Sri Lanka records first

deflation in 29 years

COLOMBO: Cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s economy recorded falling consumer prices for the first time in 29 years, official data showed Monday, with the September inflation figure dipping to negative 0.5 percent. Census and Statistics Department data showed price drops in both food and non-food goods contributing to deflation in September, compared to inflation of 0.5 percent in August. Sri Lanka last recorded deflation in March 1995 with a figure of negative 0.9 percent. The previous price fall to that was in 1985, when inflation was negative 2.1 percent. Inflation peaked at 69.8 percent two years ago at the height of an unprecedented economic crisis in the island nation. Acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines led to months of protests that eventually forced then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to temporarily flee the country and resign in July 2022. His successor Ranil Wickremesinghe secured a $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout and raised taxes and prices to stabilize the economy. Wickremesinghe lost office after a presidential election this month. — AFP

Philippines’ Marcos opens

first EV battery plant

MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos inaugurated on Monday the first factory for electric vehicle batteries in the Philippines, calling it the “future” of clean energy. The Australian-owned lithium-iron-phosphate factory aims to produce two gigawatt-hours of batteries per year by 2030, powering about 18,000 electric vehicles or nearly half a million home battery systems. “We have worked very hard and tried to do our best to bring this kind of technology to the Philippines with a clear recognition that this is the future,” Marcos said in a livestreamed speech. “As the first manufacturing plant in the Philippines for advanced iron phosphate batteries ... (it) sets the stage for the Philippines to become a player in clean energy storage in our part of the world.” Located in New Clark city north of Manila, the StB Giga Factory Inc. facility will create 2,500 local jobs and channel five billion pesos ($89.2 million) into the economy each year, Marcos said. — AFP

EU says could continue

China EV talks after tariffs

BRUSSELS: The European Commission is willing to continue negotiating with China a potential deal to avert tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles even after such tariffs are imposed, a senior EU official said on Monday. The Commission, which is conducting an anti-subsidy investigation into EVs made in China, has sent its proposal for final tariffs on such vehicles to the EU’s 27 members advocating levels that it calculated in September, three sources familiar with the matter said. It has set the vote for Friday. At the same time, it included an additional text called a recital stating that talks so far with China had not resolved the dispute over alleged Chinese subsidies, but that negotiations on a possible compromise could continue even if EU countries agree to the tariff rates. — Reuters

The Commission has said it could re-examine a price undertaking — involving a minimum import price and typically a volume cap — having previously rejected those offered by Chinese companies. Commission director-general in charge of trade defense Martin Lucas told the European Parliament on Monday that technical talks with China had intensified to an almost daily basis and could extend beyond the end of October. — Reuters