International News

  Bloomberg Keeping the cost of staple foods in check to protect the poor will be a top priority for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he plans for polls in several states this year and the all-important general election in 2024. That means the government will likely extend export curbs for wheat, which is an essential part of the …

Bloomberg Ford Motor Co is investing $3.5 billion in an electric-vehicle (EV) battery plant in southwest Michigan that it will operate with technology and support from a Chinese battery maker that has stirred political controversy. The factory near Marshall, Michigan, will employ 2,500 workers, Ford said, confirming a Bloomberg report. The facility is set to open in 2026 and will …

  Bloomberg Aspire Pte, a fintech startup serving businesses, raised $100 million in a round that more than doubled its valuation, defying a market downturn for young tech firms. The Singapore-based company said in a statement it struck a deal for financing led by Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia. Paypal Ventures, Tencent Holdings Ltd, LGT Capital Partners and previous …

  Bloomberg Embattled tycoon Gautam Adani’s challenges have knocked the confidence of strategic insurance investors seeking to establish partnerships in India, according to Bain & Co’s mergers and acquisitions head for Asia Pacific. Global firms, which typically hold significant stakes in the government-regulated sector, are worried about finding strong local partners who they can trust, said Bain’s Harshveer Singh. “They …

Bloomberg India is likely to witness more extreme weather events, including intense heat waves, heavy flooding and severe drought that pose challenges to food and energy security for the second-most populous nation. “The extremes are increasing — hot is becoming hotter and cold is becoming colder,” said M Ravichandran, the top bureaucrat at the country’s earth sciences ministry. This trend …

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is exploring how to boost wages for Malaysian workers, as gloomy economic prospects pose headwinds to his fledgling administration. Malaysia plans to set a wage growth target for all workers and formulate policies to support this, Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli told a press conference. The National Economic Action Council will meet in March to …

  Bloomberg Dabur India Ltd, a major consumer goods maker controlled by the billionaire Burman family, is scouting for acquisitions at home and in Southeast Asia as it works to establish its presence in a new overseas market amid heated domestic competition. On the back of its $71 million purchase of spice producer Badshah Masala Pvt Ltd in October, the …

Bloomberg UK wages rose quicker than expected at the end of 2022, heaping pressure on the Bank of England to deliver another interest-rate increase next month. Average earnings excluding bonuses were 6.7% higher in the three months through December from the previous year, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. That’s the fastest pace since records began in 2001, excluding …

Bloomberg The economy lost nearly 2.5 million working days to strikes last year as Britain suffered its most severe industrial action since Margaret Thatcher was in power. The Office for National Statistics said Tuesday that 843,000 working days were lost due to labor disputes in December, making it the worst month in more than a decade. That took the total …

Bloomberg Employment in Scotland hit a record high at the end of 2022 as tightness in the labor market spread to all corners of the UK. The portion of adults who have a job climbed to 76.6% in the three months ending December, up 2.4 percentage points from a year earlier. The figures from the Office for National Statistics on …