NOW CREDIT UNIONS TURN AWAY SAVINGS - Credit unions are turning away cash and asking members to reduce their savings balances to as low as €25,000.
High numbers of members are saving with credit unions rather than banks, but not enough are taking out loans. An additional €800m was saved in the State's 286 credit unions last year, taking the total for the three million members to €13.3 billion. For every €100 in savings, €10 has to be put into the reserves. But the money that goes into the reserves comes from profits made on loans, writes the Irish Independent. Rathfarnham Credit Union asked its members to reduce their saving balances to €50,000 last year and is considering lowering that cap to just €25,000 this year. Capital Credit Union, which emerged from the merger of Dundrum and Sandymount in Dublin, is restricting new savings to €30,000 per member. Existing members with savings above this amount will not be asked to reduce their balance. St Anthony's and Claddagh Credit Union in Galway is imposing a cap of €70,000 per member for new savings. There was fury when the Central Bank imposed a limit of €100,000 in savings per member two years ago. The Central Bank acknowledged that credit unions are restricted on where they can invest surplus cash.
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TOURISM IRELAND WARNS UK-IRELAND AIR CAPACITY TO FALL 4% - As the Irish tourism industry shapes up this week to capitalise on the global promotional opportunity of St Patrick's Day, Tourism Ireland is warning that its latest research shows Brexit will hit Ireland-UK air capacity this summer.
Niall Gibbons, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, the all-island agency responsible for marketing Ireland abroad, said it had acquired figures "hot off the press" that were raising "concern" over Irish-UK capacity. Mr Gibbons said Tourism Ireland regularly conducted inventory surveys with all airlines flying into Ireland, which count how many available seats there are on scheduled routes servicing the State, says the Irish Times. "The latest inventory figures indicate that there will be 4% less UK capacity coming into Ireland this season," he said. "That is a concern no matter what way you look at it." He also warned over the future impact of recent cuts in its budget for marketing Ireland as a tourism destination abroad. "The budget has been cut 45% in recent years. We know that [because of this] our share of voice is declining internationally." Mr Gibbons said Ireland had fallen from the second most-recalled destination in Britain to number nine since the cuts had been implemented, while it was down from number one to number five in France.
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NORTHERN IRELAND MOTORISTS CONTRIBUTE €230m IN TAX - Cross-border fuel trade is worth €230m annually to the Exchequer as thousands of motorists from the North avail of cheaper petrol and diesel in the Republic.
A major new study indicates that it contributes over 7% of all tax receipts from motor fuel consumption in the Republic but has a negative impact on the Republic’s greenhouse gas emissions. It also found stations close to the border have considerably higher-than-expected levels of sales, particularly of diesel, says the Irish Examiner. Motorists from the North contribute around €202m in excise duty, carbon tax and Vat on sales of diesel and a further €28m in petrol sales. The joint study by the Economic and Social Research Institute, Revenue and Trinity College Dublin, said the elevated levels of fuel tourism for diesel might partly be attributable to heavy goods vehicles and vans which avail of cheaper prices near the border before they start long-distance journeys onto Britain and mainland Europe. Overall, sales of diesel in the Republic since 2010 have increased by 21% while petrol consumption has fallen 27%. The research estimated that stations close to the border sold 54.4% more diesel and 14.6% more petrol than an otherwise identical station located in another part of the Republic.
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SOARING REVENUES FOR CHINESE INVESTORS IN UK DEFLECT FEARS OF END TO 'GOLDEN ERA' - Chinese holdings in the UK have seen revenues soar in the past two years, deflecting concerns that the "golden era" of China investing in Britain may be drawing to a close.
Despite a slowdown in outward investment from China to the UK - partly stemming from concerns over Brexit and Beijing’s strict clampdown on capital controls - figures show that Chinese-owned companies in Britain have enjoyed triple-digit growth, according to research by Grant Thornton, a UK-based professional services firm. The best-performing 30 companies - which had a combined turnover of £9.8 billion and employ about 20,000 people in the UK - expanded revenues by an average 174% in 2015 against the previous year, according to the Grant Thornton data. Among these, privately-owned Chinese companies outperformed their state-owned counterparts, reporting a 210% increase in revenues against 146%, reports the Financial Times. The study marks the first time that revenues for a representative sample of Chinese-owned companies in the UK have been published. A total of 280 -Chinese-owned companies with revenues in excess of £5m are registered in the UK but only 153 of these had reported earnings for at least two consecutive years by October last year.
