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Bloomberg Cofco International Ltd. has already overtaken some of the world’s oldest agricultural traders to become one of the biggest shippers of soybeans in Brazil, the top exporter. Now, the Chinese food giant is considering acquisitions that would extend its position even further. The company is looking into buying warehouses and other facilities related to logistics deep in Brazil’s agricultural ...

Bloomberg China’s pension shortfall is emerging as the next big challenge for policy makers as they intensify their years-long campaign to keep rising debt from derailing the economy. Aging in the world’s most populous country means pension contributions by workers no longer cover retiree benefits, forcing the government to fill that gap since at least 2014. Pension expenses rose 11.6 ...

Bloomberg BP Plc dodged the disappointment that afflicted other oil-company earnings as it did a better job of exploiting the upswing in crude prices. Oil and gas output rose following the startup of seven new projects last year, helping the London-based giant post a fivefold increase in fourth-quarter profit from a year earlier to the highest since the start of ...

CAPE TOWN / Reuters Angola sees no further OPEC cuts in 2018 and Africa’s No. 2 crude exporter hopes to join the ranks of gold producers next year as it strives to diversify an economy long based on oil and diamonds, its minerals and petroleum minister said on Tuesday. Angola, where oil wealth has failed to translate into wider prosperity, ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia plans to spend 120 billion riyals ($32 billion) on subsidised home loans for borrowers, as it seeks to create conditions for an expanded private-sector role in a mortgage market dominated by the government. The kingdom’s new housing program, announced, also includes an 18 billion riyal loan-guarantee program to boost access to funding, and 12.5 billion riyals to ...

Bloomberg Halliburton Co. isn’t content to limit its battle for market share with Schlumberger Ltd. to the oil field these days. It’s opened a new front in an unlikely place: the patent office. The Houston-based provider of drilling services is waging an aggressive campaign to persuade the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel some of Schlumberger’s fracking-related patents, telling ...

Bloomberg Oil slid to a two-week low and headed for its longest losing streak in two months as a plunge in US equities dragged other markets lower. Crude futures in New York fell a third day, sliding as much as 1.3 percent. Stock indexes from Japan to Germany tumbled on Tuesday after a frantic sell-off in US shares sent the ...

Bloomberg Serbia and Montenegro may join the European Union by 2025, the bloc’s executive will say, urging the western Balkan countries to improve the rule of law, curb corruption and put aside past grudges to enter the world’s largest trading club. The EU is offering a path to membership two decades after the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Along ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May will announce a series of steps intended to crack down on social media companies for not policing extremist and abusive content on their platforms. May has made attacks on social media for not doing enough to combat extremism a fixture of her speeches in the past two years and she is now getting more ...

Bloomberg Financial services workers will be among the first to be hit by the rise of automation while women will feel the effects earlier than men, according to research by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report—which analysed more than 200,000 jobs across 29 countries—anticipates three stages of automation between now and the mid-2030s, which will eventually impact almost one third of UK workers. ...