Quote:The world’s largest iPhone factory has offered workers free transport, meals and accomodation in an attempt to ease labour shortages resulting from the coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak. Foxconn Technology, which operates iPhone assembly plants in China, is also reportedly offering bonuses of up to $1,000 in its efforts to lure employees back to work, according to industry sources cited by Digitimes.Coronavirus: World’s biggest iPhone factory offers workers $1,000 bonus and free meals to return to work | The Independent
Quote:Then came the outbreak of Covid-19, which compelled Hong Kong authorities to shut six of the city’s borders with the mainland. Average daily tourist arrivals plunged by 97% to 3,000 in early February from 200,000 a year earlier while many local residents have cut back on all but essential purchases, choking off retail demand. So spooked are commercial real estate landlords by the scale of the slowdown that some have begun providing rental relief to help their tenants weather the storm. Henderson Land Development, the city’s third-largest developer, offered to slash rent by 60% to help out retailers. Hong Kong’s toy billionaire Francis Choi Chee Ming offered to lop 44% off rents at a 15,000 sq ft space at Plaza 2000 in Causeway Bay, after Prada refused to pay HK$9 million in monthly charges.Hong Kong’s Real Estate – Housing, Office & Retail Properties – Face “Tsunami-Like Shocks” | Wolf Street
Keith Wu Shiu-kee, CEO of Sunlight Real Estate Investment Trust, a unit of Henderson Land Development, believes the impact of the virus on retail sales is likely to be far worse than during the protests, noting that in the second half of 2019 at least some tourists from the mainland were still arriving. He estimates that the plunge in total retail sales this year will be “clearly double-digits,” he said. “Whether it is 30%, 40%, or 50%, remains to be seen.”
Quote:To date, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, the main impact of the disease has been on aggregate supply. The Fed’s interest-rate tool is designed to address aggregate demand. So the cause and the cure would appear, on the surface, to be incompatible. The Fed can’t produce parts for automobile manufacturers across the globe that are dependent on intermediate-goods imports from China. It can’t reopen factories in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. It can’t provide needed factory workers for plants in locked-down areas of China. And it can’t create alternate supply chains as a substitute for China’s role as manufacturer to the world.Why the Fed can’t defend the economy against the coronavirus outbreak - MarketWatch