Month: October 2018

Ireland's finance minister boosted budget day spending for the second year in a row as the government warned of economic "carnage" if neighboring Britain crashes out of the European Union without a divorce deal. Having already pre-committed 2.6 billion euros ($2.99 billion) on increased public…

China promised Tuesday not to weaken its currency to boost exports during a tariff fight with Washington and rejected U.S. concern about the yuan's sagging exchange rate as groundless and irresponsible. Beijing has no intention of using "competitive devaluation," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu…

Foreign companies have been flocking to Vietnam. Earlier this year, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms Warburg Pincus added banking and logistics to its Vietnam portfolio, pushing its total investment into the country over the $1 billion mark. Auto players like JAC Motors…

Malaysia may introduce new taxes and sell assets such as land to pay down debt, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday, as his administration struggles with liabilities of around 1 trillion ringgit ($240.67 billion). Mahathir, who unexpectedly won a general election in May, has…

American Airlines is telling employees to think twice before rebooking stranded customers on rival airlines, and regular economy-class passengers are the most likely to suffer when there are long delays or canceled flights. A new policy at American directs airport agents not to rebook economy…

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded this year's Nobel Prize for economics to Yale University's William Nordhaus and New York University's Paul Romer. The Academy said Nordhaus and Romer "have designed methods for addressing some of our time's most basic and pressing questions…

For the first time, researchers have been able to track the amount of Chinese investment in Australia.  From the purchase of large cattle properties to residential real estate, the scope of Chinese money has led to fraught discussions about the scale of foreign influence in…

Last-minute changes to a new North American trade deal sank U.S. hopes of making Canada and Mexico allow higher-value shipments to the countries by online retailers, such as Amazon.com, a top Mexican official said on Friday. The revised pact was set to double the value…

U.S. job growth slowed sharply in September likely as Hurricane Florence depressed restaurant and retail payrolls, but the unemployment rate fell to near a 49-year low of 3.7 percent, pointing to a further tightening in labor market conditions. The Labor Department's closely watched monthly employment…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday strongly defended a prospective Russia-Germany natural gas pipeline as economically feasible and voiced hope that European Union nations will be able to resist U.S. pressure to thwart the project. U.S. officials have warned that Washington could impose sanctions on…

Seven-year-old Ryan drew millions of views reviewing toys on YouTube. Now, he's become a toy himself. Walmart is selling action figures in his likeness, putty with his face on the packaging and other toys under the Ryan's World brand. It's a bet that kids, who…

China's hopes of negotiating a free trade pact with Canada or Mexico were dealt a sharp setback by a provision deep in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that aims to forbid such deals with "non-market" countries, trade experts said on Tuesday. The provision specifies that…

Mexico and Canada on Tuesday urged their governments to resolve a tariff dispute with the United States before signing a new trilateral trade deal that was unveiled this week. In late May, the Trump administration announced tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10…

Palu, the Indonesian city devastated by an earthquake, tsunamis and mudslides, has strived to transform itself into a major trading hub, but the city's buildings and other infrastructure were no match for the triple whammy that has left more than 1,200 people dead.  The disasters…