Reuters Saudi Arabian money supply growth picked up in December in a sign that the economy is regaining strength after a slump last year caused by low oil prices and government austerity measures, central bank data showed on Sunday. Annual growth in M3 money supply, the broadest money supply measure, rose to 0.7 percent in December, its highest level ...
Read More »Toshiba looks to sell more assets after chips spinoff
Bloomberg Toshiba Corp. is looking to sell more assets to repair a balance sheet facing multibillion-dollar writedowns. The conglomerate happens to have more than 600 different businesses, but raising cash from the firesale will be far from simple. While Toshiba’s two biggest enterprises are nuclear reactors and semiconductors, the Tokyo-based company also has its hands in a wide range ...
Read More »Philippines to see 6% growth expansion
Bloomberg After years spent languishing behind its neighbors, the Philippines is finally catching up with its fellow Asian tiger economies as it posts some of the fastest growth rates in the world. With the World Bank forecasting expansion of more than 6 percent for eight years until 2019 — unparalleled in the nation’s history — the Philippines is mimicking ...
Read More »Alphabet’s Verily preps for China entry with Temasek funds
Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s medical arm Verily Life Sciences LLC is getting a major influx of cash from a Singapore-based investment company, boosting the odds of taking their futuristic approach to healthcare into Asian markets. Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, a state-owned firm, is investing $800 million in Verily, according to a statement from the company Thursday. In exchange, Temasek will ...
Read More »China cotton lust spurs fiber’s best rally in 6 months
Bloomberg China’s voracious demand for cotton is sparking the fiber’s best rally in six months. Chinese buyers have committed to purchasing almost five times more American cotton than at this time last year, the US government said in a report this month. The price of the commodity is heading for its biggest monthly advance since July. Hedge funds are ...
Read More »Trump’s dangerous trade obsession
Trade wars, encouraged by President Trump, are inching closer. The White House has rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement involving 12 Asian-Pacific countries, including the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. It is threatening to do the same with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by slapping a 20 percent duty on Mexican exports to the United ...
Read More »Google’s high-powered ad juggernaut has a weak spot
It’s hard to quibble with the continued success of Google’s advertising business. Already the dominant company in the $200 billion annual market for web and mobile commercials, Google parent company Alphabet Inc. padded its advertising revenue by about $12 billion from 2015 to 2016. That means in a single year, Google found new business that was equivalent to half ...
Read More »Europe needs new rules for the Uber economy
The European Union is grappling with Uber and its peers, asking how best to regulate businesses that connect buyers and sellers in the so-called sharing economy. EU policy is shaping up to be much too heavy-handed. A big question for these new enterprises is whether the people supplying the services are deemed to be employees (with rights protected by ...
Read More »Trump-Putin phone call ruffles feathers in West
US President Donald Trump held phone calls with five world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump and Angela Merkel discussed issues ranging from NATO to Russia to the situation in the Middle East. The conversation affirmed the importance of close German-American cooperation to each country’s security. Trump accepted Merkel’s invitation to attend the ...
Read More »India’s got a long-time reputation problem
One of the least enviable jobs in the world at the moment has to be that of Indian finance minister. Arun Jaitley will present his fourth annual budget to India’s Parliament on Wednesday amid terrible headwinds — mostly caused by his government’s bewildering and disruptive decision to invalidate 86 percent of India’s currency last November. If he’s to revive ...
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