SoftBank bailout would give it control of WeWork: sources

NEW YORK (AFP) -- Japan's SoftBank Group has prepared a financing plan that would give it control of WeWork as the office sharing startup seeks badly- needed financing, sources told AFP Monday.The plan would give SoftBank, which is controled by billionaire Masayoshi Son, more than 50 percent of WeWork and further limit the influence of former chief executive and co-founder Adam Neumann, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Neumann stepped down as chief executive in September amid

Oct. 17, 2019

[Graphic News] New York world’s top financial center

　New York has extended its lead as the world’s top financial center, with London barely holding on to second place ahead of Hong Kong, as uncertainty over Brexit takes its toll on the UK capital, a Z/Yen Group survey showed.　Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing, Dubai, Shenzhen and Sydney make up the remainder of the top 10 centers, the Global Financial Centers Index said in a statement. 　South Korea’s two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, ranked Nos. 39 and 43, respectively.　The GFCI

Oct. 14, 2019

[Graphic News] Tether becomes most used cryptocurrency in world

　What’s the world’s most widely used cryptocurrency? If you think it’s Bitcoin, which accounts for about 70 percent of all the digital-asset world’s market value, you’re probably wrong.　While concrete figures on trading volumes are hard to come by in this often murky corner of finance, data from CoinMarketCap.com shows that the token with the highest daily and monthly trading volume is Tether, whose market capitalization is more than 30 times smaller. 　Tether’

Oct. 13, 2019

[Graphic News] Property bubble risks in EU rise

　The risk of a property bubble in the eurozone surged last year as ultralow interest rates helped drive up house prices.　Munich is now the city most vulnerable to a property bubble, according to UBS Group’s annual Real Estate Bubble Index. Frankfurt and Paris are increasingly in danger of prices becoming unsustainable, even as some of the priciest cities around the world cool, the report said.　For the first time in four years, London is no longer regarded as dangerously overvalued. Prices

Oct. 8, 2019

[Graphic News] Biggest buyers of Saudi Arabian oil

　Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group last week attacked two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in a strike that could impact about 5 million barrels per day of crude production - close to half of the kingdom’s output, or 5 percent of global oil supply.    　The Saudis are the world‘s biggest oil exporters, sending more than 7 million barrels of crude to numerous destinations around the globe every day - equal to nearly one-third of exports by t

Sept. 22, 2019

Wall Street slides a day after Fed rate cut

NEW YORK (AFP) -- US stocks went nowhere on Thursday as investors lost their appetite in afternoon trade, a day after the US central bank delivered a widely expected shot of stimulus.At the close, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2 percent at 27,094.79, erasing earlier gains in the day.Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 was flat, hovering near record levels at 3,006.79, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was 0.1 percent higher at 8,182.88.Disney led the Dow lower, shedding 2.6 perc

Sept. 20, 2019

[Graphic News] Aramco is the biggest oil firm in the world

　Drones attacked the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco last weekend. 　　Aramco is the biggest energy company in the world. It produces and exports more than 9.5 million barrels of Saudi Arabia’s oil per day to consumers around the world, primarily in Asia. 

Sept. 18, 2019

Trade war cited as cause for 10,000 layoffs in US in August: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The pace of downsizing at American companies surged last month, with more than 10,000 job cuts blamed on “trade difficulties” alone, according to figures released Thursday.Employers also announced the most layoffs of any August since 2009, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.Job cuts rose 38 percent over July, with 53,480 positions to be slashed from employer payrolls, led by workforce reductions in health care, which had been a mainst

Sept. 5, 2019

US, Poland sign joint document on 5G technology cooperation

The US and Poland signed an agreement on Monday to cooperate on new 5G technology amid growing concerns about Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.Vice President Mike Pence and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki signed the deal in Warsaw, where Pence is filling in for President Donald Trump, who scrapped his trip at the last minute because of Hurricane Dorian.The signing comes amid a global battle between the US and Huawei, the world's biggest maker of network infrastructure equipment,

Sept. 2, 2019

Trump claims serious trade negotiations with China to begin

BIARRITZ, France — President Donald Trump, facing pressure to scale back a US-China trade war contributing to a global economic slowdown, claimed Monday that serious talks will begin soon although another round has been expected in Washington in September.Trump said his trade negotiators had received two “very good calls” from China on Sunday. But a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said Monday that he didn’t know what calls Trump was talking about.Trump expres

Aug. 26, 2019

[Graphic News] China world’s No. 1 rare earth producer　

　Vital for smartphone screens, electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines alike, rare earths are highly sought after.　These metals and elements have become indispensable for many advanced industries.　About 35 percent of the world’s rare earth reserves are in China, which produced 120,000 metric tons, or 70 percent, of the global supply in 2018. (AFP)

Aug. 26, 2019

[Graphic News] Samsung No. 2 patent holder in US in 2018

　Samsung Electronics ranked second in terms of the number of patents filed in the United States last year, a report by a US patent association showed.　 Samsung registered 5,836 patents in the US last year, trailing behind IBM with 9,088 patents, the Intellectual Property Owners Association said. 　Samsung’s rival LG Electronics was the seventh-largest patent holder with 2,473, moving up one notch from a year ago, the IPO said. (Yonhap)

Aug. 21, 2019

[Graphic News] Korea's coal consumption up in 2018, bucks global trend

　South Korea’s coal consumption increased last year, bucking the global trend for reducing carbon emissions, a report showed. 　South Korea consumed 88.2 million tons of oil equivalent, a unit of energy, in 2018, up 2.4 percent from a year ago, according to the London-based energy company BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2019.　The latest figure makes South Korea the world’s fifth-largest coal consumer, following China, India, the United States and Japan, BP said. (Yonhap)

Aug. 20, 2019

[Graphic News] S. Korea’s electronics output ranks 3rd in 2018

　South Korea’s electronics output was the world’s third largest in terms of value last year thanks to brisk sales of memory chips, an industry report showed. 　The total production of the electronics industry in Asia’s fourth-largest economy came to $171.1 billion in 2018, accounting for 8.8 percent of the global market, the Korea Electronics Association said in the report.　China’s electronics output accounted for 37.2 percent of the global market last year, and the United

Aug. 5, 2019

[Graphic News] Huawei still No. 2 smartphone seller despite US sanctions, Samsung No. 1

　Huawei Technologies remained the No. 2 global smartphone vendor in the past quarter despite tough US sanctions imposed on the Chinese technology giant, market trackers said.　The Chinese firm managed to boost its sales even as the overall market declined, remaining on the heels of sector leader Samsung and ahead of US-based Apple.　According to Strategy Analytics, overall global smartphone sales fell 2.6 percent to 341 million units in the April-June period.　Samsung increased its market share to

Aug. 4, 2019

IMF downgrades world growth, warns of 'precarious' 2020

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Global trade tensions, continued uncertainty and rising prospects for a no-deal Brexit are sapping the strength of the world economy, which faces a "precarious" 2020, the International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday.Trade conflicts are undercutting investment and weakening manufacturing, and the IMF urged countries to avoid using tariffs to resolve their differences.In the quarterly update of its World Economic Outlook, the IMF trimmed the global forecast issued in

July 24, 2019

[Graphic News] Amazon dethrones Google as top global brand

　US retail giant Amazon has overtaken tech titans Apple and Google to become the world’s most valuable brand, according to a survey. 　The brand value of Amazon surged 52 percent to $315 billion, global market research agency Kantar said in its 2019 100 Top BrandZ report.　Amazon jumped from third to first place to eclipse Google, which slid from first to third place. Apple held on to the second spot.　South Korea’s Samsung fell five spots to stand at No. 38.

June 16, 2019

G-20 finance officials pledge to protect global growth

Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 major economies wrapped up a meeting in Japan on Sunday with a pledge to use all the policies they can to protect global growth from disruptions due to trade and other tensions. The G-20 finance leaders said in a joint communique that risks from trade and geopolitical tensions were "intensifying." They did not refer directly to the tariffs war between the United States and China, though leaders participating in the meetings

June 9, 2019

[Graphic News] Emerging nations to dominate world economy in 2050

　By 2050, China will not only have overtaken the United States, but its economy will be much, much bigger than the US. 　According to a PwC report, its gross domestic product will stand at around $58.5 trillion compared to the US’ $34.1 trillion (on a purchasing power parity basis). 　The Asian giant will account for 20 percent of the world’s economy, higher than India at 15 percent and the US at 12 percent.　In 2050, the global economy will be led by China, with India in second, follow

June 4, 2019