March, 2017

• 23 March

  Vietnam among leaders of Asia’s infrastructure race

  

    Bloomberg It may be one of the smallest economies in Asia, but Vietnam is among those leading the infrastructure race. Vietnam’s public and private sector infrastructure investment averaged 5.7 percent of gross domestic product in recent years, the highest in Southeast Asia and compares with 6.8 percent in China, according to the Asian Development Bank. Indonesia and the Philippines ...

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• 23 March

  UK CEOs take pay cuts as investors scrutinize wages

  

    Bloomberg Bosses of Britain’s public companies rarely look forward to facing off with their shareholders, but the run-up to this year’s annual general meeting season is provoking a particularly strong sense of anxiety. Executive pay is high on the political agenda, with the government wrapping up a consultation exercise on the issue just last month and Prime Minister Theresa ...

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• 23 March

  GM redesigns Chevy Equinox to cash in on SUV boom

  

    Bloomberg General Motors Co. is trying to make up for lost time with its redesigned Chevrolet Equinox. While the largest US automakers’ competitors have pumped out new and refreshed sport utility vehicles to cash in on the booming segment, GM soldiered on with an Equinox that last underwent major changes seven years ago. Equinox deliveries slumped 13 percent in ...

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• 23 March

  Renters rule half of US cities

    Bloomberg Detroit was once known as a city where a working-class family could afford to own a home. Now it’s a city of renters. Just 49 percent of Motor City households were homeowners in 2015, down from 55 percent in 2009 and the lowest percentage in more than 50 years. Detroit isn’t alone, of course: The rate of US ...

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• 23 March

  Californians snub free EVs, say carmakers in mandate push back

  

    Bloomberg The proportion of Californians making electric cars their new set of wheels has stayed flat for years even though incentives make some models basically free to lease, a trade group told state regulators that may toughen up already-stringent rules. With state rebates, federal tax credits and manufacturer discounts, the effective monthly payments in California for zero-emission vehicles including ...

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• 23 March

  Iceland’s recovery will be tough to sustain

  

    The end of Iceland’s nine years of capital controls is an occasion to celebrate for Icelandic businesses — and for those economists who, like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, touted Iceland’s post-crisis recovery as an example of how it should be done. Yet even after almost a decade, Iceland may still need a relatively closed financial market for that ...

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• 23 March

  European corporates go west for investors

  

    European companies are rushing to sell bonds in dollars. After all, that’s where the investors are. So far this year, dollar-denominated syndicated new bond sales have exceeded $475 billion, a record for any quarter. A surprising amount — about 22 percent — has come from European issuers. Within this, about $81 billion is from euro-area companies, including banks, according ...

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• 23 March

  New power plants could revolutionize Pak economy

  

    In the dusty scrub of the Thar desert, Pakistan has begun to dig up one of the world’s largest deposits of low-grade, brown, dirty coal to fuel new power stations that could revolutionize the country’s economy. The project is one of the most expensive among an array of ambitious energy developments that China is helping the country to build ...

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• 23 March

  Most Gulf bourses recover, Egypt rebounds as foreign funds buy

  

    DUBAI / Reuters Most stock markets in the Gulf made small gains on Thursday, recovering some of the week’s losses, but trading volumes remained very low. Egypt rebounded as foreign funds bought shares there. The Saudi stock index climbed 0.7 percent as the petrochemical sector regained some of the previous session’s heavy losses, after Brent oil bounced from a ...

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• 23 March

  European stocks rise, Asia bounces back

  

    Bloomberg European stocks climbed, led by mining and bank shares, as lenders borrowed more than double what was forecast under the European Central Bank’s TLTRO program. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.3 percent to 375.21 as of 11:31 a.m. London time, set to end three days of losses. European miners extended their gains to 0.9 percent, following metals ...

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