By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s central bank held the cash rate steady at 5.5% on Wednesday, hitting pause as expected and flagging rates would be on hold for some time, with most economists still expecting rate cuts to come in 2024. With the country in a technical recession, the RBNZ said the…
By Idrees Ali CAMP SMITH, Hawaii (Reuters) – The United States’ top general met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts for a rare trilateral meeting in Hawaii on Tuesday, as North Korea conducted its latest ballistic missile test launch. Washington has been pressing the uneasy neighbors to work more closely to better counter rising threats…
By Rocky Swift TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japanese operator of apparel retailer Uniqlo is expected by analysts to post a 25% jump in profit to a third-quarter record on Thursday, when the focus will be on whether its sales recovery in China is on track. Fast Retailing’s operating profit in the three months through May…
By Manoj Kumar and Jatindra Dash and Sumit Khanna BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) – The world’s major accounting firms are stepping up investments in new Indian facilities away from bigger cities as global demand for cheaper back office operations grows and smaller towns move up the economic value chain. For decades, large multinational corporations have rushed…
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is set to meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday on the sidelines of a NATO summit, with the release of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant and North Korea expected on the agenda. Japan plans to soon start releasing more than a million…
By Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday the cabinet would meet soon to decide the next governor of the country’s central bank, after local media reported that a government decision could be reached as early as this week. Markets are still in the dark whether Chalmers will extend Reserve…
By Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s wholesale inflation slowed for a sixth straight month in June due to sliding fuel and commodity prices, data showed on Wednesday, a sign the cost-push pressure that drove up consumer prices is steadily easing. The data underscores the central bank’s view that consumer inflation will slow in coming…
By Nupur Anand (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase plans to lay off 63 employees in Jersey City, New Jersey, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) issued on Tuesday. The job cuts will take place in September, according to the notice. The total workforce of JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender, stood at 296,877 at…
By Jeffrey Dastin AUSTIN (Reuters) – A key way that Amazon’s cloud division aims to set itself apart from rivals perceived to have a leg up on artificial intelligence is by competing on price, an executive said on Tuesday. The AI models behind a viral chatbot like ChatGPT require immense computing power to train and…
By Arshad Mohammed (Reuters) – A senior U.S. Republican lawmaker criticized as “absolutely unacceptable” a State Department response on Tuesday to his inquiry about why the U.S. special envoy for Iran’s security clearance was under review. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House of Representatives committee on foreign affairs, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken…
