International News

  Bloomberg Wage growth is the key to escaping deflation and realizing the promise of Abenomics, according to regional economy minister Kozo Yamamoto, a recent appointee to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet. “If you consistently raise wages every year, people will start to consume and invest,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Aug. 26. Yamamoto stressed the ...

  Bloomberg Indian Oil Corp., the nation’s biggest refiner that’s also boosting its liquefied natural gas business, is lifting purchases of the fuel to take advantage of a price plunge amid a glut. The state-run company plans to buy two LNG shipments per month in the spot market for six months from October, according to Debasis Sen, director of planning ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s biggest-trading house has had its fill of commodities. After posting the first annual loss in its post-World War II history amid the collapse in commodity prices, Mitsubishi Corp. is shifting away from raw materials to make sure it never happens again. That process is going to take at least three years, according to Chief Financial Officer Kazuyuki ...

  Rome / AFP Shoddy, price-cutting renovations, in breach of local building regulations, could be partly to blame for the high death toll from this week’s devastating earthquake in central Italy, according to a prosecutor investigating the disaster. As questions mount over the deaths of nearly 300 people, prosecutor Giuseppe Saieva indicated that property owners who commissioned suspected sub-standard work ...

  Detroit / AFP Allegations that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) falsified US sales data are meritless and the company’s financial reports are “totally accurate,” chief executive Sergio Marchionne told reporters. Marchionne said the FCA is cooperating with authorities from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department probing the company’s reporting after it was forced to restate unit ...

  AFP Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that negotiations on a massive trade between the European Union and the United States were effectively dead in the water. “The talks with the US have de facto failed because we Europeans of course must not succumb to American demands,” he told public broadcaster ZDF. “Nothing is ...

  Wilmington / AFP US rail operator Amtrak on Friday awarded a $2.0 billion (1.8 billion euros) deal to French manufacturer Alstom to supply new trains for its key Acela service between Washington, New York and Boston. The landmark deal for 28 new passenger trains will boost Amtrak’s speed and capacity along its most heavily used and profitable route, with ...

  Bloomberg Carsten Stendevad is resigning as chief executive officer of ATP, Denmark’s biggest pension fund, in order to move back to the U.S. The $120 billion fund has started a recruitment process to find a replacement, it said on Friday. The 43-year-old is leaving the fund to move back to the U.S. and be close to his wife’s family, ...

  Bloomberg India expects to woo 1 trillion rupees ($15 billion) of investment over five years to double mining output and cut mineral imports. The government’s goal is to fast-track exploration, including upfront payments for discovered deposits when the mines are auctioned, Mines Minister Piyush Goyal said in an interview. The administration will invite foreign companies to participate, he said, ...

  Bloomberg China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the world’s biggest oil refiner, posted a 22 percent decline in profit for the first half of the year as oil’s collapse overpowered the boost from cheaper crude used to make fuels and chemicals. Net income dropped to 19.9 billion yuan ($3 billion), the Beijing-based company known as Sinopec said in a statement ...