News

  Bloomberg Rio Tinto Group agreed to sell its thermal coal assets in Australia’s Hunter Valley for as much as $2.45 billion as the world’s second-biggest mining company accelerates its move away from the fuel. Rio will sell its Coal & Allied Industries Ltd. subsidiary to Yancoal Australia Ltd., controlled by China’s Yanzhou Coal Mining Co., it said in a ...

  Bloomberg A revival in India’s steel consumption from the weakest estimated growth in at least four years hinges on the government boosting spending on infrastructure, housing and road projects to absorb record output. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will announce February 1 higher outlays for national highways, rural roads, railways and low-cost housing, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted in a ...

  Bloomberg China’s central government plans steps that will reduce the influence local governments have on economic statistics, according to a person familiar with the matter. The National Bureau of Statistics will move its teams out of joint offices they share with regional counterparts around the country and shift into separate facilities, said the person, who asked not to be ...

  Bloomberg Gold consumption in India won’t return to normal levels until 2018, delaying a forecast recovery from a seven-year low, as a liquidity squeeze tightens spending this year in the world’s largest consumer after China, according to the World Gold Council. This year “has a lot of uncertainties,” P.R. Somasundaram, managing director for the council in India, said by ...

  Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co.’s profit more than doubled in the last three months of 2016 on robust semiconductor sales and a recovery in its mobile business, giving it enough stamina to buy back 9.3 trillion won ($8 billion) of its own shares. Net income rose to 6.92 trillion won in the December quarter, largely buoyed by rising prices for ...

  SYDNEY/ AP US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as promised, is prompting other member countries to seek ways to salvage the trade pact. Leaders of some of the 11 other nations involved in the initiative said they hope to push ahead with the agreement in some form, with or without the US. Australian ...

  Bloomberg Royal Philips NV’s health-equipment business in the US has come under scrutiny after the Dutch company disclosed a conflict with authorities over its heart defibrillators more than three years after the Food and Drug Administration warned about their reliability following a recall. Philips is in talks with the Department of Justice, representing the FDA, on a civil matter ...

  Bloomberg DuPont Co. said it may need an additional three months to close its merger with Dow Chemical Co. as regulators around the world scrutinize a deal that would combine the two biggest US chemical makers. The updated timetable represents a change from the previous expectation that the transaction would be finalized in the first quarter of 2017. “We ...

  Bloomberg The euro-area economy expanded at a robust pace at the start of the year as inflation pressures increased, according to IHS Markit. A Purchasing Managers’ Index signaled quarterly growth of 0.4 percent, with broad-based expansion in both manufacturing and services, the London-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. Although the gauge slipped to 54.3 in January from ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s budget deficit narrowed in December as tax revenue jumped, putting Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond on course to meet his new fiscal forecasts. Net borrowing was 6.9 billion pounds compared with 7.2 billion pounds a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday. It left the shortfall in the first nine months of 2016-17 at ...