By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand is carefully managing its relationship with China and must avoid getting pulled from “pillar and post” amid the strategic rivalry between China and the United States, the Pacific nation’s foreign minister said on Friday. Nanaia Mahuta’s comments come as Chris Hipkins nears the end of a six-day…
By Marc Jones LONDON (Reuters) – The first six months of 2023 have been eventful for financial markets – from an artificial intelligence (AI) inspired tech stock surge, commodity market capitulations, cryptocurrency comebacks to the worst banking crash since Lehman Brothers. Linking it all has been the relentless rise in interest rates, which was exactly…
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s manufacturing production index (MPI) in May dropped by a less than expected 3.14% from a year earlier as exports remained sluggish, the industry ministry said on Friday. The figure compared with a forecast in a Reuters poll for a fall of 4.5% in May. Output contracted a revised 8.71% year-on-year in…
By Yantoultra Ngui SINGAPORE (Reuters) – From India to Singapore, Asia is seeing a boom in private credit funds looking to tap into demand mainly from startups that are moving away from raising equity capital at a sharp discount to their valuations, known as ‘down round’ in the industry. At least $2.5 billion in new…
By Takahiko Wada and Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) -Core inflation in Japan’s capital perked up in June and remained above the central bank’s 2% target for the 13th month, a sign price hikes were spreading to broader sectors of the economy and keeping policymakers pressured to dial back ultra-easy policy. The data for Tokyo, which…
By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The judge hearing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s fight against Microsoft’s planned purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard on Thursday pressed government lawyers about the data behind their arguments and asked why there was so much fuss over “a shooter video game.” The Federal Trade Commission has asked…
By Heekyong Yang and Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) – A South Korean chip executive imprisoned over industrial espionage charges rejected allegations he had sought to build a copycat chip factory in China with sensitive information developed by Samsung Electronics. In a handwritten letter to Reuters, his first comments to media since he was detained on…
By Steve Holland and Nathan Layne WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and…
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s jobless rate was flat at 2.6% in May from the previous month, government data showed on Friday. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate also matched economists’ median forecast of 2.6% in a Reuters poll. The jobs-to-applicants ratio slipped to 1.31 from 1.32 in April, separate labour ministry data showed. For a table…
By Karen Freifeld (Reuters) -The United States and the Netherlands are set to deliver a one-two punch to China’s chipmakers this summer by further restricting sales of chipmaking equipment, part of the countries’ ongoing effort to prevent their technology from being used to strengthen China’s military. While the Dutch are planning to curb certain equipment…
