Get V.I.P. status and 20% discount
on commission and more!

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will step up fiscal spending this year to support its economy, focusing on further cuts in taxes and fees for small firms, finance ministry officials said on Wednesday.

Mounting pressure on the world’s second-biggest economy pushed growth last year to its lowest since 1990 even as Beijing stepped up stimulus measures and spurred banks to lend more.

The government may unveil more fiscal stimulus during the annual parliamentary meeting in March, including bigger tax cuts and more spending on infrastructure projects, economists say.

DAVOS (Reuters) – As businessman and bankers sip their morning coffee in a hotel lobby, admiring the Swiss Alps, a disturbing scene is unfolding in the car park below: men with guns are ordering people onto their knees and stealing their watches.

“A Day in the Life of a Refugee”, an hour-long simulation that aims to give people a taste of being an asylum-seeker, has been held for the past 11 years at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos. Its organizers say it has never been needed more than now.

With anti-immigration policies gaining major support across Western countries, the aid group that runs the simulation wants politicians, officials and chief executives attending Davos to understand the issue from the frightening perspective of a refugee.

“It’s more effective now, the message,” said Sally Begbie, director of Hong Kong-based Crossroads Foundation. “We bring it to Davos because there are people making policy here. We want to give them a brief opportunity to step in a refugee’s shoes.”

Summit organizers have also included refugees in the main program — a long-term resident of a Kenyan refugee camp is a co-chair this year. But beyond Davos, refugee groups say doors are closing, especially in Europe.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate shifted slightly closer on Tuesday to resolving a month-long partial government shutdown, but there was no sign of relief anytime soon for 800,000 federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell laid the groundwork for a vote on Thursday on a Democratic proposal to fund the government for three weeks, without attaching the $5.7 billion in U.S.-Mexico border wall funding demanded by President Donald Trump. The president has opposed similar legislation in the House of Representatives.

McConnell had said previously he would not consider a funding bill that Trump would refuse to sign.

The Senate leader said he would also bring up for a Thursday vote a proposal by Trump to end the shutdown that includes border wall funding and relief for “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the United States as children. The plan was unlikely to pass in the Senate and had even less chance in the Democratic-led House of Representatives.

Democrats have said they would not trade a temporary restoration of the immigrants’ protections from deportation in return for a permanent border wall they view as ineffective. In 2017, Trump moved to end the Dreamers’ protections, triggering a court battle.

But the Senate action could set the stage for the type of bipartisan negotiating that will be necessary to end a shutdown that began on Dec. 22. Americans have largely blamed Trump for the shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As much as U.S. President Donald Trump wants to boost markets through a trade pact with China, he will not soften his position that Beijing must make real structural reforms, including how it handles intellectual property, to reach a deal, advisers say.

Offering to buy more American goods is unlikely by itself to overcome an issue that has bedeviled talks between the two countries. Those talks are set to continue when Chinese Vice Premier Liu He visits Washington at the end of January.

With a March 1 deadline approaching to reach an agreement or risk an escalation of tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, the two sides are still far apart on key, structural elements critical for a deal, according to sources familiar with the talks.

“We’re not yet in a position where our concerns have been addressed sufficiently,” one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said the Trump team, led by hardline U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, was focused on such structural issues as well as trade imbalances.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Reuters that forced technology transfers, IP theft and ownership restrictions remained a top priority for Trump.

“The president’s said many times how crucial that is, and he’s not going to back down,” Kudlow said.

Lack of progress led the Trump administration to decline an in-person meeting with a lower-level Chinese delegation for preparatory talks ahead of Liu He’s visit, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.