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India’s IT firms expect continued growth

Bloomberg India’s software services industry expects growth of as much as 9 percent in fiscal 2019 as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and its peers strengthen automation and adapt to the rapid onset of digital technologies. Sales will rise 7 to 9 percent in constant currency terms in the fiscal year ending in March 2019, the National Association of Software and ...

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‘Singapore home tax hike not a market cooling move’

Bloomberg Singapore’s tax increase on home purchases exceeding S$1 million ($758,960) is aimed at making duties more equitable rather than imposing an additional property curb, said S. Iswaran, minister of trade and industry. Stamp duty on the portion of a property’s price above S$1 million will be raised starting from Tuesday to 4 percent from 3 percent, the government said ...

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Indonesia is forgoing billions of dollars in investment: US

Bloomberg Indonesia is foregoing billions of dollars on offer from American companies eager to invest in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph Donovan said. As the US tries to arrest a deteriorating trade balance with Indonesia, which in 2017 found itself in President Donald Trump’s cross-hairs, Donovan has also rejected complaints of increasing American protectionism. Indonesia had ...

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UK factories rein in price expectations as pound gains

Bloomberg UK manufacturers scaled back their expectations of output prices in February as the pound gained. Expected prices, production and export orders are still well above long-term averages, though have slipped from the highs seen at the end of 2017, the Confederation of British Industry reported on Tuesday. The measure of average prices seen in the next three months fell ...

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Reckitt Benckiser sees pricing squeeze after worst year ever

Bloomberg After a cyberattack and a botched product launch spoiled Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc’s 2017, a pricing squeeze threatens to make this year almost as tough. The Slough, England-based maker of Nurofen painkillers said comparable sales will rise by only 2 percent to 3 percent in 2018, and profitability will be curtailed by deflationary conditions in the consumer-goods business. That ...

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Trump plan to swap ‘cash payments’ for food faces skeptical Congress

Bloomberg A Trump administration plan to replace food-stamp spending with boxes of “100 percent American grown food’’ landed on Congress’s doorstep with a thud. But the public attention heaped on the Agriculture Department’s plan to deliver “Harvest Boxes” to poor families also obscured the administration’s other efforts to cut the number of people eligible for the nation’s biggest food-aid programme. ...

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Guyana’s big oil find could lead to riches or ruin

Wedged between Brazil and Venezuela, Guyana could easily go unnoticed. It has fewer than 750,000 people and a per capita income of $4,300, half the regional average, qualifying it as the hemisphere’s third-poorest nation. At the moment, Guyana also might be its luckiest. Having struck big oil offshore starting in 2015, industry experts reckon total reserves at around 2 billion ...

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Singapore can thank the bond market for avoiding a tax hike

Singaporeans have dodged the bullet of higher consumption taxes, at least for the next three years. They should thank their new BFF — the bond market. Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat left the goods and services tax, last raised to 7 percent in 2007, unchanged on Monday. Most commentators, including yours truly, had expected an increase after Prime Minister Lee ...

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