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LONDON — Sterling zipped higher on Tuesday, reversing early losses after the speaker of the British Parliament chose amendments to be voted on by lawmakers, including one that would effectively take a no-deal Brexit off the table.

The currency remains well off recent
multimonth peaks however, and volatility in derivatives market was elevated, reflecting markets' nervousness about the likely outcome of the votes.

Parliament was due to debate and vote from 19:00 GMT on Prime Minister Theresa May's response to the overwhelming rejection of her Brexit plan earlier this month. 

But markets' main focus is on amendments proposed by lawmakers. The speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has chosen seven to be voted on. 

In particular, markets are focusing on Amendment B, proposed by opposition Labour lawmaker Yvette Cooper, which seeks to shift control of Brexit from May's government to Parliament. If successful, this could give lawmakers who want to block, delay or renegotiate Brexit a legal route to do so.

Amendment G by Dominic Grieve, a pro-EU Conservative, which would give lawmakers a chance to propose their own Brexit debates in Parliament in February and March, will also be voted on.

"I suppose given those amendments have been chosen markets may have discerned that a delay is a step closer," said Neil Mellor, FX strategist at BNY Mellon.

"The prominent amendments that have been chosen are too close to call [the outcome] but if the Cooper and Grieve amendments are carried, that is sterling positive."

Cooper's amendment, which could delay Brexit, is considered likely to pass, especially after a source told Reuters the opposition Labour Party would back it.

Speaker Bercow's announcement sent sterling to a session high of $1.32 — having traded earlier in a $1.3160-$1.3170 range — up 0.2 per cent on the day. But it remains well off two-and-a-half-month highs of $1.3218.

It rallied against the euro too, rising 0.2 per cent to a high of 86.560 pence but held well below Friday's 10-month highs around 86.18 pence.

Unicredit noted the pound had been this year's best-performing major currency so far, rising around 4 per cent to the dollar and euro. On a trade-weighted basis, it is at a two-and-a-hlafmonth high

"The risk that we get a disappointment in tonight's vote is clearly there," Unicredit FX strategist Kathrin Goretzki said, though she noted the vote would not significantly dent optimism that parliament had taken control of the Brexit process to avoid a no-deal scenario.

"We don't expect this to be affected in a negative way in tonight's vote. Any correction will be temporary," she said.

Another amendment selected for a vote, proposed by Conservative lawmaker Graham Brady, calls for the Irish backstop arrangement envisioned by May's Brexit divorce deal to be removed and replaced with "alternative arrangements".

The backstop is an insurance policy designed to avoid customs checks between EU member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland after Brexit. Many in May's party oppose it, fearing it could trap Britain in a permanent customs union. 

May asked lawmakers to support Brady's amendment which, if passed, would show the EU that she can win parliamentary approval for the negotiated withdrawal deal if some changes are made to the Irish backstop plan.

Nervousness was reflected in a rise in implied sterling volatility on options markets, which has fallen steadily since the start of the year. Overnight implied volatility in particular raced to near 23vol (volatility), the highest since January 15, when lawmakers defeated May's Brexit deal.

One-month implied vol rose to its highest in a week-and-a-half at 11.2vol, a day after seeing the biggest one-day rise since November.

PARIS — Germany's Siemens and France's Alstom have made new concessions in an effort to convince the European Commission to approve their tie-up that would create a rail manufacturing giant, Alstom said, on Monday.

Alstom said in a statement that it and Siemens had "decided to further modify the remedies so as to answer the concerns raised" by the Commission over the deal's impact on competition.

It added, however, that the value of the businesses it proposes to sell off remains unchanged at roughly 4 per cent of their combined sales and that the new offer "preserves the industrial and economic value of the deal".

The planned merger unveiled in September 2017 was billed as a defensive move as the Chinese giant CRRC expands onto the global market.

While an Alstom-Siemens tie-up would create a company with operations in 60 countries and an annual turnover of 15.6 billion euros ($17.8 billion), would still pale in comparison with CRRC's annual revenue of 26 billion euros.

Siemens and Alstom have previously offered to sell off some business activities and license other technologies, hoping to allay Commission fears the new combination could dominate the European market for rail signalling and high-speed trains.

But Siemens has been adamant it will not give up its next-generation high-speed technology to secure the EU's green light.

According to two sources close to the dossier, the new offer could see the companies extend the duration of licences for high-speed train technology, and expand it to certain countries outside Europe. 

Regarding signalling, the two firms are offering to sell off additional activities.

Despite public support by top French and German officials in recent weeks, the deal has been seen as increasingly at risk of failing to win approval by the Commission.

EU Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager has repeatedly expressed doubts over the deal.

Siemens chief executive, Joe Kaeser, allowed himself an unusual Twitter outburst at Vestager on Monday, after she Tweeted from a Liberal party conference that "we want to change Europe because we love it".

"Those who love Europe should shape its future, not lose themselves in backward-looking formulas," Kaeser responded.

"It must be bitter to be technically right but to do everything wrong for Europe," he added, in an apparent acknowledgement that the rail deal would likely be blocked. 

Alstom said there is "still no certainty that the content of this package will be sufficient to alleviate the concerns of the Commission".

It added the Commission is expected to announce a decision by February 18.

CAIRO — Egypt opened a new international airport on the outskirts of the capital on Saturday for an initial trial period, in a bid to ease pressure from Cairo’s main airport and help boost tourism. 

The Sphinx International Airport, located near the Giza Pyramids and the new Grand Egyptian Museum, is expected to operate 30 flights by early February during its trial run.

The $17 million project comes as part of the tourism ministry’s plan to improve accessibility to historical sites from resort areas on the Red Sea, like Sharm Al Sheikh and Hurghada. It will fully open in 2020.

The bombing of a Russian airliner, shortly after it took off from Sharm Al Sheikh, in 2015 hit tourism numbers hard, continuing a downward trend that started with the years of turmoil following the Arab Spring protests of 2011.

Tourism revenues had begun to rebound, jumping 77 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2018 to $4.8 billion, before a deadly attack on a bus in December killed three Vietnamese tourists and their Egyptian guide.

The bus attack was the first deadly attack against foreign tourists in Egypt for over a year.

DAVOS, Switzerland —Impatient with a lack of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules on the explosive growth of e-commerce, 76 members — including the United States, China, the European Union and Japan — agreed recently to start negotiating a new framework.

China, which is locked in a trade war with the United States, signalled conditional support for the initiative, but said it should also take into account the needs of developing countries, in comments likely to rile Washington.

E-commerce, or online trade in goods and services, has become a huge component of the global economy. A WTO report put the total value of e-commerce in 2016 at $27.7 trillion, of which nearly $24 trillion was business-to-business transactions.

On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, negotiators from the 76 countries and regions agreed on Friday to hammer out an agenda for negotiations they hope to kick off this year on setting new e-commerce rules.

"I've said for quite some time it was unacceptable that by 2018... the WTO won't have a deeper, more effective conversation about a phenomenon that is driving the global economy today," said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo.

"China was not an original signatory but now they are. They have reaffirmed their intention to start negotiations on electronic commerce. I think this is a welcome development," he told a briefing in Davos.

Japan's trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, said his country hopes to use its presidency of this year's Group of 20 meetings of major economies to help accelerate negotiations.

"The current WTO rules don't match the needs of the 21st century. You can tell that from the fact there are no solid rules on e-commerce," Seko told a separate briefing.

China critical, 

India absent 

China's WTO Ambassador Zhang Xiangchen said the e-commerce declaration "could have been better drafted", but Beijing was still willing to co-sponsor it.

But Beijing's call for "full respect [to be] accorded to the reasonable requests of developing members" could increase friction with Washington, which says the WTO must stop giving special treatment to countries such as China that call themselves "developing".

Another Asian giant, India, did not join the initiative. It has previously said the WTO should finish off the stalled but development-oriented "Doha Round" of talks, before moving into new areas.

"It would always be better if we had every WTO member in it," Azevedo said. "But what is important also is that this group is open. It's an open-ended group, so any member that wants to participate in this conversation can join any time."

Trade experts say the global trade rulebook is rapidly becoming outdated and needs to keep up, or become obsolete. A recent study found that 70 regional trade agreements already include provisions or chapters on e-commerce.

The WTO's 164 members failed to consolidate some 25 separate e-commerce proposals at a conference at Buenos Aires in December, including a call to set up a central e-commerce negotiating forum.

E-commerce, which developed largely after the WTO's creation in 1995, was not part of the Doha round of talks that began in 2001 and eventually collapsed more than a decade later.

US President Donald Trump's administration says the WTO is dysfunctional, as it has failed to hold China to account for not opening up its economy as envisaged when Beijing joined in 2001.

To force reform at the WTO, Trump's team has refused to allow new appointments to the Appellate Body, the world's top trade court, a process which requires consensus among member states. As a result, the court is running out of judges, and will be unable to issue binding rulings in disputes.

While the United States was among the signatory countries of the e-commerce agreement, it did not participate in a separate informal WTO gathering chaired by Switzerland.

Azevedo said Washington's absence was "totally and solely driven by domestic considerations" and unrelated to the country's suspicions over the multilateral trading system.

But he voiced concern over the tide of protectionism that overshadowed discussions at Davos among the rich and powerful.

"These trading tensions are not only a threat to the system. They are threats to the whole, entire international community," he said. "The risks are very real. There will be economic impacts."

BEIJING  — Microsoft’s Bing search engine was inaccessible in China on Thursday, with social media users fearing it could be the latest foreign website to be blocked by censors.

Attempts to open cn.bing.com has resulted in an error message for users since Wednesday, taking away the most prominent foreign search engine available in China.

“We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a brief statement, hours after saying the company was investigating the matter.

China’s Communist authorities operate an online censorship apparatus known as the “Great Firewall”, which blocks a slew of websites including Facebook, Twitter and several foreign media outlets.

But it was not clear whether or not Bing had joined the list of prohibited websites, or if its China service was experiencing technical difficulties. The search engine had been censoring searches in China.

The wording of the US company’s statement “means Microsoft received no government order, but clearly China has the power to block a URL and that may be what happened”, said independent US tech analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

“China has been aggressive in terms of controlling the media, ‘censorship’ is kind of their middle name. If there were searches going on providing results the Chinese government didn’t like, it wouldn’t surprise me if they blocked the site,” Enderle said.

But the analyst said it could also be a “hack gone wrong”.

China’s cyberspace administration did not immediately return a request for comment.

Walled off 

China’s Great Firewall can be circumvented by using a virtual private network (VPN), which can hide a user’s IP address.

While its rival Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010 after rows over censorship and hacking, Bing has continued to operate in the country along with Microsoft-owned Skype.

On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media site, people complained about the lack of access, with some speculating that Bing too had been “walled off”.

Others aired their dissatisfaction about having to use Baidu, China’s largest domestic search service.

“Even Bing requires a VPN now, how exhausting,” wrote one user. 

“Our country is amazing, even the obedient Bing has been walled off, while Baidu flourishes,” said another. “Thank you wise party leaders!”

‘Tit-for-tat’ 

China has tightened policing of the Internet in recent years, shuttering 26,000 “illegal” websites in 2018 alone and deleting 6 million online posts containing vulgar content, the official Xinhua news agency said earlier this month.

Bing complies with Chinese censorship rules, but its link to US tech giant Microsoft might have put it in the government’s crosshairs as Beijing and Washington spar over trade and tech issues.

“The fact that Bing is run by Microsoft, which is not a Chinese company, means that Beijing has less leverage over the company, compared to say Baidu,” said Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The block is also “mostly symbolic”, given Bing’s tiny market share in China, he told AFP.

Tsui also noted that there is growing concern over China’s slowing economy, and that June will see the highly sensitive 30th anniversary of the violent suppression of democracy protests in Tiananmen in 1989.

“Beijing needs to look like they are in charge and in power,” he said.

The United States and China are locked in a bruising trade war, with US accusations that China steals technological know-how among the core disagreements.

Washington has also led efforts to blacklist Chinese telecoms giant Huawei internationally over security concerns, and one of the company’s top executives, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada last month over fraud allegations on a US request.

The two sides are scheduled for new trade negotiations next week.

“Given Washington’s bid to contain Huawei, China is sharpening its moves against the American tech industry, especially those affiliated with Silicon Valley,” Tom Fowdy, an independent Beijing-based political analyst, told AFP.

“So in some ways, it could be tit-for-tat,” he added. “’You contain our leading technology and software companies, we will contain yours.’”

LONDON — Global markets parted ways on Wednesday as investors were more cautious about the chances of success in China-US trade talks, and looked for direction from the European Central Bank (ECB).

The overall mood remained wary, with a rally that has characterised the start of the year stuttering due to slower Chinese economic activity, a softer global outlook, Brexit issues and the US government shutdown, which shows no sign of ending soon.

"The markets appear to be trading a bit cautious ahead of tomorrow's monetary policy decision from the ECB and as
US/China trade worries are flaring up," the Charles Schwab brokerage said.

US investors sold shares on Tuesday after The Financial Times and CNBC said Washington had rejected Beijing's offer of preparatory discussions ahead of the next round of high-level negotiations.

Wednesday saw a sliver of respite as Wall Street opened just in the black, the Dow Jones adding 1 per cent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.6 per cent. 

"We are continuing to see caution in the markets on Wednesday, with reports a day earlier regarding trade talks between the US and China only aiding that," said Oanda analyst Craig Erlam.

"Reports that preparatory talks between the US and China ahead of a meeting at the end of the month had been cancelled put a slight dampener on the mood... at a time when we're already seeing some profit taking."

Although the White House denied the reports, observers said they highlighted how fragile the negotiations were.

The reports also came a day after Bloomberg News said the two sides were struggling to reach agreement on the crucial matter of intellectual property, a key source of US anger.

Hopes that China and the US were on the right track have helped rally global markets in January following a torrid performance in 2018.

But data showing China's economy grew at its weakest pace in three decades added to fears it is heading for a hard landing, while Xi Jinping also showed signs of worrying about the effects of a slowdown in a speech to top provincial leaders this week.

"Investors obviously are still a little bit edgy and therefore we would expect periods of volatility to continue," said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide Funds Group.

"As the headlines continue to get more nerve-wracking with regards to a global slowdown and trade wars and government shutdowns, it's easy to spook investors, but we think those are temporary versus permanent."

Adding to concerns was confirmation that the US plans to seek the extradition from Canada of a top executive with Chinese telecom giant Huawei before the end of January.

'Falling demand' 

Despite the pervading uncertainty, Frankfurt and Paris joined Wall Street in posting small gains in intraday trades, but London was down 0.5 per cent with little immediate sign of Brexit-related gloom lifting.

Hong Kong ended flat having swung back and forth through the day, while Shanghai closed 0.1 per cent higher and Tokyo ended slightly down.

Oil prices advanced after taking a hit Tuesday on lingering worries about the effect of a slowdown in the global economy, and particularly China, on demand.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Chief executives across the world have grown a lot more pessimistic about the global economic outlook due to trade disputes and tense relations between major powers, a survey showed on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

The Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) survey of nearly 1,400 CEOs found that 29 per cent believe global economic growth will decline over the next 12 months, six times the level of last year and the highest percentage since 2012. 

The most pronounced shift was among business leaders in the United States, where optimism dropped to 37 per cent from 63 per cent a year ago, against the backdrop of an economic slowdown and a trade war with China. 

But the share of CEOs who believe the growth rate will fall increased significantly across every region, and this translated into a drop in business leaders' expectations that their companies will be able to grow revenues both in the short and medium term. 

"It's quite a reversal from last year and the gloomier mood cuts across just about everywhere in the world," said Bob Moritz, global chairman at audit and accounting multinational PwC.

"With the rise of trade tension and protectionism, it stands to reason that confidence is waning."

The International Monetary Fund on Monday cut its world economic growth forecasts for 2019 and 2020, due to weakness in Europe and some emerging markets, and said failure to resolve trade rows could further destabilise a slowing global economy.

In its second downgrade in three months, the global lender also cited a bigger-than-expected slowdown in China's economy and a possible "No Deal" Brexit as risks to its outlook, saying these could worsen market turbulence in financial markets.

The US government shutdown, which is keeping President Donald Trump away from the January 22-25 gathering of the global political and business elite in Davos, Switzerland, is also contributing to the sense of malaise and expected to hit the US economy.

Strategy shift 

The impact of the trade dispute between China and the United States, the world's two largest economies, ranked among the top concerns for business leaders in several regions. 

Trump has vowed to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports on March 2 if China fails to address intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and other non-tariff barriers.

As a result, Chinese CEOs have diversified their markets for growth, with only 17 per cent selecting the United States, down from 59 per cent in 2018. 

"Australia seems to be the principal beneficiary; not even in China's top ten last year, it has risen to the number one destination for Chinese investment," the report said. 

Still in China, 62 per cent of business leaders are adjusting their supply chain and sourcing strategy, pivoting away from the United States because of concerns about the future of trade relations between the two countries. 

Another strategic shift highlighted by the report is businesses' tendency to hunker down and turn inward, instead of looking for expansion abroad or through acquisitions.

Asked what they would focus on to drive revenue growth over the next 12 months, 77 per cent of CEOs said "operational efficiencies" and 71 per cent "organic growth".

Highlighting the growing uncertainty, 15 per cent of them could not identify a single country for growth opportunities away from their home base, PwC said. 

As the clock ticks towards the March 29 deadline for Britain's exit from the EU, only 8 per cent of respondents picked the UK as one of their most important foreign markets for growth prospects in the next 12 months, down from 15 per cent a year ago.

DUBLIN — Facebook will expand its presence in Ireland with an additional 1,000 staff over 2019, the firm announced on Monday, bolstering the tech giant's largest base outside of its California headquarters.

Facebook currently employs 4,000 across the Republic and the capital Dublin where the company has established its international base.

"We're going to be hiring an additional thousand people in Ireland in the next year alone," said Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

The jobs will span the engineering, safety, legal, policy, marketing and sales teams, Facebook said in a statement.

Sandberg said the employees would be working to "help keep people safe" and to "prevent abuse" on the platform following a turbulent period for the social media goliath.

Facebook is under scrutiny as a result of its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the personal data of tens of millions of users hijacked in 2016.

The company is also facing increasing criticism for providing a platform for hate speech and facilitating foreign interference in elections.

"We didn't do enough to really anticipate that when you connect this many people around the world there are real risks," said Sandberg.

"We're not the same company we were even a few years ago, and that's something we need to prove," she added.

Facebook is currently under investigation by watchdog the Irish Data Protection Commission after the social media titan admitted a "bug" may have exposed unposted photos from up to 6.8 million users.

That probe — launched in December — followed an earlier investigation started in October after a security breach exposed 50 million accounts.

The investigations are to be some of the first major tests of stringent new European privacy laws enshrined in the General Data Protection Regulation.

Firms can be fined up to four percent of annual global turnover if they fail to abide by the rules — meaning Facebook faces a theoretical fine of 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion), based on its 2017 annual revenue of 35.2 billion euros ($40.6 billion).

Ireland has been singled out for luring multinationals such as Facebook to its territory by offering complex tax schemes which allow them to shift profits and avoid large bills.

Earlier this month the government revealed it was running a surplus for the first time since the crash of 2008 thanks to a 1-2 billion euros ($1.1-2.2 billion) surge in corporate tax revenues linked to just a handful of multinationals.

BERLIN — Fears that robots will eliminate your job are unfounded with a growing number of employers planning to increase or maintain headcount as a result of automation, staffing company ManpowerGroup said in a survey that was published on Friday. 

The “Humans Wanted: Robots Need You” report surveyed 19,000 employers in 44 countries and found 69 per cent of firms were planning to maintain the size of their workforce while 18 per cent wanted to hire more people as a result of automation. That was the highest result in three years.

The report went on to say that 24 per cent of the firms that will invest in automation and digital technologies over the next two years plan to add jobs compared to 18 per cent of those who are not automating. 

Just 9 per cent of employers in the annual survey said automation would directly lead to job losses, while 4 per cent did not know what the impact would be.

“More and more robots are being added to the workforce, but humans are too,” said Jonas Prising, Chairman & CEO of ManpowerGroup.

“Tech is here to stay and it’s our responsibility as leaders to become Chief Learning Officers and work out how we integrate humans with machines.” 

More than 3 million industrial robots will be in use in factories around the world by 2020, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

The Manpower survey found that 84 per cent of firms planned to help their workers learn new skills by 2020, compared to just 21 per cent in 2011.

The global talent shortage is at a 12-year-high, with many companies struggling to fill jobs, according to Manpower.

In Germany, where unemployment is at a record low, a shortage of talent was the top concern of small-to-mid-sized companies heading into 2019, according to a survey by the BVMW Mittelstand association.

The Manpower survey found IT skills are particularly in demand with 16 per cent of companies expecting to hire staff in IT.

In manufacturing and production, where industrial robots are increasingly doing routine tasks, firms expect to hire more people in customer-facing roles that require skills such as communication, leadership, negotiation and adaptability.

Employers in Singapore, Costa Rica, Guatemala and South Africa expected to add the most staff, while firms in Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Norway, Slovakia and Romania predicted a decrease in headcount, the survey found.

LONDON — Organisers of next week’s annual Davos conclave put on a brave face on Friday after US President Donald Trump withdrew his entire delegation, insisting the forum still had plenty of political and corporate firepower in its debating armoury.

Trump himself had already pulled out of attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) for a second year, having shut down the US government over his demands for Congress to fund a wall on the Mexican border.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US trade chiefs had been slated to attend the WEF instead, alongside other heavy hitters such as Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, as Beijing and Washington try to negotiate a truce to their trade war.

But the White House announced the cancellation of the delegation’s trip to the Swiss Alps “out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay”.

In Trump’s absence, Brazil’s new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, will grab the Davos limelight when he outlines his economic agenda in a keynote address during his first trip abroad since taking office earlier this month.

‘Globalisation 4.0’ 

The week of networking and socialising kicks off on Monday and will feature an eclectic lineup of discussions devoted to issues such as mindful parenting in the digital age, chronic loneliness, and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) without destroying jobs.

It is expected to draw some 3,000 political and business figures, including 65 government leaders from Germany, Israel, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. It begins with a report card on the world economy from the International Monetary Fund.

In a statement, the WEF said it understood the White House reasoning and stressed that other governments together representing one-quarter of global GDP would still be represented.

“With more than 800 participants from the US, including the leaders of top global companies across all sectors based in the US, we feel that the meeting is well placed to be a platform for relevant discussions on Globalisation 4.0,” it said.

That refers to WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s belief that despite the upsurge of angry populism in many countries, a new era of globalisation driven by AI and other technological advances is upon us.

But Schwab, the forum’s 80-year-old executive chairman, also said the elite gathering needs to reflect on the “losers” of globalisation and find ways to look after “those who have been left behind”.

The “left behinds” figured heavily in the anti-establishment wave that in 2016 powered Britain’s referendum decision to quit the European Union. 

Brexit is meant to take effect on March 29. There will be a chill in Davos about the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal in place, after Prime Minister Theresa May’s preferred divorce terms were roundly defeated in parliament.

May will be another Davos no-show as she tries to unpick the deadlock in London, but International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will make the trip to try to sell a post-Brexit future for Britain.

Another absentee is President Emmanuel Macron, who has been grappling with French-style populism in the form of the “yellow vest” movement.

“With Brexit, trade wars and populism — politics is totally driving the Davos discussion this year when usually it’s economics that drives the politics. Amazing times,” a senior European diplomat told AFP.

War on corruption 

In advance of the meetings, a WEF survey this week found the Davos community worried most about climate change among sources of political and economic anxiety. 

The survey highlighted fears of extreme weather patterns and the risk of disruption in an array of sectors including transport and logistics. On cue, heavy snowfall and deadly avalanches have hit the Alps this week, cutting off the train line to Davos at one point.

But like Trump, Bolsonaro is a climate change sceptic. His pro-business agenda and appointment of a like-minded rightwinger as environment minister have done nothing to ease concerns about deforestation in the Amazon.

The new leader of Latin America’s largest economy will speak in Davos on Tuesday. He has vowed to showcase “a different Brazil, free of ideological ties and widespread corruption”.

Bolsonaro has also echoed Trump in bashing China, even as the world’s second-biggest economy boosts Brazilian farm imports — sourced in part from cleared Amazon lands — as an alternative to US commodities in the midst of Trump’s trade war.

“Bolsonaro’s history doesn’t suggest he’s going to be a fervent adopter of the World Economic Forum’s mantra of cross-border, stakeholder cooperation”, Douglas Rediker, chairman of International Capital Strategies in Washington, said in a phone interview.

However, Bolsonaro will be accompanied by his US-educated economy minister, Paulo Guedes, who speaks the kind of investment-friendly language that is music to Davos ears.