Business
South Korean Carmakers See October Sales Slump Amid Holidays, Production Losses
 "South Korean Carmakers See October Sales Slump Amid Holidays, Production Losses")
Seoul: South Korea’s major automakers, including Hyundai Motor, Kia Corp., and GM Korea, on Monday reported a drop in their October sales as fewer working days during the Chuseok holiday and production disruptions weighed on output. Industry data released showed overall declines across leading carmakers, with only KG Mobility managing a modest gain on the back of stronger overseas demand.
Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea’s biggest carmaker, said its global sales in October dropped 6.9 per cent from a year earlier, weighed down by fewer working days at home due to last month’s Chuseok holiday.
Hyundai Motor sold 351,753 vehicles last month, down from 377,917 units a year earlier, the company said in a release.
Domestic sales slumped 17.1 per cent to 53,822 units, while overseas sales went down 4.8 per cent to 297,931, reports Yonhap news agency.
Kia Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, said that its sales fell 0.5 per cent in October from a year earlier due to decreased domestic sales.
Kia, a smaller affiliate of local industry leader Hyundai Motor Co., sold 263,904 vehicles in October, down from 265,344 units in the same month of last year, the company said in a press release.
Domestic sales tumbled 13.1 per cent to 40,001 units from 46,025, while overseas sales rose 2.1 percent to 223,014 from 218,389 over the same period.
GM Korea Co., the South Korean unit of General Motors Co., said that its monthly sales declined 20.8 per cent in October from a year earlier amid recent production losses in connection with this year’s wage negotiations.
The company sold 39,630 vehicles last month, down from 50,021 units a year ago, GM Korea said in a release.
Domestic sales fell 39.5 per cent on-year to 1,194 units from 1,974, while exports dropped 20 per cent to 38,436 units from 48,047.
Renault Korea Motors, the South Korean unit of France’s Renault S.A., said that its sales fell 42 per cent in October from a year earlier due to weaker demand for its models.
The company sold 7,201 vehicles last month, down from 12,456 units a year earlier, it said in a press release.
Domestic sales dropped 40 per cent to 3,810 units from 6,395, while exports tumbled 44 per cent to 3,391 from 6,061 over the cited period.
Meanwhile, KG Mobility Corp. said its October sales edged up around 3 per cent from a year earlier thanks to a boost in overseas shipments.
The South Korean automaker sold 9,517 vehicles in October, up 2.9 per cent from the 9,245 units sold the same month last year, the company said in a release.
 "EPFO Employee Enrollment Scheme 2025 Launched: Here’s What It Means For You")
Jennifer Meierhans,Business reporter and
Henry Zeffman,Chief political correspondent
PA MediaChancellor Rachel Reeves has said she will make “necessary choices” in the Budget after the “world has thrown more challenges our way”.
Her Downing Street speech did not rule out a U-turn on Labour’s general election manifesto pledge not to hike income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
When journalists explicitly asked if the government was set to break that pledge she did not answer directly but said she was “setting the context for the Budget”.
Ahead of the speech, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride dubbed it an “emergency press conference”, adding “higher taxes are on the way” and called for Reeves to be sacked if she “breaks her promises yet again”.
If there was any doubt about tax rises before this speech, there isn’t now.
Yet Reeves repeatedly refused to get into the specifics of which taxes might go up.
Instead she began the work of explaining why a year after delivering a tax-raising Budget and vowing not to come back for more, she is in fact coming back for more.
The chancellor said she would do what is necessary, not what is popular.
The reasons she gave were poor productivity, for which she blamed Conservative government policy including Brexit, austerity and short-sighted decisions to cut infrastructure spending, persistently high global inflation and the uncertainty unleashed by Donald Trump’s tariffs.
In short, Reeves’ argument is that the failings of others are being visited upon this government, and that it falls to her to confront decisions her predecessors ducked.
She pledged to come up with a “Budget for growth with fairness at its heart” aimed at bringing down NHS waiting lists, the national debt and the cost of living.
“It is important that people understand the circumstances we are facing, the principles guiding my choices – and why I believe they will be the right choices for the country,” she said.
There are some in government who want this to be a one-and-done Budget, in that they do not want to come back again and again every year, eking out a bit more money in tax to meet the requirements of the independent forecast.
That is seen as an argument for raising billions of pounds through increasing at least one of the income tax rates.
However, no chancellor has increased the basic rate in 50 years and it would be a big risk politically, especially with public trust in politics in general, and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in particular, so low.
There is also the question of whether the prime minister and chancellor could land the argument that none of this was foreseeable before last year’s Budget.
The message from Reeves echoed comments made by Sir Keir to a group of Labour MPs on Monday night.
He told those gathered that the Budget would be “a Labour Budget built on Labour values” and that the government would “make the tough but fair decisions to renew our country and build it for the long term”.
It comes as the Resolution Foundation, which has close links to Labour and was previously run by Treasury minister Torsten Bell, said avoiding changes to VAT, NI or income tax “would do more harm than good”.
Hiking income tax would be the “best option” for raising cash, it said, but suggested it should be offset by a 2p cut to employee national insurance, which would “raise £6 billion overall while protecting most workers from this tax rise”.
Extending the freeze in personal tax thresholds for two more years beyond April 2028 would also raise £7.5 billion, its pre-Budget analysis suggested.
The government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), is widely expected to downgrade its productivity forecasts for the UK at the end of the month. That could add as much as £20bn to the amount the chancellor will need to find if she is to meet her self-imposed “non-negotiable” rules for government finances.
The two main rules are:
- Not to borrow to fund day-to-day public spending by the end of this parliament
- To get government debt falling as a share of national income by the end of this parliament
The Treasury declined to comment on “speculation” ahead of the OBR’s final forecast, which will be published on 26 November alongside the Budget.
However, the chancellor confirmed last week that both tax rises and spending cuts are options as she aims to give herself “sufficient headroom” against future economic shocks.
Reeves said in her speech on Tuesday that her commitment to her fiscal rules was “iron-clad”.
The Resolution Foundation urged the chancellor to use the Budget to give herself more fiscal headroom, meaning how much leeway she has to increase spending or cut taxes without being forced to break her own rules.
After the last Budget, Reeves had £9.9bn of headroom – but the think tank said subsequent policy U-turns and changes in the economic outlook have turned that into a £4bn black hole.
The group said Reeves should double the level of headroom to £20bn in order to “send a clear message to markets that she is serious about fixing the public finances, which in turn should reduce medium-term borrowing costs and make future fiscal events less fraught”.
Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said there was a “strong case” to increase fiscal headroom.
The think tank said the lack of a bigger buffer created instability, and could leave the chancellor “limping from one forecast to the next”.
BP has said it is ramping up overhaul efforts with aims to sell off more parts of the business and strip out further costs as it posted a smaller-than-feared drop in quarterly profits.
The oil giant reported underlying replacement cost profits, the group’s preferred earnings measure, of 2.21 billion US dollars (£1.68 billion) for the three months to September 30.
This was 3% lower than a year earlier, and 6% down on the previous quarter, but better than the 2.02 billion US dollars (£1.54 billion) expected by most analysts.
Murray Auchincloss, chief executive of BP, said: “We are looking to accelerate delivery of our plans, including undertaking a thorough review of our portfolio to drive simplification and targeting further improvements in cost performance and efficiency.”
The energy giant recently revealed a major cost-cutting drive, with thousands of roles to be axed as it comes under pressure to boost profits.
BP has also been selling off parts of the business to raise cash and said it now expects proceeds from divestment in 2025 to be more than four billion US dollars (£3.05 billion) and completed or announced asset sale agreements to reach around five billion US dollars (£3.81 billion) this year.
Mr Auchincloss said: “There is much more to do but we are moving at pace, and demonstrating that BP can and will do better for our investors.”
BP group said it would buy back another 750 million US dollars (£572 million) before reporting full-year figures, in line with the buybacks seen in the third quarter.
The business earlier this year unveiled a new growth strategy focused on extracting more oil and gas, pivoting away from a focus on green energy and heavily reducing spending on renewables.
It has come under pressure from shareholders to boost profits and cut costs, with activist investor Elliott Management recently taking a 5% stake in the group.
In August, it revealed it expects 6,200 jobs to go – about 15% of its office-based workforce – which is higher than the 4,700 cuts announced at the start of the year, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) to help drive cost efficiencies.
BP also said at the time it had already slashed 3,200 contractor roles since January, with another 1,200 to go by the end of 2025.
The third-quarter figures come after fellow FTSE 100 oil giant Shell also saw profits fall amid lower oil prices, although Shell likewise saw profits come in higher than expected, amid a boost from higher sales volumes and trading margins.
Benchmark Brent crude average prices fell 13% year-on-year in the third quarter.
BP’s half-year results in August showed profits tumbled by nearly a third as weaker oil prices weighed on earnings, although it posted a better-than-expected performance for the second quarter.
On Tuesday, it said its customers and products division was helped by higher refining margins, with better-than-expected profit before interest and tax of 1.72 billion US dollars (£1.31 billion), up from 381 million US dollars (£290 million) last year.
Business
Vande Bharat sleeper: What issues have been flagged by Railway Ministry in the first train? Top things to know – The Times of India
Vande Bharat sleeper train: Indian Railways is aiming to launch the first Vande Bharat sleeper train in the coming months, but ahead of its launch the Ministry of Railways has highlighted concerns regarding the quality of furnishings and craftsmanship.Vande Bharat sleeper train will be a variant of the chair car air-conditioned service, aimed at long-distance travel on the Indian Railways network. The Vande Bharat sleeper trains are expected to offer a premium passenger experience, better than Rajdhani Express trains. The first ten trainsets are being manufactured by BEML, in collaboration with ICF Chennai.Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said that two rakes of Vande Bharat sleeper trains will be launched together.
Vande Bharat sleeper train: What are the issues?
According to a PTI report, in a recent written correspondence to the Director General, Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) and General Managers across railway zones, the Railway Board identified several deficiencies.“There are issues related to furnishing and workmanship at many places in respect of sharp edges and comers at berthing area, window curtain handles, pigeon pockets between berth connectors inviting cleaning issues etc,” the Board said.The Board emphasised that remedial actions are essential for the present rake, whilst also stating that design enhancements would be required for subsequent rakes.The Railway Ministry has instructed zones to comply with all RDSO-specified conditions for operations reaching speeds of 160 kmph.Officials explained the authorisation procedure, stating that after RDSO obtains final CCRS approval for new train designs, CCRS forwards the matter to the Railway Ministry for operational clearance.“The CCRS during trial conveys its observations to the RDSO for compliance. In the case of the Vande Bharat Sleeper Train, the RDSO sent its updated compliance on September 1, 2025,” officials said.Officials noted that since the Vande Bharat Sleeper Train’s route remains undecided, the Ministry distributed its letter dated October 28 across all zones.The Ministry has emphasised adherence to several requirements, including fire safety protocols, installation of Kavach 4.0, establishment of reliable communication between loco pilots, train managers and station masters, and proper brake system maintenance.The railway authorities instructed regional divisions to train engine drivers for emergency uncoupling of semi-permanent couplers within 15 minutes, ensuring essential tools are included in the driver and guard equipment sets.“Suitable setting of temperature inside coaches shall be maintained to ensure comfortable conditions to passengers, considering ambient conditions and frequent opening & closing of doors,” they specified.The Ministry emphasised the importance of having trained technical personnel available to address any operational difficulties and emergencies during the journey.“Regular announcements shall be made through the PA system informing all persons other than passengers to disembark from the train before its departure. Also, pre-recorded Passenger safety announcements in three languages (Regional, Hindi & English) should be made during the run to sensitize passengers about personal safety norms to be observed during travel,” according to the directive.Additionally, the Ministry instructed regional divisions to assign skilled and dedicated personnel for Vande Bharat Sleeper Trainset maintenance, whilst ensuring sufficient spare parts and consumables are readily available.
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