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Hong Kong home sales hit 12-year low in Nov

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s housing market is suffering its worst declines since 2016 — by multiple measures. New-home sales this month are on track to be the lowest by volume since January or February of that year, according to Midland Realty data. Meanwhile, used-home prices have fallen for eight weeks, the longest losing streak since 2016, according to the Centa-City Leading ...

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China realty queen makes comeback with $7bn transfer

Bloomberg Wu Yajun’s transfer of a $7 billion stake to her daughter caps the property developer’s comeback after a 2012 divorce robbed her of the title of China’s richest woman. It also marks the distance that billionaire Wu has come since quitting an “iron rice bowl” job in 1988. Her property empire Longfor Group Holding Ltd. has almost doubled in ...

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May’s Brexit deal could hurt UK-US trade pact: Trump

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump dropped a rhetorical bomb on UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s efforts to get a Brexit agreement through parliament, warning the deal she reached with the EU could jeopardise Britain’s ability to strike a trade pact with the US. “Right now as the deal stands she may not — they may not — be able to ...

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Trump says 10% tariffs could be placed on iPhones

Bloomberg Apple Inc, which has lost a fifth of its value in a tech market rout since October, is poi-sed for another setback after US President Donald Trump suggested that 10 percent tariffs could be placed on mobile phones, like the iPhone, and laptops made in China. The company already is facing reports of suppliers cutting forecasts, signalling the new ...

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Google accused of abusing ‘location-tracking’

Bloomberg Google runs the risk of hefty fines from the European Union’s (EU) beefed-up data-protection watchdogs after consumer groups accused the search-engine giant of abusing tools that track users’ location. Seven European consumer organisations on Tuesday said they would file complaints with their national regulators, who now have powers to levy penalties of as much as 4 percent of a ...

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Uber gets $491k fine over 2016 cyberattack

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc, which is already facing a range of legal and regulatory headaches in London, got another on Tuesday after it was fined 385,000 pounds ($491,000) over a cyberattack that compromised the data of millions of customers and tens of thousands of drivers. The Information Commissioner’s Office said that Uber the personal details of about 2.7 million UK ...

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Jobs for youth can add $51bn to UK economy

Bloomberg The UK economy could get a 40 billion-pound ($51 billion) boost every year by creating more jobs for young people. That would be the benefit of reducing the percentage of the young not in employment, education or training to a level similar to Germany, a report by PwC said on Tuesday. The UK ranks 19th among the 35 Organization ...

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Global effort can change China’s economic policies

The behaviour of Chinese officials at last weekend’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Papua New Guinea, reportedly barging into the foreign minister’s office to try to cut mildly critical language on trade from a final communique, seemed intended to signal that China won’t budge an inch on US demands. Commerce Minister Zhong Shan has declared that those who assume ...

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Asia’s liquidity squeeze is the worst

Liquidity is getting tight in Asia. Leave aside Japan, where the printing presses are still pumping out yen. In rest of the region, central banks’ supply of currency plus bank reserves has shrunk 7 percent in real terms since the dollar began surging in April. This is the steepest contraction in base money since the 11 percent fall between January ...

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