Town Hall News

By David Shepardson and Andrea Shalal SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -China has defended its business practices after U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said American firms had told her it had become “uninvestible,” highlighting a trend of global investors turning away from assets in the world’s second-largest economy. The commerce secretary is the latest Biden administration official to visit China in a bid to strengthen communications, particularly on economics and defense, amid concern […]

By Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota Motor will restart operations at its assembly plants in Japan on Wednesday, after a production system malfunction brought domestic output to a halt at the world’s biggest-selling automaker. Toyota will resume operations at 25 production lines of a dozen plants in its home market from Wednesday morning and add the final two plants from the afternoon, it said. The company continues to investigate the […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will wrap up a four-day visit to China on Wednesday with remarks at a conference for women executives, making her the second senior female Biden administration official to reach out to professional women during their travel to China. THE TAKE: Raimondo’s meeting with Chinese women executives in Shanghai is likely to spotlight the lack of gender diversity in China’s business and government. […]

(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order against Citigroup Global Markets Inc over accusations the company’s underwriting business willfully violated record-keeping requirements. Citigroup, without admitting or denying the findings, agreed to the order and agreed to pay a $2.9 million penalty, according to an SEC statement. The SEC said that “from at least 2009 through May 2019, CGMI used an unsubstantiated and unverified […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), the country’s biggest lender, said on Wednesday net profit grew 1.2% year-on-year in the first half of this year. Profit was 173.74 billion yuan ($23.83 billion) for the first half of this year, compared with the restated 171.67 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier, the bank said in a filing. ($1 = 7.2543 Chinese yuan renminbi) […]

By David Kirton and Jason Xue SHENZHEN, China/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Chinese chip stocks rallied on Wednesday following Huawei Technologies’ launch of its new Mate 60 Pro phone, as investors speculated it could be using a 5G capable chip which, if true, would be a win for China’s local semiconductor sector. Since 2019, Washington has restricted Huawei from buying advanced chips and software from U.S. companies, which has decimated its consumer electronics […]

By Junko Fujita TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Simplex Asset Management said it will launch exchange-traded funds focused on undervalued stocks, including the first aimed at shares below book value, reflecting demand for exposure to the wave of corporate reform rallying Japanese markets. Japan’s Nikkei is up 24% this year, against a 13% gain for world stocks, and foreigners have poured some 7.7 trillion yen ($53 billion) into the market as […]

By Junko Fujita TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Simplex Asset Management said it will launch exchange-traded funds focused on undervalued stocks, including the first aimed at shares below book value, reflecting demand for exposure to the wave of corporate reform rallying Japanese markets. Japan’s Nikkei is up 24% this year, against a 13% gain for world stocks, and foreigners have poured some 7.7 trillion yen ($53 billion) into the market as […]

BEIJING (Reuters) -London wants a pragmatic relationship with China but will remain “clear-eyed” about areas of disagreement, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in Beijing on Wednesday on a visit criticised by some in the governing Conservative Party. Cleverly is the first senior British minister in five years to visit China, a trip that he hopes will reset ties between the two countries after years of tension over security, investment […]