SEOUL / Reuters South Korea’s SK Energy has bought 6.5 million barrels of US crude to be delivered between November and January, a company spokeswoman said on Monday, as the country’s top oil refiner steps up imports of the competitively priced oil. The ramp-up in imports comes as US crude oil prices have dropped against Brent and Dubai , the ...

Bloomberg Indonesia is on track to become a trillion-dollar economy and should be the envy of Southeast Asia. Yet on some key measures, the region’s biggest economy is falling behind. The nation lags neighbours on infrastructure development, faces a fiscal shortfall that’s heaping pressure on the state budget and still has 28 million people living in poverty. That’s even after ...

Bloomberg Li Ka-Shing’s CK Asset Holdings Ltd. sold its 75 percent holding in The Center to a Chinese-led group for $5.15 billion, a record for a Hong Kong office tower, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported. The deal will be announced in the near future, the Economic Journal reported, without saying where it got the information. Some domestic investors are ...

Bloomberg A decade after Chinese dairy companies were roiled by a scandal that poisoned thousands of children, investors are seeing the biggest players as safe bets. Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. and China Mengniu Dairy Co. have soared to all-time highs as the companies hunt aggressively to build up their milk supply chains through foreign acquisition. Also underpinning the ...

Bloomberg Singapore home sales fell in September as developers marketed fewer projects in a month considered inauspicious by Chinese homebuyers. Developers sold 657 units last month, down from a revised 1,246 in August, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority data released on Monday. That’s the lowest sales since January. A total of 73 new units were offered, down from 794 in ...

Bloomberg Until early this month, Indian jewellers expected the traditional surge in gold demand from the Hindu Festival of Diwali to be muted. The industry was struggling to cope with a slump in sales caused by a government crackdown on the black market, and efforts to increase financial transparency. In August, jewelers were dealt a fresh blow by a decision ...

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq’s central government forces launched an advance early on Monday into territory held by Kurds, seizing a swathe of countryside surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk in bold military response to a Kurdish vote last month on independence. The government said its troops had seized Kirkuk airport and had taken control of Northern Iraq’s oil company from ...

LUXEMBOURG / Reuters The European Union vowed on Monday to defend a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and urged US lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions after President Donald Trump chose not to certify Tehran’s compliance with the accord. Germany and France led a chorus of warnings to the United States, normally the EU’s closest foreign policy ally, ...

Bloomberg Catalan President Carles Puigdemont defended his region’s claim to independence as the Spanish government signaled it will move ahead with the process of suspending self-rule this week. In a letter to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Puigdemont said his focus for the next two months will be dialogue and called for a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible, insisting ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s autocratic regime claimed wins in 17 of the 23 states holding governor elections on Sunday, results that defied polls predicting widespread gains by the opposition. The government kept polling stations open hours past the scheduled 6 p.m. closing. Election officials emerged about 10:15 p.m. to announce the results. Votes were still being counted in one state. “This only ...