HONG KONG Carrie Lam, who won an election to become Hong Kong’s first female chief executive on Sunday, said afterwards that her first job is to reduce social tensions. She was chosen from among several candidates by a 1,200-person “election committee” stacked with pro-Beijing and pro-establishment loyalists. Most of Hong Kong’s 7.3 million voters have no say in the choice of leader in the former British colony […]
By James Pomfret and Venus Wu | HONG KONG HONG KONG A Beijing-backed civil servant, Carrie Lam, was chosen to be Hong Kong’s next leader on Sunday amid accusations that Beijing is meddling and denying the financial hub a more populist leader perhaps better able to defuse political tension. The majority of the China-ruled city’s 7.3 million people have no say in deciding their leader, who is […]
HONG KONG Former senior Hong Kong government official Carrie Lam was on Sunday elected the city’s next leader by a 1,200-election committee stacked with Beijing loyalists, according to broadcaster Cable TV. Most of Hong Kong’s 7.3 million voters have no say in the choice of leader in the former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, at a time when tensions with Beijing have been […]
By Alberto Alerigi and Thais Freitas | SAO PAULO SAO PAULO Brazil’s meat exports have fallen sharply since a police investigation into alleged bribery of food-sanitation inspectors in the world’s top beef and poultry exporter sparked a wave of trade bans, an industry group said on Friday. Restrictions by several key importers of Brazilian meat, ranging from China to Europe, caused a 22 percent drop in weekly […]
HONG KONG — Middle-class mainlander Laura Zhang found the idea of owning a home overseas irresistible after being bombarded by commercials for an affordable project “near Singapore”. The Forest City project in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, the subject of the advertisement, is being developed by Country Garden, China’s third-largest home builder. Ms Zhang said she was told that a flat in Forest City, the developer’s […]
Shares in one of China’s largest dairy groups plunged more than 90 per cent on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, knocking $4.1bn from its market capitalisation. China Huishan Dairy Holdings was granted a trading suspension after its shares saw one of the biggest drops in the exchange’s history, cutting its market capitalisation from $4.85bn to $750m and likely causing paper losses for investors including BlackRock and Vanguard. Hong Kong’s bourse […]
Chinese oil companies are turning their focus to overseas retail and services markets, as slowing growth in domestic fuel demand makes their traditional home market less attractive. Sinopec this week agreed to buy Chevron’s 75 per cent stake in a Cape Town refinery, affiliated service stations and convenience stores in South Africa and Botswana for $900m. It was the only remaining bidder after a year-long tender process. […]
China-based Zhonghong Zhuoye Group Co Ltd will buy Blackstone Group LP’s (BX.N) 21 percent stake in SeaWorld Entertainment Inc (SEAS.N), the embattled U.S.-based marine park operator said on Friday. SeaWorld said Zhonghong Group would buy the stake for $23 per share, a premium of nearly 33 percent to the stock’s close on Thursday. Zhonghong Group – a diversified holding company for investments in real estate, leisure and […]
By Farah Master and Venus Wu | HONG KONG HONG KONG As visitors sip champagne at Hong Kong’s Art Basel event this week and take selfies with replicas of deceased leaders Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong, a more urgent issue is rumbling through dealers exhibiting – how big an impact China’s capital controls will be in the coming year. Over the past six months, Chinese buyers have […]
By Sumeet Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG HSBC (HSBA.L) plans to add as many as 1,000 new employees to its Chinese retail banking and wealth management arm this year, the business’s regional head said, most of them in the Pearl River Delta, the heart of the bank’s growth strategy in China. If that target is hit, the new additions will mean HSBC will have hired twice […]
Friday 06:00 GMT Overview Asian stock markets continued to recover after a midweek sell-off and as a highly anticipated vote on US healthcare reform was pushed back until later on Friday. European bourses are expected to open on the front foot, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will add 8 points to 7,349 and Germany’s Dax to advance 20 points to 12,060. Hot topic Global markets […]
HONG KONG Hong Kong authorities have launched a prosecution against the captain of the ship and shipping agent involved in transporting nine Singaporean armoured vehicles seized in the city last November. Hong Kong customs officers seized the Terrex troop carriers as they were being shipped home from military exercises in Taiwan. Singapore’s armed forces have maintained long-standing if low key military training facilities in Taiwan, and Beijing […]
By Venus Wu and Jess Macy Yu | HONG KONG HONG KONG Hong Kong on Sunday will likely select Beijing’s favoured candidate for its next leader who some say will further divide a city where middle class families have become increasingly disaffected by political tension and economic hardship. The former British colony, governed under a “one country, two systems” arrangement, was promised a high degree of autonomy […]
In almost any other part of the world, a friendly, on-camera hug between two senior politicians at a public event would have raised no eyebrows. But in the febrile atmosphere of a Hong Kong bracing itself for the “election” of its fourth chief executive since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997, Tung Chee-hwa’s embrace of Carrie Lam during a public ceremony in […]
By Silke Koltrowitz | BASEL, Switzerland BASEL, Switzerland Swiss watchmakers expect the market to stay challenging this year with the United States, their second-biggest market, showing no signs of recovering, executives told Reuters at an industry fair in Basel. Swiss watchmakers are grappling with declining sales in their biggest markets — Hong Kong and the United States — and have been hit by tourist shoppers avoiding Europe […]
When Flavio Evers Cassou, an employee of the world’s biggest meatpacker, JBS, dropped off a large cooler of meat at a friend’s home last year in southern Brazil, he could not have foreseen the crisis of confidence it would cause in the industry and the country’s wider corporate sector. The friend in question happened to be Maria do Rocio Nascimento, the chief inspector of products of animal […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks, taking some cues from a steady Wall Street, edged up on Thursday while the path for the dollar, which crawled up from a four-month low, remained clouded by concerns about the prospects for U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-growth agenda. Sterling GBP=D3 was steady at $1.2483 following a decline of as much as 0.4 percent on Wednesday, after an attack […]
Two-and-a-half years ago, Nathan Law took to the streets of Hong Kong with tens of thousands of fellow students, demanding Beijing give them the right to vote for the leader of their own city government. This Sunday Mr Law will have that opportunity — but not in the way he envisaged during the “Umbrella Revolution” protests. When he was voted on to the city’s Legislative Council in […]
March 23, 2017 by: Peter Wells in Hong Kong Thursday 02.15 GMT Overview Asian markets were in a more subdued mood and making a tentative recovery from a midweek sell-off in which many global stock markets suffered their worst session since the US presidential election. A terror attack in London on Wednesday also kept investors in a cautious mood. Hot topic A jolt to global financial markets […]
Stock markets suffered their worst falls since the election of Donald Trump as Wall Street worries about the prospects for the US president’s pro-business agenda triggered a rush for financial havens. US markets led the declines, with the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbling 1.2 per cent and breaking a run of 109 trading days without a drop of 1 per cent or more. The Dow Jones Industrial […]
Stock markets suffered their worst falls since the election of Donald Trump as Wall Street worries about the prospects for the US president’s pro-business agenda triggered a rush for financial havens. US markets led the declines, with the benchmark S&P 500 index tumbling 1.2 per cent — and breaking a run of 109 trading days without a drop of 1 per cent or more. The Dow Jones […]
Wednesday 02:35 GMT Overview Asian equities sank in the wake of the S&P 500’s biggest fall in more than five months as investors fretted that US President Donald Trump’s pro-growth policies could take longer than expected to come to fruition. Hot topic The S&P 500 closed down 1.2 per cent on Tuesday, dragged lower by financial stocks. It was the first time since October 11 that the […]
Tuesday 18:30 GMT What you need to know ● Sell off in financials drives S&P 500 down 1 per cent● Euro climbs to $1.08 and dollar index slips below 100● 10-year Treasury yield at lowest since start of month● Oil prices come under renewed pressure● Gold heads for fifth daily rise in a row——————- Overview A sharp and sudden sell-off for US financial stocks helped put the […]
TOKYO Asian shares hit 21-month highs on Tuesday while the dollar and U.S. bond yields were on the backfoot on the prospect of a less hawkish than previously expected Federal Reserve policy trajectory. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.3 percent in its eighth consecutive day of gains with tech-heavy Seoul and Taipei shares .KS11 .TWII hitting two-year highs while Hong Kong’s Hang […]
