TOKYO (Reuters) – Automakers, including Toyota and Volkswagen, should decarbonise their steel supply and cut back on the material’s consumption by reducing the size of vehicle models, Greenpeace said on Thursday. As a transition to battery-powered cars brings down the amount of greenhouse gases that are released during the usage of a vehicle, a growing…
By Xinghui Kok SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Singapore’s economy contracted in the first quarter, raising the risk of a recession in the city state as the global economic outlook weakens and major trading partner China struggles for a post-COVID lift-off. Singapore, a major financial hub, is reliant on trade flow to keep its economy humming, though external…
By Leika Kihara and Takahiko Wada TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan (BOJ) may abandon a controversial bond yield cap this year if risks clouding the outlook, such as global banking sector woes, subside, Toshihiro Nagahama, an economist who participated in a key government panel, told Reuters. Nagahama, who was invited to speak at…
By Hari Kishan BENGALURU (Reuters) – Global stock indices will end this year higher than where they started it but most are set to be confined to ranges in coming months even as central banks approach the endgame for interest rate rises, according to Reuters polls of market strategists. Despite the drubbing in 2022 and…
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The majority of New Zealand bank customers will be able to send and receive local payments seven days a week, starting on Friday, the local payments overseer said. Payments NZ, which manages New Zealand’s core payment clearing systems said in a statement that from Friday, electronic bank payments made on public holidays…
By Lawrence White LONDON (Reuters) -HSBC is reviewing a possible exit from as many as a dozen countries, or one in five of the markets it operates in, to sharpen its focus on Asian expansion, Chief Financial Officer Georges Elhedery told Reuters in his first interview since taking the role. The reviews follow pressure from…
By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) – More than nine out of 10 Japanese firms feel a sense of crisis about the country’s accelerating birthrate decline, with few hopeful that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government can arrest the fall, according to a Reuters monthly poll. Kishida unveiled a plan in March to reverse the birthrate trend,…
By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) -The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Adrian Orr said on Thursday the committee was confident in the level of restrictiveness of interest rates at the present point. “They (interest rates) are well above what we would consider neutral, are constraining spending and investment,” Orr told the New Zealand government…
By Jamie McGeever (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever. The central banks of South Korea and Indonesia announce interest rate decisions on Thursday, against a backdrop of growing nervousness across world markets that the U.S. could be sleepwalking to an unprecedented and catastrophic default. Bank of Korea…
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s producer prices rose in April at the slowest pace in 27 months, as agricultural and utility prices fell, central bank data showed on Thursday. The Producer Price Index stood 1.6% higher in April than the same month a year before, slower than the 3.3% rise in March, according to the…
