HONG KONG: HSBC on Monday (Aug 3) said profits for the first half of 2020 plunged by 69 per cent on year as the banking giant was hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic and spiralling China-US tensions. The lender reported post-tax profits of US$3.1 billion while pre-tax profit was US$4.3 billion, […]
Business
SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will award Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) additional privileges as a Significantly Rooted Foreign Bank (SRFB), allowing it to operate more places of business. Standard Chartered is the first bank to qualify as a Significantly Rooted Foreign Bank, MAS said in a news release […]
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has agreed to give China’s ByteDance 45 days to negotiate a sale of popular short-video app TikTok to Microsoft Corp, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday (Aug 3). US officials have said TikTok under its Chinese parent poses a national risk because of […]
TOKYO: Japan’s factory activity contracted at the slowest pace in five months in July, in a sign that pressures on manufacturers were easing somewhat and raising hopes that the worst impact from the coronavirus pandemic was over. Gross domestic product data out later this month is expected to show the […]
NEW DELHI: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is forging a comeback in India’s smartphone market with a new range of budget devices and a ramped-up online presence, aiming to recoup ground ceded to Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi Corp. Samsung, the only major non-Chinese player in the country, has already begun […]
NEW YORK: A record high percentage of US companies are beating analysts’ forecasts this earnings season, giving investors a glimmer of hope in what is still expected to be the slowest profit period since the financial crisis. More than halfway through second-quarter earnings, 82.1 per cent of companies reporting have […]
ZHENGZHOU: Biology student Ma Jingjing wandered the hall of a job fair in central China among other young Chinese hoping to find work in an economy crushed by the coronavirus pandemic. Ma, 26, is one of almost 9 million people graduating and entering the job market this year at a […]
LONDON: Two-thirds of British businesses say they are now “fully operational” after the coronavirus lockdown, up from half in June, according to a survey on Sunday (Aug 2). A further 21 per cent of the firms, polled in the first half of July by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), […]
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: China’s ByteDance has agreed to divest the US operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House, after President Donald Trump said on Friday he had decided to ban the popular short-video app, two people familiar with the matter said on Saturday […]
DUBAI: Kuwait has banned until further notice commercial flights to 31 countries it said that it regarded as high risk due to the spread of the coronavirus, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said on Saturday (Aug 1). The countries include India, Pakistan, Egypt, the Philippines, Lebanon and Sri Lanka, […]