World

TOKYO: Japan's economy rebounded more than expected in the second quarter after slumping in the first three months of this year, data showed - a sign consumption and capital expenditure were recovering from the coronavirus pandemic's initial hit. But many analysts expect growth to remain modest in the current quarter as state of emergency curbs re-imposed to combat a spike in infections weigh on household spending. The world's third-largest economy grew an annualised 1.3 per cent in April-June after a revised 3.7 per cent slump in the first quarter, preliminary gross domestic product (GDP) data showed on Monday (Aug 16), beating a median market forecast for a 0.7 per cent gain. Still, the rebound was much weaker than that of other advanced economies including the United States, which ma...

MELBOURNE: Oil prices were little changed on Wednesday following overnight losses from a stronger dollar and demand concerns, with a slow production restart in the US Gulf of Mexico providing some support. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 11 cents, or 0.2 per cent, to US$68.46 a barrel at 0429 GMT, after sliding 1.4 per cent on Tuesday following the Labor Day holiday. Brent crude futures fell 2 cents to US$71.67 a barrel after falling 0.7 per cent on Tuesday. "The market is ... weighing up the impact of ongoing delays to the resumption of operations in the Gulf of Mexico," ANZ Research analysts said in a note. Producers in the US Gulf of Mexico are still struggling to restart operations nine days after Hurricane Ida swept through the region with powerful winds and dr...

HONG KONG/BEIJING : Central China Group, a mid-sized property conglomerate based in Henan province, said its operations are back to normal and it is confident of repaying all its debt, a month after it sought support from the government to prevent a cash crunch. Central China's CEO confirmed on Friday it had written to the provincial government in early August asking for help. But he would not confirm the authenticity of a letter widely circulated on social media in which the company had purportedly said it was facing liquidity issues that could potentially cause it to default on its debts. Many Chinese developers are facing financial stress after policymakers rolled out more credit-tightening measures this year to curb debt levels in the sector and cool rising home prices. But Central ...

SINGAPORE: A 46-year-old former deputy group director with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) pleaded guilty on Thursday (Aug 26) to seven charges of taking S$1.24 million in bribes in the form of loans to advance the business interests of contractors and subcontractors. Henry Foo Yung Thye - who appeared in court on Thursday wearing a white polo T-shirt - was previously a deputy group director overseeing the construction of the Thomson-East Coast and Cross Island lines for the LTA. Twenty-nine other charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing. The prosecution noted the accused had received a total of S$1.24 million in corrupt gratification. Of this amount, Foo repaid S$83,750, leaving a balance of S$1,156,250. Court documents showed that the Corrupt Practices Investigatio...

Ronney Ng, who sells souvenirs in Singapore’s Chinatown, can hardly wait for the country to reopen its borders now that 80% of its population has been inoculated against COVID-19 — one of the world’s best vaccination rates. “Our business depends almost entirely on tourists — it is very tough for us if they are not visiting Singapore,” said Ng, who added that he can no longer afford three meals a day. The regional travel hub, with about 5.7 million residents, is among the first countries to reopen in the region, albeit slowly. Masks are still mandatory in almost all public settings, group sizes are limited and a contact-tracing app is required. Starting next week, Singapore will allow quarantine-free entry by vaccinated visitors from just two countries: Germany and Brunei. Although such...

MANILA : The Philippines' trade deficit remained above US$3 billion for a fourth consecutive month in July, as imports rose faster than exports, government data on Thursday showed. The trade gap in July was US$3.3 billion, as imports jumped 24per cent to US$9.71 billion, while exports grew 12.7per cent to US$6.42 billion. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Ed Davies)

AMSTERDAM: Prosus NV doubled down on its investment in India on Tuesday with a US$4.7 billion deal for payments platform BillDesk, making it one of the biggest players in the country's fast-growing fintech sector. Prosus, Europe's answer to SoftBank and its Vision Fund, said BillDesk will complement its own PayU business, which operates in India, Latin America and Europe. India has been a major focus for Netherlands-based Prosus but the BillDesk deal is its biggest investment there to date. "This is really a transformative transaction for PayU and its position as one of the leading payment and fintech providers in India and actually in the world," Prosus CEO Bob van Dijk said on a media call. Prosus shares were up 5.1 per cent at €73.96 by 1448 GMT. Prosus, which was spun out of Naspe...

:Autonomous driving startup Pony.ai has put on hold plans to go public in New York through a merger with a blank-check firm at a US$12 billion valuation, after it failed to gain assurances from Beijing that it would not become a target of a crackdown against Chinese technology companies, people familiar with the matter said. The decision makes Pony.ai one of the biggest companies to suspend its U.S. listing plans after China banned ride-sharing giant Didi Global Inc https://www.reuters.com/business/didi-shares-slump-25-china-crackdown-2021-07-06 from signing up new users just days after its blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) in June. It followed up with crackdowns on other Chinese technology firms over concerns about the safety of user data, which led to some companies, such as Li...

NEW YORK :World stock markets closed at new highs on Wednesday as investors looked beyond weak economic data that weighed on the dollar to focus on the likely continuation of massive central bank stimulus measures. MSCI's all-country world index climbed to its fourth straight closing high, while the Nasdaq Composite hit a fresh record close. The Euro STOXX 600 came close to breaching an all-time peak set three weeks ago and the S&P 500 almost reached a new intraday high. The upbeat mood for equities came despite signs that Asia's factory activity lost momentum in August and that U.S. private employers hired far fewer workers than expected last month, likely due to a resurgence in COVID-19 infections. But the U.S. labor market continues to recover, with private payrolls increasing last m...

BENGALURU : The dollar's direction is in limbo as financial markets await a clearer path from the U.S. Federal Reserve, according to a Reuters poll of FX strategists who were split on where they expected the currency to trade over the next three months. On the back foot even before Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments last Friday at Jackson Hole, the greenback has lost almost 1.4per cent since it hit a nine-month high about two weeks ago. But it is still up around 3per cent for the year. While analysts in the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 poll of nearly 60 FX strategists expected the greenback to give up most of those gains over the coming year, they were increasingly uncertain about both the short- and medium-term outlook. "There's two important forces when we look at the direction of the dollar. The ...