WASHINGTON: China’s high-flying economy is starting to lose altitude. The big question is whether the world’s economic superstar will shrink gradually or so fast that it harms a fragile global economy. China’s comedown is being engineered by its policymakers. They want to slow expansion just enough to cool inflation without…
TOKYO: Hitachi Ltd’s quarterly profit slipped 9 percent, hurt by a strong yen and weak demand for its power systems and electronic devices, and kept its earnings forecast. Japan’s biggest industrial electronics firm by revenue said it earned an operating profit of 118.2 billion yen in the three months ended…
SYDNEY: Qantas Airways said its flights were back on schedule, a day after an Australian court ruling ended 48 hours of travel chaos stemming from the airline’s decision to ground its entire fleet. Qantas, the world’s 10th-largest airline, said all flights were operating on time and as scheduled, with the…
HELSINKI: The world’s largest cellphone maker Nokia reported a smaller than expected fall in third-quarter profits as price cuts and new models lifted sales of its basic cellphones in key markets like India. The numbers sparked hopes that the struggling Finnish company can survive what has so far been a…
BRUSSELS: EU finance ministers outlined a deal for recapitalising European banks, and the leaders of Germany and France said they hoped for a breakthrough in tackling the euro zone debt crisis at a summit. After nearly 10 hours of talks, finance ministers overcame strong opposition from Spain, Italy and Portugal…
NEW DELHI: The China hard-landing debate is a classic tail risk story — an unlikely scenario, but if it materializes the consequences could be catastrophic. Because of their close trade links, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong would be among the first to feel the pain should China’s…
Swiss banks will likely settle a sweeping US probe of offshore tax evasion by paying billions of dollars and handing over names of thousands of Americans who have secret accounts, according to two people familiar with the matter. US and Swiss officials are concluding negotiations on a civil settlement amid…
Steve Jobs, who mentored Silicon Valley technology leaders in the months before he died, said he admired Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg for “not selling out.” “We talk about social networks in the plural, but I don’t see anybody other than Facebook out there,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson in excerpts…
SINGAPORE: Gold prices are expected to scale record highs next year as the asset’s bullish fundamentals trump the current macroeconomic uncertainty that led to a recent selloff in the precious metal, says a commodities fund manager. The slump in gold last month has resulted in a “wash-out” of speculators in…
BEIJING: The head of Wal-Mart’s China business has quit, the US retailer said, after Chinese authorities temporarily shut down over a dozen stores found to be selling pork falsely labelled as organic. Ed Chan left “for personal reasons,” Wal-Mart said in a statement, adding that another senior China executive, Clara…
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