SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese regulators stepped up efforts to encourage lenders to extend loans to qualified real estate projects as the property sector faced fresh risks from a widening mortgage-payment boycott on unfinished houses. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) told the official industry newspaper on Sunday that banks should meet developers’ financing needs…
By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) -New Zealand’s consumer prices rose at their fastest pace in three decades, beating forecasts and raising the prospect of an unprecedented 75 basis point interest rate hike at the central bank’s policy meeting next month. The consumer price index (CPI) increased 7.3% in the second quarter, speeding up from a…
By Rae Wee SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The dollar began the week nudging down from multi-year highs, with a hotter-than-forecast inflation reading in New Zealand lending modest support to the kiwi, though fears about Europe’s gas supply put a cap on dollar selling. The greenback has soared this year thanks to a combination of rising U.S….
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and other senior officials in Seoul on Tuesday as she wraps up her first visit as secretary to the Indo-Pacific region, the Treasury Department said. During her meetings in Seoul, Yellen will continue to push for a…
By Sumeet Chatterjee and Lawrence White HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) -HSBC Holdings Plc is set to speed up its exit from non-core markets and deploy additional capital in Asia, in a bid to push back against a breakup proposal put forward by its biggest shareholder, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Ping An Insurance…
(Reuters) – New Zealand’s infrastructure investment company Infratil Ltd said on Monday Vodafone New Zealand would sell its passive mobile tower assets for NZ$1.7 billion ($1.05 billion) to funds managed by two global investment firms. The sale follows a flurry of divestments by telecom firms as they cut debt and focus on their active mobile…
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Ailing Scandinavian airline SAS and striking pilot unions will resume negotiations on Monday, public broadcaster NRK said, after failing to reach new collective agreements over the weekend. Most SAS pilots in Sweden, Denmark and Norway walked out on July 4 after talks over conditions related to the carrier’s rescue plan collapsed. The…
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s central bank has sold $12.4 billion of gold reserves since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, the bank’s deputy head said on Sunday. “We are selling (this gold) so that our importers are able to buy necessary goods for the country,” Deputy Governor Kateryna Rozhkova told national television. She…
ROME (AP) — Several hundred flights were canceled in Italy on Sunday, a peak vacation travel day, because of four-hour walkouts involving employees of low-cost airlines as well as air traffic controllers. A union official, Fabrizio Cuscito, told Italian state TV that some 500 flights were scrapped. Airline workers are seeking better pay as well…
By David Shepardson LONDON (Reuters) – Boeing’s defense chief said on Sunday it had learned lessons from a contract to supply the U.S. presidency with new Air Force One aircraft, which has cost the planemaker almost $1 billion in charges and is up to three years behind schedule. Ted Colbert did not give details of…
