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Big Chinese cities have launched a new round of lending curbs and purchase restrictions in an effort to cool overheated property markets, as official media warn that some have veered towards a bubble.  Sky-high prices in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen are stoking anger, even among relatively well-off professionals. Meanwhile, controlling financial risk has emerged as the dominant economic policy theme for 2017. At the conclusion of the […]

The release of the Panama Papers exposed an elaborate kickback scheme whose tentacles spread from the Caribbean island of Aruba to warehouses in Doral to the offshore banking haven of Panama City, according to a lawsuit filed in Miami federal court. The scam was allegedly hatched by Egbert Koolman, an employee of Aruba’s state-owned telecommunications provider, Setar. Koolman’s job was to buy phones from suppliers around the […]

Monday 06:10 GMT Overview The US dollar continued its slide in the wake of last week’s widely expected decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, while Asian stocks were mixed. European bourses are expected to open with a soft bias, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will be unchanged but Germany’s Dax to drop 30 points to 12,065. US index futures suggest the S&P […]

By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Asian stocks were mixed on Monday in thin trade, following Wall Street’s declines and the G20’s decision to drop a pledge to avoid trade protectionism, while the Federal Reserve’s less hawkish-than-expected comments continued to drag the dollar lower. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.1 percent. Chinese shares .SSEC added 0.2 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng […]

Tim Byrnes is an unlikely symbol of China’s bid to become the world’s high-tech superpower. For a start he is Australian. Yet the 39-year-old quantum physicist’s decision to swap a research post in New York for Shanghai goes some way to explaining the lengths to which Beijing is going in its efforts to upend the world order. “Quantum physics is very strong in China,” says Mr Byrnes. […]

Foreign investment capital has surged into Chinese domestic bonds over the past year, intensifying pressure for the inclusion of China’s $9.3tn bond market in dominant market indices that direct some of the world’s biggest fund flows, fund managers and analysts said. A year since China took meaningful steps to further open its bond market to international capital, inflows from foreign institutions rose 53 per cent to Rmb732bn […]

Friday 13:30 GMT What you need to know ● Dollar index nudges up after hitting five-week low● Short term US bond yields inch higher● Global stocks at record as Wall St gains ground● Oil prices firmer after volatile week● Gold advances towards $1,230 an ounce——————- Hot topic Has the buck bounce run its course? The dollar index (DXY) — a measure of the greenback against a basket […]

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By Sijia Jiang | HONG KONG HONG KONG Chinese technology conglomerate LeEco is looking to sell a 49-acre U.S. Silicon Valley property less than a year after buying it from Yahoo Inc, sources said, in what is the latest effort by the firm to ride out a cash crunch. LeEco, one of China’s most ambitious companies that grew from a Netflix-like video website to a business empire […]

It is fitting that just a few hours until the Fed’s second rate hike in two quarters, and one day after Goldman downgraded global stocks to Neutral for the next 3 months, not to mention with the results of the anticipated Dutch election due shortly, that global stocks as well as S&P futures are higher, while crude oil has finally managed to stage a rebound as the […]

Shares in Cathay Pacific fell as much as 6.9 per cent on Wednesday after the Hong Kong flag carrier swung to its first annual loss since 2008. The airline reported a net loss of HK$575m ($74m) for 2016 in the face of increased competition from mainland Chinese airlines and falling demand for its premium class seats. The net loss compares with a HK$6bn profit reported in 2015, […]

China plans to introduce a bond trading link between Hong Kong and the mainland by year-end, according to premier Li Keqiang. Dubbed “Bond Connect”, the programme would operate alongside the existing Stock Connect system that allows international and mainland investors their only direct access to each others’ markets. On Wednesday, the Chinese premier said: “We are preparing to implement for the first time this year a bond […]

Wednesday 02:40 GMT Overview A rally in crude oil prices that erased the losses of the previous session failed to bolster energy stocks in Asia, as bond and currency traders also shunned major moves ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rates decision later in the day. Hot topic Crude was climbing in Asia after a slide on Tuesday. Brent, the international benchmark, was up 1.3 per […]

Tuesday 15:10 GMT What you need to know ● Pound under pressure amid Brexit and Scottish secession worries● Sterling drops below $1.22 and euro edges up towards 88p● S&P 500 down 0.5 per cent as sliding oil hits energy stocks● Treasury yields little changed ahead of Fed decision——————- Hot topic The UK pound is back under pressure as traders become concerned that Edinburgh’s demand for a another […]

Stuart Gulliver has told the HSBC board he will quit as chief executive next year, making the search for his successor a priority for Mark Tucker, who has decided to leave Asian insurer AIA to become the bank’s chairman. The appointment of Mr Tucker was announced before the Hong Kong market opened on Monday by AIA and HSBC, which first approached the insurer’s president and chief executive last […]

March 13, 2017 by: Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Michael Hunter in London Monday 07:15 GMT What you need to know US West Texas Intermediate crude is at $48.33 a barrel, having fallen under $48 for the first time in more than three months. The pound is holding above $1.22 as speculation mounts that the UK government is poised to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon […]

March 13, 2017 by: Lucy Hornby and Archie Zhang in Beijing and Jane Pong in Hong Kong Sceptics about China’s economic statistics have taken a special pleasure in revelations of faked data in the north-eastern province of Liaoning dating at least to 2011. Along with an officially reported contraction in its economy last year, they have given the impression that Liaoning’s economy is unusually troubled. That impression may be […]

LONDON HSBC Holdings Plc is lining up Mark Tucker, currently chief executive of insurer AIA Group Ltd, to be the next chairman of Europe’s biggest bank, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Sunday. Regulators in Hong Kong and London have signaled they will approve the appointment, one of the sources said, paving the way for Tucker to take up the role in the autumn. […]

Video Deadly Explosion in Damascus A double suicide bombing in Damascus killed dozens of people and injured others on Saturday. By REUTERS. Photo by Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Watch in Times Video » BEIRUT, Lebanon — A double bombing near Shiite shrines often visited by foreign pilgrims in Damascus, Syria, killed at least 40 people on Saturday, shattering the capital’s efforts to isolate itself from […]

By Alastair Sharp | TORONTO TORONTO Three families who helped shelter former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 after his mass leak of information about surveillance programs have asked Canada for asylum, their lawyer said on Friday. The families – three Sri Lankan adults, a Filipina, and three stateless children – have had long-pending asylum claims in Hong Kong that they […]

A Chinese property developer constructing a huge housing project in southern Malaysia has become the latest corporate victim of Beijing’s crackdown on capital flight. Country Garden has closed showrooms in mainland China for its flagship $100bn Forest City development in response to measures by Chinese regulators that have made it harder for individuals to move money out of the country. A slowing Chinese economy, rising US interest rates […]

Like millions of young readers around the world, Chinese children have grown up with popular titles such as Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox and the Harry Potter series. But Beijing is now introducing new measures to restrict access to foreign books and publications as it opens a new front in its battle to limit outside influence on Chinese society. Regulators have given verbal instructions to publishers to […]

Uber’s crisis PR activities have returned to relative normality in Asia after the U.S. firm ran into fresh issues with government regulators in two countries this week: Hong Kong and Thailand. The ride-sharing giant has been fighting some serious corporate fires in the U.S. lately — around its toxic work culture, connections to a polarizing U.S. President, and its CEO’s attitude to its drivers — but it is back to basics as UberX drivers in the two countries come under […]

Mario Draghi has declared victory against deflation and moved a step towards ending the European Central Bank’s ultra loose monetary policy, sending the euro and German bond yields higher as investors bet on the end of crisis-era stimulus measures. Facing growing pressure from monetary hawks in Germany, the ECB president said the bank decided to change its guidance to investors — omitting a reference to using all […]

SEOUL South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye on Friday, removing her from office over a graft scandal involving big business that has gripped the country for months. Park becomes South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. A presidential election will be held in 60 days, according to the constitution. “We remove Park Geun-hye from office,” Lee Jung-mi, acting […]

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