Pakistan’s bailout exposes China’s Belt and Road flaws

Pakistan’s government has finally admitted it needs help. Finance Minister Asad Umar says he will be meeting officials of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the sidelines of its annual meeting Bali this weekend. There he’ll try and work out the terms for a bailout that would cover a $10 billion hole in Pakistan’s financing needs. The decision has to ...

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What slowdown? Japan Inc. roars ahead

Japan Inc. is getting its groove back. An overlooked policy change could be a driver. In recent months, Japanese companies have been posting a wave of positive data. Machinery orders — a key indicator of companies’ capital spending in the future — rose 12.6 percent on the year in August to the highest level in a decade, data showed, much ...

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$46 billion, and Britain hasn’t even moved out

As Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union (EU) enter their crunch moment, let’s be clear on one thing: The EU doesn’t need to punish Britain for leaving; the referendum did that just fine. Latest figures show the warnings of economic self-harm Brexiters like Boris Johnson derided as Project Fear are fast becoming real, while the promises of a Brexit ...

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Trains — a step ahead in innovation

Bloomberg The airline and automotive industries are abuzz with talk of driver-less travel and electric propulsion, so much so that they might seem to be the pacesetters in transport technology. Yet train manufacturers around the world are introducing innovations that may be years away for cars and planes. Rail chiefs met recently at the biennial Innotrans trade fair in Berlin ...

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Google unveils new Pixel phone, speaker

Bloomberg Google showed off a pair of new Pixel phones, a tablet computer, and a speaker with a screen in a deluge of new products aimed at competing with the latest gadgets from other big tech rivals. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones offer significant upgrades to prior models by adding a nearly edge-to-edge screen on the larger ...

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Can robot drivers be taught to anticipate human behaviour?

Bloomberg Robot cars make for annoying drivers. Relative to human motorists, the driverless vehicles now undergoing testing on public roads are overly cautious, maddeningly slow, and prone to abrupt halts or bizarre paralysis caused by bikers, joggers, crosswalks or anything else that doesn’t fit within the neat confines of binary robot brains. Self-driving companies are well aware of the problem, ...

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Quantitative tightening not so frightening, even as stocks sink

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump is not alone in blaming the Federal Reserve for this week’s tumble in stocks, as many investors attribute the ebbing of easy money for spurring an outbreak of market turmoil. With Bloomberg Economics declaring October as the month the world’s major central banks together start running down their bond holdings, the withdrawal of liquidity is ...

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Bank of Thailand sees economy capable of absorbing rate hike

Bloomberg Thailand’s economy is solid enough to handle an interest-rate increase and expectations of tightening this quarter are already partially reflected in the strength of the baht, according to the central bank. A quarter-point hike, or even a climb of 50 basis points, would have “some, but not much” impact on consumer and corporate borrowing, Bank of Thailand Senior Director ...

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Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Citi join $3.8bn deal with Egypt

Bloomberg Egypt struck a deal to get $3.8 billion in new financing from an international consortium that includes Deutsche Bank AG and HSBC Bank Plc to boost its foreign-currency stockpile at a time when an emerging-market selloff is spooking investors. The accord replaces a one-year, $3.1 billion agreement that will expire next month, and aims at “extending the duration” of ...

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BOJ bond-buying set for slowest since ’13

Bloomberg If the Bank of Japan’s “stealth tapering” of its asset purchase program were to continue at the current pace, it would need to revise its monetary easing policy within the next two years, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. By the end of 2019, the pace of growth of the central bank’s bond purchases is on track to fall ...

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