Bloomberg China plans to spend 3.5 trillion yuan ($503 billion) to expand its railway system by 2020 as it turns to investments in infrastructure to bolster growth and improve connectivity across the country. The high-speed rail network will span more than 30,000 kilometers (18,650 miles) under the proposal, according to details released at a State Council Information Office briefing ...

  Bloomberg The South Korean government cut its growth projection for next year to 2.6% from 3%, reflecting tepid domestic consumption and weak exports. The government will maintain loose fiscal policy and pressure state-run companies to spend more in an effort to shore up sagging consumer and business sentiment, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Thursday in its report ...

  Bloomberg China’s diesel demand is likely to pick up pace ahead of the Lunar New Year as traders stock up barrels ahead of the festivities and as construction activity picks up in some areas, four trade sources said on Thursday. Implied diesel demand in October in China, the world’s second-largest oil user, rose to 3.4 million barrels per day, ...

  Bloomberg Toshiba Corp.’s impending multibillion-dollar writedown has triggered one of the worst-ever share declines for a major Japanese company, with ratings downgrades and investor pessimism erasing almost all of its 87 percent rally this year. Shares in the electronics and industrial conglomerate fell 17 percent to 259 at the close on Thursday. Toshiba said it may write down billions ...

  Bloomberg For years, Toyota Motor Corp. focused on pushing its hybrid models in Europe, avoiding a diesel-for- diesel competition with market leaders including Volkswagen AG. The Japanese carmaker’s strategy is finally paying off. In the first full year since Volkswagen’s emissions scandal threw the German giant into disarray, Toyota is on track for roughly a 40 percent jump in ...

  ALBANY / AP Environmental and public policy groups in New York are calling for a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee residents a right to clean air and water. Environmental Advocates of New York and EffectiveNY are promoting the proposed amendment with online video ads on Thursday featuring children from Hoosick Falls, where water wells have been contaminated by ...

  Bloomberg London’s housing market underperformed the rest of the UK for the first time in eight years as buyers increasingly found themselves stretched by affordability, according to Nationwide Building Society. Home prices in the capital rose 3.7 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, down from 12.2 percent in 2015, the mortgage lender said on Thursday. Across the U.K., ...

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG bought North American parking-payment operator PayByPhone in the latest move by Europe’s biggest carmaker to expand from manufacturing into mobility services. The purchase of Vancouver-based PayByPhone, which processed more than $250 million in transactions this year, will turn the German company’s Volkswagen Financial Services unit into the leader in mobile payments for parking, the automaker said ...

  Berlin / AFP Britain’s chief financial officers are turning optimistic as they head into the new year, though they intend to be cautious amid the cloudy economic outlook, according to Deloitte. The number of CFOs that are more positive about the prospects for their companies outweigh those who are more pessimistic by the most in 18 months, the fourth-quarter ...

  Berlin / AFP German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn said on Thursday it planned to significantly ramp up cargo transport to China following a record year, using the world’s longest train line in a modern-day revival of the Silk Road route. More than 40,000 containers were transported between the two countries in 2016, up from 35,000 a year earlier ...