Bloomberg Consumer confidence in South Korea rose by the most since 2013 as data suggested the economy is recovering and the nation began to move on from the impeachment of the president. The Bank of Korea’s monthly consumer sentiment index rose to 101.2 in April from 96.7 the previous month, indicating rising optimism, data released on Tuesday show. The ...

  Bloomberg China has provided the clearest indication to date that it plans to lift the cap on how much foreign carmakers can own of their local joint ventures, putting pressure on Chinese carmakers to speed up the building of their own brands. In a joint release on Tuesday, the National Development and Reform Commission together with the science and ...

  Bloomberg Netmarble Games Corp. will raise as much as $2.3 billion after pricing its initial public offering at the top of its targeted range, amassing funds to get into new markets and titles. The South Korean mobile games company will sell 17 million new shares to raise as much as 2.66 trillion won ($2.3 billion) in the country’s largest ...

  Bloomberg Indian billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla is exploring entry into the production of carbon fiber, a high-strength and light-weight composite material expected to be a $4.7 billion global business by 2022, according to a person familiar with his thinking. The Aditya Birla Group, the $40 billion mining-to-mobile phone carrier conglomerate, may buy the technology to manufacture carbon fiber at ...

  Bloomberg US President Donald Trump intensified a trade dispute with Canada, slapping tariffs of up to 24 percent on imported softwood lumber in a move that drew swift criticism from the Canadian government, which vowed to sue if needed. Trump announced the new tariff at a White House gathering of conservative journalists, shortly before the Commerce Department said it ...

  Bloomberg Britain kept to its borrowing forecasts in a pre-election boost for Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond but cracks in the public finances are appearing as consumers feel the pain from inflation. The deficit narrowed to 52 billion pounds ($66.6 billion) in the fiscal year through March, in line with the 51.7 billion pounds forecast by budget officials ...

  Bloomberg Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG said it will scout for medicines that are in earlier stages of development as acquisition price tags climb across the industry. “The price of some of these assets has increased to the point that we don’t feel like we can create value for Novartis shareholders,’’ Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez said on a conference ...

  Bloomberg European investors who shunned London’s commercial property in the run-up to the Brexit referendum are flocking back as the weak pound cuts prices and electoral uncertainty on the continent makes the UK seem a good place for buyers to spread their bets. Investors from Europe plowed 1.7 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) into the capital’s offices, shops and warehouses ...

  Voters in France’s presidential election are being asked to choose between supply-side economic reform, as offered by candidates like centrist Emmanuel Macron and center-right François Fillon, and demand-side reform, as promoted by the National Front’s Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon. The reality is that France needs both at the same time — one without the other won’t work. ...

  India’s most valuable business is earning money hand over fist from oil. Yet what’s exciting investors about Reliance Industries Ltd. are its telecoms losses. Those should go some way toward creating the Indian equivalent of Verizon Communications Inc., the largest U.S. wireless carrier. Or at least that’s what the stock’s 38 percent jump this year in dollar terms is ...