TOKYO / Reuters The Bank of Japan is likely to cut its inflation forecasts for the coming two fiscal years at a quarterly review next month, sources familiar with its thinking say, keeping it under pressure to do more to hit its ambitious 2 percent price target. The downgrades, due largely to falling import prices from the yen’s rise and ...

Taipei / AFP Taiwan’s tech giant Hon Hai said net profit dipped in the fourth quarter, hit by a slowdown in demand for smartphones as key customer Apple warns waning sales of its iPhone. Net income in October-December fell 6.67 percent to $52.9 billion ($1.6 billion) while revenue slipped 4.69 percent, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Hon ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg India’s effort to clean up the world’s worst air is facing resistance from power producers who say the government is asking them to spend too much and revamp old plants too quickly. The nation’s first steps to limit toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants may cost 2.5 trillion rupees ($37 billion) and will take longer than ...

Bloomberg For Canada’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau, tasked with selling his government’s new fondness for deficits, words matter. It’s not spending, it’s investment. Long-term beats short-term. Never use the word deficit, ever. Most important, growth is everything. Since releasing his March 22 budget, Morneau has been on the road building the intellectual case for why he needs to run almost ...

Bloomberg Argentina’s economy grew 2.1 percent in 2015 as a record soy harvest boosted the country’s agricultural exports. Gross domestic product in South America’s second-largest economy expanded by 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter and 3.5 percent in the third quarter, the national statistics agency said on Wednesday. The median estimate of four economists in a Bloomberg survey was for ...

Bloomberg TransCanada Corp. plans to sell as much as 49 percent of its five Mexico natural gas pipelines to a passive partner to help pay for the $10.2 billion purchase of Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. TransCanada is “refinancing” its Mexican business to raise funds after agreeing to buy Columbia Pipeline Group, its biggest-ever acquisition, on March 17, Robert Jones, TransCanada’s ...

Bloomberg The world’s biggest shipping company is taking advantage of low industry prices to build its business across units. A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S unveiled its latest venture on Thursday, when its APM Terminals unit said it will invest $859 million in a Moroccan port facility. That follows the closing earlier this month of the unit’s $1 billion acquisition of a Spanish ...

Bloomberg Puerto Rico won another week to submit a proposed rate fee to the commonwealth’s energy commission, a charge that would repay debt used to restructure about $9 billion owed by its main power utility. Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority creditors agreed to give officials until April 7 to file their petition to create a new customer fee, called a ...

Bloomberg With Minneapolis-St. Paul’s health-care industry booming, scientist Erin Nelson fielded more than 20 unsolicited calls in the past year asking her to consider switching jobs. She took one in September at a 40 percent raise. “Pay is becoming much more competitive,” said Nelson, 35, who designs research projects for medical-device companies. “It is a nice feeling to have job ...

Mervyn King’s new book on the financial crisis and its aftermath is not what you might have expected from the former head of the Bank of England — from an official, that is, who played a crucial role before, during and after the crash. “The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy” isn’t a memoir. ...