Bloomberg Visitors to Japan in March slumped to levels not seen since Japan’s economic heyday in the 1980s after the coronavirus pandemic shut down global travel, an early sign the impact the drop will have on retailers that thrived on tourist spending. Visitors in March fell 93% from a year earlier to 193,700 people, the steepest drop on record, figures ...

Bloomberg Indonesia is hiring tankers to store refined fuels at sea as it seeks to take advantage of plunging prices of oil products such as gasoline and diesel. State-owned PT Pertamina has provisionally chartered at least three long-range tankers to store clean fuels, said people with knowledge of the matter. The move comes as Indonesia, one of Asia’s biggest refined ...

Bloomberg Sasol Ltd’s shares, down more than 80% in 2020, are trading as if the market expects years of bad news around oil and that the South African fuel and chemicals giant will struggle to escape its balance sheet constraints. Old Mutual Investment Group doesn’t share that pessimism, said Meryl Pick, a money manager who helps oversee the firm’s 10 ...

Bloomberg Germany’s solar panels produced record amounts of electricity, exacerbating market forces that were already hammering the profitability of the country’s remaining coal plants. Gin-clear skies over central Europe helped photovoltaic plants produce 32,227 megawatts on April 20, beating the previous record on March 23. Bright conditions are expected to continue this week, according to Germany’s DWD federal weather service. ...

Bloomberg The oil and gas industry shed nearly 51,000 drilling and refining jobs in March, a 9% reduction that is likely to get worse as futures prices fell into negative territory Monday. March’s job losses rose by 15,000 when ancillary jobs such as construction, manufacturing of drilling equipment and shipping are included, according to BW Research Partnership, a research consultancy, ...

Bloomberg Clean energy is gaining a greater share of India’s energy mix, a silver lining amid the country’s prolonged virus lockdown that has cut power demand by about a quarter. Electricity generated from renewable sources, nuclear and hydropower made up 27% of India’s total generation as of April 15, data from grid operator National Load Despatch Centre show. That’s up ...

Bloomberg The Danish economy may lose more than 190 billion kroner ($28 billion) this year, the equivalent of 8.3% of gross domestic product, as a result of a slowdown in economic activity, according to a business survey conducted by the Confederation of Danish Industry. The figure is up from an estimate of 155 billion kroner four weeks ago, according to ...

Bloomberg International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) reported a drop in first-quarter revenue and pulled its profit forecast for the year, signalling that the Covid-19 pandemic has become another hurdle for the company in its transition to cloud computing. Sales declined 3.4% to $17.6 billion in the period that ended March 31, the Armonk, New York-based company said in a statement. ...

Bloomberg UK jobless claims increased last month as the coronavirus pandemic began to have an impact on the labour market. Claims rose 12,200 compared with a 5,900 gain in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday. The claimant count rate rose to 3.5%, the highest since the start of 2014. Unemployment is sure to keep rising after the ...

Bloomberg French automaker PSA Group posted a 16 percent slump in first-quarter sales and forecast the European market will shrink by a quarter this year as the coronavirus pandemic slams the car industry. The company has secured liquidity and cut costs, Chief Financial Officer Philippe de Rovira said in the statement on Tuesday, adding that it is preparing for a ...