Search - business

 
 
Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean defense chief Shin Won-sik attend a trilateral meeting on sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in Singapore on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2024

Japan, South Korea and U.S. unveil new initiatives to cement defense ties

The three partner nations agreed to develop a framework to institutionalize trilateral cooperation within the year.
Japanese companies' capital expenditures on goods excluding software fell 0.5% in the three months through March from the previous quarter.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2024

Japan’s firms trim spending, reflecting headwinds to growth

Capital expenditures on goods excluding software fell 0.5% in the three months through March from the previous quarter.
Japan Post Insurance, one of the nation’s biggest life insurers, held about ¥60.9 trillion in assets as of the end of March, of which around ¥47.7 trillion were securities, mainly government bonds.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Japan Post goes slow in buying longest bonds after BOJ rate hike

Japan Post forecast in April that the 30-year government bond yield will be 2% at the end of March 2025
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures outside Trump Tower, the day after a guilty verdict in his criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in New York on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2024

Trump warns of 'breaking point' for Americans if he's jailed

Prison time is rare for people convicted in New York state of felony falsification of business records, the charge Trump faced at his trial.
Tourists on a beach in China’s Fujian province in May
BUSINESS
Jun 3, 2024

China’s tourists to spend nearly $1 trillion on holidays at home

Spending by domestic holidaymakers is expected to be 11% higher than 2019.
In a boon to Saudi Arabia's government, which is seeking to fund a massive economic transformation plan, Saudi Aramco’s $12 billion share sale sold out shortly after the deal opened on Sunday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Saudi Aramco’s $12 billion stock offer sells out in hours

The extent of foreign participation will be closely watched as an indicator of interest in Saudi Arabia's assets.
The U.S. flag is magnified in Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell's glasses during a news conference on May 1 in Washington. In his first term as U.S. president, Donald Trump broke with decades of precedent by openly attacking Powell, first for raising interest rates and then for not cutting them further.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2024

Traders and economists see Trump win as risk to Fed autonomy, survey shows

A push to roll back the central bank’s independence would likely rock financial markets, undermine investors’ faith and expose it to political pressure to cut interest rates.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2024

KKR weighs entering private credit in Japan to challenge banks

In Japan, most direct lending has been done overseas, and the domestic loan market is dominated by major banks.
The Taipei 101 building in Taipei in December 2023. Taiwan was the biggest recipient of foreign inflows in May among emerging Asian countries excluding China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 3, 2024

AI fever lures $2.7 billion foreign funds back to Taiwanese stocks

Taiwan’s dominant position in the AI value chain will get another boost this week as tech giants gather on the island for its annual electronics showcase event.
Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda apologizes during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2024

Japan's auto-testing scandal deepens, resulting in some shipment halts

Toyota and four other Japanese automakers have admitted to falsifying testing data and performing tests under inappropriate conditions, among other infractions.
A woman cycles past the Beijing Stock Exchange building on Feb. 8.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Red tape clogs China's offshore IPO pipeline even as markets recover

China company executives and their investors said they expect the offshore IPO drought to continue this year, weighing on firms' ability to raise capital in a slowing economy.
France's President Emmanuel Macron looks on as he delivers a speech at New Caledonia's High Commissioner residency in Noumea on May 22, during his trip to the Pacific archipelago.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2024

A Pacific island in flames cuts Macron’s global ambition down to size

The French president's decision of pushing through a contentious law before New Caledonia’s provincial elections has developed into a lasting problem for the Elysee.
The National Stadium was used as the main venue for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics held in 2021.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2024

NTT Docomo-led group may operate Japan's National Stadium

The consortium also includes the J. League, general contractor Maeda and SMFL Mirai Partners.
A hydrogen storage tank and loading system at a liquefied hydrogen receiving terminal in Kobe. Japan and the European Union have agreed to work together on policies related to clean hydrogen.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jun 4, 2024

Japan and EU agree to work on creating hydrogen demand and supply

Tokyo sees hydrogen as a new and cleaner source to gradually substitute liquefied natural gas, part of Japan's path to carbon neutrality by 2050.
A Boeing 777-300ER aircraft operated by Singapore Airlines at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok on May 22
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2024

Killer turbulence sees more airlines embrace data-driven mindset

Turbulence Aware was launched by IATA in 2018 to help airlines mitigate the impact of turbulence, the No. 1 cause of passenger and crew injuries in the air.
The draft of this year's long-term economic policy road map says consumption is stalling even though Japan's economy is continuing to recover moderately.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2024

Draft economic policy road map warns of weak yen's impact on households

The reference to the weak yen's impact will likely keep the Bank of Japan under pressure to raise interest rates or slow its huge bond buying.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has officially acknowledged that the government had intervened in the market to prop up the yen.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 4, 2024

Japan's yen intervention was effective to an extent, finance minister says

Figures disclosed by the Finance Ministry on Friday indicated that it spent ¥9.8 trillion combined to prop up the yen on April 29 and May 1, a record amount.
Protesters and militia fighters carry the logo of the U.S. Embassy during a protest to condemn airstrikes on bases belonging to Hashd al-Shaabi (paramilitary forces), in Baghdad on Dec. 31, 2019.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

Iran's allies in Iraq are firing at Israel. What if they draw blood?

Though experts do not see the attacks as posing the same level of threat to Israel as Hamas and Hezbollah strikes, they have increased in number and sophistication.
President of the French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National-RN) party Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, parliamentary party leader of the French far-right National Rally, attend a political rally to launch the party's campaign for the European elections, in Marseille, France, on March 3.
WORLD
Jun 4, 2024

A surging hard right stumbles over its own divisions

Immigration is an issue that has laid bare the contradictions for nationalist parties of trying to forge an international alliance.
Transport ministry officials head to Toyota's headquarters in Aichi Prefecture on Tuesday for on-site inspections.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2024

Auto certification in spotlight as Toyota raided over data tampering

Questions have emerged over whether Japan's regulatory standards and their subjective interpretation might be hindering automakers.
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, outside a U.S. federal court in Santa Ana, California, on Tuesday
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 5, 2024

Ohtani's ex-interpreter pleads guilty to stealing nearly $17 million

Ippei Mizuhara admitted to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum 30-year prison sentence, and one count of filing a false tax return.
A screen displaying news of markets update inside the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai in 2019
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 5, 2024

Mexico, South Africa and India deliver political punch to markets

Many countries have held important elections this year but Mexico, South Africa and India have triggered the most dramatic market reactions so far.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is the world's leading chip contract manufacturer.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 5, 2024

Chinese AI chip firms downgrading designs to secure TSMC production

They submitted the less-powerful designs to TSMC — the world's leading chip contract manufacturer — to comply with U.S. restrictions, sources say.
Geely Automobile Holdings' Zeekr electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe at the Port of Taicang in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China, on Aug. 24, 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 5, 2024

China risks trade war on two fronts as low-tech exports soar, too

The European Union is poised to slap tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this week, the latest example of rising barriers to global trade.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit seeking to break up the social networking giant Meta.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2024

Meta withheld information on Instagram and WhatsApp deals, FTC says

The company formerly known as Facebook bought photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging app WhatsApp in 2014.
Officials from the transport ministry arrive for an inspection at Toyota headquarters in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2024

Toyota car certification probe prompts calls for rules review

Despite revisions since the standards were enacted in 1951, regulations haven’t kept up with the times, an analyst wrote in a report.
The Bank of Japan's headquarters in Tokyo. Some investors are expecting the central bank to cut bond purchases this month and then raise rates in July.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2024

BOJ weighs reducing bond buys as early as June meeting

The bank will conclude its two-day policy meeting on June 14.
An individual said to be a key member of a group involved in the laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activities — 41-year-old Ryohei Fujii — has been arrested by the Osaka Prefectural Police in connection with the scheme.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 5, 2024

Osaka police looks to freeze 1,300 accounts in money laundering bust

Typically, such police requests are made on an individual basis, but in this case the police have taken the unusual step of requesting a blanket freeze.
Osaka's Umeda district. The city of Osaka and Osaka Prefecture together are among four newly designated special zones for asset management businesses where companies can complete administrative procedures solely in English.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2024

Japan designates four areas as asset management special zones

The four areas are Hokkaido and Sapporo, Tokyo, the prefecture and city of Osaka, and the prefecture and city of Fukuoka.
The children of some of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies are also listed as participants at the four-day St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), including Roman Rotenberg, whose father was among the Russian president’s childhood judo partners.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 5, 2024

Children of Russia's elite take center stage at Putin’s flagship forum

Once touted as a "window” into Russia, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is increasingly becoming a generational showcase.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?