International News

Bloomberg Singapore’s economy may be picking up, but consumers aren’t feeling it. After two years of below-par growth, economists and even the government are becoming more positive on the outlook. While it’s not boom time yet, the consensus is that 2017 growth will come in higher than last year’s 2 percent. A large part of that is down to exports: ...

Bloomberg Australia saw off recession fears this week, though the economy remains anemic. The local dollar surged toward its best weekly gain since March, only to run into turbulence when data dump showed a tumble in exports. A flattening yield curve and a sliding stock market also highlighted concerns that the nation’s 26-year streak of recessionless growth is getting weary. ...

Bloomberg The largest real estate buyout of all time is set for its final chapter as Blackstone Group LP moves towards selling San Francisco’s landmark Ferry Building and two other properties. The waterfront icon, with its soaring clock tower modeled on the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, will go on the sales block in coming weeks, a decade after ...

Bloomberg Of all the things the UK economy needs, more uncertainty isn’t one of them. Prime Minister Theresa May’s loss of her majority in Parliament after an election gamble has muddied the outlook for oncoming Brexit negotiations and the economy. After a campaign largely devoid of economic arguments, the new government faces a slew of policy challenges and threats to ...

Bloomberg India’s bustling e-commerce transactions and a planned new national tax system that’s expected to boost freight movement are prompting Deutsche Post DHL Group to expand warehouse capacity in one of the world’s fastest growing major economies. “We see business-to-consumer as the next big challenge, a big growth area and we really want to tap into that through businesses such ...

Bloomberg Sony Corp. shares are undervalued and could rise as much as 39 percent, Oasis Management’s Seth Fischer said at the Sohn Conference in Hong Kong. Sony has undergone a massive turnaround since Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai took the helm in 2012, jettisoning unprofitable businesses such as its Vaio personal computer unit, the chief investment officer of the Hong ...

Bloomberg China is prepared to increase its holdings of US Treasuries under the right circumstances, as officials judge the assets are becoming more attractive than other sovereign debt and as the yuan stabilizes, according to people familiar with the matter. Treasuries surged on the news, driving yields to the lowest since November. The people didn’t specify the exact circumstances for ...

Bloomberg Land prices in Tokyo’s central Chuo ward, home to the famous Ginza shopping district, have jumped by 51 percent in four years. In Osaka, they are up by nearly half. Booming construction of hotels, office buildings, shopping centers and apartments, financed by record lending for real estate by Japanese banks, has driven the gains. Now some investors surveying Japan’s ...

Bloomberg The head of the US Food and Drug Administration is considering using the agency’s powers to bring more price competition to the market for generic drugs, targeting high-priced products by prioritizing the approval of additional competing treatments. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview that the agency is looking at how to push applications to the front of ...

Bloomberg German factory orders fell after two consecutive months of expansion in a sign that growth in Europe’s largest economy may be steadying after a strong start of the year. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, dropped 2.1 percent in April, after expanding an upwardly revised 1.1 percent in March, data from the Economy Ministry in Berlin showed on ...