LONDON Asset management giant PIMCO said on Thursday it thought there was a chance China could freely float its currency, the yuan, this year. The firm’s head of Asian portfolios, Luke Spajic, said in a note Beijing was finding it impossible achieve three goals simultaneously: a stable or fixed foreign exchange rate, free capital movement and an independent monetary policy. Combining tighter financial conditions with this policy trilemma […]
Car sales in China are forecast to slow sharply this year as stimulus measures designed to boost demand are set to end. Sales are expected to increase 5 per cent in 2017, a significant drop from growth of 13.7 per cent last year, which was the fastest rate since 2013 despite a broader economic slowdown. Growth in 2016 exceeded expectations due to tax incentives on smaller vehicles, […]
Global investors sold the dollar and sought government bonds and gold on Thursday in the wake of Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration press conference, revealing the first sign of buyers remorse for a reflation rally that has dominated global markets since early November. Mr Trump’s press conference, his first as president-elect, was held in New York’s Trump Tower on Wednesday and was dominated by his ties to Russia, his […]
By Manuel Mogato | MANILA MANILA The Philippines is deferring plans to repair and upgrade features it occupies in the disputed South China Sea, the country’s military chiefs said on Thursday, to avoid provoking China while the two traditional foes seek to bury the hatchet. The Philippines would continue to observe a moratorium on construction in the Spratly islands that it adopted while an international tribunal handled […]
HONG KONG Property developer China Vanke (000002.SZ) (2202.HK), embroiled in a high-profile corporate power tussle for over a year, said on Thursday its No. 2 shareholder China Resources Group is considering a major plan. The country’s second-largest developer said in a statement it had been informed on Wednesday that China Resources and a unit were ‘formulating a major plan involving its holdings in Vanke but are still […]
Having publicly trashed the US economy’s performance during the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has become its most prominent cheerleader. The president-elect has in recent weeks claimed credit for surging consumer confidence, stellar equity prices and stronger end-of-year household spending, arguing there was “no hope” before he arrived on the scene. To Barack Obama’s supporters, claims from Mr Trump that the US was cloaked in economic gloom before […]
Jan 12, 2017 11:45 am IST Amazon.com Inc. pulled doormats emblazoned with the Indian flag from its Canadian website after the South Asian nation’s foreign minister threatened to oust the Seattle company’s employees. “This is unacceptable,” Sushma Swaraj, India’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter Wednesday in response to a posting from a user showing an image of the doormats for sale. Ms. Swaraj, who has 7 million […]
By Gopal Sharma | KATHMANDU KATHMANDU Nepal fired the head of its earthquake reconstruction agency and named his predecessor to the job in a game of musical chairs that critics say is only making conditions worse for the survivors of the 2015 disaster. Thousands of homeless people remain in temporary shelters after the 2015 quakes that left 9,000 people dead and destroyed more than 626,000 homes, monuments […]
TAIPEI Taiwan objected on Thursday to a Nigerian request to the island to relocate its representative office in the African country, a request Taiwan sees as more pressure by China to isolate it. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and to be taken back by force if necessary, especially if it makes moves toward independence. Taiwan has no diplomatic ties with Nigeria, […]
Rex Tillerson has set the stage for a major diplomatic clash between Washington and Beijing after the nominee for US secretary of state said China should not be allowed to access islands it has built in the South China Sea. At his confirmation hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Mr Tillerson said China’s construction of artificial islands in the contested sea was “akin […]
The year-long mobile share tug-of-war between Apple and Android is far spicier now than it was this time last year, according to the latest data from Kantar. For the three months ending November 30, iOS saw a 3 percentage point increase to 43.5 percent in the United States compared to October’s numbers, and a large jump on the 37 percent reported a year ago. A similar pattern […]
By Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson expressed views on Wednesday at odds with President-elect Donald Trump’s positions on key foreign policy issues like nuclear proliferation, trade deals, climate change and relations with Mexico. In a nine-hour Senate confirmation hearing, the former chief executive of oil company Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) said he favoured maintaining U.S. sanctions against Russia for […]
Airbus posted an eight percent rise in deliveries last year, beating its own forecasts by a comfortable margin to set a company record, and pulled off a last-minute surge in orders to beat arch-rival Boeing in the race for new orders. Confirming an estimate published by Reuters, the European planemaker said on Wednesday it delivered 688 aircraft in 2016, compared with an official company forecast of more […]
On Wall Street, Donald Trump’s election win spelt pain for the dollar and stock markets right up until the moment he began his acceptance speech in the early hours of November 9 at the New York Hilton. Then the dollar began a trough-to-peak surge that would leave it up almost 3 per cent, a performance only bettered in 2016 on the day after the Brexit vote. S&P […]
BEIJING China is set to consolidate five state media companies to create a “modern financial media group” to increase the state’s voice in economic and financial news coverage, the state-run Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. Since taking power in 2012, President Xi Jinping, who has called for Beijing to take a bigger role in a global governance system, has stepped up media control and scrutiny to […]
Wednesday 08:30 GMT Overview European stocks and US index futures are lacking momentum, while government bond yields see minimal moves, as traders appear wary of making bold bets ahead of a press conference later in the day from US president-elect Donald Trump. The dollar is steady against the euro but the Turkish lira has hit another record low. Industrial commodity prices mostly are holding recent gains. Hot […]
Alibaba wants to transform the retail sector with a US$2.6 billion buyout that it says will break down the barriers between offline and online. The Chinese e-commerce giant said its investment unit was working with Intime Retail’s founder, Shen Guo Jun, to take the department store chain private with a projected HK$19.8 billion (US$2.6 billion). The funds would be raised through internal cash and external debt financing. […]
By Engen Tham and Samuel Shen | SHANGHAI SHANGHAI China’s forex regulator is telling banks to keep its instructions about curbing capital outflows secret and to ensure that research analysts keep any negative views about the yuan’s prospects to themselves, several bankers said. Both demands are seen as an attempt by the authorities to prevent alarm that could trigger further declines in the yuan, the bankers from […]
Tata Group plans to set up a regional office in South Korea and build a datacentre, reports ChosunBiz. India’s biggest conglomerate is likely preparing for the rise of the connected cars industry in Korea, the report said. Tata Teleservices will set up the office within the month and register as a telco business by March, it said. Tata Group, dubbed “India’s Samsung” by the Korean press, has […]
Jan. 10, 2017 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates– (BUSINESS WIRE/ME NewsWire) GMO GlobalSign K.K., a leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions and one of the longest established Certificate Authorities in the world, today announced the inauguration of its new office in Dubai. The local entity, GMO GlobalSign FZ-LLC, based in Dubai Internet City, is strategically located to cater to further strengthen GlobalSign’s presence in Asia, particularly […]
The Middle East has given McLaren Automotive, the British manufacturer of luxury sports and supercars, good reason to get revved up with sales soaring last year. Its Middle East, Africa and central and South America region grew by an impressive 69 per cent last year, as the company posted another record year of sales growth. From offices in Dubai, McLaren has expanded into Abu Dhabi. “We continue […]
In a dramatic example of blowback against the establishment in the post-Trumpian world, Hungary announced it plans to crack down on non-governmental organizations linked to billionaire George Soros now that Donald Trump will occupy the White House, according to the deputy head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party, cited by Bloomberg. The European Union member, and native country of Soros, will use “all the tools at its […]
Apple CEO Tim Cook touring a Foxconn facility. While Apple isn’t Foxconn’s only partner, it’s the biggest. (Image: File photo) Key iPhone supplier Foxconn Technology Group has posted its first annual sales decline since it went public in 1991, thanks to slowing sales of the iPhone, according to Nikkei. For full year 2016, Foxconn posted revenues of roughly $136.38 billion, down 2.81 percent from a year ago. […]
Since the start of the 21st century the South American nation of Suriname, population 540,000, has been riding a commodity boom that yielded major benefits for a country rich in bauxite, gold, oil and bananas. From 2000 to 2014, annual per capita income more than quintupled to almost $10,000. Child mortality fell by a third. A child born there today can expect to live to 70, up […]
