International News

Bloomberg Italian manufacturing is picking up at the fastest pace in nearly three years, a bright spot in an economy that probably shrank close to 10% during the 2020 pandemic. Factories, mostly located in the country’s north, saw a sustained upturn in output in January, with orders expanding at a solid pace thanks to demand from Europe and North America, ...

Bloomberg Europe’s economy is starting to follow the familiar script of lagging its international peers when recovering from a crisis. That was the upshot of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) forecasts, which downgraded the growth outlook for 2021 across Europe and underscored a generally poorer performance compared with China and the US. Such diverging fortunes reflect the stringency of lockdowns ...

Bloomberg Argentina posted its first trade deficit since August 2018 as exports collapsed after a lengthy strike in some port operations. The country recorded a trade deficit of $364 million in December, compared to a $500 million surplus forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey, government data published Tuesday showed. While imports grew 25% in annual terms driven by an ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp. said fiscal second-quarter sales rise 17%, a faster clip than analysts projected, thanks to buoyant demand for corporate cloud-computing services and software tools that support at-home workers. Revenue in the period ended December 31 rise to $43.1 billion, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker said in a statement. That exceeded the $40.2 billion average estimate of analysts polled ...

Bloomberg UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will hold talks with his Swiss counterpart as the two countries seek to deepen financial services ties in the wake of Brexit. The virtual discussions with Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer will focus on the goal of “a comprehensive mutual recognition agreement” to cut costs and barriers for UK firms operating in Switzerland ...

Bloomberg The Czech Republic may raise interest rates as many as two times this year, central bank Governor Jiri Rusnok said, departing from the global trend of pursuing ultra-loose monetary policy against the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. Rusnok, speaking in an interview, said he sees economic growth picking up in the second half of the year, partly due to progress on ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff proposed temporarily allowing expanded debt spending by Germany’s federal government, prompting a swift rejection from officials in his own party. Helge Braun, Merkel’s chancellery minister, wrote in Handelsblatt newspaper that the country’s so-called debt brake, which is enshrined in the constitution, should be altered to allow more borrowing to help offset the impact ...

Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co is considering spending more than $10 billion building its most advanced logic chipmaking plant in the US, a major investment it hopes will win more American clients and help it catch up with industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The world’s largest memory chip and smartphone maker is in discussions to locate a facility in Austin, ...

Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd, the creator of the messaging platform WeChat, is in talks with banks for a $6 billion loan, according to people familiar with the matter. That would be the biggest dollar loan syndicated in Asia for a Chinese firm since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It would also mark a flurry of potential debt financings ...

Bloomberg The owners of Hong Kong Life Insurance Ltd are reviving a sale of the business after a deal was scrapped more than two years ago, according to people familiar with the matter. A sale of Hong Kong Life, whose owners include OCBC Wing Hang Bank Ltd, could fetch $400 million to $500 million, the people said, asking not to ...