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Bloomberg Relief for Asia’s most overworked country doesn’t come easy. South Korea’s new legal limit on working hours — down to 52 hours per week from 68 — can shave as much as 0.3 percentage point off economic growth in 2020, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “The new work-hour limit comes against the backdrop of slowing growth, highlighting the ...

Bloomberg Using code rather than concrete, European companies are busy building walls to protect their data, and are being encouraged by local politicians concerned about threats to their sovereignty. France’s biggest supplier of drinking water is one example. Before switching to Google’s cloud-based office software, Veolia Environnement SA first hired cybersecurity company Atos SE to handle the encryption of its ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP is set to close on more than $12 billion for its debut infrastructure fund, anchored by money from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That figure is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. ...

Bloomberg Europe’s steel industry faces a “tsunami of problems” if a relaxation of import restrictions goes ahead as planned next week, according to steelmakers including top producer ArcelorMittal. From July 1, steelmakers from outside European Union will see tariff-free quotas increase by 5 percent, raising the risk of more supplies into the bloc. While the industry remains optimistic, the-re are ...

Bloomberg Just a few weeks into California’s dry summer season, fires linked to PG&E Corp. have already started to break out. More than 2,000 acres burned in Monterey County last week, with power lines blamed as the cause. Earlier this month, a transformer burst into flames in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and ignited a brush fire. In San ...

We are now passing a significant milestone. The current economic expansion has become the longest in US history. Previously, the record was the decade from March 1991 to March 2001 (120 months). When the present recovery enters July, it will mark the 121st month of expansion. Just how much longer it will last is anyone’s guess, but, politically, this is ...

Carrefour SA, Europe’s largest retailer, may be the latest Western company to pull back from China. It’s unlikely to be the last. The hypermarket operator said it would sell 80% of its China business for 4.8 billion yuan in cash to Suning.com, Chinese retailer backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Carrefour will retain a 20% stake. Over the past few ...

Much of the commentary about Facebook’s proposed Libra coin has focused on its defects as a cryptocurrency – centralised governance, weak privacy protections – or as a payment processing system – low throughput, inability to handle multiple currencies. I think it’s more interesting to examine the process for creating Libra rather than specific technical features. But Libra is a work-in-progress. ...

If you’re in the business of selling passenger aircraft, design flaws that might cause your planes to crash ought to be non-existent. That’s why the discovery of a second critical safety risk on Boeing Co.’s 737 Max is so alarming. Tests by the US Federal Aviation Administration found that flight computers could cause the plane to dive in a way ...

It’s easy to see the current stalemate over who gets the European Union’s top jobs as a battle between France and Germany. In reality, it’s a conflict between institutions. A group of EU leaders, headed by French President Emmanuel Macron, are trying to deny the recently elected European Parliament one of its key prerogatives. For the sake of the whole ...