TOKYO / Bloomberg The best way to boost the economy is to quickly implement the existing budget for the next fiscal year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday, rejecting speculation he would announce a supplementary spending package. Speaking after the parliament passed a record 96.7 trillion yen ($850 billion) in outlays for the 12 months starting April 1, Abe ...

Manila / AFP Two Chinese men were responsible for moving $81 million stolen by hackers from Bangladesh’s foreign reserves into Philippine casinos, an inquiry in Manila heard on Tuesday. Following the heist, the millions stolen from the Bangladesh central bank’s American accounts on February 5 were immediately sent via electronic transfer to a Philippine bank. The dollar accounts where the ...

Dhaka / DPA Exports of raw jute from Bangladesh will reopen next week as the government on Monday lifted the ban on shipments four months after imposing it. The Ministry of Textiles and Jute issued a notice announcing the withdrawal of the ban to be effective from April 3. The lifting of the ban came amid pleas from raw jute ...

NEW DELHI / Reuters India’s Supreme Court has asked the markets regulator to start the process of selling some of embattled conglomerate Sahara’s real estate assets in the country to refund millions of investors in its illegal bonds, lawyers said on Tuesday. Sahara, a household name in India as the former main sponsor of the national cricket team, has major ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg India extended a tax on wheat imports by three months to protect farmers in the world’s second-largest grower from cheap overseas supplies. The 25 percent duty will stay until June 30, the Finance Ministry said in a notification dated March 28 on its website. India first imposed a 10 percent duty on imports in August and ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England recommended tighter lending criteria for buy-to-let mortgages and said it continues to look for signs that risks are accelerating. The Prudential Regulation Authority — the U.K.’s main banking supervisor and part of the central bank — published guidelines on Tuesday that aim to guard against a loosening of underwriting standards and bring all lenders into ...

London / Reuters Sterling climbed on Tuesday as European investors returned to work from the Easter break, up around 0.6 percent on a trade-weighted basis since the market close last Thursday, as nerves over a possible British exit from the EU quietened somewhat. The pound had hit a two-year low last week against the Bank of England’s trade-weighted basket of ...

Paris / AFP A decision by PSA Peugeot Citroen to double its chairman’s salary to five million euros has sparked angry debate in France, with Finance Minister Michel Sapin on Tuesday qualifying the raise as “harmful”. Carlos Tavares, the chairman of Europe’s second biggest carmaker, earned €5.24 million ($5.8 million) in 2015, up from 2.75 million in 2014, company documents ...

Bloomberg You know you have an issue with tax collection when the person tasked with boosting it is fired for fraud. But where some see a problem, others spot opportunity, and governments in eastern Europe have identified unpaid taxes as a means of swelling their coffers. Romania, whose tax chief was dispatched last month over alleged misallocation of European Union ...

Frankfurt / Reuters As the European Central Bank moves into an unfamiliar world of negative interest rates and incentives to encourage banks to make loans to businesses and consumers, a north-south divide is opening up between euro zone lenders. In the north, anaemic demand for loans and a financial system already flush with cash mean banks see mostly costs. They ...