April, 2016

• 28 April

  LG Electronics posts $173.9 million profit

  

    Seoul / AFP Booming sales of home appliances and televisions helped South Korea’s LG Electronics report a surge in first-quarter profits on Thursday, despite a continued slump in smartphone sales. Net income for January to March amounted to 198 billion won ($173.9 million), up 415 percent from a year ago, the Seoul-based company said in a statement. The tech ...

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• 28 April

  China’s ICBC bank reports rise in bad loans amid economic slump

  

    Beijing / Bloomberg China’s biggest bank ICBC on Thursday announced mounting problem loans, after International Monetary Fund staff argued that the world’s second-biggest economy needs a more “comprehensive” plan to tackle bad debts The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), believed to be the world’s largest bank by assets, said its non-performing loan ratio rose to 1.66 percent ...

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• 28 April

  JAL, ANA flying high on healthy travel demand

  

    Tokyo / AFP All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL) announced robust annual profits on Thursday, thanks to healthy demand on China and other international routes as well as falling fuel costs. Japan’s top carriers benefitted from a record number of foreigners visiting Japan with mainland Chinese being among the most conspicuous as they flock to Japan for shopping ...

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• 28 April

  China slowdown hits Japan steel giant’s profit by 32%

    Tokyo / Bloomberg Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal said on Thursday its annual profit dived by a third as it pointed to a “severely depressed” market owing to a slowdown in China and other overseas markets. The Tokyo-based firm, one of the world’s biggest steelmakers, posted a net profit of 145.4 billion yen in its fiscal year to March, ...

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• 28 April

  Smallest coffee crop in 19 years in India may fuel price rally

    New Delhi / Bloomberg Coffee production in India is set to tumble to a 19-year low as dry weather wilts plantations in Asia’s third-largest grower. Output will decline at least 30 percent in the harvesting season starting from Oct. 1, compared with a record 350,000 tons a year earlier, according to Nishant Gurjer, a member and past chairman of ...

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• 28 April

  German unemployment extends drop in sign of robust economy

  

    Bloomberg German joblessness extended its decline, underscoring the strength of the labour market as Europe’s largest economy seeks to absorb a wave of refugees. The number of people out of work fell by a seasonally adjusted 16,000 to 2.706 million in April, data from the Federal Labour Agency in Nuremberg showed on Thursday. That’s the seventh consecutive drop, and ...

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• 28 April

  Britain farm income plunges 29% on lower crop prices & subsidies

  

    Bloomberg U.K. farm income tumbled by 29 percent last year as the country’s growers were hit by falling crop prices and lower subsidy payments, the government said. Total income dropped to 3.77 billion pounds ($5.5 billion) in 2015, the lowest in eight years, according to a report from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. It was the ...

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• 28 April

  VW brand slumps on emissions crisis

    Bloomberg Volkswagen AG’s namesake car brand slumped to a loss in the fourth quarter as the emissions-cheating scandal tarnished its reputation and added costs to appease customers and dealers. The VW brand posted a loss of €127 million euros in the final three months of 2015, compared with a profit of €780 million a year earlier, according to data ...

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• 28 April

  Brexit economists hit back with thriving UK report

  

    Bloomberg Brexit campaigners sought to seize back the initiative in the referendum battle as eight high-profile economists declared Britain would do better outside the European Union. Analysis published by the Treasury on the consequences of leaving the EU is a “misleading piece of propaganda,” according to the group, which includes Patrick Minford, a professor at Cardiff University, Gerard Lyons, ...

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• 28 April

  Tata says no deadline for UK steel ops sale as losses continue

    Bloomberg Tata Steel Ltd. said that while it has no fixed deadline to sell its ailing U.K. steel operations, it must act quickly to stem losses. “Urgency is important,” Bimlendra Jha, chief executive officer of the company’s U.K. business, told a committee of U.K. lawmakers on Thursday. “We cannot continue to bleed.” Tata Steel said last month that it ...

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