Frankfurt / AFP German chemicals giant Bayer said it had increased its earnings and profits forecasts after signing a deal to take over US seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto. “We are optimistic for the medium-term development of Bayer and have set ourselves correspondingly ambitious targets,” chief executive Werner Baumann said in a statement. In the crop science division that ...

  Warsaw/ AFP Poland’s populist government on Tuesday suspended a new tax on supermarkets that targetted foreign-owned chains just a day after the European Union opened a probe into whether it violated competition rules. Announcing the suspension in Warsaw, Poland’s Finance Minister Pawel Szalamacha told reporters the EU investigation was “arbitrary and political”, launched “under pressure from large corporations.” Warsaw ...

  Paris / AFP France said on Tuesday it was sticking to its economic growth forecasts for this year and next, seen by some economists as too optimistic. In its 2017 budget draft law, the finance ministry said projected expansion would allow France to cut its deficit to below three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 as required ...