There’s no denying it now. The global electronics industry is in a funk, and the world’s biggest manufacturer has the wounds to prove it. Foxconn Technology Group aims to cut $2.9 billion in costs next year, Bloomberg News’s Debby Wu reported, citing an internal company memo that she had seen. You may know Foxconn as the assembler of iPhones for ...

Bangkok may be among the world’s top 10 tourism destinations, but for overseas investors it’s about as popular as a beach holiday in the Arctic. Foreigners sold a net $8.7 billion or so of Thai stocks this year, the most since data began in the late 1990s. On the face of it, that’s a puzzle. Thailand has been something of ...

When Theresa May unveiled her draft agreement with the European Union (EU) on the terms of Britain’s exit, the reaction was exactly as expected. Remainers despaired because the deal is so much worse than staying in the union. Leavers despaired because the deal is Brexit in name only. But that was bound to happen, right? Whatever variant of the earlier much-derided ...

South Koreans are worried about the surveillance state. At a recent conference that was supposed to be about protests, journalists invariably asked me one question: How do we maintain democracy in an age when governments and companies are collecting ever more data on everything we do? They’re right to be concerned. If people don’t recognise the danger, they might eventually ...

Here’s a simple four-word wish for Thanksgiving 2018 — a day when most of us take a break from the blurring, dizzying speed of our internet world: Let’s slow things down. I don’t just mean stopping to smell the roses, or taking a hike in the woods, or hiding our screens for a few hours. I mean, literally: Slow down ...

Bloomberg A setup long acknowledged as dubious but tolerated in many countries just got thrown into the limelight. Shell companies — constructions often used to hide the identity of investors keen to dodge authorities — played a key role in Europe’s dirty money machine as billions of dollars flowed from Russia into the west. Danske Bank A/S was allegedly at ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Greece released details on how it proposes lifting much of the burden weighing on the country’s lenders under a complex plan involving securitisations and the shifting of tax credits. The plan foresees the transfer to a special purpose vehicle of a significant part of banks’ non-performing loans at net book value, along with a portion of ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Canada plans to buy for the first time government-backed mortgage bonds in a bid to broaden the range of high-quality assets in its operations to manage its balance sheet. The move, which is part of a decision of including government-guaranteed debt issued by federal Crown corporations, will allow Ottawa-based central bank to offset continued growth in ...

Bloomberg The South African Reserve Bank increased its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than two years as it sees inflation risks remaining elevated. The Monetary Policy Committee voted to raise the benchmark repurchase rate to 6.75 percent from 6.5 percent. Of the six panel members, half preferred the increase and the rest favored an unchanged stance, ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank officials warned that uncertainty and tension over Italy’s expansive budget risk causing damage to the country’s economy in the long-run. “Italy’s current financing conditions are much too tight for a country with weak growth and low inflation,” ECB Chief Economist Peter Praet told Handelsblatt in an interview. Italian central bank Governor Ignazio Visco urged his government ...