HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng Inc on Thursday expanded its self-driving capability to Beijing as part of the automaker’s expanded launch of City NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) across the mainland. City NGP is now available in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, with plans to expand it to dozens of cities within…
By Casey Hall and Sophie Yu SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s e-commerce platforms are competing fiercely in the country’s first major shopping festival after the pandemic, offering steep discounts to entice frugal consumers in more worrying signs for an economy struggling to build momentum. The 618 festival, named after the founding date of JD.com but embraced…
By Liangping Gao and Marius Zaharia BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Beijing resident Hu Yongwei bought more than a dozen apartments in the small central Chinese city of Hebi for about $31,000 in all, betting they will be financially more rewarding than other investments. Hu, who mostly acquired two- or three-bedroom apartments built about three decades…
By Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) -One of Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s biggest challenges will be to phase out a controversial yield curve control policy, which is criticised for distorting markets by keeping long-term interest rates low despite creeping inflation. While Ueda has stressed the BOJ will be in no rush to dial back…
By Kevin Yao BEIJING (Reuters) -China will roll out more stimulus to support a slowing economy this year, but concerns over debt and capital flight will keep measures targeted at shoring up weak demand in the consumer and private sectors, sources involved in policy discussions said. The world’s second-largest economy stumbled in May with data…
By Jamie McGeever (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever, financial markets columnist. The Bank of Japan, the most dovish major central bank in the world, announces its latest policy decision on Friday, with markets highly sensitive to signs of when and to what degree it will ditch…
By Hyunjoo Jin and Samrhitha A (Reuters) -SK Signet said on Thursday it will introduce electric-vehicle chargers compatible with Tesla’s technology this year, following recent moves by major automakers Ford and GM to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). Electric vehicle charging companies are cautiously embracing Tesla’s charging design, as they are in danger…
By Sinéad Carew and Marc Jones NEW YORK, LONDON (Reuters) – MSCI’s global index of stocks rose on Thursday to its highest level since April 2022 after strong U.S. economic data, but the dollar slid following the European Central Bank’s interest rate increase a day after the Federal Reserve paused its hikes. While U.S. jobless…
By Roberto Samora SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Top food producer Brazil will start stocking up on food staples, a government agency said on Thursday, as the leftist administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva makes good on last year’s campaign trail promise to curb food inflation. In a bid to increase public storage capacity,…
By Matt Spetalnick and Simon Lewis WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. sharpened its criticism of Russia’s record on human trafficking on Thursday, citing Moscow’s treatment of conscripts and Ukrainian children, in an annual report on countries that Washington says are failing to protect victims. The State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons report kept Russia on…
