Israel conducted an air strike on the country, with Defense Minister Israel Katz calling it a “preemptive strike.” The tension weighed on markets: Oil surged, Asian stocks and US equity futures fell, and the dollar reversed earlier losses as traders dumped risk currencies.
Sperling, a former director of the National Economic Council, a White House unit that coordinates administration policy, cautioned the recent truce between the world’s biggest economies failed to address underlying structural issues. These include intellectual property rights, technology transfers and market access.
Several generations later, Beijing has made its rich reserves of rare earths, a group of 17 minerals that are abundant in the earth’s crust but hard, expensive and environmentally polluting to process, a key element of China’s economic security. In 2019, during a visit to a rare earth processing plant in Ganzhou, Xi described rare […]
China Huadian Corp., one of the country’s biggest power generators, expects total imports to slide to about 400 million tons this year, from the record 543 million tons purchased in 2024, according to Zhang Aipei, deputy director of production. Purer, high-calorie grades should be enough to fill any seasonal or regional gaps in supply, he […]
Many of China’s major minerals corporations have invested in the exploration and mining of lithium, a key component for electric vehicle batteries, in Xinjiang, Global Rights Compliance said. Xinjiang is also China’s top source of beryllium, a mineral used for aerospace, defense and telecommunications, its report said.
Policymakers are also concerned about rural incomes. Pig farmers have struggled to make ends meet this year, and are now losing about 70 yuan ($10) on each animal raised. Sow numbers, meanwhile, have climbed to 40.38 million, above the 39 million considered normal and close to levels that might trigger formal intervention.
But Syria has a laundry list of reforms it must undertake, including improving its tax collection system, making sure its national budget can pay public sector salaries and basic healthcare and education, empowering the central bank to take measures to bring back confidence to the local currency, and rehabilitate its outdated and battered banking system […]
Inventories contributed 0.6 percentage point to growth, double the preliminary estimate, while personal consumption managed to eke out growth of 0.1%, versus a prior flat reading. The inventory gain is an indication of greater output, but also points to unsold goods and components, a potential sign of weak demand. Business spending gained 1.1%, a little […]
“If the UK meeting continues to signal optimism, it could weaken the negative economic impact of the trade war,” said Gao Mingyu, Beijing-based chief energy analyst at SDIC Essence Futures Co. “After the short-term bearish impact of OPEC+’s July ouptut hike was digested, improving macro sentiment, stronger seasonal demand, and lingering geopolitical risks have all […]
If any credit weakness were to hit, it would likely start with smaller companies, and in leveraged finance or even private credit, said Matthew Mish, UBS’ head of credit strategy. A close look does show some signs of weakness, at least in the smaller firms. Corporate profits for domestic, non-financial companies declined by about 3% […]