International News

  Bloomberg The water level at a key waypoint on the Rhine River is forecast to stay extremely low for the rest of the week, signalling the continuation of severe restrictions for shipments of vital commodities along the Europe’s most important waterway. The marker at Kaub, a shallow point on the river west of Frankfurt, is currently at 31 centimeters ...

  Bloomberg Investors wanting to gauge the health of global consumer sentiment should look no further than China’s factories right now. Makers of Christmas decorations to clothing and tents say orders from overseas customers are drying up, with some predicting the best they can aim for is flat demand versus last year, according to more than a dozen export managers ...

  Bloomberg Fintech firm Lufax Holding Ltd is planning to go public in Hong Kong, the latest in a wave of New York-traded Chinese companies seeking alternative listings to hedge against the risk of being banned from US markets. The Ping An Insurance Group Co-backed company aims to file for a listing in Hong Kong as soon as the second ...

  Bloomberg Rice output in India may suffer this year as poor rains in key growing areas shrink plantings, raising concerns that the top exporter could curb shipments after restricting wheat and sugar sales to safeguard food security. Total rice acreage in the South Asian nation, the world’s second-biggest grower, has fallen 12% so far this season, according to the ...

  Bloomberg Bhavish Aggarwal, who founded India’s top ride-hailing startup and then moved into manufacturing electric scooters, is expanding his business empire again, unveiling plans to enter the electric-car market in competition with local giants like Tata Group and global automakers from Hyundai Motor to Tesla. The 36-year-old entrepreneur said that Ola aims to launch its first electric car in ...

  Bloomberg Gold dropped — following four straight weeks of gains — as investors assessed signs China’s economy is struggling to recover ahead of minutes from the Federal Reserve later in the week. Bullion fell 1.1%, after the longest run of weekly gains in almost a year, as it came under pressure from the stronger dollar. The precious metal has ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s baht rebounded so rapidly in the past few weeks on optimism about the country’s tourism-led growth that it’s already hit year-end analyst targets. The currency jumped 2.3% to about 35.45 per dollar this month, leading gains in Asia by a wide margin. In addition to rising forecasts for tourists arrivals, the advance is also being driven by a ...

  Bloomberg Inflation and higher interest rates will push up the UK’s debt serving costs and social welfare spending by more than £50 billion ($60.7 billion) in next fiscal year, according to Financial Times (FT) calculations. The bill for servicing government debt will almost double, to £95 billion ($115.35 billion) from £50 billion ($60.71 billion), given that about £500 billion ...

  Bloomberg The US is imposing export controls on technologies that support the production of advanced semiconductors and turbines, protecting against their “nefarious” military and commercial use. The innovations “are essential to the national security” of the US and meet the criteria for the protection, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement. The agency ...

  Bloomberg Irish house prices rise to the highest since 2007 in June, matching the peak seen before the country suffered one of the worst property crashes in Western Europe. It’s taken over 15 years for prices to recover from the property crash that almost bankrupted the country, forcing it to seek an international bailout in November 2010. The national ...