BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand’s finance ministry has lowered the country’s 2023 economic growth outlook to 3.5% from 3.6% projected earlier, as tourism maintains strength but tepid global demand crimps exports, officials said on Wednesday. Exports, a key driver of the Thai economy, are forecast to contract 0.8% this year, compared with a previous forecast for a…
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s export-dependent economy likely returned to growth in the second quarter thanks to resilient domestic consumption although exports remained weak, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday. Gross domestic product (GDP) likely expanded 0.8% in the April-June period versus a year earlier, the poll of 22 economists showed. GDP had contracted 2.87% year-on-year…
By Stella Qiu SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australian inflation slowed more than expected in the second quarter thanks to falls in the cost of domestic holidays and petrol, suggesting less pressure for another hike in interest rates and sending the local dollar sharply lower. Investors reacted by lengthening the odds on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)…
By Yew Lun Tian and Laurie Chen BEIJING (Reuters) -China named veteran diplomat Wang Yi its new foreign minister on Tuesday, removing former rising star Qin Gang after a mysterious one-month absence from duties barely half a year into the job. Qin, 57, a former aide to President Xi Jinping and envoy to the United…
By Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China’s decision to reappoint its top diplomat Wang Yi as foreign minister one month after former rising star Qin Gang disappeared from public view means Washington will be dealing with a familiar face in its bid to steady relations with its main strategic rival. But Wang’s…
HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s leadership pledged at a key Communist Party meeting this week to support the economy through a “tortuous” post-pandemic recovery, but offered very little detail on specific measures, causing mixed feelings among investors and economists. ADDITIONAL STIMULUS ALMOST GUARANTEES CHINA WILL REACH ITS 2023 GROWTH TARGET. SO WHY ARE MANY ECONOMISTS…
TOKYO (Reuters) – Business sentiment in Japan is picking up in July on easing supply constraints and the removal of COVID-19 curbs, the first such uptick this year, a report by the cabinet said on Wednesday. The monthly report also said the government still believed the economy was “recovering moderately”, as consumer spending, capital expenditure…
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Alibaba’s cloud computing division said it has become the first Chinese enterprise to support Meta’s open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model Llama, allowing its Chinese business users to develop programs off the model. Meta released Llama2, a commercial version of Llama, this month to provide businesses a powerful free-of-charge alternative to pricey…
By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some investors are zeroing in on the battered currencies of commodity-producing countries such as Norway and Australia to take advantage of more potential weakness in the dollar, which has recently wobbled on signs the Federal Reserve will soon end its rate-hiking cycle. Many commodity currencies suffered this…
By Harry Robertson, Alun John and Ankur Banerjee LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A slide in the dollar and signs that volatility is returning to foreign exchange markets as interest-rate hikes bite is causing investors to reassess wildly popular carry trades and to be pickier about which currencies they back. The carry trade – an investment strategy…
