28-29 G-20 summit in Osaka. 

He described the planned meeting as having parallels to the two presidents’ December 1 meeting in Buenos Aires, when Trump was poised to hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. 

Trump took that step in May and will be ready to impose similar 25 per cent tariffs on a remaining $300 billion list of Chinese goods around the time of the Osaka summit. 

At the Buenos Aires meeting, the G-20 leaders described international trade and investment as “important engines of growth, productivity, innovation, job creation and development. We recognise the contribution that the multilateral trading system has made to that end”. 

The leaders in that communiqué called for reform of the World Trade Organisation rules that were falling short of objectives with “room for improvement”, pledging to review progress at the Japan summit. 

FUKUOKA, Japan — Top G-20 finance officials agreed on Saturday there was an urgent need to find a global system to tax Internet giants like Google and Facebook but clashed on the best way to do it.

The G-20 has tasked the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to fix an international tax system that has seen some Internet heavyweights take advantage of low-tax jurisdictions in places like Ireland and pay next to nothing in other countries where they make huge profits.

OECD chief Angel Gurria presented G-20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meeting over the weekend in the western Japanese city of Fukuoka with a “roadmap”, already signed off by 129 countries, in a bid to clinch a long-term solution by 2020.

“We have to hurry up,” stressed French finance Minister Bruno Le Maire during a panel discussion of top policymakers before the G-20 meeting officially opened.

Le Maire called for a more ambitious timeframe to forge a global consensus, saying: “the right schedule is to find a compromise by the end of this year.”

British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said taxing Internet giants fairly was a response to something that is “perceived by our population to be a gross injustice in our tax system”.

Ministers are weighing a new tax policy based on the amount of business a company does in a country, not where it is headquartered.

But there are rival proposals in the mix, including a wider US-led approach that could affect European and Asian multinationals in other sectors than technology.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a blunt view of policies in Britain and France, which have already introduced their own taxes on digital players, given a lack of global consensus.

“I would say the US has significant concerns with the two current taxes that are being proposed by France and the UK but let me give them some good credit for proposing them in the sense [that] they have created an urgency to deal with this issue,” said Mnuchin. 

“Although I don’t like them, I do appreciate the impetus for these issues,” added the top US finance official.

“We are not looking to rewrite the entire tax code, but we do need to look at the balance between what may be the issue in digital and perhaps how this new environment affects non-digital companies as well,” he said.

While there were gaps on the exact make-up of the reform, the policymakers agreed there needed to be a global approach to taxing the big Internet firms. 

Gurria said there was a risk of “cacophony” and a “race to the bottom” without an agreed global framework and Mnuchin agreed that “having a fragmented tax approach is not good for any of us”.

‘Very, very significant’ 

The other topic dominating the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting was the impact of spiralling global trade conflicts on an increasingly fragile economic outlook.

But the ministers were given a boost just hours before the meeting started with news that Washington had scrapped threatened tariffs on Mexico after a deal on immigration.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the agreement that we reached. It is very, very significant and we very much appreciate the commitments that Mexico has made,” Mnuchin told reporters.

Trump had threatened to impose a 5 per cent tariff on all Mexican goods from Monday but shelved this plan after the deal was agreed, prompting a sigh of relief from the Japanese central bank governor.

“It is good, not just for the United States and Mexico, but also for the entire global economy,” Haruhiko Kuroda told reporters.

On the burning issue of the trade war between China and the US, the world’s top two economies, Mnuchin said Washington was prepared to continue talks but that any potential deal would be struck by the two leaders later this month.

“We were on the way to a historic deal. If they want to come back to the table and complete the deal on the terms that we were continuing to negotiate, that will be great. If not, as the president said, we’ll move on with tariffs,” said the treasury secretary.

By a quirk of the calendar, G-20 trade ministers are also meeting the same weekend in Japan but the finance ministers will be tackling the current tensions and their economic consequences.

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, host of the meeting, acknowledged that unless Beijing and Washington buried the hatchet, this could “erode market confidence”. 

BRUSSELS — Google's privacy woes are set to increase after campaigners on Tuesday filed complaints to data protection regulators in France, Germany and seven other EU countries over the way it deals with data in online advertising.

The criticism mirrored a complaint filed by privacy-focused web browser Brave in Ireland and Britain which triggered an investigation by the Irish watchdog last month.

At issue is real-time bidding, a server-to-server buying process which uses automated software to match millions of ad requests each second from online publishers with real-time bids from advertisers.

The online ad industry, a money spinner for Google, Facebook and other online platforms and advertisers, is expected to grow to $273 billion this year according to research firm eMarketer.

"The real-time bidding advertising system may be broadcasting the personal data of users to hundreds or thousands of companies. This advertising method clearly breaches the EU's data protection regulation [GDPR]," said Eva Simon, a legal expert at campaigning group Liberties which is coordinating the complaints.

The EU enacted the landmark GDPR a year ago which includes fines up to 4 per cent of a company's global turnover for violations.

Real-time bidding is used Google and many other digital advertising technology companies. It is time for them to #StopSpyingOnUs," Liberties said.

The other seven EU countries where the complaints were filed are Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares in Google parent Alphabet Inc. closed 6 per cent down on Monday following reports that the US Justice Department may investigate Google for hampering competition.

LONDON — The Swiss franc rallied to its highest levels in nearly two years against the euro on Monday as US President Donald Trump hardened his trade stance to countries beyond China, prompting investors to move into perceived safe-haven currencies.

Trade tensions have grabbed centre stage for investors in recent weeks after Trump increased tariffs on Chinese imports, threatened to raise tariffs on Mexican imports and removed preferential trade treatment for India.

Rising strains on trade have prompted investors to dump risky assets such as equities and flock to low-yielding currencies such as the yen and the franc with the latter flirting close to levels where the Swiss National Bank has traditionally intervened to keep the currency weak.

"While the Swiss franc has appreciated strongly in recent weeks, much of that gains is due to the wave of risk aversion sweeping across markets and we need to see further substantial gains before the central bank has to step in," said Manuel Oliveri, a currency strategist at Credit Agricole in London.

Against the euro, the franc rallied more than 0.5 per cent to 1.1120 francs per euro, its highest level since July 2017, before trimming some gains to stand 0.2 per cent up on the day. 

Monday's gains come on top of a strong surge in May when the franc gained more than 2 per cent versus the euro, its biggest monthly rise in eight months as trade tensions fuelled a global selloff in risky assets.

The Swiss National Bank, which pursues a monetary policy of negative interest rates and currency intervention, has traditionally intervened when the franc has risen to around 1.10 francs per euro but low inflation and trade tensions suggest the franc has to gain far more from current levels.

Latest data indicate price pressures remain well contained with consumer prices rising 0.6 per cent in May from a year-ago.

The franc was not the only low-yielding currency to shine, with the Japanese yen also broadly gaining against a swathe of currencies.

Euro vulnerable

The euro was slightly firmer on the day at $1.1185 but investors remained broadly cautious on the outlook of the single currency as manufacturing data in the eurozone contracted for a fourth month in July.

The weak data comes in a busy week for European Central Bank (ECB) policymakers as officials may announce details of a new round of cheap multi-year loans for banks.

Meanwhile, expectations of a rate cut have also grown in money markets with futures pricing in a 50 per cent chance of a rate cut before the end of the year.

"With a dovish ECB expected, it is challenging to envision strong gains now for the euro," said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex.

A senior Chinese official and trade negotiator said on Sunday Washington cannot use pressure to force a trade deal on China and refused to be drawn on whether the leaders of the two countries would meet at the G-20 summit in Japan at the end of the month to bash out an agreement.

The dollar dipped after benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields hit as low as 2.121 per cent on Monday, their lowest since September 2017.

Against a basket of six major currencies, the dollar was slightly negative at 97.71, although it is still up 1.6 per cent for the year.

AMMAN — Emirates’ first scheduled A380 services have just touched down in Amman for the summer season peak, according to a statement of the airline company.

With Capt. Arif Al Reyami and first officer Laith Saudi in the cockpit, the A380 Amman service was greeted by a traditional water cannon salute. 

“Adding Amman to our list of A380 destinations on a seasonal basis allows us to provide our customers in Jordan with best-in class onboard products and our renowned service for an unrivalled travel experience,” Mohammad Lootah, area manager for Jordan & West Bank, said expressing pride in this achievement.

“Jordan is a significant market for Emirates and we continue to see strong growth in demand for our services,” he added. 

Expressing the airline commitment to strengthen this market furthermore, he voiced confidence that the launch of the seasonal A380 service will open up more opportunities in business and tourism for the country. 

“We are grateful for the support of our partners at Queen Alia International Airport and the local government authorities who have made it possible to bring the A380 to Amman,” he said, according to the statement.

Emirates will operate its A380 aircraft to and from Amman until October 26 to cater for the increasing demand for travel during the peak summer period. 

The airline has adjusted its schedule on one of its three daily flights (EK 903/904) with the A380. 

The move reflects the airline’s flexibility to optimise the usage of its fleet to cater to passenger demand within its network.

Emirates has been flying to Jordan for more than 33 years, and has carried over five million passengers to and from Amman.

NEW YORK — Investors rushed into the perceived safety of the Japanese yen on Friday, with the currency scoring its best day against the dollar in four months, after US President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Mexico roiled financial markets and stoked recession fears.

Taking aim at what he said was a surge of illegal immigrants across the southern border, Trump vowed on Thursday to impose a tariff on all goods coming from Mexico, starting at 5 per cent and ratcheting higher until the flow of people ceases.

The Mexican peso tumbled against the greenback, losing as much as 3.4 per cent at one point, for its steepest single-day loss since October. It was down 2.65 per cent at 19.6485 per dollar.

Trump's surprise duties on Mexican imports "spurred sharp losses in the Mexican peso and a general risk-off move that strengthened the yen", said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex LLC.

Several different currencies have served as safe havens during the global trade conflict, but the yen has consistently been among the strongest this year, and on Friday investors appeared to opt for the Japanese currency.

The yen increased 1.11 per cent at 108.41 per dollar and 0.75 per cent per euro.

For May, the Japanese currency was on track to gain 2.72 per cent against the dollar and 3.15 per cent versus the euro.

The Swiss franc also enticed safe-haven buying, rising 0.69 per cent at $1.0008, near its strongest versus the dollar since April 10.

The impact of escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing is starting to show up in economic data, with a key measure of Chinese manufacturing activity disappointing investors, and Trump's latest salvo fueled a rush on Friday to safe-haven assets such as government bonds and the yen.

The US dollar has itself served as a safe haven currency in recent times, but on Friday, it fell 0.34 per cent against a basket of other currencies, hovering below a two-year peak reached last week.

For the month, the dollar index was on track for a 0.4 per cent gain, extending its winning monthly streak to four.

"The US dollar may be embarking on a major turning point," said Jack McIntyre, portfolio manager at Brandywine Global.

The dollar's broad losses on Friday were compounded by comments from senior policymakers, with the US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida on Thursday discussing the possibility of rate cuts should the world's biggest economy take a turn for the worse, though he also said he thought the US economy is in "a very good place".

US interest rates futures implied traders expect at least one rate cut from the Federal Reserve by year-end.

Government data on Friday showed a modest pickup in inflation in April, while a private report indicated a stronger-than-forecast improvement in US Midwest manfacturing activity in May.

Dallas-based Greyhound was put up for sale by Britain's FirstGroup on Thursday as the north American bus line battles to compete with growing pressure from low cost airlines.

Greyhound has been a household name in north America since it was founded in 1914, with prominent roles for its buses and their running dog logo in movies, music and motorcycle stunts.

FirstGroup, which bought Greyhound for $3.6 billion including debt from Laidlaw International in 2007, plans to sell the bus line and spin-off its UK operator First Bus to head off shareholder pressure, lifting its shares by as much as 13 per cent.

Changing travel trends have meant a bumpy road for Greyhound from the highs of featuring in Frank Capra's 1934 movie "It Happened One Night" and Simon and Garfunkel's "America" in 1968 to the low of filing for bankruptcy protection in 1990.

Greyhound survived and is now the only operator of scheduled intercity coaches in north America, carrying around 17 million passengers a year and serving some 2,400 destinations.

FirstGroup invested in expanding and modernising the Greyhound fleet and terminals as well as marketing, but this has not proved enough to give it the returns shareholders expect.

"The issues at Greyhound have revolved around the impact of low cost airlines coming into some of our markets and [the] relatively low oil price over the year, which in the US means more people get into their cars," FirstGroup Chief Executive Matthew Gregory told reporters on a call.

Gregory said FirstGroup had appointed investment bankers to launched a formal sale process, but declined to place a price tag on Greyhound, which reported revenue of £645 million in the year that  ended on March 31.

'Iconic brand'

"It's not really in my interest to tell you what I think the value might be for the business, but its a iconic brand, has the biggest intercity network of coaches in the US, so I think its something a lot of people will be interested in," he added.

FirstGroup, which also runs tens of thousands of yellow school buses in the United States, said Greyhound has limited synergies with its predominantly contract-based businesses in north America and shareholders would get best value if it was sold.

Its emphasis will now be on First Student and First Transit, its core contracting businesses in north America.

"Greyhound is in long term structural decline and absorbs considerable management time without offering upside potential, and therefore disposing of it is optimal," Investec said.

FirstGroup, which replaced its chief executive last year and has not paid a dividend since 2013, has rejected two approaches from private equity firms and has been targeted by Canadian activist investor West Face Capital.

Coast Capital, its second-largest shareholder, has been seeking to replace six of its eleven directors. 

FirstGroup, whose shares fell by 23.3 per cent in 2018, also cast doubt on its future in British railways, saying it had "reduced expectations" for its two most recently awarded franchises due to timetabling, infrastructure issues and strike action.

"Any future commitments to UK rail will need to have an appropriate balance of potential risks and rewards for our shareholders," it added.

HANOI — From socks and sneakers to washing machines and watches, Asian countries are hoping the US-China trade war will permanently boost manufacturing as brands dodge the row by choosing cheaper locations to make their goods.

Business has fanned out from China, often referred to as the “Factory of the World”, into Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Indonesia for years.

But the shift has accelerated as the world’s two biggest economies slap tit-for-tat tariffs on each other. 

In the latest round of the bruising spat, US President Donald Trump this month raised tariffs to 25 per cent on $200 billion of Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to retaliate with higher duties on $60 billion worth of American products.

That “really became a kicker to force people to move”, said Trent Davies, manager of international business at the advisory and tax firm Dezan Shira & Associates in Vietnam.

A surge in relocations from China or plans to scale up production has strengthened the manufacturing hubs of Southeast Asia and beyond.

Casio said it was moving some of its watch production to Thailand and Japan to avoid the US penalties, while Japanese printer-maker Ricoh said it was also shifting some of its work to Thailand. 

American shoe giant Steve Madden plans to boost production in Cambodia, and Brooks Running Company, Haier washing machines and sock maker Jasan — which sells to Adidas, Puma, New Balance and Fila — are all eyeing Vietnam.

The country is a logical move for manufacturers, wooed by low-cost labour, attractive tax incentives and close proximity to China’s unparalleled supply chains.

“It’s not just a result of the trade war, a lot of it is opportunity in Vietnam,” Davies said. 

Boom times 

Some Vietnamese suppliers say the trade dispute has fast-tracked the trend as companies scramble to dodge fresh tariffs that could affect some 4,000 categories of exports to the US. 

On a busy stretch of road in Hanoi, the bustling Garco 10 factory is churning out men’s shirts for American brands like Hollister, Bonobos and Express. 

The company says exports to the US were up 7 per cent last year, with an expected 10 per cent jump this year. 

“Thanks to the trade war... several sectors of the Vietnam economy have gained, especially our garment sector,” Garco 10 director Than Duc Viet told AFP.

“We want to open more factories, we want to expand our capacity,” he said at one of his facilities where an army of workers made shirts destined for American shopping malls and department stores. 

US imports from China during the first three months of this year reached nearly $16 billion, up 40 per cent from the same period last year, according to US trade data. 

And that number could rise. 

Labour woes 

More than 40 per cent of US companies in China are now considering moving or have already done so, mainly to southeast Asia or Mexico, according to a poll this month from the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

But the shift is not expected to be seamless. 

While southeast Asia offers low-cost labour — monthly factory salaries are about $290 in Vietnam and $180 in Cambodia and Indonesia, compared to around $540 in China — workers are less experienced.

“Labour costs are three times higher in China, but the efficiency is also three times higher,” said Frank Weiand, co-chair of the manufacturing committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. 

There is also a smaller labour pool to draw on.

Vietnam employs around 10 million people in the manufacturing sector compared to 166 million in China, according to data from the International Labour Organisation. 

Indonesia employs 17.5 million, and Cambodia 1.4 million.

Experts warn companies may also face supply chain woes, infrastructure challenges and land shortages in less developed markets without the capacity to absorb overspill from China.

Global shift 

This could be a problem for Indonesia, whose bureaucracy has left it trailing some of its neighbours. 

But now the country is hoping to soak up foreign investment from the trade war. 

“We’re trying to make it easier for investors by speeding up the process for getting business permits,” said Yuliot, a senior official at the Indonesian Investment Board who goes by one name.

The country is also beefing up infrastructure and skills training while offering corporate tax breaks, he added.

With no end to the trade war in sight, analysts say the manufacturing shift out of China is likely to continue — and could redefine long-entrenched global trade patterns. 

“Certainly it will end China’s dominance as the ‘Factory for the US’,” Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told AFP. 

US companies and consumers may also get the short end of the stick: higher tariffs on goods out of China means the average American will likely have to pay more for a pair of Nike sneakers or Levi’s jeans.

If Trump was hoping to drive US manufacturers back home by imposing those tariffs as part of his “Make America Great Again” clarion call, he’s not likely to get his wish. 

American industries — and wages — are not set up for low-cost manufacturing on the scale of China. 

Instead, countries like Vietnam are likely to continue scooping up those jobs.

Le Thi Huong, who sews hems at Hanoi’s Garco 10 factory, said: “I hope there will be more orders... so we have more jobs and more income.”