Bloomberg The World Bank cut its outlook for global growth as business spending sags in advanced economies including the U.S., while commodity exporters in emerging markets struggle to adjust to low prices. World gross domestic product will grow by 2.4 percent this year, an “insipid” pace that’s unchanged from 2015 and down from the 2.9 percent estimated in January, ...

  Bloomberg The World Bank forecast Brazil’s recession will extend into a third consecutive year, while Venezuela takes the world’s deepest plunge in 2016. The two will drag Latin America into back-to-back economic contractions for the first time in more than three decades. Brazil will contract 4 percent in 2016 and 0.2 percent next year, with the 2017 outlook revised ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s Senate confirmed Ilan Goldfajn as the country’s next central bank chief, putting him in charge of controlling above-target inflation without exacerbating the worst recession in over a century. Senators voted 56 to 13 in favour of the former chief economist at Itau Unibanco Holding SA. Goldfajn won’t participate in the rate decision on Wednesday during which economists ...

  Bloomberg Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, the world’s most profitable major chemicals company, risks fines and losing permits after Chilean authorities said it breached environmental rules. The environmental regulator is charging SQM with setting up water pumps in parts of the Llamara salt-flats where it didn’t have permission, failing to monitor the site as agreed and failing ...

  Bloomberg Yahoo! Inc. is exploring the sale of more than 3,000 patents as part of an effort begun earlier this year to look into ways to monetize its intellectual property. The company has extended efforts on the divestiture of patents and pending patents held by its Excalibur LLC unit that include search, advertising and cloud-based technology, the company said. ...

  BLOOMBERG U.S. gasoline consumption is set to climb to a record this summer as the lowest pump prices in more than a decade encourage Americans to take to the roads. Demand, which typically peaks between the Memorial Day holiday in late May and Labor Day in early September, will average a record 9.5 million barrels during the second and ...

  Moscow / Bloomberg Irkut Corp., the maker of Su-30 fighter jets, is rolling out Russia’s first new full-sized airliner since the Soviet Union collapsed 25 years ago, in the country’s most direct challenge to commercial-plane industry leaders Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE. The single-aisle MC-21, designed for 163 to 211 seats, was introduced to the public on Wednesday ...

  Bangkok / Bloomberg Thai Airways International Pcl is seeking an alliance with as many as 10 other Asian carriers in order to add destinations and counter a similar move grouping together several of its low-cost rivals. A series of bilateral accords could unite airlines from across the region to boost connectivity in India and China and smaller markets such ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos pledged to invest $3 billion in India, in a big bet on the growth of online shopping in the fast-growing South Asian economy. Speaking in Washington DC as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the United States, Bezos told a gathering of business leaders that he saw “huge potential” in India. ...

  Taipei / Bloomberg Apple Inc. sold $1.38 billion of dollar bonds in Taiwan while Canada’s Manulife Financial Corp. also priced $1 billion of securities, as such debt offerings in the jurisdiction jump amid demand from insurers. The sales bring issuance of such corporate securities to $23 billion for the year, up 53 percent from the same period in 2015, ...