International News

Bloomberg China pledged to roll out more effective stimulus despite a widening fiscal gap as the novel coronavirus hits an already slowing economy, highlighting the challenges the epidemic is imposing as the death toll stacks up and thousands of new cases are reported each day. The nation will further perfect and implement measures this year to reduce corporate taxes and ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong is facing “tsunami-like” shocks, and may incur a record budget deficit in the next fiscal year as the city counts the costs of the coronavirus outbreak after months of social unrest, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said. The impact of the epidemic on the Hong Kong economy is being felt beyond retail, food and beverage and tourism-related industries, ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp will partly resume operations at three plants in China this week, bringing back some of the capacity that had been on an extended halt in response to the coronavirus outbreak that’s killed more than 1,600 people and pitched Asia’s top economy into turmoil. The factories in Changchun and Guangzhou will restart on February 17, while operations ...

Bloomberg Malaysia said it won’t allow any more passengers who had traveled on the Westerdam luxury cruise ship to enter, after an American woman who flew into the country was diagnosed with the coronavirus. The 83-year-old woman and her husband were among 145 cruise passengers who flew from Cambodia on February 14 on a Malaysia Airlines flight chartered by the ...

Bloomberg Singapore is set to deliver a strong budget this week to offset the damage to the economy from the coronavirus, with analysts predicting the biggest deficit in almost two decades. The fiscal gap may widen to 1.5% of gross domestic product in the year beginning April 1, the highest since the 1.7% shortfall recorded in the 2001 financial year, ...

Bloomberg India’s trade deficit unexpectedly widened in January, as exports contracted for a sixth straight month while the decline in imports eased. The gap between exports and imports was at $15.2 billion last month, compared with $11.25 billion in December, data released by the Commerce Ministry showed. That’s the widest gap since June and compares with the median estimate of ...

Bloomberg Scarce components have pushed the manufacturing costs for Sony Corp’s next PlayStation to around $450 per unit, forcing a difficult price-setting decision in its battle with Microsoft Corp, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Japanese conglomerate is preparing to gradually replace the six-year-old PS4 console, releasing its PlayStation 5 the same holiday season its archrival debuts ...

Bloomberg Car sales in China fell to fresh lows in January as the coronavirus kept buyers away from showrooms, intensifying the gloom hanging over the industry. Retail car sales fell 22% to 1.71 million units, the biggest-ever drop for the month of January, the China Passenger Car Association said. The group predicted a worsening outlook, saying February sales may drop ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned that China is moving further outside the international order as the world’s second largest economy pursues aggressive economic and military policies at the expense of other nations. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China “is heading even faster and further in the wrong direction — more internal repression, more predatory economic practices, ...

Bloomberg The UK’s economic policy was thrown into disarray after Sajid Javid dramatically quit as Chancellor of the Exchequer following a row with Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson’s office could not confirm that the budget will go ahead as planned on March 11, or that the government will keep to fiscal rules — announced by Javid — which require day-to-day ...