US chipmaker Micron said Friday it would invest more than $600 million in a packing and testing factory in northern China, less than a month after Beijing banned its chips from critical infrastructure projects.. China's cybersecurity watchdog last month said Micron had failed a national security review, telling operators of "critical information infrastructure" to stop buying its products.
Sitting on top of a yellow jerry can of fuel, Jeannine waits for customers on a sidewalk in Benin's economic capital Cotonou, but business is slow. . "You know, this fuel helps feed thousands of people in Benin," said Jeannine, a 48-year-old widow with five children, who says she does not have savings "to start a new business".
British supermarket giant Tesco said Friday there are "encouraging early signs" of easing inflation, but customers are still looking to save cash in a cost-of-living crisis.. "There are encouraging early signs that inflation is starting to ease across the market and we will keep working tirelessly to ensure customers receive the best possible value at Tesco," said chief executive Ken Murphy in an upbeat trading update.
Billionaire Elon Musk is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday for the second time in just over a month, as France aims to curry favour and attract investment from the Tesla boss.. Musk and Macron held talks in May and afterwards the maverick boss of Twitter and SpaceX said he was considering big investments in France.
The Bank of Japan said Friday it would maintain its long-standing, ultra-loose monetary policy as it looks to boost economic growth.. Shigeto Nagai of Oxford Economics said the Bank of Japan did not seem in a hurry to change its ways, "despite recent upside surprises both on the growth and inflation fronts".
Online attackers with clear links to China are behind a vast cyber espionage campaign targeting government agencies of interest to Beijing, Google subsidiary Mandiant said on Thursday.. China has consistently denied the claims, and has railed against alleged US cyber espionage, last year accusing the US National Security Agency of carrying out "tens of thousands of malicious attacks on network targets in China".
An intensely hot summer and unprecedented drought are straining energy supplies in northern Vietnam, prompting rolling blackouts and sudden power outages that have led to "uncountable" losses among local firms and foreign manufacturers.. "The power cut issue will be very serious for not only firms who have already invested in Vietnam, but also for us trying to call for investors to come to Vietnam," Hong Sun, chairman of the Korean Chamber of Business in Vietnam, told AFP. Other investors agreed that the blackouts -- along with an increasingly dark capital city that has turned off many street lights -- are not a good look for Vietnam.
Hopes China will unveil fresh measures to kickstart its ailing economy lifted most markets Friday, while the dollar struggled to bounce from losses fuelled by bets the Federal Reserve is near the end of its tightening cycle.. However, Tokyo struggled on a stronger yen, even as the Bank of Japan on Friday stood pat on its ultra-loose monetary policy.
Nissan top executive Ashwani Gupta is leaving the company, the Japanese automaker said Friday, in a surprise departure that will revive concerns about the stability of the firm's leadership.. Nissan said Gupta had "elected to leave the company to pursue other opportunities effective June 27", without detailing the reasons for his departure.
In Washington they paused; in Frankfurt they hiked; and in Beijing, they cut. . - Skip, Hike and Cut - On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve paused its aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes after 10 straight increases, which brought its benchmark lending rate from close to zero to a range between 5.0 and 5.25 percent.
