International News

  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 The challenge is daunting: Convert an economy of more than 1 billion consumers, 29 states, 22 official languages, 9 million businesses all operating under a spider’s web of taxes, arcane regulations and competing political ambitions into a unified common market. But that’s the goal as India gets ready to roll out a goods-and-services tax after a 10-year battle ...

  Bloomberg China’s boom in wealth-management products worth trillions of dollars, under scrutiny from regulators because of potential threats to financial stability, is slowing for now. Outstanding products issued by banks stood at 29.1 trillion yuan ($4.2 trillion) as of March 31, up 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission. The growth rate slumped ...

  Bloomberg For all Donald Trump’s efforts to revive coal, market forces and some of his own supporters are vying to write their own version of America’s energy future. Divisions persist among the president’s supporters — and even within his own cabinet — about whether to continue subsidies for wind and solar power, enact a carbon tax, remain party to ...