Nintendo profits surge on weaker yen and smartphone success January 31, 2017 The falling yen, the sale of a baseball team, and Pokemon Go revenue, have all offset a decline in sales at the games giant Nintendo. The Japanese firm reported profits of 64.7bn yen (£456m) in the final quarter of last year. Nintendo’s profit outlook almost has almost doubled this year, and it is now expecting [...]
Londoners invited to invest in Libya January 26, 2017 Libyan businessmen and governmental officials are in London today seeking investment in the country’s key industries. The Libya Reconstruction and Investment Forum is being held at Lancaster House, a government-owned mansion in St James’s operated by the Foreign Office. Oil, healthcare and infrastructure will be among the sectors where Libyans will be looking for foreign [...]
Apprentices match university counterparts for happiness and life satisfaction January 26, 2017 School leavers who choose an apprenticeship over further education are just as “satisfied with life” as people who go to university, a new study has found. 9,500 young people were examined as part of a research project conducted by UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study concluded that there is [...]
Whitehall looks for private sector bidder to give civil servants lessons in international trade lingo ahead of Brexit negotiations January 26, 2017 Civil servants will be given a crash course in the language of international trade ahead of the UK’s departure from the European Union. Whitehall officials are looking for a private sector bidder to deliver training across government on “the key areas and terminology of international trade policy”, according to a new tender document published this [...]
St Helena aims for tourism boost despite airport woes January 25, 2017 It became famous in the 1800s as the home of the exiled French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, but in recent times St Helena has attracted more attention for the cost of its new airport. Last year it was revealed that the Department for International Development had spent £285 million on an airport at a site that [...]
No haggis for Trump as 45-year import ban remains in force January 25, 2017 Not even half-Scottish US President Donald Trump will be able to tuck into an authentic haggis this year as the 45-year ban on haggis imports continues. Trump will be amongst the roughly 10 million Americans that claim Scottish heritage deprived of their national dish on the 258th birthday of Robert Burns. The US Department for [...]
Scotch whisky contributes £5bn to UK economy January 25, 2017 The UK’s burgeoning scotch industry supports around 40,000 jobs in the country and exports £4bn in goods every year. New figures from the Scotch Whisky Association suggests that the UK’s trade deficit, which current stands at £115bn, would be 3 per cent larger, without the contribution from scotch. The association gave the scotch industry a positive [...]
HMRC in £468m small business tax haul January 23, 2017 Local compliance teams investigating small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) brought in substantial extra revenue to the taxman last year. HMRC has shifted its resources away from large businesses and towards SMEs, which they estimate represent 51 per cent of the country’s “tax gap”, the difference between the amount of tax collected and the amount [...]
Brace for “hard rebalancing” of UK economy in 2017 January 23, 2017 The fall in the pound will result in a “significant readjustment” of the UK economy away from consumer spending and towards exports, regardless of the results of the Brexit negotiations. Economists at Ernest & Young says UK exports will increase by as much as 3.3 per cent this year, and 5.2 per cent in 2018, [...]
Is there still a future for hydrogen power? January 22, 2017 As sales of battery-powered cars continue to climb, and charging stations appear across the country, hydrogen power seems to have dropped off the agenda in recent years. But while it may not be powering the Teslas, i3s and LEAFs on sale today, the companies behind the development of hydrogen fuel cells are yet to give [...]
