China’s economic slowdown deepened with unexpected decelerations in industrial output, investment and retail sales, testing policy makers’ reluctance to step up monetary stimulus. Factory production rose 8.7 percent in April from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing, compared with the 8.9 percent median estimate of analysts surveyed byBloomberg News. Fixed-asset investment increased 17.3 percent in the first four months of the year, and retail sales advanced 11.9 percent in April.
Updated 6 Years ago

Working in Asia? Cloud computing could soon make your relationship with cubicles a thing of the past, according to real-estate services firm Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL). In a report titled "Asia Offices 2020," JLL said it expects Asia's heavyweight cities - Singapore, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo - to move towards open, efficient and collaborative working environments similar to the much-envied offices of Google and Facebook.
Updated 6 Years ago

Should investment banks cut off the tail before it infects the body, or nurse the area back to health? This is the conundrum confronting bank bosses with fixed income divisions. Once bread and butter with a dollop of jam on top for bank profits, the industry is now left fighting over stale crumbs. Barclays' restructuring of its investment bank has sparked fresh debate about whether fixed income, currencies and commodities or FICC as it is termed, is on its deathbed because of structural changes caused by increased regulation or merely sickly due to a cyclical decline.
Updated 6 Years ago

Territorial clashes with China have pushed Vietnam's shares down more than 10 percent over the past month and even though tensions haven't eased, some analysts are tipping a bargain buying opportunity. "Political friction with China is nothing new, but the recent action is admittedly quite aggressive and rekindled the dispute between Vietnam and China that had been dormant for months," CIMB said in a note Monday.
Updated 6 Years ago

While adopting solar power in developed markets usually weighs on utility incumbents there, Asia's players are likely to reap benefits, Bernstein Research said. In developed markets, increasing solar installations means the power grid sees declining demand for daytime power, dinging the "sweet spot" for selling electricity in competitive markets, Bernstein said in a note Monday. Distribution utilities, which recover the high costs of their infrastructure by volume-based charges, also take a hit as they lose their natural monopoly, the report said.
Updated 6 Years ago

The BlackBerry Z3, Jakarta Edition will go on sale from 15 May for 2,199,000 Indonesia rupiah ($191; £113). It the first phone to be launched under new chief executive John Chen. Once a dominant player in the sector, BlackBerry has struggled in recent years amid increased competition from rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
Updated 6 Years ago

A doctor will stand trial for the first time in Egypt on charges of female genital mutilation after the death of a 13-year-old girl last year. The girl's father, who took her to the clinic, is also being tried in the landmark prosecution. It was June 2013, and Suhair al Bataa was burdened by punishing heat, and a feeling of foreboding. Friends say the youngster was frightened. They recall that when she went to repair her shoes, she said it would be for the last time. She told one of her sisters to look after the other.
Updated 6 Years ago

At any one moment some 800,000 people are flying on aircraft. So, imagine just how many air passengers there are in any 24-hour period, let alone a month or a year. And, think of how all these millions have to be processed - a horrid but appropriate word - through thousands of airports. No matter how hard even the world’s best architects have tried, the airport is a difficult building type with which to fall in love. The reality is that many passengers rarely give much of a second glance at the quality of the architecture around them.
Updated 6 Years ago

The US is also sharing commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerian government, officials said. It comes after militants released a video of about 130 girls, saying they could be swapped for jailed fighters. Boko Haram seized them from a school in the northern Borno state on 14 April.
Updated 6 Years ago

The 12.5 per cent leap in the total value of non-oil export recorded in the month of February may have raised the prospect of bumper revenue earnings and foreign exchange accumulation by the Federal Government this year. This is because provisional data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria to cover the nation’s economic performance for the month of February this year has indicated that total non-oil export, which was put at $426.46 million, represents a 12.5 per cent increase above the level in the preceding month.
Updated 6 Years ago