News

Bloomberg China’s meat imports surged to a record in November, with buyers in the world’s top hog consumer stepping up purchases ahead of traditional holidays to boost supplies that were hurt by African swine fever. Beef purchases were 186,984 tons last month, up nearly 80% from a year earlier. Shipments rose 57% to 1.5 million tons in the January-November period. ...

Bloomberg Logistics real estate developer ESR Cayman Ltd is considering an initial public offering of a real estate investment trust consisting of South Korean assets, people familiar with the matter said, weeks after it raised $1.8 billion in a Hong Kong listing. The Warburg Pincus LLC-backed company recently invited banks to pitch for the potential share sale in South Korea, ...

Bloomberg A Vietnam-based hacking group is learning from China’s playbook, using increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks to spy on competitors and help Vietnam catch up to global competitors, according to cybersecurity experts. In the last two years, the group, which is believed to be tied to the Vietnamese government and known as APT32, has ramped up its cyber-espionage, particularly in southeast Asia, ...

Bloomberg Pakistan is considering offering tax breaks to various industries with export potential as it looks beyond textiles to boost outbound trade, an adviser to prime minister Imran Khan said. Engineering, chemicals, technology and footwear are among 20 sectors identified for incentives, Abdul Razak Dawood, the commerce and investment adviser to the prime minister, said in an interview in Islamabad. ...

Bloomberg China unveiled its latest slate of measures designed to bolster private-sector businesses as policy makers double down on efforts to support what is by far the country’s largest source of jobs. The steps announced by the State Council, China’s cabinet, aim to help private firms gain better market access and equal regulatory treatment as their state-owned peers. Among actions ...

Bloomberg UK grocery giant Tesco Plc suspended its supply of Christmas cards from a Chinese factory and said it was investigating a newspaper report that prison labour was used in their production. All the cards produced by the factory have been withdrawn from sale, Tesco said in a statement. If the investigation shows a breach of the company’s rule against ...

Bloomberg The Italian government is on the verge of outright battle with the company that operates more than half of the nation’s run-down toll roads. After Giuseppe Conte’s administration provisionally approved rules on the revocation of highway concessions, Autostrade per L’Italia said lthey appeared “unconstitutional and contrary to European norms.” The company, controlled by Atlantia SpA, whose largest investor is ...

Bloomberg The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should be completed in the second half of next year, despite the US sanctions that prompted one of the companies involved to halt operations, although costs will rise, a senior German official said. Switzerland’s AllSeas Group SA removed vessels that were laying the last section of the pipeline connecting Russia with Germany, which ...

Bloomberg Sundar Pichai is getting a hefty pay raise. The new Alphabet Inc. chief executive officer (CEO) will receive $240 million in stock awards over the next three years if he hits all of his performance targets, as well as a $2 million annual salary beginning in 2020, the firm said in a filing. If Alphabet shares outperform the S&P ...

Bloomberg The UK’s dismal productivity performance since the financial crisis has been named the country’s “statistics of the decade” by the Royal Statistical Society. The society chose “0.3%” — the estimated average annual increase in productivity in the past 10 years. That compares with the 2% average increase in hourly output in the years before 2008. The performance, the worst ...