29/07/2025

BIZ & FINANCE TUESDAY | JULY 29, 2025

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US and EU avert trade war with 15% tariff deal

India’s TCS to cut 12,000 jobs

MUMBAI: Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services said on Sunday it will cut around 2% of its global workforce, or about 12,000 jobs, as demand contracts in the sector it leads. The software services firm – India’s largest by market cap – said the reductions would mainly affect employees in middle and senior roles and would be rolled out over the course of this year. TCS employs 613,000 people worldwide, and the IT services sector is one of India’s biggest employers and revenue earners. The company said the move was part of efforts to become a “future-ready” organisation as it enters new markets and scales up its use of artificial intelligence. “As part of this journey, we will also be releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible,”TCS said in a statement. It said the restructuring was being carried out with“due care”to avoid disruption to client services. After TCS’s June-quarter revenue fell short of expectations, CEO K Krithivasan said this month that “continued global macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainties caused a demand contraction”. IT services are the most visible part of India’s modern economy and historically one of its biggest white-collar job creators, driving the expansion of the middle class. But a slowdown in the sector has seen hundreds of thousands of new graduates struggle to find work. – AFP Dubai’s financial centre registrations rise 32% in H1 DUBAI: The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) said yesterday that company registrations grew 32% in the first half of the year as the financial hub welcomed 1,081 new companies, including asset management firms, hedge funds and family offices. The DIFC said in a statement that the total number of active companies at the Gulf’s largest financial hub sat at 7,700 as of the end of June, up 25% from a year earlier. As Gulf countries diversify their economies away from oil, betting on sectors like financial services, hubs like DIFC have been attracting an increasing number of firms in recent years, lured by lower taxes, ease and clarity of regulations and the presence of some of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds. The number of hedge funds in DIFC grew by 72% to reach a total of 85 at the end of the first half. New entrants included RV Capital and Silver Point Capital, which joined some of the industry’s largest names that had already set up base in Dubai, such as Millenium and Point72. The hub also reported a 19% increase in wealth management firms and a 73% jump in entities associated with family businesses as Dubai continues to attract private wealth. The United Arab Emirates is on track to welcome nearly 10,000 high-net-worth individuals this year, more than any other country in the world, according to wealth migration consultancy Henley and Partners. – Reuters

member states – whose ambassadors, on a visit to Greenland, were updated by the commission on Sunday morning. They were set to meet again after the deal struck in Scotland. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed the deal, saying it avoided “needless escalation in transatlantic trade relations”. But German exporters were less enthusiastic. The powerful BDI federation of industrial groups said the accord would have “considerable negative repercussions” while the country’s VCI chemical trade association said the accord left rates “too high”. Ireland, one of the EU’s top exporters to the United States, said on Sunday it welcomed the deal for bringing “a measure of much-needed certainty”, but that it “regrets” the baseline tariff, in a statement by its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. France’s Minister for Europe Benjamin Haddad wrote on X yesterday that the agreement would provide “temporary stability ... but it is unbalanced”. The EU had pushed for a compromise on steel that could allow a certain quota into the United States before tariffs would apply. Trump appeared to rule that out, saying steel was “staying the way it is”, but the EU chief insisted later that “tariffs will be cut and a quota system will be put in place” for steel. While 15% is much higher than pre-existing US tariffs on European goods, which average around 4.8%, it mirrors the status quo, with companies currently facing an additional flat rate of 10%. Asked what the next deal would be, Trump replied: “This was the big one. This is the biggest of them all.” – AFP

o Trump describes agreement as ‘the biggest of them all’

part of the bloc’s bid to diversify away from Russian sources. Negotiating on behalf of the EU’s 27 countries, von der Leyen had been pushing hard to salvage a trading relationship worth an annual US$1.9 trillion in goods and services. “It’s a good deal,” she told reporters. “It will bring stability. It will bring predictability. That’s very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.” She said bilateral tariff exemptions had been agreed on a number of “strategic products”, notably aircraft, certain chemicals, some agricultural products and critical raw materials. Von der Leyen said the EU still hoped to secure further so-called “zero-for-zero” agreements, notably for alcohol, which she hoped to be “sorted out” in the coming days. Trump also said EU countries – which recently pledged to ramp up their defence spending within Nato – would be purchasing “hundreds of billions of dollars worth of military equipment.” The EU has been hit by multiple waves of tariffs since Trump reclaimed the White House. The bloc is currently subject to a 25% levy on cars, 50% on steel and aluminium, and an across-the-board tariff of 10%, which Washington threatened to hike to 30% in a no-deal scenario. The EU had been pushing hard for tariff carve-outs for critical industries from aircraft to spirits, and its auto industry, crucial for France and Germany, is already reeling from the levies imposed so far. “Fifteen per cent is not to be underestimated, but it is the best we could get,” acknowledged von der Leyen. Any deal will need to be approved by EU

TURNBERRY: The United States and the European Union clinched a trade agreement on Sunday that will see EU exports taxed at 15%, in a bid to resolve a transatlantic tariff stand-off that threatened to explode into a full-blown trade war. US President Donald Trump emerged from a high-stakes meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at his golf resort in Scotland, describing the deal as the “biggest-ever”. The deal, which the leaders reached after an hour of talks, came as the clock ticked down on an Aug 1 deadline to avoid an across-the-board US levy of 30% on European goods. “We’ve reached a deal. It’s a good deal for everybody. This is probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity,” said Trump. Trump said a baseline tariff of 15% would apply across the board, including for Europe’s crucial automobile sector, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. As part of the deal, Trump said the 27-nation EU bloc had agreed to purchase “US$750 billion worth of energy” from the United States, as well as make US$600 billion in additional investments. Von der Leyen said the “significant” purchases of US liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels would come over three years, as

Trump shaking hands with von der Leyen after the announcement of the trade deal in Turnberry. – REUTERSPIC

Heineken reports beer sales dip but keeps profit outlook AMSTERDAM: Dutch brewer

half year, compared with €14.8 billion in the first six months of 2024. This was roughly in line with expectations. The firm said this represented “organic growth” – stripping out the impact of currency fluctuations – of 2.1%. Operating profits excluding exceptional items and amortisation – the firm’s preferred measure – came in at €2 billion, fractionally above expectations. – AFP

for Heineken,” he told reporters. He said the impact of the tariffs – a flat 15% rate for most EU goods into the US – had already been baked into their profit forecasts. Virtually all of its products were manufactured and sold in local markets, so tariffs do not apply, van den Brink said. “As such, the impact for us is manageable,” he said. Heineken said total net sales were €14.2 billion (RM70 billion) in the first

outlook for a gain of between 4% and 8% in operating profits, its preferred metric. Heineken chief executive officer Dolf van den Brink welcomed the deal clinched late on Sunday between the EU and the United States that averted a possible trade war. “I think it’s good that the uncertainty ends that. “Further escalation has been avoided. “We have now clarity going forward

analysts’ forecasts published by the company. “Notable growth in Vietnam, India ... and Mexico was more than offset by declines in Brazil, the US, and parts of Europe,” said the firm in a statement. Heineken stock opened around 1% lower on the Amsterdam market, which was up overall by about the same amount. The company, whose brands include Amstel, Kingfisher, and Savanna cider, maintained its full-year

Heineken sold less beer in the first half of the year, it announced yesterday, as a slump in sales in Europe and the US failed to offset better performance in Asia. Global beer volumes for the world’s second-biggest brewer after AB InBev came in at 116.4 million hectolitres, compared with 118.2 million in the first six months of 2024. This was also below the 117.0 million hectolitres expected in