Volkswagen to partner on Indonesia EV battery ecosystem -minister

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Volkswagen will build an electric vehicle (EV) battery ecosystem in Indonesia and will partner with miner Vale, Ford and China’s battery minerals producer Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, the Southeast Asian country’s investment minister said. Automakers are courting Indonesia for its raw materials used in producing EV batteries, which account for about 40% of…

Read More

Big UK firms shrug off banking turmoil and turn more hopeful – Deloitte

LONDON (Reuters) – Finance executives at top British firms have reported the sharpest rise in optimism since late 2020 and the recent upheaval in the global banking sector has not dented the mood, a quarterly survey by Deloitte showed on Monday. The difference between chief financial officers who were more optimistic about their businesses’ prospects…

Read More

IKEA lookalike ‘Swed House’ opens in Moscow to mixed reactions

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Belarusian furniture company Swed House, which sells items intended to look like those made by Swedish giant IKEA, opened its first store in Moscow on Saturday to a mixed initial reaction from consumers. IKEA halted all retail and production operations in Russia soon after Moscow started its “special military operation” against Ukraine,…

Read More

Exclusive-Nissan takes its own road, minus Renault, in seeking tech tie-up

By Norihiko Shirouzu and Maki Shiraki (Reuters) -Nissan is developing growth plans in areas such as software and electric vehicles (EVs) independent of Renault SA as the automakers work to finalise terms of a sharply limited alliance, said seven people with knowledge of the matter. Japan’s third-biggest automaker by sales is seeking a partner outside…

Read More

Germany’s Buch seen as favorite to be new ECB top supervisor, sources say

By Balazs Koranyi WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Three women are seen as the top contenders to become the European Central Bank’s new supervisory chief, with Germany’s Claudia Buch considered the clear favorite, conversations with a dozen sources with direct knowledge indicate. The ECB oversees just over a hundred of the euro zone’s biggest banks and needs to…

Read More