Dynamic Business brings you a daily rundown of the most recent business news and developments from Australia and around the world. Here’s the roundup for July 28:
Australia’s property boom continues, but surge tipped to slow next year
Homeowners are cheering the ongoing surge in residential property prices but it’s seriously discouraging first home buyers, particularly in NSW, where median values are highest in the nation and are still rising.
According to the latest CoreLogic monthly property values data, dwelling prices surged 13.5 per cent nationally over the year to June 30.
Labor vows to keep tax cuts for wealthy Australians
Billions of dollars in tax relief for wealthy Australians is locked-in regardless of who wins the next election, with federal Labor officially vowing to support the final stage of tax cuts after months of internal party debate.
The stage-3 tax cuts will see everyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000 paying 30 per cent in tax from 2024.
The changes scrap the 37 per cent tax bracket for those earning above $120,000, making those earners the biggest winners from the cuts.
China tariffs hit Australian wine exports
China’s anti-dumping duties will end imports of Australian bottled wine, rendering the Chinese market unviable in the near term, new research has found.
The latest report on the wine sector from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Science says the Chinese tariffs, imposed for five years, have already seriously disrupted Australia’s wine trade.
Only about 60 per cent of wine destined for China would find a place in Australia’s existing markets by 2025 unless efforts were made to find new buyers or to do things differently.
Covid-19 ‘could cost global economy $4.5 trillion’, says IMF
The world economy risks losing $4.5 trillion from highly infectious variants of Covid-19 spreading through poor countries where vaccination rates are lower, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
Calling on rich countries to take urgent action to share at least 1bn doses with developing nations, the IMF said the gap between rich and poor economies had widened during the pandemic and risked worsening further next year.
Bitcoin jumps on speculation that Amazon considering cryptocurrency
Bitcoin’s price surged again after speculation that Amazon may be entering the cryptocurrency sector after it posted a job seeking a digital currency and blockchain product lead.
Bitcoin jumped more than 14 per cent in the past 24 hours, nearly reaching US$40,000 per unit before settling closer to US$37,000.
The five-week intra-day high reached Monday comes after a long slide where it dipped under US$30,000 from an April high of nearly $65,000.
Jeff Bezos offers NASA $2.71 billion to secure moon-landing contract
Jeff Bezos has offered to pay up to US$2 billion in expenses if NASA awards Blue Origin space the contract to build a spacecraft for a proposed moon-landing mission as early as 2024.
In April 2021, the agency gave the US$2.9 billion deal to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, rejecting a bid from Blue Origin and defence contractor Dynetics at the same time.
Tesla’s profit hit more than $1 billion in second quarter
Tesla netted a record $1.1 billion in profit during the second quarter. That’s more than double the $438 million it made in the first quarter, and more than 10 times the net income it reported a year ago.
So how did Tesla do it?
- Car sales: Tesla produced and delivered more than 200,000 vehicles during the second quarter, an all-time high.
- Reduced costs: The company slashed costs at its factories, boosting its operating margin to 11%.
India’s Byju’s on an acquisition spree
Online learning platform Byju’s is on an acquisition spree as the industry is moving toward consolidation amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of schools and colleges.
India’s highest-valued startup has acquired Singapore-based professional education platform Great Learning and school learning app Toppr for US$600 million and $150 million respectively, according to media reports.
IMF slashes India’s FY22 growth to 9.5% from 12%
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slashed India’s growth forecast for FY22 to 9.5% from its previous projection of 12.5% citing the severe second Covid-19 wave during March-May.
The global growth forecast remained unchanged at 6% for the calendar 2021 as upgrades in the developed world were offset by downgrades in several countries that experienced renewed waves, notably India.
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