City Many Financial News

Bellagio, Lake Como, Italy — When boat drivers start complaining about the tourists overrunning this famous lakeside resort, where Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce stayed at the Villa Sola Cabiati in Tremezzo two weeks ago after her series of Paris concerts, you know you have a problem. 

Many cities around the world see clean and efficient public transport as a crucial way to lower their carbon emissions

China, where marriages are traditionally elaborate, expensive affairs, but the industry estimated at almost $500 billion is now facing a bigger threat: a plunge in the number of couples willing to tie the knot. The trend, which has become more obvious as the economy weakens and consumer confidence wanes, is also worrying officials trying to revive marriage, and birth, rates which dropped to record lows last year, leading to the first decline in population numbers in 60 years. «The number of marriages is falling and few are willing to spend a lot on weddings,» said Yuan Jialiang, who ran a full-scale wedding planning business for almost a decade in Shanghai before switching to focus on wedding photography before the pandemic. «The future of this industry doesn't look promising.» There were 6.8 million marriages across China last year, 800,000 fewer than in 2021 and the lowest since the government began publishing the data in 1986. This drop in marriage registrations will exacerbate the decline in births in China, now one of the world's fastest-ageing societies.

Pay is rising for many public sector employees as governments try to compete for new workers and stem a tide of retirements and resignations