Economy

Ford’s iconic EVs, commercial vehicles and fueled a 10.7 percent sales increase in the first quarter, making Blue Oval America’s best-selling brand.

Sales rose in Ford’s areas of strength, including pickup trucks (up 19.6 percent); Three-row SUV (47.6 percent more); Bronco brand (up 18.3 percent); Ford Pro Transit van (up 86.0 per cent); Mustang (up 5.2 percent) and electric vehicles (up 41.0 percent).

Overall sales of Ford vehicles (Ford Blue, Ford Pro, Model E and Lincoln) totaled 475,906, up 10.1 percent from an estimated share of more than a year ago.

Ford’s electric vehicle sales grew 41.0 percent in the first quarter on sales of 10,866 electric vehicles. F-150 Lightning sales totaled 4,291 trucks with production capacity shares on track to reach an annual production rate of 150,000 this year.

Sales of E-Transit’s Ford Pro, the best-selling electric van in America last year, rose 62.7 percent. Reflecting downtime at the plant for changes to increase production, Mustang Mach-E sales were down.

Ford is America’s No. 1 selling pickup truck manufacturer, with 254,023 trucks and vans sold in the first quarter, surpassing GM truck and van sales by approximately 27,000 vehicles.

Ford’s overall van sales, including vans and vans, rose 19.6 percent on strength from the F-series vans (up 21.1 percent) and the Ford Pro Transit van (86.0 percent more).

To support this push, Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant will add a third team in April to ramp up Ford Pro production of the best-selling Transit and E-Transit vans.

Ford is also ramping up production at manufacturing plants across North America to meet strong customer demand for vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, Bronco Sport and Maverick.

“Ford has had a fast start to the year. Ford’s sales growth and investments are a direct result of strong customer demand in our pickup truck, SUV and electric vehicle segments.

And this year’s highly anticipated new product launches with the Super Duty, Escape, Mustang and Ranger, will only add to this momentum,” said Andrew Frick, vice president of truck and sales distribution.

Ford Explorer was the best-selling midsize three-row SUV in America, and the red-hot Bronco brand saw sales growth of 18.3 percent, including an increase of 37.6 percent for Bronco. Additionally, Expedition sales increased.

BlueCruise, Ford’s driver assistance technology, is now available in 186,000 vehicles; customers have accumulated more than 55 million hands-free miles driven with the technology.

Consumer Reports ranked Ford BlueCruise as the highest rated active driver assistance system.

blockchain media Bitcoin.com and Indian media recently reported that Alexander Babakov, deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma (the House of Commons), declared that the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are discussing the creation of some kind of BRICS currency, which may be some kind ofdigital currencyscheduled to be discussed at the BRICS summit in August.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in New Delhi, India, Babakov said: “Settlement in national currency has been completed. The next step is to provide digital or other forms of new currency. I think the BRICS summit will be ready to announce the new plan. It is currently under preparation.” The August summit will be hosted by South Africa.

Babakov is open to the possibility of a common currency within the BRICS countries, possibly withgoldOr commodities such as rare earth elements are guaranteed.

Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist who coined the term “BRICS,” called this week for the group to continue to expand and challenge the dollar’s dominance.

“The dollar plays a much larger role in global finance than it actually does,” he said in a paper published in the Global Policy Journal. “Whenever the Federal Reserve (Fed) promotes monetary tightening or monetary easing, The dollar value and follow-on effects are always dramatic.” Thus, dollar dominance is a burden for countries whose debt is denominated in dollars.

O’Neill suggested that more emerging countries such as Mexico and Turkey should be opened to join, so that the BRICS group can expand into a fairer global system with multiple currencies, but he reminded that opening new members needs to adopt strict standards, focusing on climate financing, health care and trading.

As early as 2019, it was reported that BRICS members were discussing the creation of some newdigital currencyfor the unified payment system.

Recently, there have been some news related to de-dollarization. Earlier this week, China and Saudi Arabia signed an important oil agreement. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia, acquired a 10% stake in China Rongsheng Petrochemical for US$3.6 billion. Agreed to jointly build an integrated refinery and petrochemical facility in northeast China.

Brazil and China finalized an agreement this week to use their respective currencies directly for trade and financial transactions, representing China’sRMBTransactions will be conducted directly with Brazilian Real, eliminating the need for US dollars as an intermediary.

Unlike previous years, young girls who wear the veil will be admitted to the national examination centers except for those who wear the full veil. The ”Touche pas à mon voile” collective believes that this ban constitutes a “violation” of the rights of young girls.

“We are delighted to know that this year the veil is authorized except for the full one, which is a big step for us. However, we regret that they do not accept the full veil because it remains a violation of the rights of these young girls and women who have decided thanks to their religious conviction to wear the full veil and continue their studies. For us, that a person is excluded from an examination center because of a veil, it is something regrettable”, affirms Mariame Djouldé Barry, in charge of communication of the collective “Touche pas à mon veiled”. .

“We invite the Minister to show more generosity towards these young girls by letting them enjoy their rights. They can be searched by the supervisors before entering the rooms like the other candidates. We do not agree with the cheating and the fact of sending the documents to the centers”, specifies Mariam Djouldé Barry.

To avoid an altercation with the supervisors in certain examination centers, the collective intends in the coming days to popularize the information on the authorization to wear the veil “We intend to popularize the information of the circular note authorizing the veil in the centers so that everyone knows that the wearing of the veil is authorized, that young girls are not arrested for it”.