By Marie Mannes and Anna Ringstrom STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – H&M posted slightly weaker-than-expected fiscal second-quarter sales on Thursday, but prospects for a better third quarter after a strong start in June sent shares in the Swedish retailer up by 6%. H&M said sales measured in local currencies for its March-May quarter were “flattish”, compared with…
LONDON (Reuters) – The smallest proportion of businesses since at least March last year expect to raise prices next month, a survey of businesses showed on Thursday. The Office for National Statistics showed 17.0% of companies that are currently trading expected to raise prices in the coming month, down from 17.7% in the previous month….
(Reuters) – J.P.Morgan trimmed China’s economic growth forecast for 2023 after the country’s May industrial output and retail sales growth missed forecasts. Economists led by Haibin Zhu said on Thursday they now expect China’s economy to grow 5.5% this year against an earlier estimate of 5.9% growth. (Reporting by Aniruddha Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by…
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Kremlin aide urged the Russian government on Thursday to adopt legislation allowing foreign flagged vessels to use the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which Moscow wants to turn into a new Suez Canal. The NSR runs from Murmansk near Russia’s border with Norway eastwards to the Bering Strait near Alaska. Although the…
PARIS (Reuters) – French power company Engie said on Thursday it is launching a new brand called Vianeo which will form part of its push into the potentially fast-growing sector of building charging points for electric cars. Engie said the Vianeo brand would be rolled out to an initial 1,000 charging points already in operation…
By Humeyra Pamuk, David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Wednesday played down expectations of any breakthrough from the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State to China in five years, after a tense call with China’s foreign minister ahead Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing next week. Chinese foreign minister…
By Andy Bruce and Sinead Cruise LONDON (Reuters) – Bedlam in Britain’s 1.5 trillion-pound ($1.9 trillion) mortgage market, fuelled by ructions in money markets, threatens to trigger a renewed slump in housing activity and financial pain for homeowners on a par with the late 1980s. Lenders have repeatedly re-priced and pulled home loan offerings in…
By Jesús Aguado MADRID (Reuters) -Santander said on Thursday it has appointed Pedro Castro e Almeida as regional head for Europe as the Spanish bank bets on this region to drive growth. Castro e Almeida is replacing Antonio Simoes, who has been hired as the new CEO of Britain’s Legal and General Group. As regional…
By Chayut Setboonsarng BANGKOK (Reuters) – Overseas travel bookings from mainland China are currently at just over half of pre-pandemic levels but are on course to return to the 2019 numbers by the end of this year or early 2024, the head of online travel agency Agoda said on Thursday. China was the world’s largest…
By John Revill and Fanny Potkin SINGAPORE/ZURICH (Reuters) -Siemens will spend 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) on a new global investment plan, the German engineering group said on Thursday, to make its operations more resilient against supply chain disruptions and geopolitical tensions. Siemens will build new factories, research and development centres and training sites around…
