December, 2018

• 8 December

  UAE, Finland keen to develop business ties

  HELSINKI / WAM The Ministry of Economy (MOE) organised a joint UAE-Finland Business For-um on the sidelines of the country’s economic and trade delegation participation in Slush 2018 — world’s leading startup event — in Finnish capital of Helsinki. Noura Mohammed Juma, UAE Ambassador to Finland, and a number of officials from the Ministry of Economy, representatives of the federal ...

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• 8 December

  China’s trade surplus with US reaches record $35.6bn in Nov

  

  Bloomberg China’s trade surplus with the US hit a record in November, even as overall export growth slowed amid waning global demand and uncertainty about a constructive resolution to the trade war. The trade surplus with the US was almost $35.6 billion, driven by a 9.8 percent rise in exports compared with the same period last year and a 25 ...

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• 8 December

  China ramps up solar panel exports

  

  Bloomberg The world’s largest solar panel maker is selling a great deal more overseas to keep its domestic industry afloat. China’s exports in the third quarter soared 66 percent from a year ago after the government’s decision to cut support for the local solar power industry dented domestic demand. Shipments to Australia more than doubled and tripled to Mexico, making ...

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• 8 December

  N-power key to carbon cut goal, says Xcel CEO

  Bloomberg Xcel Energy Inc Chief Executive Officer Ben Fowke said keeping nuclear power plants open is key for the utility to meet its goal to slash greenhouse gases. The company, which pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, operates two reactors in Minnesota that will become increasingly vital as wind and solar ...

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• 8 December

  Retailers try payment apps to sidestep $90bn in third-party swipe fees

  

  Bloomberg Retailers have been trying for years to escape the clutches of the credit-card companies, which this year will levy more than $90 billion in swipe fees on an industry already struggling to navigate the shift online. Some believe the answer lies in payment apps. While shoppers have largely shunned mobile payments offered by third-party providers like Apple Inc., retailers ...

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• 8 December

  Scooter-rental startup Skip gets $100 million in debt

  

  Bloomberg Skip Transport, one of two companies that won licenses to rent scooters on the streets of San Francisco, received $100 million in debt and is seeking more funding from investors, said three people familiar with the matter. While it explores an equity deal, Skip plans to use the debt on a project to design and build scooters that would ...

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• 8 December

  Apple’s HomePod heads to China

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. said its HomePod wireless speaker will go on sale in China next year, potentially beating Amazon.com Inc. and Google to the world’s most-populous nation. On its website in China, Apple added a banner that said the speaker will go on sale in “early 2019”. The Hong Kong website announced a similar move. The speaker will cost HK ...

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• 8 December

  BYD plans battery IPO amid electric-car boom

  

  Bloomberg BYD Co., the electric-car maker backed by Warren Buffett, plans to list its battery business by 2022 to raise funds to expand as the global auto industry transitions away from the traditional combustion engine. The listing will occur sometime by the end of 2022 and the company hasn’t decided yet where the shares will be trading, Chairman Wang Chuanfu ...

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• 8 December

  ECB set to give long-term loans to banks next year

  

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank will offer new long-term loans to banks next year while going slow on interest rates to underpin the region’s increasingly fragile upswing, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Almost three-quarters of respondents said they expect an announcement of such funding by March, to be handed out three months later. A deposit-rate hike is still ...

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• 8 December

  Big deflation sparks talk of no rate hike in Brazil during 2019

  

  Bloomberg Bets that Brazil may hold interest rates at a record low throughout 2019 gained strength after the country posted its biggest monthly deflation in 1-1/2 years. Consumer prices measured by the benchmark IPCA index fell 0.21 percent in November, three times as much as economists expected. Swap rates on futures contracts, a barometer of expected interest-rate decisions, dove following ...

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