Page 25 - ARUBA TODAY

BUSINESS Tuesday 21 January 2020
A25

Startups see a market in renting couches by the month

NEW YORK (AP) — Zacha- women's designer clothing,
riah Mohammed's living and even Netflix and Spo-
room is filled with stuff he tify, which let you stream
doesn't own. from a huge catalog rather
He pays $200 a month for than buy individual TV show
the sofa, side table, bar episodes, movies or songs.
cart, dining table and four "They're moving a lot.
chairs in his living room. It's They're changing jobs a
worth it, the 27-year-old lot," says Thomas Robert-
New Yorker says. If he needs son, a marketing professor
to move, which he's done at the Wharton School of
twice in the last 12 months, the University of Pennsylva-
he won't need to lug a sofa nia, describing the types of
across the city or worry if it people who would use the
will fit in a new place. The services. "Why would you
furniture-rental startup, want to be saddled with
Feather, will swap out items furniture?"
for something else. The furniture-rental com-
"We don't want to be stuck panies target high-income
with a giant couch," says city dwellers who want a
Mohammed, a social me- $1,100 orange love seat
dia manager at a software ($46 a month) or $980 leath- In this Monday, Nov. 25, 2019 photo, Zachariah Mohammed, left, Pete Mancilla, and their dog
company, who lives with er bench ($41 a month) — Remy pose for a picture in their apartment in New York.
his partner and their dog, but only temporarily. The Associated Press
Remy. furniture itself is a step up
Feather, Fernish and other from Ikea. Then he moved to a fur- grow. They offer furniture Switzerland and Belgium.
companies aim to rent fur- "I'm 32 years old and have nished rental apartment in from Crate & Barrel, West Renting may make sense
niture to millennials who lived in 25 different places, Singapore. Elm and smaller brands. for a generation that sees
don't want to commit to big five different countries, 12 "It was probably the first Others are renting out "life as transient," says Hana
purchases or move heavy different cities," says Chan time my adult life that I felt home goods, too. Rent the Ben-Shabat, the founder of
furniture and are willing to Park, who co-founded on- like I was truly at home," Runway recently added Gen Z Planet, a research
pay for the convenience. line furniture rental compa- Park says. West Elm pillows and quilts. and advisory firm that fo-
It's part of a wave of rental ny Oliver Space last year. These startups are in just a Ikea is testing a rental ser- cuses on the generation
culture that includes Rent He constantly bought and handful of coastal cities, vice in several countries born between the late
the Runway, focused on discarded cheap furniture. with few users, but seek to outside the U.S., including 1990s and 2016. q

IMF: Low rates and reduced trade tension to aid world growth

WASHINGTON (AP) — Low global growth this year by to face an array of risks, in- growth this year and next." 2021, partly because the
interest rates and reduced lowering tariffs and improv- cluding the possibility that "We already see some ten- boost that the economy re-
trade tensions will likely ing business confidence. trade tensions will escalate tative signs of stabilization," ceived from President Don-
buoy the global economy The global economy is re- again. And many countries she said. "But we have not ald Trump's 2017 tax cuts
over the next two years bounding from some tem- aren't benefiting from the reached a turning point has been fading.
and help nurture steady if porary stumbles, including modest upswing in growth. yet." China's economy will also
modest growth. a lull in the launch of new Presenting the report at a Even in the United States, continue to decelerate,
That's the view of the Inter- technology products and news conference in Da- the IMF foresees growth the IMF predicts — from
national Monetary Fund, new emissions standards vos, Switzerland, IMF chief slowing from 2.3% in 2019 6.1% last year to 6% in 2020
which foresees world eco- to 2% this year and 1.7% in and 5.8% next year.q
nomic growth accelerating
from 2.9% last year to 3.3%
in 2020 and 3.4% in 2021.
The international economy
is receiving a significant
boost - 0.5 percentage
point of growth last year
and this year - from cen-
tral banks' low-rate policies,
the lending organization
says in a global outlook
report out Monday. The
U.S. Federal Reserve, for
instance, cut rates three
times last year and expects
to keep rates low for the An employee works in a chemical fiber plant in Nantong in
eastern China's Jiangsu Province, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020.
foreseeable future.And an Associated Press
interim trade deal signed
last week by the United
States and China — the that disrupted car produc- Kristalina Georgieva said
world's two biggest econo- tion. that after a slowdown in
mies — is expected to add Still, the IMF warns that the 2019 there should be "a
0.2 percentage point to global economy continues moderate pickup in global