Bloomberg Negotiators from 16 Asian countries are meeting in the Japanese port city of Kobe this week for talks on a regional trade pact seen as a rival to the Trans-Pacific Partnership rejected by US President Donald Trump. China is not part of the TPP but is playing a leading role in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, …

  Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son, sporting a black turtleneck similar in style to the late Steve Jobs, laid out his vision for the future of technology and called for partners to help make it happen at the smartphone industry’s biggest annual gathering. Son reiterated his belief that computers will exceed humans in intelligence in three decades, and that …

  Bloomberg Japan’s scaling back of a program encouraging residential solar has Panasonic Corp. hopeful the market for home energy storage systems is about to receive a boost. In 2019, a program designed to buy back solar power flowing from rooftop panels at above-market rates will start becoming less enticing, potentially leaving homeowners who signed up with excess power on …