China on Monday announced direct trading between the renminbi and Singaporedollar beginning Tuesday, marking another step toward internationalizing the Chinese currency. The announcement by China Foreign Exchange Trading System (CFETS) extended the yuan'slist of direct onshore trade to more major currencies, including the US dollar, the euro, Britishsterling, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Malaysian ringgit and Russianruble.
Updated 6 Years ago

Peruvian engineering firm Graña y Montero was given the green light by investment promotion agencyProInversión to begin feasibility studies for a US$150mn wastewater initiative in Puno region. The project, structured as a 30-year public-private partnership (PPP), is due to break ground in the first half of next year.
Updated 6 Years ago

Mexico's Pemex expects investment for the first round of tenders for private sector firms to partner with the state oil giant to be US$12.6bn annually, according to the energy ministry (Sener). Round one will comprise 169 oil and gas blocks, 109 of which correspond to projects already in development and 60 to hydrocarbon extraction projects that will be tendered out in stages during 2015, Sener said in a release on Friday.
Updated 6 Years ago

Peru's patent and consumer protection agency Indecopi ruled against the state environment agency's bid to force mining companies to finance government monitoring. The OEFA agency, which has fined and shut down major mines for pollution this year, lost a legal appeal by five mining companies over the obligatory financing, the Peruvian society for environmental law (SPDA) said. Indecopi ruled the payments by Milpo's Pampa de Cobre unit were a "bureaucratic barrier," the SPDA said in astatement.
Updated 6 Years ago

Attend a few 3-D printer expos, and you tend to see some of the same old things on display: plastic skulls, iPhone cases and mini octopuses in neon green. But amid those plastic printouts are a few exhibitors that do capture the imagination of an industry, known both for its over-promises and real possibilities. Here are several things that caught my attention at this week's Inside 3D Printing conference in Santa Clara, California.
Updated 6 Years ago

LeBron James is bringing more than his talents to northeastern Ohio. A new economy will come with the world’s best basketball player. His return to the Cleveland Cavaliers will generate as much as $215 million annually in new and redistributed money for the franchise and Cleveland from tourism, taxes, service industry spending and the team’s business, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. The largest financial impact of any current NBA player is more than the cost to convert the downtown Ameritrust complex into apartments, hotel, office and retail space, and more than double what Alcoa Inc. (AA) spent to rebuild a 50,000-ton forging press at its Cleveland Works.
Updated 6 Years ago

Quantitative easing may turn out to be a gift that keeps on giving for the U.S. economy. As the Federal Reserve prepares to end its third round of bond buying next week, the central bank plans to hang on to the record $4.48 trillion balance sheet it has accumulated since announcing the first round of purchases in November 2008.
Updated 6 Years ago

When Nandita Agarwal Parker started her Indiahedge fund a decade ago, all investors in the U.S. wanted to talk about were her children and her husband. “When I went to fund raise in 2004, a fund-of-funds guy told me ‘honey, what you need is a sugar daddy,’” Parker, 49, said in an interview at her colonial-style bungalow, which doubles as the office of Karma Capital Management LLC, on the outskirts of New Delhi. “Rather than discussing strategy, investors would question the ages of my children.”
Updated 6 Years ago

Speaking to the BBC, Hailo chairman Ron Zeghibe alleged Uber would talk to potential investors only if they agreed not to invest in Hailo or other rivals. Hailo recently abandoned its business in North America, saying it could not compete with Uber's "astronomical marketing spend". Uber said it did not wish to respond to Mr Zeghibe's remarks.
Updated 6 Years ago

That was the Queen's first tweet - sent through the @BritishMonarchy account - heralding the launch of a major new exhibition at London's Science Museum. Three years in the planning, the exhibition is one of the most ambitious projects the museum has undertaken.
Updated 6 Years ago