(Reuters) – J.P.Morgan and Citigroup upgraded China’s 2023 full-year gross domestic product growth forecast on Tuesday, citing that the country’s decision to lift stringent COVID-19 restrictions last December helped boost growth. J.P.Morgan and Citi upgraded their annual economic growth forecast for the world’s second-largest economy by 40 basis points to 6.4% and 6.1% year-on-year, respectively….
By Kane Wu and Julie Zhu HONG KONG (Reuters) – State-owned China Mobile Ltd is exploring a buyout of Hong Kong’s leading telecoms company HKBN Ltd, four people with knowledge of the matter said, which could spark a bidding war for the firm currently valued at $1 billion. China Mobile in recent weeks sent a…
By Charlotte Greenfield (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s economy will contract, inflation will rise and liquidity will fall if there is a 30% drop in international aid as feared, according to an analysis by the United Nations’ development agency released on Tuesday. International officials say aid to Afghanistan, the recipient of the world’s largest humanitarian program, will…
TOKYO (Reuters) – The average sales price for newly-built apartment units in Japan’s metropolitan Tokyo area jumped to 143.6 million yen ($1.07 million) in March, topping the 100 million yen mark for the first time, data showed on Tuesday. The price, which has more than doubled from the same month last year and is the…
By Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan will stay the course to reach the central bank’s 2% inflation target by continuing monetary easing even though it may take time, Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Tuesday, signalling his stance to maintain loose conditions. Speaking at the lower house financial committee of parliament, Ueda said he saw…
(Reuters) – Adani Group’s debt pile rose almost 21% over the past year and the proportion held by global banks rose to nearly a third, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. Around 29% of the Indian conglomerate’s borrowings were with global international banks at the end of March, the report added, citing people familiar with the…
ROME (Reuters) -Italy’s data protection watchdog is ready to allow the return of the ChatGPT chatbot at the end of April if its maker OpenAI takes “useful steps” to address the agency’s concerns, the authority’s chief Pasquale Stanzione said in an interview published on Tuesday. Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy in late…
By Winni Zhou and Tom Westbrook SHANGHAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Violet Zhu, a Shanghai-based electronic components exporter, has been attending jewellery auctions and chatting on social media forums on the subject this year, looking to invest in rubies and diamonds. “I don’t have the brain for stock investments, and I am waiting to redeem mutual fund…
(Reuters) – French energy company TotalEnergies’ variable cost margin for European refineries jumped to $87.8 dollar per tonne in the first quarter, the company said in a preliminary release of main indicators on Tuesday. This indicator, which represents the average margin on variable costs realized by the group’s European refining business, compares with 46.3 dollars…
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Tuesday Russia is building its international reserves with assets that cannot be targeted by Western sanctions, the TASS news agency reported. Western countries froze around $300 billion – or half – of Russia’s international reserves after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into…
