Karachi / AFP Pakistan’s Habib Bank Limited announced it had received a licence to open a branch in China, a move that would make it the first South Asian lender to operate in the world’s number two economy. More commonly known by its acronym ‘HBL’, the bank said it would open a branch in Urumqi, the largest city in …

  SHENZHEN / AP The Chinese automaker that sold more electric cars last year than Tesla, Nissan or GM is taking a back road into the American market on a battery-powered bus. Detouring around the cost and risk of consumer sales, BYD Co. has quietly built a U.S. business supplying rechargeable buses to environmentally-minded transit agencies. Its factory north of …

  Bloomberg U.K. unemployment rose for the first time in seven months and employers added far fewer jobs than forecast, suggesting the labor market is cooling. The number of people looking for work climbed by 21,000 to 1.7 million in the three months through February, the Office for National Statistics in London said on Wednesday. That left the jobless rate …