For a while yet if in the future at all, pointing to an unstable global Food Supply Pressurised by the war in ukraine. Now the price of food in the uk rose by nearly 17. 5 in the year tojune, which was actually a fall from a high of just over 19 in the year to march, following an overall drop in the wholesale price of food which you can see here peaking when russia invaded ukraine last year. It has been trending downwards. But prices are still much higher than before the war and have started creeping up again. Lets discuss this with Kona Haque Head of reserach at commodities house ed and f man holdings. Good to have you on the programme. Do you agree with the Chief Economist at the Bank Of England that actually high food prices are here to stay . I think at least for the sure term we still have got some pressures that will keep prices elevated. The factors globally, the stocks, global stocks of the stocks, global stocks of the grains, the staples such as grains and oils, and sugar, the
I mean, these figures for trade are actually even worse than economists had anticipated in terms of exports. Its the weakest data since back in february 2020, when china, of course, was right in the thick of the pandemic. Why is this data so bad . Well, its mainly to do with chinas customers abroad. Theyre really struggling with high inflation, high Interest Rates. So theyre spending less money on chinese goods. And if youre a policymaker in beijing, well, its difficult to say what you should do about that. You cantjust force other countries to start buying more of your goods. But theres also more to contend with. If you look at the spending within china, thats also looking not very encouraging at the moment. Tomorrow, were expecting some more figures to be coming out, which will probably show Deflation Prices actually going down in china. Thats a bit more difficult to explain. But there are some people who think that chinas Zero Covid Policy went on for so long that customers just are
the german shipping line hapag lloyd has said in the last couple of hours that it will continue to avoid the area for at least another week. it made the decision after another ship belonging to its rival maersk was attacked over the weekend. in that attack, houthi rebels based in yemen hit the ship with a missile and tried to climb aboard before the us navy intervened and sank the rebels four boats killing the crew in the process. the us military says there have been at least 23 attacks since mid november on a route that acconts for about 12% of global trade and which is now being avoided by several of the world s biggest shipping companies. let s unpack the latest on this with peter sand, chief analyst at the shipping analytics platform xeneta. thanks forjoining us. does this latest development suggests tha things are getting worse rather than better? you are hitting the nail on the head. we can see that from the direct developments on the platform where an essential
china is the world s largest car market, and whilst tesla generates most of its money from its electric car business, boss elon musk has committed to grow its solar energy and battery business to roughly the same size. here s mariko with the details from singapore. it is quite a big deal because of course, tesla already has that huge plant in shanghai to make electric cars, so it is basically increasing its investment in china. the fact that this announcement came when tensions between washington and beijing are quite high, that is quite interesting. as you said, this is a mega factory, to produce mega packs. they are basically very large batteries that can store energy, so that they can help stabilise the power grid and also prevent outages. now, of course, many of our viewers associate tesla with those electric cars and that is where the company generates most of its money from. but the company s boss, elon musk, is very keen to also grow its solar energy and battery busine
welcome to bbc news. we begin in northern ireland, which is marking 25 years since the signing of the good friday agreement. the historic peace deal largely ended decades of violence in northern ireland. but prime minister rishi sunak says efforts must be intensified to restore the power sharing government that was central to the deal. it collapsed in the fall out from brexit, and now the political dysfunction and security concerns are threatening to overshadow the historic milestone. from belfast, laura cullen reports. it took 22 months of talks to largely end three decades of conflict. through it all, these leaders kept their sense of purpose. and in the end, they delivered an agreement that s fair and balanced and offers hope for the people of northern ireland. the agreement was based on the idea of cooperation between communities, and set up a new government representing both nationalists and unionists. a copy of it went to every household in northern ireland, and almost